It’s been quite some time since I’ve put anything on the blog – once again, this is due to our monotony in the Keys. We’re focused all of our attention on working to save money for the trip, boat repairs and improvements, and supply buying and gathering. It’s not cheap to adequately prepare for a trip like this. All the supplies we need are easily going to run into $1000 ad up. Food in the Bahamas is over priced, so we’re stocking up with as much as we can here. Naturally, most of it has to be nonperishable, so we’re slowly filling our boat up with cans of black beans, rice, and potatoes. By the time we’re done shopping for toiletries and food, we’ll once again have another $1000 bill. Ugh. Living on a boat is cheap, but living on a boat is expensive. Where once bill is lower, it’s easily made up for in the expense of something else.
It seems that the boat is determined to create more repairs for us while we’re trying to get prepped for the Bahamas. We were having problems with our head leaking (that’s the plumbing system, unfortunately). That made for a smelly and immediate problem. We spent a week trying to repair the problem, only to find a kinked hose tucked up in one of the boats many hiding spots. Dave had to tear the boat apart and man-handle the thing apart (I’ve never heard such primal sounds come out of him before, I was worried he was going to blow a gasket). After a several trips to West Marine to buy, return, re-buy, and price out (this is usually how our boat projects go), we finally got the best solution we could finesse installed. We had to wait a week longer for pump out to find out if it actually worked. As of yesterday, everything seems to be in working order. We’re keeping our fingers crossed!
We’ve both been incredibly busy lately. On top of our vigorous daily ‘living on a boat’ routine, we’ve both been working like crazy. Dave has sold three more web pages in the last couple weeks. He’s been buried under web work since then. I got a job a at the end of July at a local vegan/raw food/organic café and grocery/book store (this is one of the places Dave has sold a web page to, when he finishes it I’ll post a link for it!). It’s been incredibly useful working there, I’ve learned so much about healthy cooking (or the lack thereof, Raw) and food practices, our diet will never be the same. I’ve been vegetarian for so long now, the transition hasn’t been as big for me, but Dave seems to have taken to it more than I would have ever guessed. One of the popular dishes we prepare at the café is our ‘Not Tuna’ Wrap. It’s minced walnuts, celery, and onion with some lemon juice, kelp powder, tamari, dill weed, parsely and cumin added. It’s a very tasty tuna alternative. All the dishes at the café are nut based, healthy, fresh and SO YUMMY. We feel better than we ever have, eat fantastic, and love our new lifestyle. I get to spend my days cooking, making smoothies, serving wheatgrass shots, juicing fruits and selling healthy foods. The café is becoming wildly popular lately, so I’ve been able to put aside a decent amount of change for our journey.
We anticipate leaving the Keys mid-October, heading north to Biscayne National Park to hold out there waiting for our weather window over. With any luck, we’ll be sailing across the Gulf Stream by the first week of November! Come on Bahamas!
It would be fantastic if you had Internet access on your trip so you could keep your blog updated and get your emails. That would require a satellite subscription I think, and I don't know how expensive that is. But do consider it. Can you get cell phone coverage that far out?
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