Monthly Archives: November 2016

Gratitude

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This year we are celebrating the holiday season in new and different ways; ways that do not include huge amounts of stressful preparation culminating in an avalanche of activity of seismic proportions. This lack of hurriedness gives me time to reflect and be grateful on this day of Thanksgiving.

Looking forward to more of this.

This is a time of deep, lasting change for us as a couple, as individuals, as a family. Anyone who is considering taking up cruising should read that sentence again and let the meaning sink in.  It’s not something to skim over.  The depth of the change is something to realize and hold; to observe and accept with as much grace as possible. We are saying ‘goodbye’ to what we know in almost every way on almost every level. While that is exciting, it also fills me with awe for the power of the hold our comfort zone has over us.

It’s very easy for people to say, ‘ Oh how exciting for you! Just do it! Go Now! Just drop everything and go! Just sell the house! Just trust that it will work out! Just…just…just.’.  But when you have worked a lifetime creating a life you already feel good about, disentangling oneself from that life is going to take time and perseverance. I get frustrated when other people minimize the physical and emotional toll this life change takes. Then I get frustrated with myself for making this harder than it has to be; at least I think I do that sometimes. This is not about complaining, or wishing we’d made another choice or not believing it’s worth it. It’s just about being real about it and not sugar coating it and acknowledging how hard it is. Want to go cruising? Have a traditional home and family life you’ve invested in all your adult life?  Don’t have 30 more good years ahead of you where you have time to regroup if you make a mistake? Get ready to ride those waves of uncertainty and fear for a long time.

I’m writing this so that in the future, when another middle aged couple meets us and says, ‘We want to go cruising, too.’, I will treat this wish of theirs with the respect it deserves and not short change their experience by denying the depth of it. I don’t ever want to say to someone, ‘Just drop everything (you’ve ever worked for) and go.’ Because on some level that denies how rich and wonderful the life they’ve already been leading has been; as though they have made some kind of mistake by living it that way. If your life sucks, it’s going to be real easy to say goodbye to it. But if your life is good, don’t expect it to be that easy until you get to the other side of the divide.

No life is perfect, but we’ve had it pretty good. For me, the gratitude I feel is in direct opposition to the emotional roller coaster. I’m ready to get off this thing.  I’ve never been crazy about roller coasters. They feel dangerous to me. Still,  as we near the end of our 5 year cunning plan, it sometimes amazes me how far we’ve come and all the things we’ve accomplished. I still get astounded by the prospect of actually pulling this off. Also terrified. Astounded. Excited. Terrified. Happy. Grieved. Exhausted. Ecstatic. Over and over and over.  Can I just stop already? It’s bloody exhausting having all the feels all the time.

My dad as a child, with his toy sailboat.

My dad as a child in east Texas, with his toy sailboat. He was fascinated by sailing.

As we gear up to move aboard the week before Christmas, I am soaking in the goodness that is being home with our kids for one last holiday season before the big transition to the cruising life. We have both of our offspring home with their significant others. The house is crowded, but happy. The sounds of laughter, the jokes, the cuddles on the sofa, the walks with the dog, snuggles with the demanding cat, the cooking of food, the view from the windows as late season light filters through leafless branches, the sheer beingness of togetherness… all these things and more I want recorded permanently on my soul.

That time we rented a pony to welcome Claire home from her travels.

I am so grateful we have the freedom to make this change, that we are some of the lucky few in this world who have the resources, both external and internal, to go and explore. I am grateful for my hard-working visionary husband, without whom this would absolutely not be happening. (Can I put that in all caps?) He’s a brave renaissance man. Without his sticking it out at his job for over 20 years, we would not have the money to go cruising until social security kicked in. We don’t want to wait that long. Life’s already a gamble.

To be free of jobs to go sailing at this point in our lives does not come without risk. I am grateful that we’ve both had careers that, for the most part, we’ve enjoyed. I’m trying to be brave in the face of a considerable decrease in income for some years, and trusting it will be enough. I recently let go of my professional website, which went without much fanfare but which marked a considerable turning point for me. We’re both ‘short timers’ now. It feels weird. You don’t want to be in my head on that one. I’m just sticking with the gratitude on this and ignoring the chorus in the background.

 

A favorite photo of Galapagos in a fjord. We learned so much on that trip.

I am grateful for my family, who is supportive and understanding of the fact that we need to do this. I am grateful for my mom, who wants us to go because she didn’t get to and she understands what drives this dream. I am grateful for my sister who also understands and has plans of her own to live on a boat some day. I am grateful for our children, already world explorers themselves, who have led the way for us and keep us assured they will be alright. I am grateful for their partners, Dan and Jill, who give them love and companionship in what is sometimes a hard world.

I am also grateful to the Universe for providing us with the lovely, sturdy, safe S/V Galapagos. She’s an awesome boat and she already knows her way around an ocean or two. Truly, when we were looking at boats, a boat like Galapagos was beyond my wildest dreams. Some days I still cannot believe it.

I am also grateful for Foss Harbor Marina, a place we will be calling ‘home’ shortly. I am grateful for the friends we already have there and look forward to being their neighbors. I appreciate so much that the marina folks have found a spot for us just at the right time. Mike’s commute will be so much easier from Tacoma, and I won’t have a commute at all since I work from the boat.

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Our plan is to begin our move aboard on December 21, the darkest night of the year; the winter solstice. It’s a significant day as each day after that sees more light of the sun. I always think of this as the start of the new year, a chance for a new beginning, regardless what the calendar says. It’s fitting that we make this move on such a night, when the shadows are strong and dark and filled with possibilities.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, wherever you are, however you celebrate. I really appreciate you, the people who willingly take time to read our blog and say hello.

