Rosa Linda Román (00:30): Hello and welcome to New Mexi-Castaways, I'm Rosa Linda Román, and I am currently looking across the bay, Nassau Harbor Bay to Atlantis, the big towering peachy pink towers of Atlantis, the resort on Paradise Island. I'm here aboard our boat, the Dawn Treader. And I finally got my RODE lavelier mic, plus the MiCon-5 adapter, the XLR adapter to work with my, what do you call it? Zoom H4N recorder. I have been struggling with audio issues forever, and I just tested a bunch of different configurations. And I think maybe I just didn't have of it plugged in enough or something like that. But anyway, so I am alone on the boat, which is very rare and delightful. And the reason for that is my kids went over to… we are at a place called Bay Street Marina and the nice thing here is that there's a marina office this that has two computers that my kids love to get on because they don't have a lot of internet anymore when we're out and about Rosa Linda Román (01:50): So, I'm letting them go do that. Basically, let the electronic babysitter take over while I prep the boat because after 11 days gone my husband is back this evening or this afternoon. So, of course I wanted to look nice and it's nice to have a minute to breathe. So, that's what I'm working on. And I thought I would record an episode while I do that, so you can expect to hear things like you just heard, putting away games, and toys, and miscellaneous things while I work, so apologies in advance for all the noise that you'll hear in the background. I have the generator on because our power level has gotten pretty low. And basically, there's two ways to recharge the batteries. There would be more, but we don't have solar panels so that that's out, but a lot of people use solar panels every day to replenish their power supply. Rosa Linda Román (02:51): I’m putting away a game called TENZI. And it's a super fun game that I definitely recommend for people who don't have a lot of space, and don't want a lot of… No, Nala, hang on a second, I got to pause. Hey, okay. I'm back. Sorry. My dog is… we just got a new neighbor who has a dog as well, and so Nala was barking at them, but that's definitely not something I want to encourage. And also, it's not conducive to good recording. So, I brought her inside, so now she's sad. Sorry, Nala, got to be quiet sometimes. Anyway, I was telling you about TENZI. TENZI is a cool game. It's just dice, basically, 10 different dice per player, and then, you roll the dice really fast and you try to get all the same, it reminds me a little of Yahtzee, where you're trying to roll the dice and get, you know, you can do it either all the same suit… Rosa Linda Román (03:48): What do you call it? Number or you could do it where you are rolling down and try to get full house. That's what I'm trying to say. Okay. Anyway, I digress. The point is I'm cleaning up games, and papers, and all the miscellaneous stuff that my family and myself leave around the boat and try to make it look nice for when Nathan returns. You would think with this very small space that that would be super easy to do but it's not. It's really actually quite hard to maintain order here on the boat. That is one of my number one rules that I have talked about in the past. Rosa Linda Román (04:40): I did this thing called an ignite spark where you go and talk to a group of people. This was an Albuquerque and you talk about whatever subject you want. You get five minutes and you have to do a certain number of slides and you talk, you know, kind of at a fast pace. And I did one on how to live on a boat without killing your family. And one of the number one things, I, I think, it was maybe the top five things or something like that, but one of the most important things I talked about was that everything has to have a place and everything has to be put in that place in order to, you know, have things organized, and make sense, and not chaos everywhere, but one thing, when you're underway, you really, they can't have clutter around because it will fall off the counters. But anyway, that's one of the big things is you always really need to put things away when you're finished with them, because otherwise it really adds up and you'd be surprised how much stuff you can fit on a boat. So, what we're actually doing, Ahava really, and I, I try to get the other two to help, but that's just not their strong suit. I'm reorganizing or I don't know if you've listened to this podcast for a while, I'm reKonmaring, if you remember that's the system I use to downsize from our home to move onto the boat, you can hear I’m starting the microwave to heat up my coffee. Rosa Linda Román (06:10): Anyway, so that's what we did is we used a system called KonMari to downsize and move onto this boat. Well, I'm redoing that now, because over time you develop clutter like you wouldn't believe on a small boat. So, I'm pulling things out of cabinets and looking at what we can get rid of. So, that's what you're going to be listening to as I'm working and in talking with you. I was going to mention about the microwave. It's funny because there's a lot of things we on this boat, the Dawn Treader, which is a Lagoon 450 take for granted and that we have that are luxuries, that