How To Keep Them Coming Back For More | IWSG

For the past few months, I’ve been linking up with the Insecure Writer's Support Group (ISWG) on the first Wednesday of every month. Guess what today is – yep, it’s the first Wednesday of March. So, it’s time for some musings on writing.

I imagine some of our regular blog followers are screaming at their computers just now, “Come on Ellen, we don’t want to read about no stinking writing nonsense! Where are the posts about living on a sailboat, avoiding boat projects and travel that we’ve come to expect from you? Even one of those polar bear posts would be better than this.”

Just hang in there. Please. Pretty please with sprinkles on top. I know that many of the lovely ISWG folk will leave helpful and supportive comments about my conundrum, but I’d also like to hear from our regular blog followers too. After all, that’s what this month’s conundrum is about – you guys.

Okay, here’s the deal with the conundrum. Next month, I’m going to be participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Basically, you blog every day during April (except Sundays) following along with the alphabet (e.g., A is for Anchor, B is for Boatyard, C is for Catamaran).

When I did this last year, my blog posts were unrelated and pretty random. The upside was that there was something for everyone – some blog posts were about our travel adventures, some were about sailing and others were about polar bears. So, even if folks thought a particular day’s post was dead boring, there might be something that floats their boat the next day.

This year, I’m doing a theme. Each post is going to build upon the previous post. The catch is that you have to read the posts in order to follow along with the theme.

So, here’s the problem – some of you may stop coming back to the blog during April because you: (1) think the theme is stupid from the outset; (2) get bored with the theme partway through the month; or (3) only get intermittent internet access and figure it’s not worth the bother if you can’t follow along with the theme.

Here’s how I’m thinking of working around this and hopefully keeping you coming back for more. The first part of each blog post during April will be focused on the theme, but the second part will have some random thoughts on the day’s topic (like anchors, boatyards or catamarans) that don’t require that you read the posts in order.

For our regular blog readers...What do you think? Would this keep you coming back for more? 

For you ISWG folk...What tips/tricks do you have to keep people coming back for more? Are you doing the Blogging from A to Z Challenge this year? If so, have you used a theme before and what lessons did you learn?

If you’re wondering why my theme is, you’ll have to wait until the end of the month when all will be revealed. But here’s a hint – America’s favorite teenage girl detective will be back for some more sailing adventures.

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Is This Internet Worthy?

A friend and I were talking earlier today about our daily lives at the marina. What’s really worthy of being posted on Facebook or blogged about? Isn’t much of what we do really, really, really boring? Sure, we live on boats, but, still, it can be pretty dull at times.

Or is it? Maybe people do find our daily happenings interesting.

Well, let’s put that to the test. Here’s what I got up to over the past few days. You be the judge – is this really worthy the internet? By the way, my mom gets the deciding vote.

1 – I’ve been cleaning all of the teak in the interior of our boat and applying lemon oil to it. This is taking a lot longer than I thought. I should have known better. Doing anything on a boat involves moving stuff from one section over to another section and then back again. When you live in a place with around 300 sq ft of room, there aren’t a lot of places to pile stuff. It’s chaos. But, the good news is that it’s a lovely smelling form of chaos. The lemon oil is doing an admirable job of camouflaging the fact that my holding tank needs to be emptied.

2 – I talked to Scott every day, as I always do. We discussed a whole range of exciting things like the fact that he made some spaghetti sauce with venison sausage, recycling in Scotland and this article on the polluted water that they’re draining from Lake Okeechobee out to the coasts of Florida. The sugar farmers are getting heat because the chemicals and fertilizers they use drain into the lake which then affects the coastal environment. It doesn’t sound good. I feel very conflicted about my love of sugary treats vs. the impact of sugar cane farming on our waters.

3 – I bought yet more plastic storage containers. I’m not sure you can have too many plastic storage containers on a boat. I found a few items getting some mold and mildew growing on them, so I’m trying to encase as much as I can in plastic to keep the moisture out.

4 – I scoured the internet for info on LED bulbs so that we can change ours out. They seem expensive.

5 – I ate some chocolate that my mom sent me.

6 – I thought about what a great mom I have and how much I miss her.

7 – I bought waterproof Gorilla Glue to fix the teak shower mat floor thingy in our head/bathroom which is falling apart. Some people suggested I use epoxy, but that seems too hard. So, I’m going to give Gorilla Glue a try instead. I thought about getting this boat project started. I didn’t.

8 – I thought about doing laundry. I didn’t.

9 – I read a few articles on the US election that a friend of mine in New Zealand posted on his Facebook account. I’m amazed at how much interest Kiwis have in our election.

