Headed Back to Storyville!

Storyville in the anchorage at Hog Island, Grenada

Yes! That's right. We are getting really excited about our visit back to Storyville for several reasons. Mainly because we miss her and we miss our life on the water.

It's been a tough and emotionally draining six months that we've been back in Texas. My mom passed away in June after a long illness. Fortunately my family and I were able to care for her at home (with the help of hospice care) and that was a blessing as she was terrified of having to go to a nursing home. Still, the emotional drain of watching someone you love waste away is very difficult. Thank God that I have the best husband, friends and family in the whole world. When times were tough I always knew I had a shoulder to lean on or to cry on or to laugh with. Whatever I needed at the moment and whether they were near or far.

I feel so blessed to know that I have people who love and support me. And they are everywhere! One of the many reasons for that is our cruising life. I truly felt the love and support from my cruising friends and other friends that we have met along the way and I know how fortunate and blessed I am to have all of these awesome people in my life. Thank you all for your love and support.

As I mentioned in my last post, we've had some decisions to make this year. When we come back to Texas for a visit we almost always stay with my mom. Well, now that we are preparing to sell her house we started thinking about what that would mean to us and our visits. We are lucky that all of our children and grandchildren live in the same area so we know that we will be returning here every year. In fact, we have decided that we like the idea of returning here in the summer. It's hurricane season and we plan to leave Storyville under the care of Richard (our Grenadian family) during the summer and return to Texas to visit with our family here. So...... we decided to buy a land yacht.

When we starting thinking about our options this was the only one that really made any sense to us. It seems that we have become gypsies and cannot fathom planting ourselves in one place without the option to travel. We are addicted to the traveling lifestyle. Not to mention that we have also discovered that we really prefer living in small spaces. We are working really hard not to accumulate too many belongings since we have already been through the process of paring them down once. It seems that living on land (and also dealing with so many of my mom's possessions) has us once more dealing with an abundance of "stuff". It really is an ongoing battle.

Land Shark????

Anyway, once the decision was made we shopped around and decided on a 2003 Winnebago. She is in good shape, but of course, she needed a little work and some upgrades. Troy has been working hard on getting her ready for us by installing new flooring and a new airconditioning unit (after all, we will be living in Texas, in the summer - so A/C is essential). This week we are working on moving into the RV before we return to Storyville for a visit. It's been a busy week but we are both really excited about our new home - we are working on a name for her. What do you think about "Land Shark"?

We are also really excited about returning to Storyville. We miss her, our life on the water and our Grenadian family and cruising friends. We will be helping celebrate the marriage of two of our Grenadian family (Alesha and Bruce) and we can't wait to see what a Grenadian wedding will be like. Plus, Luna can't wait to get back to the beach. We will be back on Storyville for the month of October, then back to Texas to have an estate sale, get the house on the market and get other business taken care of. It's a busy time for us, but we are hoping that things will slow down soon and we can figure out just what normal will look like for us.

Luna can't wait to get back to the beach!

This a a video of Storyville under full sail in the Bahamas.  It's a little blurry, but I still love seeing her sail in blue water.  The video was taken over a year ago and we've put many miles under the keel since then.   Enjoy!

To reach a port we must sail - sail, not lie at anchor - sail,  not drift. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Up anchor! Up anchor!

Set sail and away!

The ventures of dreamland

Are thine for a day.

~Silas Weir Mitchell

Storyville gets a Nature's Head

We recently decided that it was time to start thinking about replacing the heads on Storyville. For all my land lubber friends, you probably know me well enough by now to realize that I'm talking about the toilets on the boat. I know what you're thinking – gross. It get's even grosser (is that a word?) when you think about the hoses and holding tanks and everything that has passed through them in the last 30 years.

We have several friends that are using waterless composting toilets. It just makes so much sense for us so, we decided that it was worth looking into. It would mean that we could do away with two thru hull – don't worry about what that is if you're not a boater, but if you are, you know what a benefit that is – and, bonus, we would get rid of all those stinky hoses and the holding tank as well. Creating more room for storage. Just kind of plug and play, so to speak.

We decided to try to bring one back with us from our visit to Houston. The packing box was just under the airlines size requirements and well under their weight requirements. We were still a little nervous, not knowing what to expect with the shipping. It all went incredibly smoothly. We were stopped by customs when we entered the DR. They sent the box through their scanner and decided that they needed a better look. They were a little surprised when they opened the box. You should have seen the look on the inspector's face when he lifted the lid! I guess he was worried that we were traveling with a used toilet. Oh well, it worked! Free shipping.

Anyways, we got the toilet back to Storyville and she is now fully installed, thanks to Troy's hard work. The removal of the old system was the worst part of the ordeal and I will spare you the details. Let's just say that Troy is my hero for handling that stinky, nasty job.

It took us a little while to find the composting material. We took our Dominican friend, who speaks great English, with us to 3 different nursery’s, but the language barrier proved to be too high because he didn't know what peat moss was and we couldn't describe it. They really don't have much use for that here, I guess because the ground is very fertile. We did a little more research and decided to try a mix of coconut husks, banana leaves and mulch. Wish me luck.

Let the composting begin!

We give a great big thanks to Gene Cupples, owner of Eco-mmode, distributor for Nature's Head in the Kemah area. Click the link above to learn more, or give him a call at 419/306-3351.

The old head, ready to come out

Nature's Head

Ready to remove the old system (yuck)

That is a picture of "gross" right there.  The old holding bag.

Ready to compost!

Installed and ready to go!