a lot of boats don't have. And once you start cruising you start to realize that, so let me back up talking about things we don't have. I know I started with the power discussion. The ways that you can replenish your batteries is if you have solar panels, that's one way. Good coffee. Rosa Linda Román (07:14): So, there's solar panels. When you come to a marina, like we are now, usually you would plug into the power at the marina, and you know, you would basically just be not only charging your batteries, but you'd be using the power accordingly from that that's coming out of the marina. But I decided that I wanted to park the boat, go stern in no bow, bow in. I wanted to go bow in. So, I wanted the bow first because I wanted access to our dingy because we've been dinging across two Atlantis. And I can talk more about that in a minute. So, I wanted access to the dingy and the only way to do that, either leave the dingy off the davits and have it down all the time, or have the back of the boat, the stern sticking out so that I can just raise and lower to dingy whenever I want. Rosa Linda Román (08:18): And I apologize for pops in the audio that you're hearing. I still don't know why this XLR cable, it seems like it doesn't fit snugly into this Zoom H4N recorder. So I'm going to make a noise right now, so standby. Okay. Let's see if that works. It feels like it should go click in and it doesn't. It just kind of sits in there, so if I move a certain way, it comes loose. Boy, I'm all over the place. I guess you guys are used to that though. What else is new? So, as I get my coffee out of the one luxury that I am sure neither Nathan nor I would want to be living without, the microwave… so because I decided to have the bow in to the dock instead of the stern I'm in a situation where my power cable, there's this big, massive, bulky cable that plugs into the short power and into your boat power input. Rosa Linda Román (09:27): And my cord, our cable is just about maybe a foot too short. And so, it fit, but then, it was like the boat moves quite a bit, a lot actually overnight, and well throughout the day, and it would be yanked out. The power cable could be yanked out and like destroy all of our power system on the boat. So, I can't do that. So, what I'm left with, because we don't have the fourth way is wind generator, which by the way, are not highly recommended. Most people who have them say they are not efficient and not effective. Solar panels are, so we're going to get some of those, but the fourth way or our way is we run the generator from time to time. Now, it’s noisy, but not nearly as noisy as a lot of boats that we've encountered. Rosa Linda Román (10:21): When people hear our generator running they're like, “That's your generator. It's really quiet.” So, you have to run the generator from time to time to boost up the power. Now, how I know when to do that is there's a there's a panel here and it says batteries and levels monitoring, and it tells you the voltage left in the batteries. Now, right now with the generator on it says 13.3. Generally, after we run the generator it'll be maybe at like 12.5, 12.3, and then, over the course of 24 hours it'll go down to like 11.7, 11.6 is really low. If it gets to 11.5 or four, it sets off an alarm, and that's meaning it's critically low. So, I try to avoid getting it down to that low, low amount. And so, our voltage right now was like at 11.8. So, I'm starting the generator and that allows me to use some of the luxuries like coffee maker. I mean, not coffee maker, like microwave, which to me is a coffee heater and I'm going to let you hear this too. You hear that? That, I wonder if you can guess what it is. Rosa Linda Román (11:52): Yeah, that's our ice maker. Another of our luxuries that we indulge in here on the Dawn Treader that most boats do not have. I don't know about most, but most of the cruisers that we've encountered do not have ice makers or, well, some of them don't have microwaves. Now, some people are really hardcore and they have no luxuries, they don't even have a freezer or a refrigerator. But we don't believe in that for ourselves. I think it's awesome for those that do it. But we don't. I feel like our footprint on the environment is so little, because we're a sailboat, we try to, you know, move by sail as much as possible, but we do have two engines and we do like to use them if we have to. Now we don't get anywhere fast. We only move seven to 10 knots. Rosa Linda Román (12:45): Is that my timer going off? Oh yeah. Okay, so that is a timer that I've been keeping track of quarters or periods to have my kids, it has to do with our homeschooling, and also, when they're supposed to be helping. I had to come up with a system where they would take turns. So today Ziva was helping Samuel with his schoolwork while Ahava helped me with the KonMari work. And then, they were supposed to go to the next rotation, which was going to be a Ahava helping Samuel, and Ziva helping me and it just fell apart. I'm not going lie. It's been very hard to develop systems that work with the three kids home all the time and me trying to get anything else done. They work really well when it's just us sitting here. We don't have to be anywhere. Rosa Linda