We’re Ba-ack!

OK, maybe you didn’t notice right off that we were actually gone since I’ve not exactly been Polly Productive out here on the blog, but we were off the boat and back in the U.S. for a few weeks.

Shortly after arriving in Fiji we parked Evenstar at Port Denerau Marina near the town of Nadi on Viti Levu here in Fiji and left to visit friends and family back in the U.S. for a few weeks.  We had a whole host of reasons to go back, with Kathy’s father’s 80th birthday celebration leading the list plus other birthdays, graduations, and well…we just hadn’t been back in a while.

While this was obviously planned well in advance I debated about making too big of a deal about it on the blog.  The primary reason for the radio silence of course is security – I just didn’t want to make a huge production about leaving Evenstar empty for three weeks.  Although the Port Denerau Marina is a secure place it isn’t impenetrable and there was just no mroe sense advertising we weren’t home than there would be leaving your house empty with a “see you all in three weeks” sign on the front porch.

A Nice Visit

Our last visit to the states was over the Christmas holiday in 2013.  The general consensus after that trip was – “What were we thinking?”  It was cold and snowy and we had to borrow clothes and warm stuff when we stepped of the plane; it was 90 degrees when we boarded in Panama.  But more importantly the U.S. is simply an insane place in the month of December.  People are so focused on the impending holidays that they don’t have time to relax and just visit with you.  Tense, stressed and running around just isn’t our style any more.  Too many parties, too much shopping, too many places to be, too many ads and too much noise, and way too many obligations to really make “quality time”.  People were so busy we didn’t see half the folks we hoped to when we were there.  So we left feeling tired, cranky, cold and dissatisfied.

Where we used to live in Rhode Island is a blissful place in the summer, the weather is perfect and there is loads of natural beauty, oceans, beaches and so on. People go there in the summer because it is a nice place to be, unlike the snow and slush blasted wasteland we visited two years previously in the summer it is just a delightful spot.  Why it didn’t occur to us to make our visit in the summer when we love it there is beyond  me.

But more importantly with the school year wound down and summer ramping up people were just ready to…chill.  Which was nice.  My parents rented a place at the shore, my in-laws already own one where we stayed – and people had time.  Time to sit on the porch with a drink and talk, time to enjoy a leisurely meal and so on.  We had nice family gatherings on both sides of the family and caught up with people we missed in our last visit.  Lots of laughs and hugs and good times.  Our only regret was that we didn’t plan to stay for another week or two.

Can you go home, really?

There is still a lot to get used to heading back stateside after almost three years abroad.  The pace of life is still very different.  Consumerism is a strong force “back home”, with so much advertising and so many varieties of products and goods available.  Part of that we caused ourselves of course, being abroad so long there are many things we’ve not had easy access too and certain things are much cheaper and we came back with a long shopping list of things we needed for ourselves and the boat.  So we ended up doing clothes shopping, electronics shopping, getting new phones and tablets and shirts and a whole pile of stuff for the boat.  Considering I think Best Buy is a terrible place to buy consumer electronics it felt like we went there about twenty time.  We left Fiji with very little – three duffel bags – two small and one large one that wasn’t very full.  Coming back we had two suitcases and two large duffel bags loaded to within ounces of the 50 pound weight limit as well as extra carry on bags for everyone.

There are things we definitely miss about the states above and beyond just the people.  There are some foods that just aren’t right elsewhere – not fast food, you can get that anywhere.  But the U.S. really needs to work on spreading the Buffalo Chicken Pizza concept IMHO.  It is nice to be able to walk into a grocery and find everything you need, and having many options to choose from to fill your shopping list is nice.  On the whole though, it can be pretty overwhelming if you have stepped away from the noise and the bustle.  So it was welcoming…sort of…but since we don’t have a house there any more and things have changed a lot coming back to the boat still feels more like home.

What was in the bags?

In truth not everything we shopped for came back with us, much of it was college shopping for Will and was left in the states to be sent to the U.K. when he arrives in September.  But how did we fill up all those bags with 198 pounds of checked baggage?

• New jib sheets.  170′ of 3/4″ line.  Neither light or compact.
• Two new monstrously large snatch blocks
• Two pumps
• A new control head for the autopilot
• A bunch of oil booms (can’t seem to buy these anywhere)
• Many new clothes for everyone
• Shoes to do Imelda proud
• Cabin fans
• A toilet seat (seriously…the $45 Jabsco seat in the U.S. was $230 NZ bucks)
• Oil, air and fuel filters for the new generator.  $7.95 oil filter in the U.S. cost us $35 in NZ.
• 24V voltage regulator for the engine alternator
• Various smaller rigging bits and parts (the box from the rigger alone weighed 45 pounds with the sheets)
• Computer parts

Kathy did a masterful job packing our four checked bags, hitting 49, 49, 50 and 50 pounds.  Of course, we were allowed 4 x 50 lb bags on the way there, and didn’t find out until we checked in that we were allowed 8 x 50  lb bags on the way back!  A bit too late for that last-minute shopping…even though all the airports have lots of stores.