Moving on

Well, we have left Newport. We are making our way back to Port Washington where we expect to be hanging around for about 3 to 4 weeks. Port Washington turned out to be a great anchorage. It was quiet and well sheltered (no rolling) and super convenient. We can walk up through town to grocery stores and mail shops, cheaper restaurants and most importantly the passenger trains! We can catch the train to New York City and do some more exploring. We didn’t have much chance to do touristy stuff there before, so we look forward to doing a little more now that we are done so much of the boat work.

This time, however, we are taking our time to get back to Port Washington. We went only 25 NM the first day after the kids spent some time doing schoolwork. It was more relaxing.

This last week we have been kicking around the boat doing mostly school work, chores and activities. Kevin managed to get another quarter of the solar panels wired up. We went for runs, paddle board trips and swimming around the boat. It was nice to have some amount of routine, but at the same time, we were getting bored with Newport. Also, you are only supposed to stay in Newport’s main harbor for 2 weeks. We were in a harbor just around the corner, but worried they would kick us out soon, none the less.

Being at anchor for so long has it’s pluses and minuses. On the whole though, Seasura prefers to be moving regularly. We find that the boat mechanics, as with other machines and things that are built to move, need to run regularly or things start to malfunction. Sitting so long an anchor meant that our bridle and hull started to grow sealife on them. We have bannicles on our hull and sea urchins on our bridle. We have to scrap and wash them off. Our speed sensor got clogged up with wiggling sealife and that needed to be cleaned off as well. A dirty hull means that we have more drag in the water and it slows us down. Being at anchor also means that we have to have our waste pumped out or tanks get full and things are stinky on the boat! When you are more than 3 miles off shore, then you can let your waste tanks empty more regularly so things remain a little fresher (for us anyway) while feeding the fish. We have also discovered that even though we can run our water maker anytime, being on anchor, especially in a well used bay, causes the water maker filters to be used up way faster. We were doing laundry and ran it two days in a row and had to replace the water filters both days! After that, we were more selective about how much laundry we did. Now that we are moving through the water, we can run the water maker more frequently and thus do more laundry. Plus the water taste better when it is made from flowing sea water.

The benefits to being on anchor and not traveling are that we can regularly get rid of garbage and compost. I must say, one of the things I miss most about living on land are all the utilities! I miss not thinking about how to get fresh water. I miss not thinking about where my waste has gone and IF it has gone. I miss having somebody pick up my garbage, compost and especially recycling. I continue to keep my compost separate from my garbage even when in port, because I find that then I can put it in a separate bag that I can tie off and reduce the smell of our garbage. Although, I must say, I do like being able to toss the compost overboard when at sea, to get rid my compost altogether. At least then I know it is being ‘returned to nature’ rather than ending up in the landfill. Shockingly, we haven’t found the US to be very good for recycling (although I think household recycling is probably similar to home). We thought there might be bins to put our recycling in, especially at maritime centres, but that has only been the case once. Most places only provide a garbage bin and if we want to recycle then we have to drive our recycling to a depot, which is difficult to do when you don’t have a car.

We also appreciate that getting exercise is much easier when we are close to land. As I said above, we were running, paddle boarding and swimming. Plus, we took the kids for hikes and walks around town. We have more time when we are not sailing, to do our activities at the end of the school day. That said, if anyone is a runner, you know it can get pretty boring running the same route all the time. So traveling means that when you do run, it can be in a new place each time! I much prefer actually running in difference places to virtual running tourism, so I feel thankful for that privilege.

Schooling while sailing has been interesting. On the one hand there long hours to study in while the boat is sailing or motoring. However, if the weather or wind is shifting then Owen and Halyna are constantly making sail changes with us, and that interrupts their work. I don’t think they mind the interruption though.

On the whole, I am happy to be moving again and not really excited to be looking at the prospect of sitting in one spot for another three to four weeks. However, I think that we will make opportunities for ourselves to take Seasura out for day sails while we are there. Also, I think we have finally figured out the whole cruising license and reporting business in the US. I have said it before, and I will say it again, the people working at the US Customs and Border Patrol have been very helpful and happy. One officer pointed out that since cruising licenses are available for a whole year (we chose only 2 months when we arrived in Florida because that is how long we thought we would be, ha ha) he would look at it as though ours was to valid till the one year point, especially since it all costs the same amount and we were already approved. We will have to see what other officers along the coast think, but he noted in our chart what he had done. He also cleared up how much we have to check in and out of ports. It isn’t every single anchorage, but rather each port-of-call (which often is one per state or large metropolitan area). Furthermore, if we go to anchorage but leave less than 24 hours after arrival then we don’t have to check in and out. So, traveling south has just gotten a lot easier which means that perhaps we don’t have to stay at each place quite as long as we thought.