Román (13:37): But when I'm trying to be effective in other areas, whether it's my work, which is usually the very last thing that gets prioritized, sadly, I need to change that. Or just the housework and all the other stuff that is pressing around the house. So, I decided today since daddy's coming home and we've pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and we've had guests and we've had Nathan gone for, ooh, this month it's like, the amount he's here is so minuscule compared to the amount that he's gone. So, the kids and I have really, you know, I got to give us props. It's been a tough month. We had two sets of guests with five or more people, back to back. We left friends and a place that we really loved in George Town to come up to Nassau so that our guests could head out and other guests could come in. Rosa Linda Román (14:34): So, you know, it's been an emotional up and down roller coaster and I'm giving them a break today and it's actually giving me a break, because I do like to record these episodes, and I do like to get the house back in order, but trying to manage them and do that at the same time, it's a losing proposition. If I'm not under the gun and I have the time to really focus on them and helping guide them through, okay, now we're going to move into this subject or now we're going to go to this thing, I’m fine, relatively fine. You know, it's all relative, but not on a day like this, where I only have a few hours before Nathan comes back, I've done so much work while he's been gone. Rosa Linda Román (15:20): I want the kudos from that moment when he walks in and sees how pretty it looks. But that means I really need to take some time to finish some things up that that are kind of still hanging over me. So, I sent the kids over there to the marina office. And instead of Ahava starting to help Samuel with schoolwork they are just vegging on computers and you know what? That's okay. I basically asked them to make sure that there was an educational component in whatever they're doing. So, last I checked Samuel was doing some math game and Ziva really likes to do languages. So, she's been teaching herself French and Ahava has been prepping herself for her, bar mitzvah because she is going to beat the 13 in January and it is April right now. Rosa Linda Román (16:17): So, we're trying to figure out a creative way for her to be able to do her studies from a distance. And I think we're coming up with some solutions, but anyway, so even though they are vegging, they try to incorporate some work into the equation. So, that's good. But really it's fine. I feel like I've learned so much about… the whole homeschool thing has been kind of a source of stress for me. I felt like I was failing at it terribly until I started learning that I have to let go of what was and start to recognize what is, and what is working and what we are succeeding at, because the reality is, you know, this experience of being on the boat and you know, and the meeting new people, and being around different circumstances. You know, we are doing a ton of learning and most of it is guided learning and I talk with them and share with them and we talk through things, but, you know, sometimes it's just that they're experiencing things and getting the chance to process it in their way. So on a day like today, Ziva (17:36): [INDISCERNIBLE 00:17:34]. Rosa Linda Román (16:17): There's my kids calling. Let's see what they have to say, Hey, [INDISCERNIBLE 00:17:41] what's happening. Ziva (17:45): Nothing, I was just wondering if you're still fine at the dingy? Rosa Linda Román (17:48): Is everyone behaving and doing fine? Ziva (17:53): Yes, indeed. Rosa Linda Román (17:54): Okay, is there any chance you're doing any kind of educational work? Ziva (18:00): Yeah, I can sign into [INDISCERNIBLE 00:18:02]. Rosa Linda Román (18:04): Okay. That sounds good. Little math would be good. How's Samuel. Ziva (18:09): Is it okay if I help Sam a bit? Rosa Linda Román (18:12): Yes, that would be great. Thank you very much for that. Ziva (18:16): [INDISCERNIBLE 00:18:16] Rosa Linda Román (18:18): Okay. I'll be in touch if I need you, Dawn Treader, out. So yeah, you just got to kind of hear a conversation with the kids. That was Ziva talking. She's my little radio girl. She's so cute. She loves to talk on the radio, and as you can tell, she takes after her mama, the broadcaster, right? Anyway, so that's enough about that. I just wanted to kind of fill you guys in on what I'm doing, why I'm by myself on the boat and kind of give you some updates in that way. So, let's see what else I can talk about. So, with Nathan coming back today, the dynamic will shift dramatically. So, we are doing things very differently and I've from this cruising, so we've been about four months now, not quite, but almost four months since we left Florida and sailed over to The Bahamas, and we have learned a ton. I mean, a ton. I forget how much we've learned, and then, I stop and think how certain things that were so foreign are now normal. And yeah, it's just interesting. Rosa Linda Román (19:29): So, I'll try to share whatever pops into my head here. And if there's a subject you want to know more about when it comes to living on a boat or just our lives