"Normal" for Cats on Boats

I just collected a bunch of great blog posts about what passes as "normal" when you live on a boat.  You can find links on The Monkey's Fist.  In most of these posts, you'll detect a bit of wistfulness for the "old normal" - life on land, with big beds, unlimited ice, short walks to flushing toilets and showers with unlimited hot water....  But also the recognition that the "new normal" includes some pretty cool stuff, like dolphin visits, self-sufficiency, and home travel (that is, traveling with your home).

Isabel, chilling out in the salon

Now that we are getting ready to move back to land, I've been thinking about the adjustments in store for our useless crew: Isabel, Tucker, and Percy.  Mostly, they've done a great job adjusting to being on the boat - but I think they will be thrilled to be back ashore again.  Here's what "normal" has been for the past two years:

Our home rocks and rolls!  When the cats jump up on the beds, they've learned to jump a bit higher than necessary, and they land on all four paws.

Our home has windows of odd sizes and in odd places.  Some windows can be used as doors, but others are not safe to climb through!  All of our cats have gone overboard (once each, only while dockside) - Percy jumped out a porthole and found himself in the water.  The overhead hatches are a source of endless wonder.  They frequently sit on our bed and gaze skyward.  They jump down on us from the open hatches with a battle cry - "Death From Above!"  Our salon hatches are favorites for passage to and from the bow.

Our home makes weird noises.  I still remember how Percy flew the first time he was on hand to hear the electric toilet flush.  Generator and engine noises no longer faze them.  They've learned to ignore the random creaks and the slaps of waves hitting the hull.

Our home is hot.  They're used to the tropic heat and they've been mostly very healthy - except for some itchy ear problems.  Poor Tucker has been driven nuts.

Our home has a lot of great hiding places.  It's not as big as a house, but the spaces are carved up in much more interesting ways.

They've learned to share.  Since we moved on a boat, the cats make due with fewer litter boxes (2 instead of 3) and fewer bowls (only 1 water bowl now, and 2 food bowls).  They hang out together - for Isabel, especially, this is a huge concession.



They've transitioned from canned food to dry food.  A sad few weeks.  We took this drastic step in Colombia, when a can of cat food cost $2.50 and the grocery stores only kept a half dozen cans in stock.

Tucker now poops on newspaper instead of in litter.  Saves on litter and mess, and saves him from sneezing.

On land, they used to love going outside and rolling in the dirt.  Now, they still enjoy the great outdoors - but no dirt.

On land, they used to try to catch birds.  Here on the boat, they try not to be caught by the birds (pelicans and egrets are scary).

Do not mess with this guy - he will peck your little brains out!

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Raft-UP: Two-Toned Task Management

"Yeah, I see it. I just can't tell
where it's coming from."

WANTED: Mature couple experienced in all aspects of world cruising. Must be skilled in route planning and navigation, weather tracking, clearance procedures, diesel mechanics, marine electrical systems and electronics and sail repair. The successful candidates will also possess extensive handy-person aptitude and be completely trilingual (English, French, Spanish), with competence in at least one Germanic language. Additional duties will include, but are not limited to: provisioning, menu planning, cooking, cleaning (inside, out, and bottom), laundry, dish washing, and general straightening. Only those interested in paying their own way and living in a dinghy need apply.

In the meantime...

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.

Municipal Chickens: 5 Things That Make it Key West

San Francisco's got it.  So does New Orleans.  Boulder has its own version of it. Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo have glimmers of it. New York doesn't need it; ditto L.A., they've got other things going for them.  Chicago tries to get it, but can't quite. Milwaukee just tries to be Chicago. There are others, but you get the idea. I call it "ititude." It's that je ne sais quoi, that singular, yet still not quite definable character of a place that makes it a destination. There's an ethos about places with ititude that makes you want to go back, rather than go somewhere new, vacation after vacation. You start to think of yourself as a part-time resident. Gradually, you begin to patronizing the bars and restaurants the locals frequent. You half-seriously consider retiring there. You get homesick when you get back home.

A Slice of Life

Ean is fixing the port forward berth, which caved in when we loaded it up with 350 cans of cat food, two cases of booze, six mega jars of peanut butter, two mega jars of olives, one case of tuna, one case of Dove body wash, and various other “provisions” (and, oh yeah, Ean was on it, too).

