Communal Living II
The sunrise through the porthole always gets me up before my phone starts barking at me to throw back the covers, go for a run, go for a shower, go for the granola in the cupboard.
Or on days off, I pull the thin comforter over my head, hit snooze on my phone, bury my eyes in the pillow, and ward off the pink and yellow streaming through the salt sprayed glass.
The challenge is swinging down off my bunk without landing on my roommate. She is shadowed by my bunk, immune to the light infecting every far surface of the cabin. I grab onto the stainless steel bar overhead and hope that my arms support my awakening muscles and bones, my feet touching the cool wood (or plastic that looks like wood?) of the cabin sole, nearly catapulting myself into the head.
Living and working on a boat is unlike almost any other job I can think of. Yes there is the commercial sector and the yachties and even among the yachties a wide range of living situations. On my old boat I wore a sun faded tshirt over my bikini as I raised the mainsail in the Caribbean. On this boat, epaulets and crisp black pants are required for dinner service. Uniforms aside, the overriding similarity is the fact that you work and eat and work and sleep and work and socialize in the same space. There is no going home at the end of a long day at the office.
No matter what size boat the quarters are relatively tight and the crew (and sometimes owners and guests) get to know each other pretty quickly. At this point, I am amused by it all. Getting to know the quirks and habits and histories of each of nine people who choose this unique lifestyle is an unforeseen reward of a larger crew. And seeing how I fit in to this tapestry of fiercely diverse individuals has I'm sure amused my cohorts.
Its not for everyone, not for always.
But for now, it is exactly where I should be.
The biggest challenge is writing about things that are neither boat nor crew related. Now that the boat and crew are the majority of my life, my little floating worldview needs to reach beyond that salty porthole.
Or on days off, I pull the thin comforter over my head, hit snooze on my phone, bury my eyes in the pillow, and ward off the pink and yellow streaming through the salt sprayed glass.
The challenge is swinging down off my bunk without landing on my roommate. She is shadowed by my bunk, immune to the light infecting every far surface of the cabin. I grab onto the stainless steel bar overhead and hope that my arms support my awakening muscles and bones, my feet touching the cool wood (or plastic that looks like wood?) of the cabin sole, nearly catapulting myself into the head.
Living and working on a boat is unlike almost any other job I can think of. Yes there is the commercial sector and the yachties and even among the yachties a wide range of living situations. On my old boat I wore a sun faded tshirt over my bikini as I raised the mainsail in the Caribbean. On this boat, epaulets and crisp black pants are required for dinner service. Uniforms aside, the overriding similarity is the fact that you work and eat and work and sleep and work and socialize in the same space. There is no going home at the end of a long day at the office.
No matter what size boat the quarters are relatively tight and the crew (and sometimes owners and guests) get to know each other pretty quickly. At this point, I am amused by it all. Getting to know the quirks and habits and histories of each of nine people who choose this unique lifestyle is an unforeseen reward of a larger crew. And seeing how I fit in to this tapestry of fiercely diverse individuals has I'm sure amused my cohorts.
Its not for everyone, not for always.
But for now, it is exactly where I should be.
The biggest challenge is writing about things that are neither boat nor crew related. Now that the boat and crew are the majority of my life, my little floating worldview needs to reach beyond that salty porthole.
Comments