On living simply

One of the appealing parts of living on a boat is the simplicity that doing so offers.  Every day you’re face to face with the elements, the water and wind dictate your course and you are the master of your own destiny.  Living life intentionally and being self-sufficient should mean we have less stuff.  Simple is good because there is less to break (and things are easier to fix). 

I thought we were doing a good job of simplifying…whittling our possessions down one garage sale, one craigslist posting, one charity donation at a time.  We eliminated our house, all of our furniture, many of the girls and my toys, tools, cars, camping gear, kitchen gear, Christmas decorations and numerous items of miscellany. 

So how come we still have so much stuff to take with us?

 

8 checked bags (in the era of extra fees for everything short of using the head – though some have suggested charging for that), 3 maxed out carry ons, 2 backpacks crammed with camera gear and other sensitive items.  I’ve never felt so relieved to board a 10 hour transatlantic flight in coach – at least I didn’t have to wrangle bags and kids for a while.

Confession time - I wrote all of the above while flying from Vancouver to Paris, where we planned to overnight before heading on to Greece.  Trouble is, we didn't have a connecting flight, we booked the legs separately.  Those who know travel will know that this means our bags were not through checked...

Needless to say I had the pleasure of schlepping all 8 50lb bags through the airport, onto the airport tram to the terminal where we could check our bags overnight for a low low fee of 170 Euros...we then took the train into Paris and went to bed.  

Hindsight is 20/20 but I know now that I should have just booked a hotel room in the Paris airport and been done with it...  The story of how they won't let luggage carts onto the airport tram, and the visual of me literally throwing bags and kids on and off the train to make sure we all got to where we are going together is right out of the 3 stooges.

But no matter, we made it to Greece and to the boat and I never have to move that much luggage again...  Now - we’re on our way!

I’ll share about the 7 boxes of stuff we’re having shipped some other time.