Get Organized and Go Fishing

“PORT out! STARBOARD home! POSH with a capital P.O.S.H.”

Remember the grandpa, father of inventor Caractacus Potts (Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang) and his melodious tune? Well this is exactly what I sing to myself sometimes as I try to keep everything straight on board. Never in all my mid-western years did that little ditty ever make a lick of sense to me. 🙂 Now, THAT is funny.

So on board, it is clear that our success depends on military order. Meaning, everything in its place and a place for everything. You learn a lot of things on a boat. Like “Red-Right-Returning” and “Port out, starboard home” and several others but most importantly, how to be super-organized. Every step you take is with purpose. If you get something out, you have to put it back where you found it. There is not a place on our 400+- sq feet of living space that is not purposed for something or designated for a specific storage item. We have a locker for food, one for dishes, one for appliances and one for toys. School books are in the “school corner”. There is an area on the boat for electronics and another for cleaning supplies. We have a designated locker for fishing gear and a floor locker that is our wine cellar! First aid, towels and toiletries are in the bathroom and nowhere else.

We have never lived in such a small space and it feels like we have been doing it forever – easy. By the time we fly home to Newport next week, we will have lived 20 days on the boat, without issue or complaint. We are getting used to the gentle rocking motion of the sea and keeping the boat clean and organized. We have adapted to an efficient mode of living that has not really been too hard to achieve. Home will feel ENORMOUS to us next week!

Cruising along to Del Ray Beach. Swimming in the light rain.

Finally, a pool! in Stewart, FL. Sophia doing school-work early morning on the flybridge.

This week, the kids have gotten in a generous amount of pool- time and we have seen some beautiful Florida ICW coastline – both in the form of natural landscape and real estate. I for one, have a whole new view of Florida and will never again doubt its plethora of gorgeous homes and natural southern charm. The most important and impressive of all, though, are the people: friendly as the day is long.

Fishing. So, the Reys are not naturally skilled fishermen, even though the fish are huge and plentiful! We look at them and they look at us… although Sophia and I could not resist and dropped our line in near the stern to catch a fat catfish in Ft. Pierce – which we released back into the wild with a sore lip. CORTADO is provisioned with some trawling gear and we recently added new poles, reels and other supplies. We LOVE to fish, so this is an important focus of our next phase of boat living. Last month we were learning the boat; This month we intend to FISH!