in general, you know, let me know. I can definitely talk as you've obviously figured out if you're still listening, and you know, most things are not off limits. I'm willing to share our experiences, but I'm not sure what everybody is most interested in. So, if there's a subject that you want to hear about here on New Mexi-Castaways, just send me an email at rlr@newmexicast.com, or you can also go to my Facebook page, which is New Mexicast on Facebook, easy enough. Drop me a line there. I am on there most days, a little bit each day when we have internet connectivity. Rosa Linda Román (20:30): And then, when we don't, I'm not, so that's how that works. So, let's see, what else can I share with you about this adventure of sailing? So, we went to George Town and that was a super welcoming, wonderful community, except for, and I think I've talked about this here, one particularly awful immigration officer who made our life awful for, or at least mine for a day or two, until I reset and got over it. But other than that, George Town was really good for us. We really enjoyed it. And then, we had our guests come in and we knew they were going to fly… They were originally flying into and out of Nassau. And then we said, well, we're here in George Town. And it would be hard for us to get up to Nassau before their arriving flight. Rosa Linda Román (21:24): So, my husband thought, “Well, we'll just so with them up to Nassau.” They had five days to work with, well, in hindsight, now we recognize that that's not enough time by any stretch. It's not enough time. We were rushed. We had a major storm front move to through during the time that they were here and that was bad because then we felt like we were pushing through weather. And nobody wants to do that. You do not want to push through weather in a sailboat. You just don't. It's just not advisable. So, you know, in hindsight, we definitely should have just stayed put in the George Town area. We could have done some like nearby day sale type things, but not gone all the way to Nassau. But now we know, and we've heard people say that that when you're on a boat, you can't you make a plan unless your guests have two weeks to play with, you really can't. Rosa Linda Román (22:34): You can't start in one place and end up somewhere else, and realistically, it's just too much to ask for everybody to be able to be comfortable, and you know, leaving all those questions up to mother nature. So, in hindsight, we wouldn't have done it that way, but we did. And we got all the way to Nassau by the third day, fourth day. I guess it would've been the fourth day. So, they came in on a Wednesday and we moved the boat from the Anchorage we were at Wednesday morning, I think, or maybe it was Tuesday. And by the way, all of this again, sorry about the noise pops. All of this came after my husband, I'm trying to refresh my own memory. Let me look at my calendar. Rosa Linda Román (23:24): I'm washing things and doing things while we talk. It's like talking to a friend. Oh, another noise pop. Whenever you hear that noise it's because I bumped something. That's because I'm in tight spaces and the boat is moving a lot, so let's see. Okay, I'm talking about March and my husband was gone in March. He was gone all of the beginning of March. So, like he was gone the first through the third, then he was back from until the eighth. He left again ninth through 19th, so he was gone for, you know, 10, 11 days. He came back for one day the 20th and his friends arrived on the 22nd. So, that was like the whole month of March was chaos through when they arrived. They came into George Town on Wednesday. We left and went to see a place called Musha Cay. Rosa Linda Román (24:34): And Musha Cay is in the Exumas. And there's an, I don't know if the island is owned by David Copperfield. I think so. I'm pretty sure the magician, I'm pretty sure. I just know it's owned by David Copperfield and he put a sculpture under the water there that is really stunning. It's a mermaid sitting at a piano and it's really exceptional to look at. So, this mermaid piano is at Musha Cay and we went there and we were so excited to see this beautiful sculpture and share it with our friends. And then, we got there and the current was crazy, strong and stressful. And our friends had three kids on board of their own. And we had our three kids. So, we thought, “Oh, we're going to be anchored really close to the mermaid, and then, we were going to snorkel over to see it.” Rosa Linda Román (25:37): Well, as soon as we jumped in, we were like, “I don't know if this plan is going to work.” It was very, very rough current. And my daughter Ahava is just coming back. So, let me see what she wants, but let me really quickly say it turned out that I was able to swim over with Ziva and Ahava and Nathan swam over too, my husband, but the rest of the crew did not get to see the mermaid, which is a shame, because it was really worth seeing. So, let me take a break and see what's going on with miss Ahava and I will be right back. Rosa Linda Román (26:25): Okay. I'm back and it is several hours later as is usually the case with these recordings. Once she got back, I was trying to work with her on some of the organization stuff we're working