But actually, that was only partially true. We did get sucked into the humdrum of working full time jobs and surrendering to a boring routine of going to work, buying groceries, taking out the trash, fixing the dinghy motor, going out occasionally with friends, watching stupid movies at night, and trivial daily crap that in many ways was not worthy of blogging about. AND, there were ALSO such big and important things going on that we didn’t even know how to write about them, and we became paralyzed for awhile about how to convey our journey to you, our readers.

For our journey, though it has recently not included much sailing or traveling, has indeed continued in profound ways. While we thought we were working towards our “plan”, which was to save up money to take our boat cruising to the Carribbean and Central America, God had other things in mind for us.

In August we found out that a Wee One had decided to join us in our adventures!

Yes, that’s right, we are expecting a baby!

It’s an exciting surprise for all of us!

Here is a brief sidenote for those of you who may have wondered silently what our situation was regarding having or not having children.
I, Lala, am the mother of a wonderful boy named Diego, who was killed in 2002 in a tragic car accident at the age of 6. That is another huge, profound story and journey entirely that I don’t go into here. Cap’t K and I tried for quite some time to conceive a child together. After several miscarriages and a ticking biological clock, it seemed that maybe we were not destined to be parents, and so we decided to go off on a sailing adventure instead. We went through quite a process of removing ourselves from the “rat-race” lifestyle, giving ourselves a certain “unstable freedom” that may not be viewed by some as compatible with raising children. And then….surprise! A little soul has finally chosen us, and decided that now is the time to enter this world through us.

And so it is that we are on a journey to become parents together.

So now what? The thought occurred to us that maybe we should get a house and a car and steady jobs and settle down and be “normal” people again. But, to be honest, even though that lifestyle definitely has it’s merits at times, the thought of settling down in that way was revolting to both of us, and we started scheming of creative ways to continue our adventures with the addition of the Wee One.

And, after working our butts off for a year in St. Augustine with the goal of going travelling, we didn’t want to just give that all up and stay put in boring Florida. But traveling and living on a small sailboat while pregnant/with a newborn seemed like a bit too much even for us adventurous souls. It seemed that some sort of break from living on our boat was in order. Then, one day a friend planted a seed in our minds. He said “Did you know that if you give birth to your baby in Costa Rica, the baby will automatically get dual citizenship and the parents can qualify for permanent residency?” Hmmmmmm, no we didn’t know that, but hey, that sure is a nice idea…..

After leaving New England in part due to the cold weather, and after having lived in Florida for a year and found it not to be our dream location, we had been brainstorming about places to live or visit that had a specific list of criteria:
1. Mountains AND ocean
2. warm climate
3. good food and water
4. like minded people
5. affordable

Hmmmm……Costa Rica fits that description perfectly. Maybe we should check it out!
At first it sounded downright crazy…..going to a foreign country where we barely know anyone to give birth?! But there were many things that were tempting about it, as well, and we couldn’t quite get the idea out of our minds. So we began researching the option of going to Costa Rica for the birth of our baby. And, to make a long story short, we decided to do it.
We decided this for two main reasons: we wanted to give ourselves several months of relaxed retreat together to fully enjoy this special time, AND we want to secure the option of being able to live in Costa Rica as residents in the future if we so choose.

Next came several months of preparation to leave the United States and set up a temporary residence in Costa Rica for 3 months.

That preparation included continuing to work our butts off to save money, as well as a long list of things to get in order to be away. One of the main goals was to finally sell our first boat, Wee Happy. The sale of this boat had been delayed many months by a long list of random things, and it was getting down to the wire to sell it before our departure in mid-February. I was worried that it may take months to sell and that we wouldn’t be able to do it before we left. After all, boats in this economy don’t just sell in a week, right?!

Wrong! Within an hour of the listing going up on the internet, we were flooded with inquiries. The very first one was from a young couple who happened to be nearby and who wanted to come look at the boat the next day. They came and looked at it, and made an offer to us the very next day. We felt that they were a perfect couple to take over possession of the legendary Wee Happy, and everything lined up in such a way that the sale was completed in only a few days! Wee Happy was sold in under a week!! The couple who bought her is even more crazy than we are, and so our dear boat will be sure to have lots of amazing adventures with them.

