I feel like I have a bit of a leg up on this stay-at-home/ social distancing thing because of my cruising experience, limited though it has been thus far. Last year we were aboard for four months and this year for almost three. Those experiences have helped me a little during this pandemic, especially with food and isolation.
Provisioning for and eating while living aboard has made it significantly easier to adapt to the current shopping situation here at home. Common ingredients can be difficult to find now, people are eating almost all their meals at home, and many try to stock up so they don’t have to shop weekly. For many this is a huge learning curve to surmount. For me it has become quite familiar. We often can’t find specific ingredients we want while cruising. We can’t just run to the grocery store to pick up something we forgot or ran out of. We have to plan on having 4+ weeks of three meals a day on board at the start of a trip because we’re never sure when we’ll be able to get to a grocery store again and we eat most of our meals on board. Because of these experiences we are better at making due without certain items and at being creative with what we can get and what we have on hand. We’ve also had plenty of opportunity to examine how we eat (preferences and quantities) so we can shop accordingly when the time comes and not be bored with our daily cuisine. I feel for those who don’t have this experience.
Writing about grocery shopping reminds me of another lesson from cruising that is applicable now in the midst of the pandemic. Usually when we’re home, if it occurs to us that we need or want something, we just hop in the car and go get it. We can’t do that living on board. Shopping while cruising requires research and planning. Where can we get ashore? Where are the stores we need? Will we walk, hire a ride or rent a car? So we start a shopping list often several days in advance, revisit it regularly, start researching the area in which we will shop, and on shopping day have a plan of attack for getting what we need in the most efficient way possible. Since we arrived home in the midst of this pandemic and literally fresh off the boat, we were still in this mindset and it pays off. The last thing we need is to expose ourselves to potential infection more frequently. So we plan our trips even now with efficiency and safety in mind- a couple of hours driving around for 2 to 3 stops; it takes one mask and some hand sanitizer. We try to keep it to one trip each in a week. So far so good.
While cruising, Dave and I often find ourselves isolated for several days in a row, sometimes intentionally, other times based on circumstance (weather, remote anchorage). Cruising has also made me familiar with being away from family and friends for long chunks of time with only virtual means of communication available. Notice I said “familiar with” rather than “used to” or “comfortable with.” I still don’t like that aspect of cruising, but at least it feels familiar as we employ similar means of keeping in touch now. It doesn’t feel quite so unusual to be isolated here at home with intermittent interactions with others. Granted, the interactions are different, but they’re still interactions. Here at home I actually enjoy more frequent contact with family and friends, even if it is mostly virtual. While in the Bahamas during this pandemic, our social interaction with others was mostly boat to dinghy. Normally cruisers would invite each other onboard for sundowners or a shared meal. Alas that was not to be this time around, so boat to boat conversations had to suffice. We’ve adapted that experience to visiting with my immediate family here at home. We gather outside when it’s nice, but bring our own chairs and sit at least six feet apart. It may require extra clothing layers and a blanket, but at least we can talk face to face. If it’s too windy, we use the garage.
You know what I really miss? I miss hugs. Dave is the only person with whom I’ve had physical contact for 3 weeks now. In composing my thoughts for this post I realized that for two solid months last summer as we cruised the Chesapeake, Dave and I were each other’s only physical contact other than a brief two-day visit with a cousin and his wife. I don’t recall feeling like I was being denied physical contact for those two months. I suppose it’s because we were still in close proximity to others in the various venues we visited weekly if not daily, having conversations face to face. It feels very different now, though. Now I can visit my family in person but we can’t touch. That’s hard. I can’t imagine how difficult this time is for people who live alone.
I still have a lot to learn about living aboard. I’m taking the opportunity while isolating ashore to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned already and reading other cruiser’s blogs to learn how they deal with various aspects of the cruising life. One thing I’m focusing on now is what to provision and what to plan to make from scratch. One thing I’ve learned about food on board is that it’s often easier to have raw ingredients on hand and to make things from scratch. While here ashore in relative isolation I have time to experiment and practice. Tonight, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, I will be making my own corn tortillas for tacos. This will be accompanied by beans and rice, but I started with dry black beans. I’ll let you know how it goes in my next post, when I think I will talk more about food, waste and garbage on board.
Until next time, stay healthy and take care of each other!
Life on Lady 
I probably miss hugs the most. It’s been more than 8 weeks for us. At least I have Tony.
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