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.

Please Continue To Hold...

Boats in the marina...waiting.

We are deep in the middle of waiting. As Robert Heinlein said in 'Stranger in a Strange Land, "Waiting is...until fullness". Very apt for the state of things in and around Ceol Mor. We are most definitely strangers in a strange land. Living life with one foot firmly planted in the day to day of living ashore in the suburbs with work and school and kids activities and running a household and one foot out the door into the world of sailing (vagabonding!) around , seeing the world outside our little corner of the planet. I am not going to sugar coat it. Waiting is hard.

We had a bit of a stroke of luck last year. Mark's work load was fairly light so he was able to really put a bunch of time into getting our boat ready. This year his work load has increased to a level that is beyond full, requiring him to travel quite a bit, to work on brain taxing technical problems and to try to squeeze in a bit of boat work as well. The work relationship is a necessary one. They need the work done and since we have not won the lottery we need the funds to stockpile to pay our living expenses while we go gallivanting. It works out to a good if decideldy codependent relationship. I know that his short temper these days has more to do with trying to fit everything in with very little rest than anything we are or are not doing. I also know that this too shall pass. But its hard. Hard to know the answer is to get out sailing where Mark visibly relaxes and a calmness overtakes him and to know that the answer is still 12 months away.

Then there are the little things that are hard. Little things like my car. My car is okay but really way too small for my day to day life with a toddler in tow and a preteen as well. We really could use something that offered us the flexibility of hauling kids and/or boat refit supplies and equipment. We looked long and hard at the used car market and no matter how we crunched the numbers, to get something in decent shape would require us to take a $2500-$3000 hit over the course of 12 months. How many months of cruising would that $3,000 buy us? Almost 2 on our projected budget. Do we want to give up that time in exchange for a bit more comfort and convenience for only 12 months? No, keep your eye on the prize but as I load up the car for another day it does annoy me.

A really hard thing was giving up a long time dream of my own. I had a great career in folk music and felt like I had reached all of my goals save one- I always wanted to do children's music. Some might not get it because its not cool or hip, but I have always wanted to perform for children. When I heard that my absolute favorite of all time children's music group The Singing Kettle was searching for a new cast member, I sent in my resume, some past recordings and a short video. I thought it was a pipe dream and did not expect anything. Then they came back announcing I had made the short list and would I send in a another video? I sent it in and then Mark and I sat down and crunched numbers and logistics of moving the family and boat to Scotland, changing our sailing plans and all the changes and sacrifices that chasing this weird little dream of mine would entail.

As we waited to hear back, I came to the conclusion that the sacrifices we have made for the past 3 years would have been wasted if I were to take the position. I quite tearfully made the determination that choosing to chase the dream of cruising meant foregoing other dreams and goals. I knew I had to withdraw my name should I be invited to Scotland. It was a bit of good fortune actually, that in the end choosing a Texan for a Scottish children's group did not fit in with the Singing Kettle's needs and I did not have to write that painful letter withdrawing my name. Knowing that I had to forgo other dreams was very hard. Its not one I will be able to revisit so it really is choosing one longed for experience over another. Hard indeed.

The kids are finding waiting hard as well. Not so much Kitty, whose only real sacrifice is a backyard climbing frame/slide of her own (and man oh man would she love it) but Maura has had to give up opportunities and things in order for us to do this. We live in the epicenter of suburban/American consumerism and in order to make cruising work, we have to make different choices than our neighbors and while on the surface it might seem superficial and inconsequential, if you are 12 years old and are the only kid around not following the prescribed formula it is hard. No iPhone, they are too expensive and you won't be able to use it in a year. No competitive dance or sports because you will be leaving in a year and those require a 3 year commitment. Amassing a junior high school worthy wardrobe? You'll just have to get rid of most of it in a year and when will you wear those trendy jeans with all the gelcoat scarring studs on the boat? Other coveted gadgets and items are just more things to soak up the finances and must be gotten rid of in the name of available storage space. Maura desperately wants a sailing dinghy of her own but we don't have time to get good use out of it before we leave and where would we store it on the boat? Birthdays and Christmas are small, both for financial reasons and storage space considerations. Certainly not life or death choices but if you are 12 and giving up all of the things your friends enjoy for an unknown experience, it is hard.

So, I continue to wait. Waiting for the payoff for which we have all sacrificed. I do not begrudge those who are able to just buy a boat, step aboard and take off. I am happy that life happened in such a way to allow them to skip the waiting because some times, waiting really sucks. And blows. Simultaneously .Our life has not happened in such a way for that to be the case. We've had to sacrifice, work and wait. While the waiting can get me down, I know that no one will be more excited to finally cast off the dock lines than we. I know that all this annoying and at times maddening craziness will result in an adventure many others will never get the chance to experience and for that, I am extremely grateful. So we shall keep on keeping on and until we finally cast off our ties to land I will try to remember "Waiting is...until fullness."

Turn and Face the Strange...

I was chatting with a cruiser friend recently. She asked when we were going to be leaving to start doing some local overnight trips. I replied that we would be leaving this Friday, if we did not get divorced before then. She chuckled and said that pre-departure bickering happens to just about everyone and I thought, why don’t they tell you about that before? In honor of this and the myriad other dirty little secrets we have learned and will learn in the future I’m making a new tag for the blog” Stuff no one tells you”.

I don’t even remember what we were bickering about. Probably something like the wind velocity of a fully laden African swallow or something equally notable.. The ‘what’ is not important, it’s the ‘why’. We are in transition and lets face it, change is tough, for everyone. We’ve spent so much time and effort into getting the boat seaworthy that now that we are just about to the “Be nice” stage of the refit (be nice to have refrigeration, be nice to have xyz, etc) and are now concentrating on sailing and living on the boat it feels a little chaotic. We’ve gotten into refit routine and groove and now its time to shake it all up again and it’s a little bit stressful but its also kind of the whole point of the past 2 years and a necessary step to the next phase.

So we are off on a short sail tomorrow. We plan on staying on the hook in an anchorage some where around here. After that the plan is to take Ceol Mor out of the bathtub that is Galveston Bay and just let her have a little taste of the sea. Just a wee bit, then we will do something else the next night. We might go to another anchorage or we might decide that staying on the hook without XYZ really sucks and we need to add that item PRONTO and either way its ok. We’re going to roll with it and be open to completely changing our plans if that seems like the thing to do.

So here we go, here comes lots of new experiences and challenges. Here comes change and I’m gonna try my darnedest to face it with humor and grace and remember that time will change me, and that is a god thing.