Detail after detail fell into place, including the other 2 big questions of “What to do with our cats and our boat while we are gone?” Cats as special as ours needed a special kind of situation, with someone who appreciated how awesome they are and who could give them the love and attention they deserved. And our boat, well, that is another long story, but to make it short we were either going to put it in storage in a boat yard, or keep it on a mooring ball. And then the perfect solution presented itself: our dear friends Syd and Heather have a daughter who LOVES cats and needed a cheap place to live. Voila! We found a great cat sitter AND boat sitter in one by offering her a place to live on our boat with our sweet kitties while we are away.

But what about the pirate ship and the great jobs we had working on the water? Well, let’s just say that all good things have their end, and those jobs were great fun and an awesome experience while they lasted, but it was time to move on! (and let’s face it, wearing a corset with a sword hanging off my belt and a pregnant belly just do not go together!)

So it all lined up and we managed to get ourselves off our boat and onto a plane to Costa Rica, where we are currently enjoying an abundance of fresh tropical fruit and views of the ocean from the comfort of a little rented house on a lush mountainside! More details about our experience in Costa Rica will be coming in the next blog posts.

Also, please note that we have now decided to have our primary blog be located at www.weehappy.com. “Wee Happy” is more than just a boatname (and the boat formerly known as Wee Happy is continuing her adventures under a different name). Wee Happy reflects our philosophy of living happily with less, of appreciating the little things, and NOW, it also will include the addition of the Wee One as a new member of our happy family!

Our plans to go traveling this winter in our boat are feeling intangible and far away at the moment.  Our efforts to put away a bunch of cash is progressing more slowly than we had hoped. 

But even though I may be feeling burnt out from working 6-7 days a week at two jobs, Capt K finally has a new exciting job that he is enjoying a lot.  And how could he not?  He gets to take a fun sporty boat out in search of dolphin and wildlife sightings!  How cool of a job is that?  He is working for an ecotour company that takes small groups out on sightseeing expeditions in the waters around St. Augustine.  He truly is Capt K now!

In other news, we have been housesitting for the last week and have been thouroughly spoiled by having a/c, a huge bathroom, and wonderful things like floors and countertops.  It has been a nice break from the boat, almost too nice.  Although we love our boat, we are a bit sick of living on it right now.  We might need a longer break than a week….but even though the idea of renting a studio apartment is appealing, it would slow down our money saving plan even more. 

So it goes.  We are cruisers in the drudgery of waiting to go cruising.

Captain K, however has a fun new job that he is enjoying.  He is working as a captain for Ecotours, a small excursion company that takes out small groups to look at wildlife.  What a cool job!!!  He is learning a lot and getting to see a lot of rare dolphin and manatee encounters. The other day he got to hang out with a whole group of mating manatees! How romantic! Well, not really….but interesting!

Although we have our goal of saving money to sail to the Carribean/ Central America this winter, at the moment that feels vague and far away. We are just plodding along trying to beef up our bank account, which is not happening as fast as we had hoped.

We did have a one week respite from living on our boat. We got to housesit for a wonderful lady who has graciously let me set up my floor loom, which I use for weaving, in her house. So we not only got to luxuriate in air conditioning, but I also got to weave to my heart’s content! Here is a bit of what I’ve been weaving:

We fully appreciated the marvels of a house, with all it’s wonders such as countertops and floors. Our cats came along too, and made friends with the dog we were taking care of! Truth be told, as much as we love our boat, we are a bit sick of living on it right now. If we were traveling it would be one thing, but just living on it while working is making it feel small…

There you have it, the drudgeries of cruisers waiting to go cruising.

We stuffed it all in another storage unit and now face the daunting task of downsizing once again. Along with that comes the question “how much more do we want to downsize?” “Is it worth it to keep stuff we MIGHT need someday!” At what point is the value of our sentimental possessions that we aren’t using but don’t want to get rid of not worth saving anymore?
We haven’t quite answered these questions yet. At the moment we are so busy working we don’t have much time to do much else anyway! But hey, now that we have a storage unit here we can offload some extra crap off our boat and put it there!

