Getting Accustomed to Life On board

While some of us are making the transition to living on a boat quite readily, others amongst this clan are still undecided. For Atlas, it's pretty much business as usual. Apollo is much more tentative. But they are being cats, checking out every locker as we open them, squeezing themselves in to the smallest spaces and curious about every new sound. This all must be quite bewildering to them, quite unlike any of their previous experiences. We've sometimes try to figure out exactly what the cats are thinking about this adventure. But Skip Hardy hit the nail on the head when describing the cats reactions. He said the cats think about all new items in this way; "1. Is something to eat? 2. Is it something that's going to eat me? If it's neither, then I'm just not that interested!"

But the preparations list continues to dwindle, at least the things we felt needed to be done before dropping the dock lines for the last time. One more week to clean up odds and ends with the house, packing in anticipation of the mid-week move of remaining belongings to storage, and a final trip for Joyce back to work and then were off to... well, oddly enough, we haven't decided yet. But we will.

Planning a trip such as this sometimes calls for breaking a few rules. And this week we broke a cardinal one; never sell a car to a relative. Chuck Herring, Joyce's brother, flew in to Dulles airport from Atlanta to assume ownership of one of our cars. His return trip via the Blue Ridge Parkway sounded appealing. We hope he had a nice trip back.

We finally took the cats for their first brief sail on Saturday afternoon. The winds were light so the conditions were good for their first outing. We've discovered they don't like the engine very much and Apollo burrowed further under the covers in the V-berth. After the noisy engine was turned off, Atlas ventured on deck to see what was going on and seemed to enjoy it (if not tolerate it). But when anchoring with the engine, both scurried back to safe distances. Hopefully in time they will get used to it.

And yes, we are having fun. Solving new problems, spending more time around the water and sharing unhurried conversations are anticipated pleasures. Also we managed an overnight raft up with our good friends Skip and Harriet Hardy in the charming anchorage of the Rhode River, a picture perfect evening replete with the requisite sensational sunset; life is good!