I was awoken the other day by calls from Cúisle that she had done a poo and needed help wiping her bum. This after a restless night of intermittent sleep thanks to Óisin’s two hour waking pattern. Good Morning Las Palmas!! Usually Wolfgang takes the morning wiping shift but he seemed pretty tired this morning so I figured I would take this one for the team. I stumbled, eyes still clogged with sleep from our cabin to the head (that’s boat talk for toilet) to do the necessary. Just as I finished pumping out I hear Óisin’s little voice, mama, mama, mama and then his tiny footsteps as he climbs down from the bed and races across the salon floor to me. All smiles and arms up for a cuddle I bend down to pick him up and am hit by an almighty stench. Oh dear God Óisin I think, how can such a lovely little thing as yourself produce such a God awful stink? My second shitty arse of the morning, neither of them mine, it’s not yet 7am and I still haven’t had my coffee. Is it destined to be one of those days or can I turn this around?
Time to put a brew on and wake myself up. Everything is better after coffee. Óisin’s toxic contribution to my morning however is wafting from the bin in the galley hitting me in waves. I will have to take the rubbish out. May as well make it a Hattrick on the shitty arses and go for my own morning constitution whilst I’m out. So I yell to Wolfgang that I am off to the big loo, lock the companion way into the cockpit behind me to keep Óisin inside and off I go. The nearest toilet is a bit of a walk from the pontoon we are on here in the marina, which is nice. It gives me a bit of time to properly wake up and enjoy the morning sun on my face.
Feeling more ready to take on the day as I get back to our pontoon I can hear Óisin yelling. For a brief moment I contemplate turning around and going to sit on the beach for a bit but I would feel too guilty to do that to Wolfgang. As soon as I reach the boat Wolf announces he is off to the big loo. Tag team shitting now are we? I know that the trip to the big loo is our secret escape dare I say a shitscape and so I laugh knowingly and watch him go.
I can already tell it’s gonna be one of the those days where we spend the whole day telling the kids off if we don’t get off the boat. So we decide on a family mission in the dinghy to the supermarket. That means going out of the marina, around the corner straight through the commercial harbour to the wall at the very end. We have no idea if we can access the promenade to the supermarket from the harbour but sure it will have been an adventure whatever the outcome. We suggest a boat ride to the kids and Óisin starts to jump around like an excited puppy with the promise of a walk. Cúisle is also up for the adventure so it’s all agreed. We charge up our e-motor, don our life jackets, grab a few shopping bags and bail into the dinghy for the ride. When we reach the promenade there is a locked gate for which we have no key but it’s small enough to climb over. We tie the dinghy to the harbour wall, climb up the steps and up and over the gate.
Cúisle looks like a proper boat kid, wind swept, long blonde hair blowing freely around her face, barefoot and dressed only in her underpants and lifejacket. I had expected her to wait by the dinghy with Wolf and Óisin whilst I nipped into the shop but she insisted on coming with. At least the lifejacket gave the whole look some authenticity, she looked cool, adventurous. Had it not been for the lifejacket she could have been mistaken for a neglected kid, barefoot, half naked whose hair hadn’t seen a brush for the better part of a week. I guess in ARC season they are used to seeing carefree boat kids around because she got nothing but smiles from everyone in the shop.
Anyway we dashed around getting all the necessities and even some of the heavier stuff like potatoes and beer that we wouldn’t normally buy when we have to schlep it all by hand back to the boat. Feeling very proud of ourselves, mission accomplished we raced back to the promenade where Óisin and Wolf were waiting, up and over the gate with the shopping and ourselves, back into the dinghy and off home. The kids happy as Larry with the wind in their hair and an ice-cream each in hand sat merrily chatting away and pointing out boats and seagulls, fish, marker buoys having totally forgotten about their earlier squabbling. Day salvaged.
The whole operation took a couple of hours and when we got back to the boat we were visited by another kid from one of the neighbouring boats with his mum. Before long our cockpit was full of boat kids from other family boats here on our pontoon and all Cúisle’s musical instruments had been dragged up from her cabin. We sat in the cockpit quaffing a few glasses of wine with the other parents getting to know each other a little better as the kids entertained us all with their musical genius and the sun began to set to close out the day. Boat life at it’s best.
By: Aisling Fenix