What do you eat when you live aboard?

When our record club sent us the March record-of-the-month, Yours Conditionally by Tennis (duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley), my husband put the disc on the turntable, started it spinning, placed the needle on the pink vinyl, and sat down on the couch with a cocktail and the liner notes. Later, he told me, “You should read the booklet that came with this album. Something about the writing, and the woman who wrote it — you would really love it.”

Last night I put the disc on the turntable, started it spinning, placed the needle on the vinyl, and sat down on the couch with a cocktail and the liner notes. And my husband was right: I loved the writing, the woman, the story. I was crying by the end, after she’d told of her time at sea, living aboard a 35 foot sailboat with her husband, doing things that terrified her — like sailing away from land and watching mountains flatten on the horizon until her world was nothing but the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea — and spending their time together on the boat making the music that became this album.

My craving for the ocean has been fierce the past several months. I leave for Mexico tomorrow for a work trip, and I am thrilled to see the aqua water, to feel warm sand, to smell the salt and feel it’s thin crust on my skin after swimming in the Caribbean Sea. I want that experience with my family, too. I want to strap masks and snorkels on the kids; I want to watch sunsets with Brian. I want to do a whole lot of nothing while I listen to the sound of water lapping.

As much as sailing scares me, I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to sleep on a boat, to anchor under the big sky. To dive off the bow, to read on the warm deck, to smell the air and feel the wind. To write under the sun. To live under the stars. To spend that time alone with my husband.

In the Tennis liner notes, Alaina Moore writes that while under sail, she and her husband live entirely in the present moment and the moment that will immediately follow. That sounds amazing.

I wonder about the rest of the time, though, for the days and weeks when not under sail, when resting, when at anchor. What would true isolation feel like? No restaurants, no towns. No wifi. No socializing, no blogging, no phone. What would it be like to be so disconnected from humans? I like being alone. I like quiet. But people are always a few keystrokes away. What would it be like to be cut off? Would I get bored?

I want to try it and see. For right now, I am equally disconnected from the natural world. I am equally cut off from the sea.

But what I really wonder about, is what would we eat, and how would we cook it? I look around our dining area at home and the cookware is abundant. I see a 1.5 qt pot, a 2qt pot, a 3 qt pot, a 4qt pot, a 10qt pot. I see a heavy cast iron Dutch oven, 3 cast iron frying pans, a 5qt enameled iron braiser; multiple colanders, box graters, baking sheets, pie plates. We have dinner plates, salad plates, cereal bowls; coffee mugs, tumblers, Collins glasses; spatulas, silverware, ladles, tongs, wooden spoons; a charcoal grill. On a small boat we might have a pot, a pan, two dishes, two cups, two forks, two knives. Maybe more, but not by much. And our pantry would be tiny compared to the storage we have in our kitchen.

Sailing in the fresh air, under the sun, would be hungry work. What do people eat when they are two on a boat? Do they catch fish, clean it, and cook it? Do they bring canned foods? Dry foods? What’s the quality of the food? Backpacking food is tolerable for a few days, but what if this were your whole life? What about fresh foods? What about snacks? I’d love to learn some simple, filling meals we could prepare on a boat at sea. Is that a thing — simple cooking? Minimalized food? It should be. I have simplified my purse, I’d like to simplify my food as well. I have some research to do. I want to bring this into our lives, whether we’re living aboard or not.