How's the boating life ?

  I was asked that question today in an email from a colleague at Barkley. I have yet been asked that question since begining our journey a couple weeks ago. I'm not really sure I'm fully qualified to answer that in the broad sense of the question but I can if the question is "How's the boating life for the Kings"? Actually it stumped me for the better part of the day and finally I decided to answer the question with a brief description of a Day in the Life. Here it is.

  I slept incredibly well last night. Apparently though some pretty rough weather according to Cherie.  I awoke around 6:30 before the sun, fired up the stove to prepare my morning coffee fix then poked my head out the companionway to check that we hadn't floated off into the mangroves during the night which we hadn't, so I slid back into the warm belly of Pura Vida to sip my Starbucks instant coffee and connect to the world via Google. The next thing I know I'm sipping on a dry coffee mug and my battery is down to 18% and surprisingly it's 10am. Ok time to start thing about the day ahead of us. Well about that time Cherie emerges from the "Captains Cabin"  adorns me with a sweet Valentines card, makes an incredible breakfast and like the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean she says, " Time to get to work swabbie".  We have to get over to the fuel dock to fill the water tanks, empty the waste tanks and give Pura Vida a good cleaning. So I jump up like a good hand and prepare the boat to move, drop the mooring and move Pura Vida over to the fuel dock, do our chores and motor back over to the mooring. Ok it's about 11:30 now. Next we get ready to go to the boating store to pick-up a couple of spare spark plugs for our dinghy outboard and swing by the grocery store to pick-up a few items. The bus to town swings by the marine precisely at 10 min past the hour. And they run this system like a Tokyo train so you better be there, they don't wait for you even if you are in their eye site. Or if your wife happens to be in the bathroom precisely at 10min past the hour which happens more times than you think but not today. So off we go to do our errands for the day. We're back at 2:30 which is perfect nap time. So lights out for an hour. Ok now it's 3:30 and it's reading time. Cherie gets horizontal below and loses herself in a juicy romance novel on her Nook while I assume my position in the cockpit and get in a few good chapters of my new murder trial novel. It's raining pretty heavy now so no beach today. So a good time to catch-up on a few boat projects that we have put off like we all do. Time to clean the strainer on the engine intake hose. Sounds simple but nothing is simple on a sailboat. The strainer is buried under a floorboard and wedged behind 3 sizable hoses. Anyway an hour later the strainer is cleared of debris and not surprisingly pieces of Jellyfish.  It's pretty gross to clean up pieces of any dead animal but Jellyfish are about as gross as it gets.  Ok it's about 5pm now so it's time to start thinking about dinner but first it's cocktail hour and like any good boater we never miss a cocktail hour. It also means it's time to run the generator for an hour or so to get a good charge on the batteries. So cocktails, dinner (Fish Tacos with fresh Mahi) and a noisy generator running and now it's 7:30. Turn off the genny and tune in the Jazz on our XM radio and tonights entertainment will be reading. Some nights it's cards or stones as we call them or some game out of our game inventory. Once or twice a week it's cocktails on a another boat or entertaining other boaters on Pura Vida. Nobody has TV so entertaining is common. So now it's 9:30 or 10 and it's lights out.

  So the boating life for the Kings is pretty sweet so far. We are never bored and everyday we exercise our bodies and minds. The incredible scenery changes every week or so and the anticipation of the next destination keeps us always searching for that next horizon. So the answer to the question is:  PURA VIDA