03 December 2012

Raft-Up: Non-Productive Crewmembers Waste Space!

Fernando Botero's Cat.  Beautiful, but non-productive.
"Have nothing in your house [or boat] that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." William Morris

Space is a strictly limited commodity on a boat, so what you choose to bring aboard speaks volumes (sorry) about your priorities. When we prepared to move on to JOY, we sold or gave away a vast majority of our Stuff. But what about the stuff that came with us? This month, Raft-Up bloggers discuss our "Space Splurges" - the stuff that we brought on board that maybe we shouldn't have, but just couldn't live without.

So I pondered this topic. For about five seconds. In my mind's eye, I scrolled past the bronze bird sculpture, the electric tea kettle, the pink plastic buddha, the heating pad, and the martini shaker. Seriously, we have all these things on JOY and could not live without them. But the space used by these small items is nothing compared to our major space wasters: we call them Isabel, Percy, and Tucker.

Isabel, Percy, and Tucker are the cats. Cats on a catamaran. Cute idea. But really, they are NOT useful. And oh my heavens, let me tell you about the space we waste on them. We have three litter boxes, which we've arrayed in the forward berths. Hard to walk in there, and they scatter the litter, so the remaining walkable space is a bit crumbly. We store newspapers and bags for litter box clean up. And the litter itself. It is heavy and comes in big boxes. Then there's the food. As landlubbers, our darlings ate both canned food and dry food, and we have continued this feeding regimen on the boat. Three cats can go through three or four cans of food a day, plus dry food. And the food and water dishes take up a pretty substantial portion of our floor space. We have a scratching post, as well, which also takes up valuable floor space.  Throw in a bit of cat first aid and cat medicine. And cat carriers, in case we want to take them to the vet or pack them into the life raft. And a file folder stuffed with cat paperwork.

And the little cat bodies themselves... nearly thirty pounds, put together. They all want to sleep on our berth, which is a lot smaller than the beautiful king-sized bed that we all used to share quite happily. When we're underway and the weather's fine, Isabel and Tucker both like to steal the comfy helmsman's chair whenever I vacate it. And one of our prime storage locations, under our berth, must remain half-empty, since Percy and Isabel use this cabinet as their "happy place" if it's rough at sea or when the boat is invaded by strangers.

Primary cat hang-out.  We could fit a lot of OTHER stuff in this locker, if we didn't need to leave space for the cats.
THREE CATS. On board a small boat. Big space investment. But here's the thing. Isabel is almost 12 years old. The boys are both 10 years old. For all these years they have been, and always shall be, members of Team Behr, for better or for worse, on land and on sea. They're definitely not useful. But let's call them beautiful. They bring joy to JOY, and that's all we can ask of them. Except: hey, move over! You took my seat, dammit!

Okay, Tucker, we might need to get to that jib sheet at some point.  But you sure are BYOO-TEE-FULL.


Click on the monkey's fist to read others bloggers on this topic.
The Monkey's Fist

12 comments:

  1. They do waste space... but I'm convinced if I can train them to do the varnishing, it will all be worth it.

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    1. HA! You remind me of MANY different paint jobs in the house we remodeled before boat life. NEVER managed to complete a job without little cat prints. Can only IMAGINE the mess that two cats will create with varnish. No worries about that on JOY because we have an all-plastic boat.... :(

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  2. Now I realize why Oz & NZ aren't on your hit list for the Pacific! Well, they are awfully cute, and they serve many purposes: diplomat, bug chaser, morale officers, etc. :)

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    1. ... bug CATCHERS would be better than bug CHASERS.... we have only chasers on board JOY.

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  3. You can never have enough cats! Love the blog, added it to the link-list of cruising sailors at http://www.Themarinersguide.com. Hopefully it will help others find your adventures.

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    1. Well, I think we DO have enough cats, thank you very much. :) :) :) Isabel thinks we have two TOO MANY cats, 'cause she hates the dumb boys. Thanks for the link and good luck building a library of marina maps. I'll never forget the first time I tried to dock at a marina and I was told, over the VHF, that I should park right behind the big Sea Ray, and I had NO idea what a Sea Ray was. Funny.

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  4. Oz and NZ are NOT on your list??? I thought we were meeting there. :-)

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  5. We have learned, unfortunately, that OZ and NZ are pet-UNfriendly. Maybe you will have to take a quick flight to Indonesia to come for a visit? What are your dates again?

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    1. Which is a shame because we're really worth a visit! But nothing is worth leaving treasured companions behind.

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    2. Our one cat takes up less space than my collection of clothes, which apparently I need to cull...again! But we're not cruising at the moment so don't have to keep large stores of litter and food on board.
      Other than my clothes, it's my books that are a space wasting indulgence, I had a large collection on land (most of which are boxed up and sitting unloved and alone in a dusty old shed) and I can't bear the thought of not having books with me on board. And I can't stop buying them, skipper says I have a problem. He may not be wrong!
      Once I get the materials we're going to try and transition Fluffy to a litter-less litter tray, so i'm hoping old cats are easier to teach new tricks than old dogs. And with the space we'll save on storing litter i'll be able to store more books!

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    3. BOOKS - what to do with the books?!?! I'd love to do a blog hop about how liveaboards and cruisers handle the BOOKS question. I literally cried when we started packing up the boxes of books. Now kindle (on my ipad) is my Bestest Friend.

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