Boat Yoga

In the cruising lifestyle there are really 3 different types of exercise.  A very common type is the upper body only lifting - glass to mouth, repeated multiple times daily.  Other cruisers are very dedicated to ensure that they get some aerobic activity daily to keep other muscles in shape.  We have tried to get an hour each day of walking or bike riding.  But unless you have a boat staff you cannot escape the boat Yoga.  As an explanation, boat yoga is the practice of core muscle exercises that occur when you are standing on one leg reaching over a hot engine to try to turn a lever that is 4 feet in front of you, climbing over your partner in a confined space just to get to the head, or my personal favorite is having to climb over the dingy lines to get under the dingy as it hangs off the back of the boat, just to  plug in the electric cable into the boats outlet.  We find that boat yoga is a pretty effective way to slowly recondition.  Climbing even the short ladders and up onto the upper areas of the boat, multiple times each day is more exercise then tapping the key board or reaching for the phone repeatedly as in our former life (the phone reach is at least replaced by the beer bottle reach).  So we are really please to say that not only are we finding the lifestyle more relaxing, but also very invigorating. 

We are closing out 2 days in another very rural Virginia community.  We have been in Deltaville, Virginia for the last 2 nights.  It is a lovely farming community rimmed by marina that line the bay and river.  We have spent our time reprovisioning, walking and even did some house cleaning - it took less then 40 minutes to clean 2 bathrooms and vacuum the entire inside of the boat.  Living Tiny!!!  We walked this morning to the local Maritime Museum.  They had 2 lovely gardens, including a wooded one filled with water bird sculptures. 

They also had a great model boat collection and a beautifully restored "Buy Boat" from 1924 which is actually on the National Register of Historic Places because it was one of the last boats where the hull was laid of actual logs rather then the more modern, milled wood planks.  She is a beautiful, graceful boat whose job was to go out to the Oyster boats and buy their harvest so that the Oystermen did not have to come back into port to sell their catch, wasting lots of time in the era prior to 240 horsepower engines.    Now that she is retired she looks like she could be anywhere gliding across the water with happy people on her decks.