Lessons Learned

My intent for this blog is to document, in a somewhat loose chronological order, my Quest To Sail; however, the present day Quest is more than a mere interest.  My family and I recently bareboat chartered a sailboat in the BVI's and here are my "top 3s" from the trip - all in order of importance:

Casualties:

1. Eric's Bitter End hat (lost at sea)

2. Eric's iPhone 4 (gonna go old school to break addiction)

3. Eric's D&G wallet (I now use a zip lock bag)

Lessons learned:

1. Water conservation - forced to conserve, in six days the four of us used only 80 gallons AND we all showered every day. The average American shower uses 3 to 4 gallons per minute (you do the math based on you and your family).

1. Energy conservation - again, we COULD have docked at marinas and hooked our boat to shore power, but we CHOSE to conserve.

1. The value of TIME - it took a couple of days, but by the end of the trip, we were waking just after sunrise (5:45am) and going to bed by 9pm. Our "down" time was when we were sailing or before breakfast. We read, wrote and sketched. During the rest of the day, we didn't waste a minute. We snorkeled, talked, and played cards. We took TIME to think. We took photographs - a lot. The boat had a tv (for 5 dvds we brought to watch) and it was only turned on one time (night #1) and then off before the movie was complete. We made the most of each and every minute of each and every day. We are still learning and this trip helped.