Gone So Long

Originally posted on January 28, 2015, by cruisingrunner

Tonight we are anchored in the picturesque harbor of Whangaroa. We had a normal school day and then hiked up to a peak which gave us a spectacular 360 degree view of the harbor and the surrounding countryside. We barbecued chicken and sausages for dinner, but if that’s surprising given the fact that we ALWAYS have some sort of tasty, fresh caught seafood on board, just know that we also prepared some yellowtail kingfish poke to marinate in the fridge for lunch tomorrow afternoon. After dinner, the boys started their nightly dishes ritual, which starts with heating up some water on the stove and rinsing off the dishes in the sea water from the back swim steps. (Lady Carolina boys, Kyle and Joel, oh how they miss you guys!) As I was sitting in the cockpit enjoying a glass of wine while this was going on I heard Brenden exclaim, “Oh no!” When I asked him what was wrong, assuming perhaps a dish or utensil was dropped overboard while getting rinsed, he responded with, “…the little fishy almost swam into the tentacles of the jellyfish!” I responded, “Wow, that’s quite a show you’re watching there.” He said, “Yeah, I can’t really see them anymore…”

A few moments went by with all of this seeming perfectly normal until I had a total internal freak out moment. Holy @#$! My son is watching sea life drama unfold while he’s doing dishes, and this is all totally, perfectly normal. This was sort of an extension of a mini-internal freak out moment I had the other day when a fellow cruising mom made the comment to me about her family being a bit boring. The cruising life becomes so normal to us sometimes we forget how different our lives really are from the mainstream. Boring!?!? Not a chance.

Now that we are over the halfway mark of our journey I sometimes wonder about the reintegration process. Have we been gone so long that the connections I had to people back home might be strained? Can we even understand each other anymore? I worry and wonder.

-D.