I’m swaying. Rocking. Like I’m still on the boat. But I’m not. I KNOW I’m not. I just feel like I am. I only notice it when I’m still. And I don’t dare close my eyes without holding onto something. PinkGirl and FavoriteSon both fell over in the shower last night. Poor kids. Their mother should have warned them not to close their eyes in the shower or to make sure they hold onto the wall if they do.
oops.
See, when you spend all day on a boat, it’s not uncommon to feel like you are still swaying when you are on dry land later. Some call it Mal de Debarquement Syndrome, some argue that your inner ear is out of whack and needs to get back to normal, some refer to it as “sea legs” versus “land legs.” Some people claim it lasts for days or weeks.
In our case, we spend the day trying to stay balanced despite the motion of the waves and when we get home – when we are still – we can really feel it. And when we close our eyes? We can REALLY feel it. I notice it the most when I close my eyes in the shower to rinse the shampoo out of my hair and when I lay down to go to sleep that night. In the shower, I have to hold onto the wall. At bedtime, I just eventually fall asleep. It appears FavoriteSon and PinkGirl have the same problem.
It’s weird. Strange. Wrong.
But thankfully, the rocking is usually gone by the next morning.
PinkGirl was definitely feeling it last night when she closed her eyes to go to sleep, but she was so wiped out she crashed anyway.
Me: “So, what should the post title be? ‘Here we go again.’ or ‘Third time’s a charm.'”
FirstHusband: “Some People Never Learn.”
Me: “And we have a winner!”
We bought a BOAT!
Again.
We bought our first boat when we were newly married but when life got busy and we stopped using it, we sold it. We bought our second boat in April of 2008. Long story short? Very expensive lesson. The engine died on us 5 miles off shore and I had to hand pump the fuel line to the kicker engine to get us back to land. Not my favorite day. The engine? Uneconomically repairable. The boat? Unsellable. Because the nicest looking guy, who thinks his boat is great – can be WRONG. And we bought it. But, like I said, we learned from the experience.
Our third boat:
We paid a mechanic $300 to thoroughly check it out (an expensive test, but well worth it) and test drove it before we bought it. Learn from our previous mistakes. Do not buy a boat without DRIVING it in the water and no matter what – pay an objective, third party, professional boat mechanic to completely check it out! Then buy the boat.
We took our new boat out on the Banana River on Easter afternoon and on the ocean today. GREAT experience. We saw porpoises yesterday and sea turtles today.
PinkGirl loves it!
FavoriteSon loves it too, but he’s 14 and does not easily pose for photos.
Me? I’ve said this before. You can actually feel the tension sliding off your shoulders when you’re on a boat as you travel out the channel out to open water. NOTHING like it.
FirstHusband: “There’s a shade of blue that the ocean takes on when you get far enough from shore that neither Bill Gates nor Home Depot can color match on a computer. No matter how much Earnest Hemingway you read or how much Jimmy Buffet you listen to, the ocean has to be experienced to be truly appreciated.
We have a new favorite thing about boating. Our previous favorite thing used to be the experience of heading east out of Port Canaveral on a cool morning, our new favorite thing is each of us taking a turn saying a prayer for the day’s family trip as we head east out of Port Canaveral in the morning.