This letter arrived from Tina today!
This letters is for all of you readers who have expressed excessive envy. Is the life on board really perfect all the time? Is the alternative life style the only sensible life style? Here is a letter at a slightly different note than what we usually publish here on Expedition Micronesia. If you are currently saving for an ocean cruiser, don't quit your day job just yet.

Ed.

The back sides of being on "holiday" for 9 months now:
I am bruised all over, especially on my hips from the stove. It's an endless effort of keeping the boat tidy and prevent things from falling all over the place when we roll. I hate not having eight arms when I cook to steady myself, the ingredients and kitchen-utensils, or when I balance something up the stairs trying not to spill or fall over myself. I'm tired of getting a "dinghy-but" every time we go to see someone or go ashore. I'm tired of my sun-bleached, dirty, half-torn, salty clothes, I'm tired of rationing things like contact-lens solution, shampoo and body lotion, not to mention water and electricity. I'm tired of balancing around the boat inventing new places to hang up wet clothes and towels. I'm pissed of with my screwed-up digital camera (sorry folks, but it doesn't like salt water... although I'm happy as long as the On/Off button still works). I'm annoyed with my salt-encrusted regulator and cold in the now 1 mm wet suit...

I wish I didn't have to always talk to my friends at pre-arranged times on the SSB-radio or "in public" over the VHF. I'm sick of having to eat bananas until they come out of my ears when a whole stock ripens in one go. I'm tired of my 200 different ways of preparing fish... I miss hot, endless showers, I miss non-limited e-mail connection and internet (the most expensive so far 3.20 USD PER MINUTE in Aitutaki!), I miss espresso machines and proper cheese, I miss an oven and a washing machine, and I would like a professional hair-dresser (I cut my own hair and every one else who dares)! I miss magazines and daily news papers. I miss the phone. Sometimes I even miss the TV - thanks God we have a 12 V video! - but I would LOVE to go to the movies! I miss rotten fish, salt licorice, and Kalles kaviar. I miss my friends, family and dogs... And I miss a swimming pool with chlorinated water...
However, I'm not ready to go home just yet!

Updated Oct 9

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