Heading Out to Sea. Preparing the Home Front

Heading Out to Sea. Preparing the Home Front A cosy little house against a backdrop of mountains . Smoke rising from the chimney... That’s on the outside. Inside, though—... beneath the humming boiler and its system of copper pipes, a bucket of brown sludge is turning orange. At first it came gushing out; now it’s dripping like snot. The pressure-gauge needle has passed the dangerous 3-atmosphere mark: not being used to it, we overheated the stove. It’s just that the system used to contain water, and overheating to “a little over a hundred” didn’t require a bucket under the valves. But now antifreeze flows through the veins of our house. Soon it will stop, but... it won’t freeze. And there will be winter both inside and out. ...Poor mice! As they finish off the last of the poison, they have no idea that they will meet their end in the frosty air of an already empty house. ...We’re giving away the harvest and the flowerpots. We’re packing containers of liquid into a box. Separately—clothes for temperatures from below zero to +30, and a vestibular system trained by regular spinning. Brrr... I shudder at the memories. A crazed vestibular system frightens me more than great depths, storms, the absence of friends and a dry bed. It’s just horrible being a vegetable. And sailing is even worse. In a week, our crew (the captain, aka husband and father; the first mate—wife and mother; and two young sailors, aged 12 and 3) heads out to sea. This time, long ocean passages lie ahead, the Canary Islands and foggy Albion. And about three months of living illegally, because our Schengen allowance runs out in February, while our plans run through the end of May. Is it easy being an illegal sailor, what is New Year’s Eve on the open sea like, and other details—in the posts to come. Let’s keep in touch online. Friends, I love you.