March 23, 2020: Day 5 of Extreme Harris Social Distancing Boat Life
Ok so like most people we are trying to balance extreme paranoia with pragmatism…
Squally again this morning but opened up to some clear and sunny and not-too-windy skies in the afternoon…which meant we could get our snorkel on! No wait…sorry kids…we meant after homeschool of course. Suckas hahaha…
Actually though it really was hard for all of us since Greg and I are so distracted by the constant stream of commentary and information about he-who-must-not-be-named that we did a piss-poor job of homeschooling in the morning and as such it took the kids a million hours to do some pretty basic stuff. If we aren’t mentally present to help them through the little bumps that can get in the way of learning the actual thing they are trying to learn then they get all sidetracked and frustrated and loose all momentum. Totally on us. For example, Aden and Grace were working on some English…Aden got stuck on a word that I wasn’t ready to help her with...Grace didn’t have any ideas for her acrostic poem BOATLIFE (seriously!?!) and I wasn’t ready to help her either…so many minutes went by before I dialled back in and by then they were all over the place. Liam did pretty well but every time he finished a step in his work he put his books away and claimed he was “all done”. We were so frustrated with them but that quickly turned into acceptance that we didn’t do our part and that tomorrow is a new day. I am confident (based on what I am seeing in Instagram) that parents with kids at home are also struggling to be mentally present right now.
So when the weather cleared we bailed on the books and went for a snorkel. We picked up Darlynne (S/V Bliss) who, like us, had her fill of homeschool and boat-time, while her girls stayed onboard to chill, and we headed over to the reef. We then swung by the bow of our Canadian friends here in the anchorage that we met last week. The had been self-quarantining because they sailed in from St. Martin the week previous and felt it was prudent. We saw her out on the bow so thought we’d say hi - whoops - she was sunning naked :P After a quick wrap up (hehe) she agreed to join in the snorkel fun and bring her family.
After taking a few minutes to find a good place to place the anchor without fouling the coral (always a good sign for an interesting snorkel) we jumped in and lost ourselves in the gorgeous rocks and coral heads, thousands of fish, and interesting one-offs like eels. It was a bit windy and there was a current but everyone kept up fine (i.e. Grace did not drift out to sea) and we enjoyed the water for at least an hour before we found our selves all hanging out in our respective dinghies chatting. This led to an invite to the Canadian’s (huge and beautiful) catamaran for drinks. We thought about it but since they have been in self-quarantine for 12 days and symptom free we felt like it was safe. So we quickly changed out of our suits and headed over for a very fun evening of conversation and rum drinking…it was such a welcome break from the undercurrent of tension we’ve been feeling. Our kids had a blast running around the huge space with the other kids. They watched a movie on the trampoline at the bow and ate pasta while the adults talked about everything except he-who-must-not-be-named.
We left around 11pm (it’s a bit hazy but I think it was that time) and I was so pumped up after my extrovert hit of energy from other people that we watch a movie (Pitch Perfect 2) and ate Ramen noodles (don’t judge me hahaha) before finally calling it a night. Why is this blog-worthy? Well I’m not sure what is blog-worthy I guess but usually Greg and I are in bed by 930 and asleep shortly thereafter. We don’t do late nights on the boat because the days are long, tiring, and full of fresh air. Like every day. So staying up late (and subsequently sleeping in late) really did feel like a treat.
We went to sleep feeling grateful for the fellowship.
Much love,