10 – I took pictures of illustrations in an old book on South America that we picked up somewhere. We really don’t have room to be carrying this book around with us, so I decided to take pictures as a keepsake and donate it to the marina book exchange instead.

11 – I took a picture of my computer keyboard and turned it into the graphic that you see at the top of this post. Procrastination at its finest.

12 – I made a list of projects to accomplish this week.That was an accomplishment in and of itself. I think I deserve a nap.

What mundane things have you been up to lately? What's the most boring thing you've done lately?

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Boat Insurance {Or Silencing Your Inner Worry Wart}

Yes, I admit it, I can be a bit of a worry wart at times. I used to worry about pretty mundane things – like if my jeans made my bum look big or if I had enough change for the bus. Now that I live on a boat I worry about the really important stuff – like a lightening strike, getting smashed to smithereens in a hurricane and an alligator climbing into the cockpit of my boat and refusing to leave until I give him all of my chocolate. {Did anyone else just have a flashback to Elvis from Miami Vice?}

Lately, I’ve also been worrying about insurance for our boat and what kind of coverage we should get when our current policy expires in April.

When we bought our boat last year, we took out full insurance, which is known as hull coverage in nautical speak. We were under time pressures to get insurance in place before the sale closed, so I didn’t do much research on boat insurance in general or get a lot of quotes. I basically let my inner worry wart take over and got full coverage through a broker which had been recommended by fellow cruisers (IMIS). After transferring a relatively large sum of money into an escrow account, all I could think about was who was going to pay if we sunk our new-to-us boat the following week. My inner worry wart shouted out, Get insurance! As much of it as you can! So we did.

When we had our last boat in New Zealand, we only had liability insurance. I was totally fine with that as she was an older boat that wasn’t worth all that much money and we planned on selling her on in a couple of years anyway. If she sank, she sank. So be it, I told my inner worry wart. My inner worry wart shrugged her shoulders and went on to worry about more important things – like the fact that there was a distinct lack of paychecks coming into our bank account and the shortage of storage on our boat for adequate supplies of cookies and wine.

This time around, I’m beginning to think taking a liability only approach to insurance may be the way to go for two reasons: (1) our boat isn’t worth all that much in the grand scheme of things and (2) we’re cheapskates.

Our boat, Tickety Boo, is a 1987 Moody 346, a British blue water cruiser more commonly found in Europe. Moody 346s are older boats and are priced accordingly. So, when I started doing calculations on the the percentage of our insurance costs vs. what we would get back for the agreed hull value if Tickety Boo sank, it wasn’t all that encouraging. I was beginning to think that maybe it was worth the gamble to go without hull coverage. Strangely, my inner wart agreed. In fact, she was the one that reminded me that we still don’t have regular paychecks coming into our bank account, so maybe we should limit how much money goes out of our account.

When I told Scott I thought we should just get liability insurance this time around, he sounded surprised given my worry wart tendencies. He was all for it. After all, he might have opted not to get health insurance (you can read more about that here), so not getting full hull coverage for Tickety Boo seemed like a no brainer to him. {By the way, we did get health insurance. We could probably buy a lot of sailboats for what it would cost us to get a serious illness in the States if we were uninsured. Sad but true.}

So, for all of you boaters reading this (and let’s be honest, it probably only is boatie types that are still reading a post on boat insurance by this point), tell me what you know about liability insurance. What should I look for in a policy (like coverage amounts for fuel spill liability in the States)? Any recommendations on who I should get quotes from? And, have any of you decided to just go with liability only and why?

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Going For A Walk In Search Of Wild Pigs | St Lucie Lock, Florida

I used to do a lot of "Going for a Walk" posts, but lately my walks have been kind of blah. When I do manage to get the motivation to put real shoes on (you know the ones with closed toes and laces which are so confining when you pretty much spend every day barefoot or in flip-flops) and go for a walk, it’s usually up the road from the marina and either left into an industrial park or right across the railroad tracks and to the store. Neither route is really worthy of a "Going for a Walk" post.

But, now I’ve been for a proper walk for the first time in a long time. The kind that gets your shoes muddy and has the thrilling possibility of getting trampled on by wild pigs. I bet you’re asking yourself, where can all this excitement be had? Well, all you have to do is head over to the St Lucie Lock National Recreation Area on the Okeechobee Waterway in Florida.

Scott and I checked out the St Lucie Lock last year when we were looking for places to camp during our USA road trip. There are two campgrounds there – Phipps Park is run by the county and the St Lucie South Campground is run by the US Corp of Engineers. They both have pretty box standard RV sites, but the St Lucie South Campground has something you don’t often find – camp sites for boats. It’s kind of neat to see a place where nomads of the water and land can meet and mingle.

