After while crocodile
3:28 PM
After a few nights, we bid farewell to Adventure Man Dan, it was time to head to Key West for provisions. I walked a mile to the grocery store, but Stephen found a canal he could dinghy to that was basically in the grocery store parking lot. Thank goodness. I can walk a mile for groceries, but carrying 2 weeks of food back wouldn’t have worked. Stephen met me to help with the groceries, and walking to the dinghy this sign makes me a bit nervous.
It is almost sunset and we are under a dark bridge. Too bad that sign wasn’t visible from the water!! Getting groceries is almost always an adventure!! As is laundry and doing the dishes, and other mundane chores that are relatively easy on land. I've written about it before, but it is still a point to make about green living. Laundry day takes a bit of elbow grease. I certainly don’t mind trading a washer and other conveniences for the opportunities we’ve had. But some things have taken me by surprise. I thought being off grid would equal being green. We have power from solar panels, although it is limited. So no hair dryer, coffee maker, or microwave. We are in constant battle of choosing between green living and using our precious water supply. At home we never use paper plates or napkins, but at sea, washing dishes uses a lot of water. But then paper products make more trash, which we have to store somewhere, so we have to make choices between water and storage. And sometimes we need clean skivvies, but that uses a lot of water. When you don’t know when and where you will be able to fill your water tanks, you have to use water conservatively. Maybe one day we’ll add a water maker to the boat, until then, choices have to be made and we’ll do our best. So someone back home skip the paper plates until we get back!! But the real problem on the boat, we are almost out of chocolate and we can’t catch that in the sea!
I count myself lucky when we are able to find a laundromat that we can actually get to. It provides plenty of time for making my provisioning lists and checking it twice. As of this writing, it has been about three weeks and I would LOVE to be able to wash clothes in a machine!!
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