on before the other two came home, and then, of course, they needed lunch. And then I had to had to coordinate the babysitter, which thank goodness we have this babysitter from before when we were here at Palm Cay Marina. Anyway, Jenny, she's wonderful. She's a friend of my friend who I know from Hope Town. So, we had a babysitter and I arranged her for tonight so that when my husband comes home we can actually have a conversation before he's overwhelmed and inundated by all the love from the kids. Because it's been weeks, as I was kind of mentioning, in the previous part of this episode, it's been weak since we've been able to have a real conversation, which is really hard to do when your plans are as fluid as ours are, as far as the boat. Rosa Linda Román (27:35): And now with this immigration requirement that we be out of the country by April 17th and at the time of this recording, it is April 6th. So, we basically have 10 days to figure out where we're going, and how we're getting out of the country. So, with that in mind, we are trying to figure out a plan and we can never have a full conversation when the kids are around. Especially, after he's been gone for 10 days and then we had guests for the five days he was here and he was gone 10 more days before that. And then, we had like a day together before that, before he was gone again. So, we have a lot of catching up to do and we really need to get a plan going because not only is it just the pending Passover issue, I mean, the pending immigration issue, but as I just mentioned, it is also Passover coming up, and that's one of our biggest holidays. Rosa Linda Román (28:45): And normally, we host a major, big Passover Seder dinner and it's wonderful. It's one of our favorite celebrations together as a family and with friends and family. But this time it's just us and we don't really have the supplies. None of our traditional dishes and things that we're used to using on this holiday. They're all in New Mexico. So, I'm just cleaning up last minute before he gets in, so it looks pretty if he gets back. But anyways, so those are the kinds of things we're going to have to talk about where to, what next how are we going to pull all this off and in the middle of it all, my daughter, when she came back and she said, “Mommy, I think you need to look at this.” She used the restroom and I went down there and sure enough, the holding tanks are full. Rosa Linda Román (29:41): And the way that I was able to tell is the toilet was backing up and I'm like, why is that? So, I look, you take a flashlight and you look into this tank of poop water basically. And you can see where the line is and sure enough, the line is to the top. So, I had to go and ask the marina office if they could arrange a pump out, which if you've listened to my episodes in the past, I think I've talked about the bathroom issues that come along with living on a boat. So hopefully, they'll come and handle that before Nathan comes back. But unfortunately, the house is just not going to be where I had hoped it would be by the time he got back. I wanted it to be so pretty. But you know, he knows the reality of the situation and that the kids demand my attention and life happens. So, if nothing else, it'll just be nice that he'll be, I think he'll just be glad to be, we'll see. Rosa Linda Román (30:36): So, I wanted to kind of wrap up the Musha Key and and the Exumas trip. There's a lot more to tell, obviously. It was a great trip, great experience, so much to talk about, but after the mermaid and the disappointment for our friends who really couldn't see the mermaid, they were troopers. I mean, you know, I don't know if they're used to working on Nathan's schedule. Oh, there goes, sorry, I bumped something you know, working on my husband's schedule where, you know, you have this like way too many things going on in the plan to fit realistically into the time you're given. And so, that combined with the fact that we basically had pretty rough seas the whole trip, I was impressed with how positive they stayed and we really made the most of it. After Musha Cay we went to Black Point, a place called Black Point. Rosa Linda Román (31:48): And while we were there we met up with some of our other boating friends that we had met, some of the other kid boats. Wow, that's just the window from the window. Can you believe that? The other kid boats that we had met along the way were there in Black Point to wait out a weather system. And so, while we were there we had a really fun Shabbat dinner. It was pouring rain out and we had 20 people on board, and they were just getting soaked on the way over. But everybody was positive and it was nice to get everybody together. So, it's funny how you just make it work, even if it makes no sense to do so. You just, you find a way to connect with other people. And I feel like I've had more consistent social connections since living on the boat, even though we're on these remote islands than ever before on land. Rosa Linda Román (32:51): And I think the reason for that is that once you're on a boat, you're just like looking for other humans, especially, with kids. Like, boats with kids. You're just always on the lookout for that if you have kids on your own boat. So