This morning I have TWICE managed to knock over Ean’s FULL glass of iced tea.  MORE TEA EVERYWHERE!

Home Is Where the Cats Are

Quick recap:  We have three cats on board.  Isabel is a 12-year-old barn cat.  Tucker and Percy, half-brothers, are 8-year-old Ragdolls.  Is it an IDEAL SITUATION, having three middle-aged cats on a round-the-world cruise?  No.  But then, neither was it IDEAL to have an 11-year-old along for the ride when my parents took ME, back in the day.  Whatterya gonna do?  Ya got family, they comin'.

Tucker, His Handsome-ness

Tucker is the dog-cat.  He follows us around like a dog and loves to make friends with complete strangers.  Back in Milwaukee, he used to come with when we'd walk our old dog, Floey, around the block - plodding along the sidewalk, thud, thud, thud, with his big feet.  When Tucker was young, we tried to convince ourselves that he was an "old soul" - very wise and all-knowing.  Now we think he is a bit, shall we say, simple-minded?  Any noted mental deficiencies might have something to do with oxygen deprivation - he has a few respiratory "issues."  Sometimes he breathes like Darth Vader.  Sometimes he has violent sneezing fits and slings huge snot globs in all directions.  But we don't hold it against him.  We call Tucker our Morale Officer because he is such a lover.  In anchorages, like Marsh Harbour, dinghies circle around for a closer look when they see him on deck.  Helps us meet new people.

Queen Isabel: Hey dad, I know, why don't you pet me...NOW! 

Isabel is the cat-cat.  She acts like a CAT.  She is scared of people, except for us.  With us, she is demanding and imperious.  She is her daddy's girl, and when she wants Ean's attention, which she frequently does, she is relentless.  She is oldest and the alpha-cat, so she gets to be First Mate.  Like any good non-commissioned officer, she doesn't hesitate to let us know when we are doing something dumb.  She has 43 distinct meows and some stretch to twelve-seconds long.  Most of these catalogued meows carry clear tones of disapproval.  She also has several facial expressions that communicate various shades of "dis" - as in disapproval, disgust, dismay, disrespect.  She HATES HATES HATES the dumb boy cats, who are often the recipients of her glares.

Sweet hairless boy - Percy the Pink

Percy is our baby-cat and resident trouble-maker. Too clever for his own good.  Wants to be the alpha-cat, but can't quite swing it (yet).  Percy caused us great heartbreak when he disappeared into the wilds of Treasure Cay and didn't come back to us for 24 days.  When we found him, his coat was solidly matted and full of sand spurs.  In this picture, soon after he got shaved by the vet, he is sleeping on what we call the "electro-lap" - a low-power heating pad.  It's not quite as comfy as a human lap but more consistently available.  Percy is "on alert" - especially since his Treasure Cay Trauma - and he likes to do laps around the deck, keeping an eye on everything.  When we're underway, he studies the water moving against the hull.  He is our most observant cat, so we have made him the Chief Lookout.  MUCH more to say about Percy the Problem, but I'll leave it for another post.

Here are some specifics about cats on a cat.  (We've been asked.  So we answer.  If you are not a cat owner/lover, don't make the jump.)

Prodigal Percy Part 2

our welcome, matted cat

Our boy did indeed have to be shaved while sedated, but only partially under sedation.  "Dreadlocks," the vet (who was merciful enough to come in on a Sunday) said the minute he saw Percy.  But more than just dreadlocks; sand spurs and at least one tick.  (I told our son many times that white folks can't dread, but children never listen.) Miraculously, no fleas and no worms as far as we know.  Aside from being very underweight (which Percy has been ever-so-diligently working to remedy), quick to chill and sunburn, he's in pretty good shape.  He's as feisty as ever and, yes, already trying to get off the boat for his next adventure.

It looks like a rat wearing a Percy mask

...Fat chance, bub.

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The Prodigal Cat

What does it say about your relationship with the universe when Friday the 13th is a lucky day?

If you think he looks funny here,
you should see him now.

