Brightwork, the varnished woodwork on a boat. All the beautiful teak was one part of what attracted Alex and I to Goblin in the first place. No teak decking which requires so much work to maintain, but just enough in the rubrails, grabrails, and companionway to make her glow in the sun. We bought her knowing that we had a lot of refinishing in the near future to keep the wood healthy. A summer on the water followed by winter under shrinkwrap put a lot of UV into the already aged finish. As the wrap came off this spring it was clear that the someday of refinishing was now.

Last spring Goblin sat on a mooring ball waiting for her masts to be reinstalled while I cursed, packed, and purged to burn off my impatience.

This spring, first I waited on the engine and now I’m waiting on the weather. No wind at all for days followed by too much wind for a first shakedown sail. There’s noting to purge and pack this year and it’s harder to get away with cursing when the kids are with me all day and so I walk.

In the fall, I “did school” with Zoe each day. We sat down to work through a chapter of math, a page or two of handwriting, and a little bit of written language. Then we got busier with homeschool park days and museum visits, as well as multi-hour library visits and our dedicated morning time became more erratic. One day we realized it had been at least a week since she had sat down to formal school, and neither of us was longing to return to it.

I forget, often, how so many things in our life are just a little different living on a boat than they were living on land. Take making dinner one night last week.

It had been a busy day and I wanted to make something simple for dinner. On land after a busy day I could glance in the fridge and freezer and come up with a quick and easy meal. Leftovers, some broccoli, looks like a pasta night. Decision made, I would have headed to the fridge, grabbed the sauces, done a scan for leftovers to include, opened the freezer for frozen broccoli and maybe some meatballs, then headed to the pantry for pasta. Fill a pot with water and boil pasta, microwave the broccoli and meatballs, all while tossing the mix of leftovers with pesto in another pan. Call the kids to the table, plate the meal, happy dinner everyone.

We’re solidly in project mode, trying to fit in all our goals before summer sailing season arrives.

The air is warming.

The shrinkwrap is down.

One of Kinsley’s Christmas gifts from Alex and I was a set of three boards and the promise of a project. Up until now,I have boosted Kinsley in and out of her room and although she’s a feather weight, I wanted to give her more independence. The time had come to build her a ladder.

I love this little girl so much, she always wants to be in the middle of every project, wants to know about every step and every took. It’s really only size that’s holding her back from being truly useful. Right now, she’s occasionally a help, sometimes a hindrance, and always entertainment.

Our boat will only be a greenhouse for another couple of weeks. We celebrated its impending demise with a collection of Sharpies. I turned Kinsley and Zoe loose over a couple of days to decorate to their heart’s content and they certainly did.

No, we’re not sailing yet.

It always feels a little odd when people ask when we are going to get out and really sail. For almost everyone, our floating life adventure started in August when we moved aboard, or maybe in April when Goblin first hit the water. They want to see me out there, sailing and traveling, and I love their enthusiasm but I don’t have the same level of impatience.

The water stays on the outside of the boat, or at least that’s the theory. Unfortunately for us, downpours have been continuing to make their way into Goblin. Specifically, the area around the nice, decorative box that encloses the mast down below was getting wet. In an attempt to find out where the water was coming from, Alex removed one screw and promptly had to deal with nearly two gallons of water fountaining out into the salon. Clearly there was a problem. We have an in-mast mainsail furler, which rolls the mainsail up inside the mast. This means there is a long slot along the back of the mast where the sail goes in and out. Wind blown rain gets in there and the sail funnels even more in. Water is supposed to come down inside the mast itself, down to where the mast sits in the bilge, it isn’t supposed to spray everywhere.