yeah, we've had a some really good get togethers while Nathan was out of town. Now, he's a little bit less inclined to have all these get togethers like I do. And so I try to, I guess, I probably squeeze them all in while he's gone. And so, the last trip when he was gone, I had two back to back, very big gathering Shabbats. And if you don't know what that is, it's Friday night. It's a day of rest, but basically you kick it off with blessing candles, and breaking bread, and saying some prayers. Rosa Linda Román (33:41): And then after that, we just have good conversation and enjoy each other's company. And so, it's pretty funny because we really have had better, like, the best Shabbats that we've had as a family, other than just our immediate family, and you know, Nathan tends to be so wiped out by the time he's to the Shabbat table that they don't last very long plus our kids are relatively young. So since we've been inviting people from other kid boats to join us we've had some great, I have friends call them the Dawn Treader Epic Shabbat, and they're not Jewish. No, most of our friends are not just because you don't find a lot of other Jewish people out on the high seas or even in the mountains in New Mexico. But anyway, I digress. I just was thinking about Passover coming up and what we're going to do about all that. Rosa Linda Román (34:41): And you know, it's an ongoing question of what's next? Where do we go from here? How do we find the balance? The place that my kids are right now is in, they just went with the babysitter to gymnastics which is great that we can trust her to take them so now Nathan and I can and have dinner without interruption. But, you know, how do we do that? How do you make it work with our competitive gymnast daughter who's starting to get eager to, you know, really focus on getting her routine back together and all that. But who also is very much on board, pun intended, with being on the boat. Ahava loves the boat as much as I do and wants to be on board, and wants to sail, and cruise, and, you know, explore the world. Rosa Linda Román (35:38): And so, we struggle with how to reconcile the two different desires. We have some brainstorming of some ideas of how we might make it work, but for now I'll just say we are actively brainstorming and thinking about, you know, what possibilities there are, but no resolution just yet. I think we just take it a little bit at a time and try to figure out, you know, day-to-day, like obviously, where are we going next? Which, I was just in the office asking them to arrange a pump out, which means they're going to use a machine to suck all the poop water out of our tanks, yay, and I said, yeah, I wanted to… oh, she asked me… she said, “You know, can you tell me when you're leaving?.” And I was like, “Well, I really can't because I haven't spoken to my husband in weeks and I don't really know what we're doing.” Rosa Linda Román (36:34): And she was really nice about it, and said, “That's fine, no problem.” So anyway, to get back to the Exumas trip after Musha Cay and Black Point, and our epic Shabbat that we had a great time with friends, we then headed over to Shroud Cay, well, Staniel Cay, which is a really great place that has… what do you call it? They have a Grotto and this Grotto is a really cool place to go to snorkel in normally, or it had been when we went the first time, my family, but the Grotto at Staniel Cay is spectacular. You I've into this cave and it's like a coral reef and oh, it's just stunning. And yet we couldn't really enjoy it because we were on such a limited schedule. Rosa Linda Román (37:34): We had to rush in, and leave quickly, and we were there at like one of the tides, I guess it must have been high tide coming in, which meant that the water was rushing in through the cave and it was scary. It was actually a very scary for the kids to try to swim through that. And so, that was not quite what it was the first time when we went at slack tide, which like is where the tide is basically in the middle. It's not coming in, not going out, it's just kind of slack. So yeah, it was quite a trip and then we got from there, Staniel Cay. Oh, the good thing that I think they did enjoy was we went to… they have a place where the pigs swim and that's at Big Major, or something like that. Rosa Linda Román (38:27): Anyway, you get to go and you see all these pigs on the beach. And so, I think they got a kick out of that. And then after that, it was two Shroud Cay, which is the land and sea park, and unfortunately we were in such a hurry. Our friends didn't even get to do anything really. We spent the night there, and then, up to Nassau. So, the one thing they did get to do… okay, she's barking. That might be for a reason. The one thing they did get to do was go to Atlantis after that. But besides that it was very limited in what they were able to do, but they were troopers and made the most of the trip. And the crossing, after we left from Shroud Cay and we went across to Nassau, oh my gosh, it was honestly one of the worst crossings we've ever had. Rosa Linda Román (39:19): We were just getting pounded, and pounded, and pounded. The waves were so strong and the seas were, you know… The good thing is we were making good