 

 

Weekend Update Ramble

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Contrary to what it may look like, I haven’t abandoned the blog completely. And there’s actually a lot going on. Here’s the news in brief:

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One more year to enjoy the fall colors in the yard!

We have a move aboard date from the marina of December 1! We’ll be trickling down to the marina probably after the holidays. Originally, our plans were to move aboard November 1. Andrew and Jill have moved into the house, and they were to be joined by another young couple, John and Melina,  to share expenses and keep the house in the family for awhile longer. That plan needed to be changed when the marina had no room in the proverbial inn on the November 1 move-in date. Oopsy! That created some considerable stress for about a week or so.

But as is so often the case, this roadblock turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Also on November 1, Claire and Dan came home from Guatemala for 6 weeks. We narrowly avoided a situation whereby Claire and Dan would be moving in while John and Melina were moving in while Mike and I were moving out while Andrew and Jill were moving into our room from another room. Whew! It makes me tired just to write that extended sentence. And dealing with all the furniture moving? Ugh. Crisis averted, John and Melina will wait until after the holidays to move into the house. Thanks, guys! We love you.

More fall texture.

More fall texture.

As a result, we get one more holiday season in the house, with all our kids and their significant others! That makes me real happy. Since Dan and Claire will be in Edinburgh for Christmas this year, we decided to combine our Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays and celebrate what we are calling ThanksMas. So on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, while the rest of the country is out shopping and keeping our buy-more-stuff economy strong,  we’ll be safely ensconced in our family room opening stockings, drinking mimosas, and playing some pretty awesome games to celebrate the whole season. There will be prizes. Oh yes, definitely. We will make it a day to remember.

While I’m pretty stoked about ThanksMas,  I notice that it’s really put me off my holiday stride. With 58 holiday seasons under my belt I’m used to having a certain amount of time to gear up for the traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas. First we get Halloween out of the way, then I begin to consider the Thanksgiving menu. Decisions are not actually made until well into November. I don’t generally get out the Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. I better get my ass in gear since we’re living in a small time warp around here. Ho ho ho. Maybe a tiny tree for Galapagos? Just saying…

And speaking of Galapagos, things are in full swing getting ready for the big ‘move our crap aboard’ that will be happening in December. To be fair to us, we don’t have a lot of stuff anymore. We’ve pared down so much that I’m not really sure what we’ll be bringing with us except for our winter clothes and personal items. Everything else is already there. And we are so good at tossing things out now. Really good. My dreams of having a boat that isn’t always a complete disaster inside could actually come true.

We have a lot of charts and chart books. They will get their own special place.

We have a lot of charts and chart books. They will get their own special place.

Along these lines, to create easier stowage, Mike has been fitting all of the hanging lockers with deep shelves like we did in Moonrise. This makes those nice big lockers so much nicer since we now get to use all that vertical space. This is a bigger project than it sounds. In a house, closets have square corners and they are usually the same size all the way from ceiling to floor. On a boat, each shelf is a different size and micro-shape. It takes a long time to get a shelf to fit just right. Plus, what if the boat is moving when you are using that level to get the shelf just right? Everything has to be complicated on a boat.

He experimented with using wire shelving in this aft cabin locker. It turned out fine but it’s likely to be noisy underway unless I dampen the sound, which I will do. Still, we are dead pleased about how each of us gets an entire shelf and big bin of our very own! The other lockers have wooden shelves as the wire just wouldn’t work in them.

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In preparation for moving aboard, we have also put in an additional dehumidifier. We have a large one in the main cabin. It’s a GE and I bought it at Home Depot. It’s been excellent. We bought this additional small unit for the aft cabin. We are very pleased with it. It uses desiccant technology and puts out gentle heat, which helps keep that room both warm and dry. This unit we got on Amazon. It drains directly into the bilge, so we don’t have to empty it all the time. Galapagos is a big boat and has a lot of good ventilation even when she is closed up. But we have had a very wet fall so far. These make the interior a lot more comfortable and will help keep mildew at bay as well.

Our new dessicant technology dehumidifier. Love it!

Our new dessicant technology dehumidifier. Love it!

Mike is also working on new lifelines as I write this. And guess what! They are RED! Yes, Galapagos is getting dressed up in her party clothes, ready to rumble, ready to set sail. She will ride the waves in style with her pretty red dyneema lifelines. He’ll do a separate post on how he worked all that out, and also give you his ‘cheap boat trick’ cost-savings secrets. I am excited to have lifelines that do not hurt my hands when I grab them. Seriously. Of course, eventually that dandy red color will fade in the hot sun. At that point, they will be pink. So pink and turquoise, our hull color. Galapagos rocks the world of color.

The only downside lately is that I think my beloved camera may be dead. Mike took it in to be serviced recently and the guy said something like, ‘Why service cameras like this? They are basically disposable. You should just buy a new one.”.  I think the camera may have heard that and his words acted as a curse of death. This was not a cheap camera when I got it and I don’t really want to have to buy a new one. But damn. Should I expect more than 3 years out of a mid-range camera? I have a little more experimenting to do to make sure it’s actually DOA, but until then, I have to live with cell phone photos. And so do you, readers.

Finally, I took some readers up on their challenge to further my experiments with the tank digester. There will be another blog on that subject forthcoming. More experiments, using real SCIENCE,  are in the works. That’s the nail biter I’m leaving you with.