Five worst things about cruising, by Liss

1. Cabbage. Even when the outside resembles a slimy yellow soccerball, that persistent vegetable manages to retain a heart of relative crispness. It lasts for as long as you can keep it. You can put cabbage in sushi, curry, pasta, sandwiches, coleslaw, stew, wraps, tacos and burritos. You can put it in "salad" but it will be the only ingredient, because the only reason you're making a salad out of cabbage is because all the other vegetables were eaten weeks ago. Heck, you can cut it up really small and hide it in your kids' porridge. But only once. We have a fridge on board, but it has limited space so we can usually store about a week and half's worth of fruit and veg. This last trip we stayed out for over three weeks, hence our ultimate dependence on cabbage. "Remember cucumbers?" I overheard my 6 year old saying wistfully to her brother one night as she sat toying with her fish and cabbage and rice. We didn't know it at the time, but we were about to experience something much, much worse than cabbage.

2. NO CABBAGE!

This pitiful array is the perishable food we had to spread out over the last four days of our most recent departure from the mainland. Please note that one of the lemons is rotten, that the sweet potatoes are the size of baby carrots and that the sprouts are at the Soaking Stage, at least 72 hours from the Eating Stage. Supplement the above with tinned sauerkraut, tinned tomatoes and a feisty handful of sea rocket, and you'll see why the kids all ordered jumbo salads when we got to the Rosslyn Bay cafe. Come back Cabbage, all is forgiven!

3. Fear. Okay, I don't mind the odd burst of adrenaline, such as that provided by the presence of a very large whale sliding under the very small dinghy containing my nearest and dearest. But white knuckles for hours and hours and hours on end (thank you Hummocky Island, we won't be back to your demon-possessed, merry-go-round ride of an anchorage any time soon), no thanks. Miles summed it up the other day: cruising involves one quarter fun, one quarter boredom, one quarter sleeping and one quarter crapping your nappy.

4. Too much wind (see above) or not enough wind. I hate, hate, HATE motoring long distances.  Purists (we've only met 2 so far and they lived on the same boat) just stay put until the wind builds, but our late start up the coast means we have to hussle more than we'd like to.

5. Rolly anchorages. I don't mind up and down, side to side motion when you're sailing along at a clip; the excitement of being On The Move combined with the joy of those little ginger treats that we only seem to eat on passage makes a corkscrew ride bearable, and you know it'll stop when you anchor. Only, sometimes, it doesn't. Our worst anchorage so far (other than Hummocky, for different reasons) was at Svendson's Beach on Great Keppel Island where we serendipitously combined a brisk southerly wind with an enthusiastic easterly swell almost big enough to surf. In the end the kids and I threw a tantrum and we left with tea towels and underwear still hanging from the rails and the tender panting along in our wake.

* 5 worst things about cruising are subject to change at any time.