time because the wind was quite strong, but the bad news is the waves were all over the place and our poor friend couldn't even get out of bed. She was so like uncomfortable seasick. So, what are you going to do, right? It's it is what it is, and then, right after that, so that afternoon when our friends left our other friend, I mean, my sister and her family arrived, so it was like one after the other. And we were just a little bit frazzled. So my sister arrived and she goes standby, because she works at the airline. And so, it was great to have her arrive, but it was like, oh my gosh, we haven't even changed the sheets, we haven't, you know, it was just like, okay, we're ready, here we go.” Rosa Linda Román (40:13): And then, the very next day my husband left because he had to get back to work. So, it was a whirlwind and I'm very glad to be staying somewhat put at least for the moment. I think, well, I don't know. I'll let you know when we decide where we're going next, but I'm just going to say this this living on the boat and the perception that it's all relaxation and Zen with a margarita on the beach, it is not. It's quite the opposite sometimes. And I guess wherever you are, you can always find a place away to be too busy. So hopefully, we'll slow down the busyness soon. And oh, let me throw one more thing in there. Rosa Linda Román (41:03): I I'll just mention one place we did go. So, one of the challenges we had with this trip being so close on the heels of guests and traveling from George Town here, my husband called to make a reservation for us here in Nassau and found that all the marinas were booked and that is not good. We had nowhere that we were going to be able to put the boat. And the only place we that had space was Atlantis. Well, Atlantis is crazy expensive. And so, we knew we weren't going to be able to stay there for the long haul, but since we had guests, we were like, okay, we'll enjoy Atlantis, you know, as long as we can, and we were trying to figure out what to do next. And long story short, a friend of mine arranged for a friend of hers who is a captain to help me move the boat while Nathan was in New Mexico. Rosa Linda Román (41:59): And so, he Captain Andy, moved us, the kids, and myself, and my sister, and her family were on board, moved us to Bay Street Marina where we are now. So honestly, it was just too much of a whirlwind, everything happening all at once and now we came over to Bay Street Marina. And while what we were kind of, you know, getting things situated again, my friend's friend, Captain Andy, who had moved us, came and brought his power boat, picked us up and took us on this great adventure to a place called Rose Island. And Rose Island is just right next to, it's like maybe three miles from Nassau. And it was amazing. We got to swim with the, we got to, oh, sorry, I know this is making a lot of noise. Give me a second, I’m opening windows to cool things off. And I have to climb up onto the little bed of the kids and ieverything's tight spaces, so, oh, there's the pump out guy. Please stand by. I'll be back. Rosa Linda Román (43:17): Okay, I am back. And it was the guy from the marina here to help pump out the poop. Oh, you know, it's never a dull moment here on the Dawn Treader. That was very important. When I had looked at the tanks with daughter, I realized all three tanks were completely full. And that means you have nowhere for the waste to go. Nobody needs that, right? So, you have to get the machine over here to pump it out and it's messy business. It means it kind of dripped on the deck, and got to clean that, and it's just gross. And speaking of gross, I just walked into the bathroom in the kids room and this and the other bathroom and actually all three bathrooms now just smell. There's just no two ways about it. I don't know how to fix it. Rosa Linda Román (44:16): One of the things that I'm hoping will be a positive that comes out of this change in immigration status, meaning we have to get back to the U.S. is that we're going to get certain things fixed on the boat. And one of my top priorities is the smell of the Dawn Treader. I am really sensitive to… I'm not really sensitive to smells, not like my mom, where she can't be around people who wear perfume. But, you know, like smells can make or break and experience. Let's just put it that way. And at this point the Dawn Treader’s bathrooms are making the experience much less pleasant than it should be. Marine toilets are just a headache in general, but our boat is 2012. At the time of this recording it's 2017. And at some point you just have to bite the bullet and replace the septic system and we may be reaching that point. Rosa Linda Román (45:16): I don't know, but I can tell you, I don't want it to continue smelling like a sewer when our guests come to visit. Anyway enough, I know this has been like… I don't even know what you guys must be thinking. I listen to a lot of podcasts and enjoy them very much. And I just have to wonder, like, what do you guys think when, oh, my husband's home. All right. I got to let you guys go. I hope you guys have a great day. And I'm Rosa Linda Román, this is New Mexi-Castaway and I will talk to you later. Hey honey. Nathan (45:54): Hey, how are you?