The glamorous side of being a cruiser. Greasy engine work is one thing, but rebuilding a thirty year old toilet is another thing entirely. This thing works great, but when one spring finally corroded and broke, it meant taking it all apart to replace it. And once you’re in there you might as well replace piston rings and anything else that comes in the repair parts kit. Hell, why not give it a few fresh coats of paint?

We finally hit up Dynamite Tacos when they were open. Perfect picnic food.

Sometimes I just sink myself to the bottom and stare up. Looking at the boat from down there it strikes me how strange our lives are. Everything we own in the world is in there. Our entire lives go on, day in and day out, inside this thing that is just floating out here on the ocean held by a single small chain. From down here it doesn’t seem possible, yet up on deck it feels so perfectly normal to us.

Then I surface to this. A home, just like any other.

Really should have gotten those piston rings done before I painted.

Here’s Lowe using his sea scooter as a boat motor. It moves surprisingly fast. He likes to drive off to some shallow spot, drop anchor for a bit, then come back and dock alongside “Bumfuzzle Marina.”

The only thing allowing boats to be able to anchor in Christiansted is this reef. Without that we’d be fully exposed to the trade winds and the non-stop seas they create. I took these on a calm day, but we’ve sat on the boat and watched six-footers roll up and crash here as well, without feeling a thing.

There’s never anyone in this little waterfront park, leaving it wide open for us to play baseball.