Jane and I chose to refrain from mentioning it for a number of reasons, but no sooner had we docked in Treasure Cay on December 20th, than one of our cats, Percy the Smart, Percy the High Maintenance, Percy the Occasionally Incontinent decided he'd had enough of life at sea and ran away from home.  (To be fair, we don't know what really happened, he may have simply wandered off to check out other boats as is his custom and become disoriented, or scared off by the dockmaster's cats.) We walked all over the marina and adjacent properties multiple times calling his name.  We put up posters offering a reward for his return. No Percy.  As the days went by, we began to think that someone had taken him.  Very sad for us, but at least, we consoled ourselves, he was being taken care of.

Then Lorna, a friend of Jane's mother, called Trudy to say that the daughter of her neighbors had spotted a cat matching Percy's description the day before.  Afterward, there were more Percy sightings.  Lorna started leaving out food for him when one of her own cats somehow lured him close.  And finally tonight, Jane went over by Royal Palm, which is where Lorna lives (in the condo that used to be owned by Trudy and Bob, coincidentally), and called his name.  From the end of the parking lot, came a meow that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.  Familiar in frequency; unfamiliar in tone.  She kept calling and Percy came right to her.

I was folding laundry back on the boat when I heard this scratchy, hoarse sounding meow, meow, meow, over and over and called out to Jane (whom I couldn't see or hear, but nonetheless knew was involved), "what is that sound?"  I stepped out to see which one of our (then remaining) cats was making all the racket and who should fall out of her arms but a very skinny and very, very matted, dreadlocked, Percy. "Look what dragged the cat in." Our wayward son was home.

He's lost a lot of weight and will undoubtedly need to be shaved (presumably under sedation): his fur is way too tangled with bits of flora to be salvageable.  If there is an unfortunate aspect to this it's not the date, but the day.  It is unlikely that we'll find a vet open for business on the weekend on all of Abaco, so poor Percy will have to suffer with what is clearly a maddening condition for him.  He'll survive, though.  I suspect he won't see shore leave again--even supervised--for far longer than it takes his fur to grow back in.

Lucky him.  Lucky us.  Not so lucky Isabel.  Our poor girl cat never liked him (he just finds her fun to irk), and CANNOT believe she has to put up with him again.  She's made her position on this quite clear.  In other words, everything's back to normal on JOY.

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Friends

Deb and Rev

Ean has been hogging the blogging lately... actually, we're finding that he is much better than I, at capturing the details of our adventures.  Thank goodness he is keeping up with events, since I am vague about specifics, and already I find myself saying things like, "Remember that anchorage where we.....  ?"  And how can I already be confused when I can still count our anchorages on my fingers (if I could remember them all, that is)?  

Anyway.  If I might add....  Since we've started our new life,  we have met some AWESOME people - interesting, generous, quirky, intelligent, fun.  Most recently: Deb and Rev of Sea Breeze, here in Southport, NC.  I could mention the several times Rev drove us to the hardware store, grocery store, propane filling station, etc. (with some sightseeing along the way!).  Or describe how he "helped" us replace our bad breaker, fixed the handle on our freezer door, and gave us tons of good advice about how to be boat owners.  Deb and Rev hosted us on their BIG BEAUTIFUL BOAT (which is more like a condo than it is like JOY), fed us sloppy joes, introduced us to the fabulous Annabelle and Henry (clever and captivating corgis), and offered us books, magazines, DVDs, and finally, a flashlight (because we are, truly, pitiful).  Rev, when he's not helping hapless newbies or working on his own boat, is a blues musician (lately of "Reverend Dippermouth and the Little Muddy Buddies"), and he sang to us and gave us his CD - GREAT blues.  As when Michele helped us when we went aground in the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, we are reminded of the imperative of "paying forward" the generosity of which we have been recipients.  Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we  receive them or only seldom.  But the benefit we receive must be rendered again line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody."

Honestly, though, what we appreciated most about Deb and Rev is that we had the chance to laugh and talk politics (RECALL SCOTT WALKER!) and swap stories with some kindred spirits.  We have made new friends!  

Isabel, don't jump!