There are a few walks you can do at the St Lucie Lock. There’s a nature trail on the south side near the campground or you can cross the lock and dam and try out the two trails on the north side. My friend let me decide – the north or the south. The volunteer at the visitor center (where you can score free Wi-Fi) told us there were wild pigs on the north side. That made the choice easy – who wouldn’t want to see wild pigs and possibly get trampled on by them when they’re out walking?

Okay, if my friend was here right now, she’d probably interject and say that we never discussed wild pigs when deciding where to go for our walk. I hate to admit it, but she’s right - wild pigs were not discussed. But, in my defense, and as many highly respected writers and editors will tell you (like the fine folks over at the National Enquirer), why let the truth get in the way of a good story. Wild pigs sounds so much more exciting than mosquitoes, which was about all the wildlife we encountered while out walking. Don’t you agree?

So, off we went excitedly skipping across the lock in anticipation of our wild pig encounter.

When Scott and I were originally at the St Lucie Lock, our focus was on camping. Little did we know that just a few months later, we would be going through the lock ourselves on our very own sailboat when we made our way from Indiantown to the Bahamas. I had never been through a lock before and didn’t have a clue how it worked. So, imagine how much fun it was to come back months later and watch boats go through the lock and say to myself in sort of a blase tone reminiscent of thirteen year old teenagers, Yeah, been there, done that.

See that boat in the lock? It had been at Indiantown Marina and was making its way eastwards towards Stuart. Also, notice how the US flag is at half-mast? That was for the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Here’s what the view looks like to the north from on top of the dam. By the way, the water smelled really bad standing on top of the dam. Even the lizards scurried across quickly to get away from the smell. Maybe it has something to do with all of that toxic run-off from the sugar cane fields that they’re spilling out of Lake Okeechobee. Which is surprising as sugar tastes good - why wouldn’t its toxic run-off smell good too?

Here's what the dam looks like from the other side.

On the other side of the dam is a picnic area near this old tree. It looks spooky. Kind of like a warning sign to be wary of the wild pigs roaming through the brush in search of unsuspecting humans with a backpack full of Snicker’s bars. Wild pigs like Snicker’s bars. The peanuts mingled with all that chocolate and caramel nougaty goodness make them feel like they’re having a healthy snack. You know, because peanuts are like little protein pellets and protein is good for you. (#funpigfacts)

At the trail head, you have a choice of the yellow trail or the red trail. The visitor center had a map of the trails, but for some reason I didn’t pick up a copy so it was time for a completely uninformed decision. Often, they’re the best kind. We chose yellow. It’s a good color.

I didn’t take any pictures of the yellow trail as I was too busy keeping a lookout for wild pigs. It was about what you would expect - palm trees, sandy soil and shells scattered about. Turns out it was pretty short. So, we decided to do the red trail too. This time, I took pictures. We hadn’t seen any wild pigs, so I figured they must be napping off their Snicker's bars and we would be safe.

Parts of the trail were kind of muddy, which you don’t really expect in the dry season in southern Florida. But, there has been a lot of rain this winter. Crazy amounts of rain. Although there appeared to be hoof prints from wild pigs in the mud, I summoned my courage to keep walking forward on the trail, taking pictures to document our perilous adventures in the jungle. (#slightexaggeration)

We came across a little bridge. I love bridges. They make great photo ops. I tried to convince my friend to stand on the bridge so I could take her picture, but she refused and pointed at the water. It was gross. She was right. Definitely not a nice photo op.

Mosquitoes love this kind of thing. Give them a pool of gross, stagnant water and they’re happy as can be. But, give them a pool of gross, stagnant water with two humans standing next to it and they’re in heaven. Mosquitoes love human blood like wild pigs love Snicker’s bars. (#noexaggeration)

Fortunately, the red trail was even shorter than the yellow trail, so we managed to get back out to the picnic area quickly and away from the evil, blood-sucking mosquitoes. The good thing about going for a walk is that you have no guilt afterwards for eating a Snicker's bar. After all, what's the point in burning off all those calories if you're not going to replace them? (#wastenotwantnot)

Have you ever been trampled on by wild pigs or had another exciting wildlife encounter?

If you want to see more of our Going for a Walk posts, click on Walk on the right hand side under the Labels section. 

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Life Is Short

We had a reminder this weekend about how short life is. It doesn’t really matter what this particular reminder was. We all get them. Every. Single. Day.

Sometimes, they’re subtle and we don’t notice them.

