March 24, 2020: Day 6 of Extreme Harris Social Distancing Boat Life
Today was a weird day - zero motivation, hella distractions, noses in our phones. Woke up hung over a bit and feeling guilty for our fun night over at our Canadian friends’ boat. It felt a bit reckless…reckless!! It wasn’t reckless…we know that logically but the feeling is still there. Greg and I have been walking around (well not really walking since the boat is small..sort of shuffling from side to side) like zombies…grunting when the kids ask us questions at least 3 times before giving them a proper response. Poor kiddos.
It started off on a bad foot (not the minor headache we had)…I made pancakes but used a mix (I usually make from scratch but…headache) and the mix was apple cinnamon flavour (normally yum but not for pancakes) and they were too sweet and burned on my pan. Not cool pancakes. Not cool.
So after eating our weirdly sweet, half burned breakfast we launched into homeschool. Greg did a great job with the girls learning multiplication and Liam learning algebra (Greg gets really excited when the move onto a new topic in math - he LOVES math). I did some writing as well as connecting with the world. Ok so that was a win. Homeschool today was tight. Then the kids begged for their usual morning swim which we allowed despite the wind and rain because honestly they are good swimmers and what the hell else are they going to do? Daily swims are going to be key for all 5 of us in the coming months.
The downside to daily swims is that we use a LOT of water - the kids “shower off” the salt water at the stern of the boat but then go back in 2 hours later (despite adequately telling us they are done for the day) and then “shower off” again…we burned through 400L of water in 2 days which is an embarrassing amount of water. So new rule today - “shower off” happens at night before dinner when we know you are actually done for the day.
We had a few people come by the boat in their dinghies to talk, mutually-stress-out, guess at the future…and so on. One brilliantly motivated and cool couple (Nils and Meredith on S/V Zion) started a Facebook page just for the boats in this anchorage so we could get to know each other and form a bit of a community without having to interact in close quarters. Safe and practical. Except I know squat about Facebook having written it off 10 years ago as way too high maintenance for my level of attention. Sooo…now I know a very little bit about Facebook and can contribute to this group and stay up to-date. It’s already proven really helpful in getting information about what’s going on on land. Dominica has 7 cases of he-who-must-not-be-named as of today and is escalating rapidly. Restaurants and bars are now closed (we haven’t been for 6 days but it’s weird to know this to be the case). It’s about to get real quiet up in here.
The afternoon had us like vegetables…and I’m not talking about healthy, bright and perky vegetables either…I’m talking the saggy, tired looking veg that you probably can only find in your grocery stores now (hopefully not the case). Spaced out and short tempered is how our Canadian friends found us when they dinghied over asking if we were up for another snorkel. We almost said no out of laziness but then rallied and got off the boat (into another smaller boat of course hahah) and over to another snorkel spot that was freaking amazing. Seriously there were moments when i was in total awe, swimming through a school of thousands of little, sparkling fish that completely welcomed me…giggled a funny little flounder skimming the ocean floor…and slowing followed a huge filefish as he poked his fish nose into little nooks and crannies, pissing off the smaller fish and getting chased away. The water was warm, visibility good, and I had baby shampoo in my mask so it was like looking through the clearest glass of all time.
The weirdness returned about an hour after we did. Just sort of sunk back in…we have stuff to do, or at least could do, yet starting any task felt like a huge burden. We just existed. Ate dinner…which took much longer to prepare once I discovered dozens of little green worms on the kale I was using (NOPE. GROSS.)…and watched the Office a bit more.
Tomorrow we have to find a way to be productive and positive. I can do this for months but I can’t do it this way.
Ugh.
Much love,
