Number One Question

The Number One Question comes in different forms.

How do you live in such a small space?

How do you not kill each other?

How do you live together in such a tight space and still talk to each other?

Are you not sick or tired of each other yet?

How do you put up with Faye? How do you put up with Ken?

How do you make your own space?

There were others but I do not want to put them in print!

Unfortunately we have witnessed many couples not making it in this enviroment. They split up or endure what must be. Their goals started out the same but their reality became different from the dream.

Ken and I went into this with a couple of rules or things we follow, that so far has worked for us.

1) If for any reason one of us feels uneasy about leaving an anchorage or moorage we voice our opinion and we respect the reasoning. We never leave if we don't both agree on leaving.

There have been times that my gut feeling was not to go and there have been times when Ken's gut feeling has had us not leaving. To date we have never regretted our choice.

2) There are no silly questions. (Sometimes this gets ignored).

3) We divided our jobs into pink/blue jobs so that we each feel that we contribute equally in what we bring to the table. There are crossovers and things that we both participate doing. The idea that everyone can do everything to me is quite nieve. There are physical jobs I cannot do and I am not mechanically inclined. That does not mean that I should ignore the engine. My smeller plays an important engine room check. Ken has learnt not to ignore "I smell something or something doesn't sound right".

I plan the route but we have determined a rough agenda, where we would like to be and the determining factor is weather.

Do we get tired of each other. Not that we admit too, around others! We do travel together and do things together but there are times we hang out with other people.

The living accommodations are more spacious than one would expect and there are spaces to be by yourself. Ken can always go to the engine room and "no I won't look for him there". I am sure he would like more head room down there.

One problem that I do see in us and most married boaters is that we finish each others sentences or stories. Something to work on.

Me I read for awhile and just disappear. It works and we can still brag that we have never had a fight. Not bad after 30 years.
All and all we work together.