Sometimes, we’re in a rush and we don’t pay attention.

Other times, they’re loud and unmistakable. They stop you in your tracks and you remember -  life is short. So very, very short.

One of the reasons that Scott and I wanted to go off adventuring before "normal" retirement age is that we know life is short. We know health is a gift that can be quickly taken away from you. We want to have adventures that make us smile now while we still have our teeth. {Flossing every day would probably help with that as well.}

As many of you probably know, I'm a bit of a blog junkie. I read all kinds of blogs, but the ones that really resonate with me are those written by people living life a bit differently. Often, it's because they know life is a one time offer and they want to use it well.

Sometimes, they've had a loud and unmistakable reminder that life is short which caused them to re-examine what's really important to them (like this chap who is fulfilling his sailing dream after experiencing health issues). Others have been touched by the loss of a loved one which inspires them and others to live their life fully now, rather than later (like these folks who named their boat after someone they lost).

There's lots of examples out there to remind us that life is short. Do you have one? Have you changed how you live your life as a result? I'd love to hear it and I bet other folks would too.

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A Different Kind Of Bathroom {Or Boat Living Is Weird}

Living on a boat is weird. Sometimes, you forget how weird it is until non-boatie friends come to visit. But, when you see your home through the eyes of a landlubber, then you remember how truly weird it all is.

A month or so ago, I wrote a post about how strange a friend of mine found it to knock on our front door and come through the doorway of our boat for a visit (you can read it here). Of course, by knocking, I mean tapping on the hull, and by coming through the doorway, I mean climbing over things and doing impossible yoga moves as you make your way through the companionway and acquire bruises climbing down the ladder. Surprisingly, this turned out to be one of our more popular posts. Which just goes to show you that when it comes to blogging, you never know what’s going to resonate with your readers.

So, I thought I would do a follow-up post – this time, how different bathrooms on a boat seem to landlubbers.

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After having a few beers, eventually you’re going to have to use the bathroom. Unless of course, you’re in your twenties and you can go through a case of beer without every needing to take a pee or worry about getting a beer belly. For the rest of us middle-aged folks, after a couple of cups of coffee or a few beers, we’re going to need to heed nature’s call. On land, it’s pretty simple. The bathrooms are straightforward. They look something like this.

So, when you say to your hosts, Hey, can I use the bathroom?, the last thing you’re expecting is to be told that (1) it isn’t a bathroom, it’s a “head” and (2) you need training before you can operate the toilet.

Training? Are you kidding? It’s just a bathroom. You’ve been doing this ever since you graduated from potty training and started wearing big kid pants. And what’s this nonsense about calling the bathroom a head? Clearly, your hosts started drinking long before you came over for a visit because now they’re calling rooms in their boat after body parts. What’s next, calling the kitchen the digestive tract?
 
You have a peek inside the bathroom (you’re refusing to call it a head, no need to reinforce your hosts' crazy talk). Looks pretty normal. There’s a sink and a toilet. So far so good. For some reason though, the soap seems to be attached to the counter with velcro. That’s kind of weird.

Then you look around a bit more and notice there isn’t a shower in the bathroom. Maybe there’s one in the other bathroom.

Nope, your hosts inform you, this is the one an only head on board. If you want to take a shower, you have to hang a curtain up to protect the sink and toilet from water spray and then you hose yourself down.
 

Okay, this is crazy talk. How much did these people drink before you came over? Who takes a shower standing in the middle of the bathroom? And why do they keep calling it a head? You look up to see if you can see the shower head – nothing. Your hosts shows you how the faucet in the sink can pull out and be used to shower with. This is the kind of thing you see in kitchens to wash dishes with. This is not how people shower. These boat people are really weird.

Then they tell you that’s it’s all theoretical anyway because the pump for the shower is disconnected and you can’t take a shower in the head anyways. When they want to take a shower, they go to the shower block at a marina or take a solar shower in the cockpit. Sounds like a hassle. How often do they shower anyway? Is that why they smell a bit funky? You're definitely not staying overnight on this boat.

By this time, you really have to pee so you ask what the deal is with the toilet and this training they talked about.

Your hosts start blabbering on about how you have to flip a switch one way to flush the toilet and the other way to empty the toilet into the PPB. Then they start having a heated discussion about whether you’re allowed to flush toilet paper down the head. {Again, with that head nonsense.} One of them says you have to dispose of it in a bag so the system doesn’t get clogged up, the other says you can flush three sheets down at a time.

You offer not to use any toilet paper just so that you can shut them up and get on with it. By now, it’s been a long time since that last beer.

