1. You’re able to tune out the sound of any and every drawer, lone object, or shower rod ring rolling, clanging and clattering with the remarkably deafening creaking and moaning of the boat.
2. But you can never seem to tune out the Kon-Tiki drums from the tourist party barge that rolls by like clockwork every day at 3 a.m.
3. You’ve spent entire days doing nothing but counting the birds flying across the blue, blue sky, working on your cloud bank. Sometimes you bare boat it.
5. One of your strong points has become walking at angles. You like to call it boat yoga.
6. You now know the meaning of baggywrinkle, mizzen, deep six, COB, rapture of the deep and BOAT bucks and use them on a regular basis.
7. Someone on board has gotten a concussion from the boomkin.
8. You jump in the water to go to the bathroom.
9. You can make a gourmet meal with nothing more than a can of beans, some fresh fruit, some fresh fish and your collection of local spices.
10. But you’re also okay with calling painkillers or bushwhackers dinner.
11. You constantly awake to the sudden shift of your body aggressively smashing against the port side of the V-berth but always roll right back over into the REM cycle.
12. You no longer don’t bat an eye when illuminated cruise ships float close enough to crush your floating home.
13. Just when you think you’ve discovered the perfect secluded, far-flung cay, you hear someone calling your name from an approaching boat on the horizon. It’s a friend of a friend, who heard you’d be in these neck of the waters. Fancy that, eh?
14. When you walk on the dock, you’re accustomed to falling over after a few days at sea. Still trying to regain those land legs.
15. You’ve mastered the perfect body arrangement to keep water from dripping on you overnight.
16. Showering means jumping off your floating home and into your salty front yard.
17. You’ve woken up thinking “What a pleasant spot, I wonder where we are…”
18. Your personal bubble has evaporated.
19. As has your personal hygiene schedule.
20. You can’t recall the last time you wore pants.
21. You check your email maybe once a month and have no idea what’s happening in the outside world beyond the gulls you throw your breadcrumbs to. And you like it that way.
22. You have a bank of witty one-liners up your sleeve for when you are questioned about the bruises covering your legs.
23. Another strong suit is definitely the four songs you can now play on the ukulele.
24. Your crewmates have claimed that you have an unparalleled imagination for disaster.
25. Some days, despite the romantic life everyone back home thinks you’re leading, you really want a day off from getting wet. And when you do get wet despite your avoidance tactics (you live on the water, remember), you will curse like a true sailor.
26. You wake up to new neighbors on a weekly basis, one of whom, without fail, will always take the bare boat thing way too far for everyone’s comfort level.
27. You’re totally comfortable with a 12-year-old maneuvering the boat you’re on.
28. And equally comfortable depending on them to scale up those trees for that freshly picked coconut you want for your afternoon pick-me-up.
29. You’ve accepted that your life is becoming a series of random tacs and turns in a beautiful, sandy playground accompanied by a reggae soundtrack.
30. Your principle rule in life? Keep the people in the boat and the water out of the boat.