But she did, apparently.  And I'm not sure I can blame her.  We're still here at the boat yard.  No propane (they're installing a new tank locker), no holding tank (they're installing a new one), no tv (new antenna being installed), almost no internet (we're using my phone's hotspot which gets one bar at best).  The overnight low has been in the high 30s and low 40s (we have two small space heaters, one of which we can't turn up all the way because it draws too many amps and blows the circuit, the other one of which has been, hopefully temporarily, repurposed (see below)) And did I mention we're living in a boat yard in Galesville, MD, pop 363.  We returned our rental car yesterday and now are for all intents and purposes stranded in this quintessentially small town America town.  Not to disparage Galesville; it seems like a nice place to live, but...

Jane and I are more determined than ever to leave tomorrow.  I guess Isabel decided that was too long and opted to take matters into her own paws.  Percy, our highly intelligent but equally highly strung ragdoll, has found a different way to cope with the stress of it all: he's developed a bedwetting problem--ours, that is.  So he'll be confined to his own quarters (the starboard aft cabin) at night, with his own food, water, litterbox, and heater in the hopes of retraining him.  We're augmenting his training by flooding his environment with calming pheromones: a calming collar, spray, treats, and plug-in diffusers.  It's too early to tell if it's helping Percy, but I think our already laid-back Tucker is becoming...eh...catatonic.

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Tuesday, but Not "a Year from Tuesday"

The rest of everything we own.

 It was anything but easy; a few things got done poorly or not at all.  but we did it.  15 weeks ahead of schedule, we are live-aboards!

...but how are we going to fit it all on?

First, we'll cut down our Tempurpedic.

checking out the boat...

checking out the dock...

"ok, mom, this was fun.  Let's go home now."

a well deserved rest

Watch our brave cats explore their new world at http://www.youtube.com/user/morejoyeverywhere?feature=mhsn

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Our Last Day as Boatless Dirt-Dwellers

Joy will be ours tomorrow, if all goes as planned.  We certainly will be split between two worlds for the next month.  We need to finish up the house, put it on the market, prepare for our estate sale, give stuff away (this afternoon: Salvation Army comes for bookshelves, file cabinets, a TV stand, and other miscellaneous stuff), fill up the dumpster that we just had delivered, pack up a few precious items (including the cats!), and say a final goodbye to MKE.  But, in our OTHER reality, we will already be boat owners, live aboards, CRUISERS.  Never mind that we haven't yet cruised.  In our hearts, and in our bank account (ouch), we will be on our way.

We are flying to Annapolis tomorrow, so we will be ON the boat for our first few days of Boat Ownership.  Wish I had some good meds for the panic attacks that are sure to closely follow completion of the sale.  Hey, how do you work this thing?

Update, 9-17: Seems pinot grigio works okay to quell the panic....

Haste Ye Back!

Royal Poinciana in front of the TC bank

On the road departing Treasure Cay, there's a sign that says, "Haste Ye Back!". Never have I taken the sentiment more to heart. I feel like we're getting so close, now, to this new life of ours. Actually, our countdown stubbornly sticks at WAY-more-than-200-days.  (257, to be precise.)

Old Dogs, New Tricks

In the past couple of weeks, our beloved Floey-dog has died, and we have passed the one-year anniversary of my dad's death.  It's been hard to write about an exciting future when I've been thinking about the past.  Linnea has lost her old dog within the last few months as well.  Both Harriet and Floey had long, good lives (14+ years), and they both were "put to sleep" in the end, instead of being left to struggle through to their last ragged breaths.  For both of us, these more recent losses have re-surfaced our feelings about Dad's death, with thoughts of how much harder it was for him.  Ean and I were with him in his last hours, and although I can hope that he was not aware or in pain, his BODY struggled and struggled on.  The nurse told me that I should hold his hand and tell him it was all right to "let go."  I hope the part of him who could have understood that message was long gone by then.  We felt the hanging on, more than the letting go.  The end of a life is a sad thing to see, however it might be accompanied by relief, or love, or happy memories, or gratitude.

One of my favorite pics of Floey - Sunset Lake

But I haven't been immersed in sadness.  Ean and I have been engaged in some impressive change efforts.  Old dogs ourselves, learning some cool new tricks.