We took a little vacation and sailed our boat to our favorite nearby spot – Cumberland Island.  Wow was it good to get our boat out sailing!  We had an epic overnight sail there.  For once all conditions aligned in our favor –  perfect wind, calm seas, a gorgeous full moon.  We even timed our exit and entrance of the inlets to be in daylight and it worked.  We even made it all the way to the anchorage under sail alone.  It was awesome!!
We spent 3 days enjoying the island.  We encountered a lot of rain but overall it was a sweet time.  Here a few pics:

Trevor relaxes with a cold one.

Sarada meets a newborn wil horse!!  This horse was not well however, and we sadly discovered later that he did not make it.

One of the biggest live oaks on the island.

The magnolia trees were still blooming!

Here’s a few of the highlights of what feels good right now:

Cap’t K is officially a Captain now, having passed his exam with flying colors!  He is already training in for an exciting new job using his Captian’s license.  It is with a local tour company that does eco-tours in the local area with a variety of small boats.  He is on his way to living the dream of getting paid to go out sailing!

I am thrilled to report that I have miraculously scored a free weaving studio in the Lightner Building, which is a gorgeous historic building here in St. Augustine.  It is a 5 minute walk from the marina.  I’m doing some volunteering with the St. Augustine Textile Guild, and in exchange I am getting access to their studio space that has a fully functional floor loom in it!  I have been an avid weaver for over 10 years, and for me, the single hardest thing about moving onto a boat has been that I have not been able to weave on my floor looms, which are sadly in storage.  Now, for the first time in several years, I have SPACE and a loom to work on!  I’m going over there every spare minute I have and loving it!

Here is the courtyard of the Lightner Building, where “my” studio is:

Beautiful, huh?!?

And here is some fabric I’m weaving right now:

Like I said, life is good.  The weather has been basically nice every day, although it is starting to get a bit hot.  We better get used to it — hot is what we are in for this summer!

Here is a photo of us in St. Petersburg while we were visiting the Salvador Dali Museum. (which is highly recommended by the way)

Coming to St. Petersburg means we get to visit our good sailing friends Rich and Mimi. They live here and almost convinced us to stay here last fall, although St. Augustine won our hearts.

We know from previous experience with them they they enjoy playing games, so tonight we shared with them a new board game we have. It is called Nautical Trivia and involves answering trivia questions about sailing while navigating around a board game based on a map of Bermuda.

It also was a great way for Cap’t K to keep studying for his captains test even while taking a break! Here are a few sample questions for you readers:

1. Q: what is the proper term for the place where the anchor chain is stored?

A: chain locker

2. Q: The duration of a dog watch is
a) 1 hour
b) 2 hours
c) 4 hours

A. 2 hours

3. Q: leaning the mast aft is called
a) raking the mast
b) arcing the mast
c) stepping the mast

A: raking the mast

4. Q: name the 1st Officer who led the mutiny on the HMS Bounty.

A. Fletcher Christian

(you would have thought I could get that one right after just visiting the Bounty last week, but that question stumped me!)

We love this game and invite anyone to come play it with us to test their sailing knowledge!

- Capt’n K & Lala

Location:St. Petersburg

It created quite the fanfare arriving into St. Augustine.

She stayed all weekend while throngs of people came out to see her. The crew of the Black Raven toured the boat yesterday. Here are a few pics of us on the Bounty.

Lala at the helm!

Nice ass/>

The pirate crew.

So many lines!!

And, from our dinghy, a view up the ladys dress very few people get to see!!

For the last 6 weeks or so, there has been a big dredging operation going on at the marina.  A huge barge with a Caterpillar on top of it has been scooping out silt and sediment which has been accumulating in the inner basin of the marina.  To give you an idea of how shallow it was getting, I used to run aground in our dinghy at low tide near the dinghy dock! 

The other day I was coming to shore in the dinghy and noticed the barge was partially submerged under water.  Hmmm, that looks strange, I thought.  It appears to be sinking.  The guys working on the barge didn’t look too stressed, however, and I shrugged it off.  Later that day I returned to find the whole barge under water, with only the Caterpillar sticking out.  It sank!!!  It would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic.

They have been trying to pump water out for 2 days now to raise it to no avail, and it seems to be anyones guess how they plan to deal with it from here.  Meanwhile the whole fiasco is the talk of the marina. 

And if that weren’t enough excitement, there is some kind of Nordic Tug convention going on and the marina is full of adorable boats like these: