Some Place In Between....

We did manage a little together time to go for a walk in the woods....

Let me tell you a little secret about life once the cruise count down move to under one year. It is HARD. Not hard in a "oh my there are so many things to do" kind of hard. That can be daunting, but every completed project ticked off the list comes with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Its not hard in an "oh my we are going to be leaving bay and forth sailing and heading out into the ocean and it kinda freaks me out" way. Anytime I start to feel a little nervous about sailing far from land, I have the assurances of friends who have done it remind me that you are safer far from the coast than closer to it. Being a little nervous and therefore respectful of the power of the ocean is a good thing and that respect is what is going to keep Ceol Mor safely sailing. No, its hard existing in this bizarre half life of waiting.

Mark just finished is official last day of work. He might have a few days of consult work here and there, but the next 10 months or so are going to be dedicated to finishing up projects and getting the boat ready to go. Its more than a little scary to be looking at a year with no income but its part of the plan. I think perhaps it was not the brightest idea to end full time employment the month of Christmas. We do not go crazy at all, but any kind of Christmas is going to be an outlay of cash and now its time to remember fun today means less fun tomorrow. Because Murphy lives in our house, of course this was the month Kitty decided to clean my laptop thoroughly with Mrs Meyers. I will say that Mrs. Meyers makes the smoke pouring forth from a dying laptop smell all lemony fresh. Not exactly a great month for the budget, but we will be okay its just a little nerve racking.

Then there are the kids and this is one of the really tough things. I want them to really enjoy all that land life has to offer them for these last 10 months. With Mark pouring his heart and soul into Ceol Mor and me running kids to and fro, this means we have a lot of "divide and conquer" going on. I keep telling myself that we are counting down to possibly more togetherness than either of us want (ha!) but it can be a little lonely trying to play Mighty Mom Of Suburbia on your own.

Mark gets to feel chuffed when he redoes, say the plumbing on the boat. Anyone who has owned a boat applauds his Herculean efforts on the boat and every project he completes is met with a  "WOW! Awesome work!" from the folks who see his work. Any mom trying to be full on Super Mom knows that no matter how good a job you do, nobody gives you high fives. I know the girls are doing well so that is thanks enough but it does contribute to making this final countdown feel a bit tough at times.The kids are doing great and are engaged, busy and happy but I have this weird 'in flux ' feeling going on. I am not really connected with everything going on in suburbia because we are leaving. Its this really bizarre feeling of being here, but at the same time NOT being here. It is existing some place in between,

Its not a place of sadness. Nor is it a place of disappointment or anxiety. Its just this really strange place to be. In all of the writings I have read, I've never seen anyone discuss how weird it is to be neither here nor there in the last year. In one on one conversation, it seems that EVERYONE has this feeling. They just never talk about it. Not certain exactly why, but there it is.

So we are rolling into 2014. 2014, the year that we will no longer be living in the in between but will be actively cruising. I am looking forward to it more than I can say. Not just because we have been actively pursuing this for over 4 years now but because it will mean that I will be living a little more in the here and now. And that is the whole point of this adventure.

If It Was Easy Everyone Would Do It.

The exclaim I hear most often from people when I tell them what we are doing is "What about storms?". The second most common comment is "What about pirates?". The truthful answer to the first is that modern weather tracking and careful itinerary planning means we are likely to be able to miss anything really hairy and if we do roll bad odds and get terrible weather, we have a stout little boat and we are putting together a contingency plan to make sailing in weather as safe as possible. As to *pirates, well we aren't planning a coastal cruise of Somalia or Malaysia  so the odds are far greater that we would get carjacked in our hometown than run afoul of pirates. My flippant answer is if we can survive the refit and getting ready to leave everything else will be easy.

Getting a boat ready is a tough gig.Seriously. If you have buckets of money, you can throw it at tradesmen and have it done for you but then you run the very real risk of not having the work done well despite the extraordinary expense. This is largely why Mark has been doing the work himself. While it slows down the departure date, we can rest easy knowing the work is done to perfection. Its not really a money saving scheme because when Mark is working on the boat, he isn't working for the nice people who give him a paycheck. Pick your poison I suppose.

Then there is the emotional cost. With such a ridiculous schedule (non-stop work/boat work for 3 years. 3. Years.) and with all of us feeling so transient- not really putting down roots, not really traveling, in this bizarre state of refit induced suspended animation- tempers can get short. It happens to each and everyone of us but thankfully, for the most part it seems we don't hit the lows at the same time. It has happened a couple of instances that both Mark and I have hit a low spot at the same time and it was NOT pretty. Fortunately, we tend to bounce back fairly quickly and come back to being best friends again. Even more fortunately for Mark I am a very forgiving person and can forgive him for the fact that all of his tools are stupid tools and his projects are stupid projects and I really don't like boats anymore because they are stupid too.

And then there is the budget. We are not fabulously wealthy trust fund kids. We are able to do this adventure by carefully watching the pennies. Mark can tell you where he has spent every single penny since he was 10 years old. (naturally) I on the other hand, am not the most organized and numerically savvy of people so you can imagine the difficulty that can pop up between Mark and I on this. Numbers are not my thing and I struggle to keep track of everything while running a house with kids in the suburbs. The good news is that I am a fairly frugal person anyway. The bad news is that getting the budget ready requires more than just being frugal, it means knowing where Every.Single. Penny. is going. A mistake in budget projections can have me feeling certain that we will run out of money somewhere between here and Kuala Lumpur, we will be forced to eat the salon cushions to stave off starvation and we will be forced to sell one of the kids for diesel and beans. We are really under the gun budget wise because Mark is planning on leaving work at the end of this year to work full time on the boat. So dinners out (which were already pretty darned rare) are off the list and while we know we desperately need a vacation, it pains us and worries us to spend the money on fun when what we really need is a completed front cabin, plumbing, rigging, sails and brand new deck hardware.

Its hard on the kids as well. Kitty is young enough to just go along with everything but Maura is having a rough time. She wants to make plans for the near future, but the fact that we are leaving hangs over her head. If you ever had to move when you were a teenager, you will understand. Now add in the fact that she has no idea what environment she will be living in and you can see why she might be a bit more than nervous. You remember being 13 don't you? I know that the rewards will far out weigh the sacrifices and I keep coming back to how HAPPY she is when sailing but sometimes, it can be hard for her to keep it all in perspective when all she sees right now are the things she has to give up.

And then there is trying to get a house ready to go on the market, and deciding do we home school this last year or let the kids have as much time in a typical school situation as they can, and we really need to get a handle on budget and oh did I mention the glacially slow pace of the refit and....and... and...

So why am I writing about all of this? I am writing this because this is reality. Getting a boat ready, getting your finances ready, preparing a house to be sold, working as much as you can before you pack it all in for a few years and working on boat projects every single day while trying to keep up with a job is definitely stressful stuff. It is not easy and when the reward for all of the sacrifices everyone has made seems so far away (and has slipped FARTHER away) it can feel down right craptacular.

I am comforted by the fact that every single one of my cruising friends who have had to spend a few years getting ready will tell you that getting ready to leave SUCKS. No two ways about it. The thing that keeps me going is their assurances that they did manage to get through it all without divorce attorneys, the kids refusing to speak to them ever again and without going completely insane. They also, without exception assure me that every bit of stress and upheaval has been worth it 10 times over.

I keep reminding myself, this too shall pass. While things are definitely difficult right now, we are so, so fortunate. Fortunate to have each other and to be able to plan a dream together. Lucky to be able to cobble together a little team that will get to discover the world together. Like the titles says, if it were easy everyone would do it. Its not easy, but I have absolute, unshakable faith that it will all be worth it in the end. Mark has never, ever in his life not done what he said he was going to do. I have always been one to do completely audacious things and for them to all come out in the end. We will get there but to say its an easy trip would be an absolute falsehood.

Pirates and storms? Not what frightens me. What frightens me is the strain all of this puts on our relationships but we have looked that fear in the eye and we are still here, still friends, still moving forward, still dreaming and still on the same team.. Now bring me that horizon...

And hurry please.

Life is Messy

Let me be upfront and forthright- I hate schedules. Following a schedule invariably causes me unnecessary anxiety and stress because I am firm believer in going with the flow. Unfortunately, if you never set a schedule you'll never get anything done so they are a necessary evil. Cruising should suit me perfectly. The only schedule you have to follow is the one set by weather conditions. So why am I suddenly feeling stress from being behind an imaginary, self imposed schedule? Because there are forces beyond my control at work and truthfully, I enjoy the illusion of having some control over my life. HA!

Which brings me to our departure date. Yep, you guessed it- its moving again. There is just no way we will have everything taken care of in the next 3 months. 8 months is more than likely and that puts us squarely in hurricane season. This is not a time to be far from home with 2 little people on board. I don't feel that I need to leave at a certain date in order to appease the opinions of others but I do feel the need to answer to the weather and the little people who count on us to make the right decisions.

Its difficult because in my mind and soul I am ready to be gone NOW. We've been working towards the goal of leaving for 2 years now and admitting that we need to adjust the calendar one more time is a bitter pill to swallow but in the end, it will be good for us. This is the right decision. Its still hard to take though. The pace of boat projects has slowed down because with daily temperatures hitting over 100 Farenheit its just impossible to "pick up the pace" no matter how badly we wish to do so. We slowly continue to crank out those necessary projects and I try to look at the bright side of the situation. 

Moving the date a bit allows us to work at a humanly possible pace with the knowledge that cooler weather will soon be here bringing with it a much more comfortable working/sailing environment. Mark's job was supposed to have been completed almost a year ago. He continues to work part time which is a very good thing as we have tripled our inital refit budget. He keeps showing up and they keep paying him for which we are actually very, very grateful. So half the week at the office, half the week on the boat and save, save, save those pennies. Maura really wants to complete one last year at the public school. A much as I want to homeschool her now  the best way to prevent her from being wistful about missing public school while cruising is to let her endure the fun that is being a sixth grade girl. Junior high school is the pits, you know it and I know it but she needs to discover this for herself. Kitty is still a wee thing, barely 20 pounds at our last checkup so waiting a bit will mean she is steadier on her feet, stronger and hopefully sleeping through the night (please). We have friends who are hoping to cast off for the Bahamas and points south from the East Coast next fall so by waiting we will have playmates for the kids and since they have a much larger catamaran, a place to stash our wine collection (and some fun peeps to share it with!) These are all great and valid reasons to relax and go with the flow. I still want to leave yesterday though. I've been stationary for too long and when that happens, I get itchy feet.

Wanderlust (n): strong longing for or impulse towards wandering, an ache for distance

Yes, that is the diagnosis.