Weird Things Cruisers Do

Your priorities change when you start cruising full time. It's just not the same as weekend sailing, racing, or living aboard at the dock. I saw a link on Seven Seas Cruising Association's site with a long list of weird things we all do and some of them made me laugh out loud. I picked out a few of my favorites and I'll try to explain them to my landlubber audience.

You've read 240 books in the past year and only bought one.
     This is because at every harbor there is a book exchange where you just take a few and leave a few. It works
     wonderfully well and allows you to try all kinds of books at no expense.

You anchor near the hotels in case they have free wifi you can pick up from on board.
     We have also gone to beach palapas and had a snack and drink just to get their wifi code. Then we go back
      to the boat and bootleg it with our booster. If I didn't do that, how could I upload these scintillating posts?

You haven’t heard the news in weeks, and don’t care.
      News, what news? Ask me what's happening in the fleet, though, and I've got that covered. 

You have friends whose surnames you don’t know and boat names you’ll never forget.
      You make friends quickly out here and what's important is their first names and their boat names and how much
      chain they have out.

The first thing you ask is, “Where is the supermarket, the laundry, and the chandlery? ”
      When you arrive in a new harbor after a passage, you need all those services and have no idea where they are.
      Luckily the fleet is happy to help, just as someone helped them when they arrived.
 
As cruisers we know we're weird, and probably smell funny, and lack a little in the personal grooming department, and schlep stuff around like sherpas, but we are loving this life and wouldn't trade it for anything.