Alan's Life Aboard

Below is an email Alan wrote to some family and friends.  It really describes living on board the William T Paquette:

What is it like living on-board the boat?  I am really enjoying it and we learn new ways to make our lives easier every day sometimes on an hourly basis. We rotate shifts during the day and night. On Watch you are steering the boat, On Call you are doing anything the person on watch needs help with like checking charts, changing sails, filling water bottles, etc. Then you are OFF where you can sleep most importantly or anything else you want. Then you are COOK making meals if it is time to, washing dishes, cleaning the cabin and if you clean and don't need to make food then you are essentially OFF and can sleep or if more help is needed with sails you jump in.

It is working out very well so far. During the day we take 3 four-hour shifts and at night we take 4 three-hour shifts so no one has to stay up for too long. As you might be able to tell, life happens pretty fast living under shifts like that and there is constantly stuff that needs doing of fixing or working on.

Early on when it was cold and we were running the engine a lot, only the person on watch wanted to be "up top" on deck and everyone else was "down below" in the cabin where it was warm so we tied a string to the ships bell which is in the cabin and the person on watch could ring the bell with the string if they needed help with something. Thats just one example of things we have figured out while underway.

I have my own "space" (see picture) that has a bunk, a shelf, and space under the bunk to store things. Overall I have a very small but cozy space to keep all my stuff. Adam who has the quarter-berth opposite to me sleeps with his guitar in its case since there is no where else to keep it. Overall the boat is narrow for its length and it makes for a living space that is small but functional. We also find that it is just the right size that it forces you to clean up anything out of place otherwise it is very difficult to move about. I like having a place for all my things and don't mind not having a lot of stuff at all. Stuff seems to be the enemy of cruisers. Living on board is a lot like backpacking only we carry around our kitchen and bathroom and beds with us. Unlike backpacking, we don't have to worry about weight so much; we can carry stoves, cans and lots of water.

We have a bathroom (a "head" on a boat) and it pumps to a holding tank which we pump overboard when we are at least 3 miles offshore as per the US rules. Elsewhere there are no rules (from what we have heard from experienced cruisers) and I expect we will adopt a "when in Rome" attitude to our waste probably with the exception of trash which it is also LEGAL to dump overboard (with the exception of plastic) when at least 12 miles offshore, again in the US.

What Don't we have?  Here are some of the things we don't have compared to a normal modern home.
    - no refrigeration
    - no microwave
    - no oven
    - no air conditioning or heating
    - no TV
    - a shower (plans are in the works)
    - running water

What we do have is a propane stove-top with 2 burners a frying pan and a pressure cooker. We have a cooler that we can fill with ice that will keep things cold for about 5 days but we are trying to live without it if possible. We also do not have freely running water; rather, we have sink faucets with mechanical pumps. To wash dishes we use a saltwater faucet driven by a foot pump. For cooking, rinsing dishes and for drinking water we use a freshwater faucet driven by a hand pump. We have a shower that is not hooked up yet and we plan to hook it up to a saltwater foot pump as well. For now, showers while underway are taken on deck with a bucket.

What are we eating?  We eat pretty well despite not having refrigeration. Rice, oatmeal, pancake mix, lots of beans, canned meat (tuna, corned beef, spam, dried sausage) and veggies and fresh fruit and BREAD whenever we can buy them. We also caught a nice big fish last Friday (a Spanish mackerel) which we cooked and ate for lunch. It was our first fish catch and was our first meal from the sea caught and cooked onboard. Very exiting. Trevor is a great cook and usually makes elaborate and delicious meals. We are also exited about using local ingredients to make food onboard especially when we leave the US.

Batteries. We have a big bank of golf cart batteries that power our rechargeable items (phones, computers, VHF radio and flashlights) and also our cabin lights and GPS unit. We have solar panels and a wind generator mounted on the top of the mast to re-charge our batteries. The engine also charges the batteries when it is running but we seldom run the engine and never when offshore unless absolutely necessary so it is not a major source of charging our batteries. We are still learning about our power consumption and how much we use versus how much we can make.

Communication. We have a ham radio that we will be able to use to send emails when we are offshore as well as a blackberry that can receive and send emails whenever we have cell phone coverage. So far the blackberry is working very well and as soon as I get the radio email set up I will be able to email more regularly. We also have a satellite phone that should allow us to make phone calls from anywhere in the world.

Well, that's a little about the boat and what its been like so far. I'll be writing more updates soon so stay tuned.

In case you didn't know, you can track us in real time by going to http://www.eyeotw.org and looking on the right hand side at the map ("Where are they now?") Also on the eye of the world homepage is a link to "Alan's Crew Journal" where I will also be posting updates.

I miss everyone back at home and want everyone to know that I am having an awesome time! I can't wait to leave the US on our floating home and do some REAL travelling. I have email access of course so EMAIL ME please.  It is also possible to send me stuff, i just need to know in advance and I can give you the address and instructions to send a letter or package to our next stop for them to hold for me.

Love Alan