And what a stable live we have now! It is a sort of a weird balance, there is insecurity because we don’t have a fixed income but we have the time to figure things out. We have a home for the next couple of months and we are investing our time in learning new skills and projects for the future. The progress on the boat goes a bit slower, but steady. We are partially starting building up again, instead of just removing the interior, rust, and old parts.
Next to working on the boat I practice painting a lot, write this blog and edit videos and from next week on, I start a yoga teacher training next week to be able to teach. The preparation for the training involves studying the anatomy of the body, reading into the yoga philosophy and turning more inwards with meditation and be more conscious generally. This helps me also with being positive and having a stable mind to overcome the obstacles we encounter. If I started this earlier, maybe the difficulty to get to this point would be a bit less frustrating, because the last part of the ‘Making a blog’-series includes the most chaotic and desperate times we (or I) have had so far.
There is always a solution
So the good times at Jörg were coming to an end, and Peter arranged that we could stay in a studio. It is beneath the house of the owners and there are three other studios where (mostly) tourists stay for a short time. When I first saw the studio it was completely empty, no toilet, kitchen or electrics installed, so there had to be a lot done before we could move in. The concrete floor also had to be treated with a coating and that took more than 24 hours to dry. I am not sure when I saw it the first time, probably a couple of weeks before the 28th of March. The day we had to move because Jörgs wife would come to Bonaire! Peter made the arrangements with the owner, so we were happy we could stay somewhere for a very friendly price (750$/month excluding electric) for the next three months.
The 28th we moved out. Martha helped with cleaning the bedroom and bathroom we used and I packed everything. Peter was in the morning at the studio and he came back with some bad news. The studio was as empty as I first saw it. The owners had family over and this probably made it harder to combine it with the finishing it. This was a setback. The coating still had to be done and that would take longer than 24 hours and then everything else had to be installed… We had half a day to find a place to stay and it was high season for tourists. So we had all or belongings in the car, no place to stay and we didn’t know how long it would take. It felt really devastating, because this would (unnecessary) cost us a lot and we really had to be careful with our money. Peter turned down another apartment earlier that month that was maybe a bit more expensive per month, but it was including electricity (and furniture). So I was really counting on this studio and when we were in the car alongside the road, towards a friend that could give us a place to sit down and arrange a place to stay, I had a little breakdown. It is difficult to describe the frustration and desperateness I felt because we had no place to sleep. A lot of uncertainty with probably throwing money away that we really needed. Lucky for me I had Peter in the car next to me. Peter was as stable as a rock and helped me with getting myself back together and focus on a solution. There is always a solution. Since the prices on Bonaire are insane, a lot of our friends had already friends or family over and the hostels and bed and breakfasts (100-200$ a night) were fully booked. For that night we were lucky, our friend prepared a bed and we could stay there for the night. The next day we continued our quest and then we got lucky! Central Hotel Bonaire had a room free for two nights for only 75$ a night! Although not planned, I decided to see it as a mini-holiday and enjoy being in a hotel, which was a long time ago. Peter had contact with the owner of the studio and he would make it ready for us to stay after those two nights. Fingers crossed.
The stay at the Central Hotel Bonaire was nice. We had a room on the second floor, with a balcony and view over the ‘city’ Kralendijk. It was well organized and comfortable. I can really recommend it, as it was relatively cheap for the room we got and centrally localized. I never saw the surroundings from this view (there are not many high buildings in Bonaire, at least, not yet) and it was easy going out and in with the pass-system, the person at the desk was very friendly and there was great coffee downstairs.
After those two nights I was more relaxed again and I worked a full day on the boat before we went to the studio. A bed, air-conditioning, a fridge and a warm shower all for ourselves! We had no lights (only a camping light), no kitchen stuff or furniture and the electricity had to be installed (no switches or wall outlets) so it was still a bit improvising, but at least we had a place to stay.
Stability
Finally! The next couple of months we wouldn’t have to spend our time on searching and moving! Since Peter and I knew the boat-work would take a bit longer, we decided to clean up everything. The surroundings of the boat, the interior wood that we took out of LIV and the car in which we had partially lived in. I made a planning for the last part of rust removing, an inventory of the holes in the boat (23! I now see I already made this the 16th of March) and put it all in a calendar before the yoga teacher training would start.
Time for some fun
At this time Peter was installing a battery pack with solar panel on the boat of Dave and Wendy, ‘Mischievous’. Peter already knows them for years because of the work he has done on their boat, but it was my pleasure to meet them for the first time. They are from the United Kingdom and have sailed around the world and in the Caribbean. They are amazing! We were invited for diner at Osaka (in my opinion the best sushi restaurant of Bonaire) and we enjoyed their sharp sense of humor and amazing stories. After Osaka we had a drink at Little Havana (a very cozy and busy bar) and I couldn’t keep up with the pace that the drinks were flowing. It took me a full day to recover, but it was absolutely worth it! We were also invited for diner at their boat a few weeks later, and what a beautiful boat they have. It is a very spacious monohull with everything you could possibly need, even a build-in washing machine. (When I write this I hear ‘waggie maggine’ as pronounced by a lady who made a video about installing one on their boat. Please click here if you want to hear this too, it is now a sort of running gag between me and Peter whenever we talk about it. When researching stuff for our boat, you find the funniest things!) After diner, we played a game of chess with the magnetic wooden chess play of Dave. Peter and I are playing chess now for more than a year and we are getting better simultaneously, which is nice because we win and loose quite equally but keep improving our game. And this magnetic board makes it also possible to play chess on a moving boat, so I got an idea for something that would come later that month…
Birthday surprise!
Unfortunately the surprise package didn’t arrive yet (my mother helped me and she just texted it is on the way!), but I could organize a birthday surprise for Peter! This wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the lovely ladies I mentioned in my previous post (from the Chogogo Kiteschool Bonaire) and everybody who kept it secret and helped me with the preparations. Peter would get his first kite lesson! And we would have a nice party-sail, some snorkeling and BBQ. It was a success!
Next phase
With this part I think I established the making of a blog and we are now quite up to date. There will be some posts about out daily life, about the progression we made on the boat so far, the planning, how we worked on the boat and maybe some other fun stuff.
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