This is what happens on a day when not much happens

We are now in Annapolis, Maryland, waiting for window shades, repairs to the windows, life raft inspection, making various small repairs as well as acquiring spare parts and not least of all installing a watermaker.

Living aboard a boat makes one cognizant of the real demand and cost of energy in everyday living. Every system on the boat requires energy and, unlike in a house, we have to produce and manage our own energy. The most energy hungry system will be our water maker, but a refrigerator also demands energy as well as our water pump, propane controlling unit, computer etc. . . Our 4 200 amp batteries provide us with a store of energy which normal boat operation depletes in four days or less if we do not renew it.

Cénou is equipped with solar panels that produce about 20 amps per hour in optimum conditions and also with a 75 amp alternator that requires the engines be turned on to operate. Throughout the summer we never had to turn on our engines to charge our batteries, but the past three days of rain and shorter fall days are making us more reliant on our engines. This will change when we leave for the tropics.

One thing that is certain is that we will not see the tropics until Celine's cast is removed. Celine broke her arm falling in the companionway (the entrance to the main cabin from the cockpit). The fracture is just above the wrist and not complicated. Still, we will have to wait until October 22 to have her cast removed so that we can head offshore.

For the first time since moving onto the boat, we are living somewhat of a routine because we are not going from place to place. Home schooling, going for ice-cream and playground provide the girls with some structure and some companionship. Christian and Michelle's sons Coltrane and Parker are here too since Truant came down a week after we did.

We started home schooling back in Kittery six weeks ago using the Calvert School system. There have been ups and downs, but we are steadily improving.

Home schooling has shown itself to be a serious challenge to some cruising families. I think this is mostly true for European families with high-school age children. We once met a couple of French educators with two teenagers. School time was no fun and games and took the better part of the day. I have followed a French couple on a Freydis, a boat like ours, who quit one year into a three year trip due to the challenges of home schooling combined with traveling and boat maintenance. We also know a cruising American couple who succumbed to home schooling challenges. That said, they were living on a 36 foot boat with a 9, a 7 year old and a toddler. Just that is a challenge.

Even though the Calvert system is more demanding than what we have experienced in either private or public schools, we only have to home school four times a week to still retain a three month vacation. So we feel fortunate to be on the American system which has not been, so far, that demanding and on a boat where we have room to sprawl.

While Anouck has been an easy student, Celine takes after me in being the kind of student that tests the educator in every sense of the word.

Rike does math, composition and science with Celine. I do history, "critical thinking", literature and vocabulary. I help Anouck with journal writing, reading and history. Rike does the rest.

What we have learned so far is to start school early in the day, take very short breaks and not allow the lessons to get bogged down in repetition. That means we have to pick and choose how far along a workbook we are willing to go or decide whether two compositions in one day might be a bit much. The shortest session was three and a half hours while the longest was somewhere around seven hours or so. Most sessions are four to five hours.

While, when all goes well, home schooling is my favorite part of cruising so far, it can also bog down the day completely, forcing us to stay on the boat and frustrating everyone in the process. Having a good carrot helps of course. A play date with Zia, going ashore for ice cream, swimming off the boat are all things that help.

One of the fascinating bits, to me, is to see myself as a child when I watch Celine struggle. It feels close to a reflection of me. Although I was never really tested for "learning disabilities", I can see that Celine faces confusion, much as I did as a child and still do, sometimes as an adult. Rike marvels at my ability to read instructions and get nothing out of them.

Luckily for me, and I hope for Celine, by the time I turned twelve learning became much easier. While home schooling will continue to be an adaptive process for us all, it gives us the opportunity to taylor what we teach and how we teach it to hopefully keep Celine interested. I had no interest in school until I reached the 9th grade. Those previous nine years were nine long ones.

Homeschooling on Cenou while Christian and Michelle worked the Annapolis Boat Show

After home schooling and before ice cream.

All right, now I will switch gears and talk about how it is crucial to sometimes listen to your spouse. As you know we made it back to the Chesapeake Bay, which some consider a great cruising ground. Well. . .this takes place a couple of weeks back, it's September 17, it's windless, it's 90 degrees, the biting flies have swarmed the boat and I have the bright idea of going swimming with the girls in the Sassafras River where we are anchored.

The roots of the Sassafras tree are used to make root beer and the leaves have a nice fragrance when you crush them. So, here we are in a nice river with a nice name, surrounded by water, 99 percent humidity, that sun beating on us and biting flies feasting. What idiot would not jump in?

Rike adamantly refuses to put a toe in the water, her decision based on an article about the Chesapeake Bay . I only looked at the pictures of the article, so I jump in with the girls and we frolic in the water. I notice it smells like cow manure but I figure the smell comes from the nearby farm fields baking in the sun. Well, I get nice and cool and repeat the process the next day until. . . I speak with a local.

He told me all about this nasty algae in the Sassafras River which comes from cow manure run off. This algae is so laden with bacteria when it dies that authorities have warned that contact with it can induce nasty infections. As a result they closed local beaches. The Sassafras River is filled with this mess because it is actually less of a river than a geographic runoff collection center for all those manure laden fields.

It's all part of the healthy cruising lifestyle. So for all those with a slight penchant of envy, you can keep drooling or come and jump in with us :-)

No, this is not how she broke her arm.

The Sassafras. As the sun sets on floating manure