Okay, you’re feeling much better now. You remember that your hosts talked about a PPB and you foolishly ask them about it. Apparently, it stands for Pee & Poo Box and doesn’t have anything to do with PB&J sandwiches. They explain that’s how they refer to their holding tank.

Whoa. Back up a minute. Their holding tank? You mean they carry around pee and boo in a box in their boat? Gross! Definitely never buying a boat. Oh, how you wish you had never brought the topic up. Now, they want to show you how the whole pee and poo system works. They take you up into the cockpit and open up the lazarette.

Looks like an untidy storage cupboard to you. But underneath all of that stuff are a lot of hoses and the infamous PPB. They point at something called a y-valve and explain how this is the control center of the pee and poo disposal operation on board. Turn it one way, everything goes directly overboard. Turn it another way and everything goes into the PPB. Way too much information.

It’s all so confusing. So many hoses going in and out of the lazarette. One of your hosts shows you the labels they made so they know exactly which way their pee and poo is going. Wow, seriously, who gets that excited about a label maker?

After showing you the lazarette, your hosts offer you another beer. You gladly accept. Anything to help your forget about the whole PPB thing and how weird the bathroom is on their boat. Not to mention how weird your hosts are for living on a boat, let alone making a label for their PPB.

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Instagram #98

I've experienced a tremendous amount of growth in the past few years. Mind you, it isn't any sort of deeply personal spiritual growth earned through good works, meditation and fasting. No, my growth is more of the shallow and superficial kind earned through having way too many social media accounts.

From someone who didn't even have a Facebook account until about two years ago, I find it astonishing that I've grown my social media presence and also have Pinterest, Google+ and YouTube accounts. So far, I've resisted Twitter. For some reason, it just doesn't appeal to me. Probably because there aren't any pictures.

I like pictures. Sometimes, words can get in the way of your imagination - they try to funnel you down a predetermined linear path. Pictures are far more relaxed about life. They're happy for you to just look at them and think about whatever you want. Go ahead, they say, get lost in us and daydream.

Maybe that's why I'm loving Instagram now. It's my latest social media obsession. What could be better than just getting lost looking at pretty pictures all day on your phone. Well, I'll tell you what could be better - having unlimited cellular data so that you can stare at pretty pictures all day long on your phone without worrying about how much it's going to cost you in extra data. {Sorry, one of my dock neighbors was telling me about his unlimited plan. I'm a wee bit jealous.}

I actually started an Instagram account last year, but I got distracted with other things. My friend, Jessica, got me back into it a couple of months ago. {By the way, she's got an amazing Instagram account, you can spend hours daydreaming while you're looking at her pictures.} I just realized that I've been so obsessed with Instagram that I've got 98 pictures posted up there as of today and should be on track to hit 100 this Friday.

Yes, that's shallow and superficial growth in a nutshell - I'm excited because we hit #98 on Instagram.

I know some of you follow our Instagram account (thank you!), but not everyone hangs out there, so I thought I'd share a few of our favorite Instagram pictures so far. Sit back, grab an iced tea or a cup of coffee, have a look and do some daydreaming of your own.

If you have an Instagram account and I'm not already following you, please leave the details in the comments so that I can get lost daydreaming in your pictures too.

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National Parks

By far and away, pictures from our travels to our amazing National Parks are some of our most popular. {And, yes, I'm a latergram kind of gal.} The one on the left is from Joshua Tree National Park in California. I love the giant boulders and cacti throughout the park. The one on the right is from Arches National Park in Utah. The contrast between the mountains in the background and the crazy rock formations in the foreground is a good reminder of how awesome Mother Nature is.

The Water

It probably comes as no surprise that we've got some beach, seascapes and other water related pictures on Instagram. The one on the left is from the Florida Keys and the one on the right is from Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos, Bahamas.

Sunset & Moonrise

Everybody loves a good sunset shot, like the one on the right from Shell Mound in Florida. But, moonrises are pretty spectacular too, like the one on the left from Death Valley National Park.

Critters & Wee Beasties

I love when animals pose for the camera. Like this rooster from Key West and this armadillo from Manatee Springs State Park in Florida.

Crazy Cat Ladies

For some reason our pictures of cats aren't super popular. Where are all the crazy cat ladies on Instagram? The adorable kittens on the left are feral boatyard cats. They're now all grown up, but they're still darn cute. The cat on the right is Francesca, my sister's cat. She was my very first Instagram picture. Sadly, Francesca has now crossed the rainbow bridge. She was a good cat. If you have a cat, dog, hedgehog or other kind of pet, go give them an extra cuddle and plenty of treats.

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