Our New Maine Life

Living on a mooring in one place is a new experience for us Brio folks… new routines, new habits, new morning views…

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Our quiet little cove is a beautiful place to spend time (and our handy-dandy wifi antennae is keepin’ us connected)…

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Since Jon gets up and goes ashore to start work every morning (and I get up and just start working — joys of working from home!) we had to come up with a better ‘car’ system.

Enter dinghy #2 (a row-boat that Jon’s mom had):
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It turns out, raised-on-an-inflatable-girl-that-I-am, that I really don’t like row boats. They tip! They get wet in 6″ waves! They don’t pack 400 lbs of groceries and laundry and jerry cans of water! Jon assures me that I’ll come around to the peaceful joys of rowing, but for now he’s (happily) stuck with the rowboat and I’m taking the inflatable.

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Although said inflatable has got a pesky leak (don’t they always??) so most mornings start with bailing the dink. Somehow the rowboat man gets roped in to this chore too 😉

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After being on the mooring for 2 weeks, we got a call from Bill (who you’ll remember came to visit us for the Panama Canal trip) saying he was coming by on his trimaran with his wife Kitsie. We thought they might stop by Brio for a coffee or a visit, but instead they yelled “hop on!” and we literally leaped from Brio to Kitter (their boat) and went for a daysail. It was HEAVENLY!

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I’d forgotten how much fun it is to sail on other people’s boats 🙂

Jon was just happy to be out on the water, since we keep talking about going for a daysail and then something seems to always come up…

IMG_7287Although we *did* manage to get out for one beautiful Sunday morning sail. Sailing for the sake of just enjoying sailing is the most BIZARRE experience. No destination? No ETAs? No checking the weather for the next week? We just untie from the mooring and… go?!?!

How novel 😉

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You know what else is novel? Lobster. Have I mentioned that I love this crustacean delicacy an inordinate amount??? Served with blue potatoes from Jon’s mom’s garden, this is a meal that can’t be beat…

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Although a slice of Jon’s homemade bread (he bails dinghies AND bakes bread — this one is a keeper, folks) is a pretty nice addition 🙂

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And finally, a shot of Brio at night… the heater is not quite installed yet (any project that requires a 5″ hole in the deck and multiple holes in the bulkhead is a ‘measure 10x cut once’ kind), so we’ve been experimenting with candles and lanterns.

Which makes for a pretty nice night-time ambience 🙂

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Don’t ask me what we’re going to do when winter really arrives… freeze?? We’re still figuring that part out 😉

– LMK

 


Comments

Our New Maine Life — 6 Comments

  1. Leah, don’t know if you remember, but when you and Jess, your mom and dad were in Bahia Santa Maria aboard “SYNCHRONICITY”, ‘ALMA’ hard dink had to be towed to the beach – otherwise we would still be rowing it. That was the end of a hard rowing dinghy for “ALMA”

  2. Hi Leah and Jon! Love the update…glad everything is going well for you guys! Are you still planning on renting on land for the winter or are you staying on the boat for good? Either way- try pouring boiling water in Nalgene bottles and take them to bed with you. They make a big difference. Also- we had a terra cotta flower pot that we turned upside-down on the propane stove (while awake). That worked wonders too! Eat some of that lobster for us!!! Hope to see you guys sometime in the future. Good luck with everything and stay warm. -Natalie and Mitch

  3. Hi Leah, it looks like many people on here are giving you advice about ideas for living in the winter. I am wondering if you have heard of a lovely temperate city called “Vancouver.” All the tourist magazines rave about it. Supposedly, it is not too hot in summer and not too cold in winter. And they have some of the most awesome people on the planet, some of which live in apartments in a little suburb they call “Burnaby.” Seriously man, I think you should check that deal out!

    Haha, just kidding (mostly). Really happy that you and Jon feel settled now and look forward to our next visit 🙂

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