It’s starting to sink in

Mel is writing this from the trampoline, gazing at Port Antonio and her hurt toe.  We are all a little tired today, as Mel forced everyone to finally do a touristy thing and raft down the Rio Grande on a bamboo raft.  Fun!  This was necessary, as our daily grind of Greg working all day on the boat while Mel cleans and the kids hide to avoid cleaning was getting OLD.  If the boat needs that much maintenance long-term, we are turning around and going HOME.  Fortunately, Greg got the inverters working and now we can run the A/C without the generator!  So hopefully the daily “boat chores” will be down to only an hour or two.  Or else!

Mel threw Beth Leonard’s well-written, perfectly innocent, and detailed Voyager’s Handbook across the saloon yesterday.  Reading all of the maintenance recommended on a minute-by-minute basis pissed her off.  Maybe at some point in the future she will do daily inspections of all the shit on the boat that will just fail and imperil her, but right now she just can’t deal.  I mean, at home in Minnesota she didn’t even know that the “fuse box” is now called a “circuit breaker.”  Give her a break, Marvin!  She has just changed EVERYTHING about her life!  I mean, there are frickin’ BAY LEAVES in her flour!

Today, however, was a good day.  Because while placidly rafting down the crystal-clear Rio Grande, which she took on faith did not contain shistosomes (we will see,) she realized that she was NOT DICTATING NOTES.  And that is AWESOME.