Alaska Trip Day 2

5/17/11
Port Madison
Miles travelled: 0

We decided to take things easy and just stay in Port Madison for the day. We all have a lot of adjustments to make and it made sense to work on making those adjustments without having to work travelling into the mix.

I spent most of the day having a crisis of faith and wondering why in the hell we would ever do this. I guess we had been so busy with preparations that we never really considered what our day to day would look like, so I’m not mentally prepared. Since Lars and Odin arrived life is a whole lot of work, it’s wonderful, but you are always busy changing a diaper, getting a meal cooked, getting boys down for a nap, nursing, washing diapers or picking up. The thing is that living on the boat is a lot of work too, there are boat operations, sailing or motoring, anchoring, picking up and stowing, cooking takes a long time on a diesel stove, making beds, putting away beds, and boat maintenance. Some things are common between the lists, but others are mutually exclusive and you add to that list comforting little boys who aren’t completely sure they know what is going on and you’ve got all the fixings for a stressful time.

We will settle into a routine and things will get better, but today was a rough day for me emotionally, so it’s good we stayed the day in Port Madison, and even better that it was a beautiful sunny day. We tried out our laundry system for the first time and were able to work some kinks out of it and did 3 loads of laundry. That’s something we never had to worry about when it was just Tor and me…we just saved it all until we could get to a Laundromat, but now that we have 2 kids in diapers, we figure we will have to do a load of diapers a day. I’ll describe the laundry system later, but we think we’ve found a good way to deal with it.

While I did laundry, Odin and Lars played in the cockpit with Papa. Tor made harnesses for them and we tethered them in to it. They really enjoyed playing out there. We tried having the boys wear their lifejackets, but they are unwieldy and bulky and they kept making them lose their balance and fall on their faces. Originally our plan was that if they boys were on deck they would always wear life jackets…but with their harnesses and with close supervision when we are at anchor or at the dock, we may not require that. We need to make sure that life jackets aren’t torture. This is still a parenting decision we need to make and it will likely evolve over time.

All tethered in and playing in the cockpit

We all went for a row in our new dinghy and I think it’s going to work great for us. The payload is much bigger than the old one, and though it’s not nearly as cute, it’s going to work well for us as a family.

The new dinghy!

I made yummy beef stew for dinner and we ate in the cockpit since it was so nice out. Scratch that, Tor fed the boys in the cockpit but because dinner took so long to cook on the diesel stove, I ate about half my dinner and then needed to get dishes done before we put the boys to bed since the sink is about 12” from Odin’s bed. When dinner was finished I fortunately got most of the dishes done and we scrambled around to get the boys in bed. Fortunately it was a beautiful night so Tor and I sat out in the cockpit while the boys went to sleep. It was pretty lame to not be able to eat with my family, but this is an example of where we need to work out a routine and things will hopefully get better.

The plan is to try putting in a long day of travel tomorrow to see how that goes. We’ll trade off taking care of the boys and running the boat. We hope to get to Oak Harbor and the wind is forecast to be 10-15 kts from the North so we’ll be motoring into it for about 43 miles. I think trading off boat running and baby care will help keep us from feeling trapped doing any one thing…though it will mean that Tor and I won’t have much time to be together. Kind of funny how that can happen on a 32’ boat.