I’ve talked about my brother Kyle previously when discussing various sailingadventures as well as my SCUBA progress… What I haven’t talked about are his and Becca’s (his wife) plans and dreams. I’m not going to try and articulate their dreams… no one could except them. Suffice it to say that they are planning on joining us in casting off and following our cruising dream. On their own boat, of course.
Kyle was the first person other than Michele that I discussed my crazy idea with. We were extremely excited about our newly hatched plans… almost giddy. Each time we researched cruising we became more convinced. We needed an outside opinion (We’ve since met with our friends Scott and Brittany from Windtraveler for one). Before approaching Kyle, I expected to meet resistance and a multitude of reasons why following my dream was impossible. Amazingly, I found nothing but support. Well… support and mutual interest. He began to express many of the same sentiments that Michele and I have about materialism, time freedom, and life in general.
I am not going to talk about the whys, the hows, whens, etc of Kyle and Becca’s plans… their story is their own. They have become part of Michele and I’s story in some ways, however. It is a huge comfort to know that we will be sailing with people we can implicitly, and without hesitation, trust. Not only will we have double the amount of spare parts, dinghies, tools, etc but we will have partners to experience the wonders of cruising with. I am sure there will be times when we wonder “What are we doing here?” Thankfully, we will have Kyle and Becca nearby for support. One of the things I am most looking forward to is meeting new people and new cruising buddies while we are on our adventures, but I am extremely lucky to have a brother that shares the passion and dream of cruising.
I just took the last final exam of my college career. What does this have to do with cruising? Why would I waste my time going to college if I’m going to move onto a boat in the near future? Most immigration systems follow a “points” system. For each desirable attribute a potential immigrant has, points are added. Once you reach a certain threshold of points, you’re in. It really is that simple. Know English? 15 points! Have a college degree? 30 points! You get the picture.
Michele and I aren’t planning on emigrating from the US while we are cruising… but who knows? Perhaps we will get to New Zealand and decide we want to stay. I was four classes away so I figured the “points” gained were worth it. I absolutely hate school, however. With a passion. Don’t get me wrong… I love learning. I just hate school. It sucks the life out of me. You know what my classes remaining were for a computer science degree? English 1, English 2, Speech, and Java Programming. Really? Worthless is an understatement.
In the end, my classes didn’t teach me anything. I’m glad that I got the degree, however. I’ll hopefully never stop learning, but I dearly hope I have stopped schooling.
Follow your dreams. Follow the Horizon.
This will be our last NaBloPoMo post. We know that it isn’t the end of the month yet. We feel like we are posting just to post, instead of for the right reasons. We don’t want to clog your inboxes and feed readers unless it is worth reading. We will be returning to our normal Wednesday and Saturday post schedule… see you Saturday!
This sums up why we wanted to move there. Bay of Islands, NZ
NaBloPoMo asks “What sports did you play as a child?” Michele and I certainly didn’t sail. I played pretty much every sport an American child in the Midwest can play, just not sailing. We’re talking basketball, baseball, football, floor hockey, soccer, swimming, track and field, you name it I played it. So how did Michele and I come up with the crazy idea to sail full time?
A few years ago I had watched the documentary [amazon_link id=”9492259486″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Ice Blink[/amazon_link]… At the time I thought little more about it than “Wow that’s cool.” The seed of sailing (and crusing) had been planted however. As Michele and I became more and more disillusioned with money and “stuff” we began searching for alternatives. Cruising was not at the top of the list, surprisingly. We seriously explored moving to New Zealand. New Zealand is in the midst of a brain drain as most of its young educated people move elsewhere, primarily Australia. Because of this brain drain, IT workers (and especially network engineers) wanting to move into the country are on somewhat of a fast track approval.
We went so far as to tell our families we were moving to live the life of Kiwis… but what was the life of a Kiwi? Our primary motivation was to reprioritize our lives away from what is fake and towards what is real. We started talking to people from New Zealand to get a feel for what life there really is all about. We would still need to work full time, if only to keep our fast track status. Slowly, we figured out that the freedom we were searching for doesn’t have as much to do with “where” as with “when” and “what” you are doing. Time-freedom is hard to come by. Cruising fulfills both aspects of what drove Michele and I to want to move to New Zealand: time-freedom and exploration. The ability to set sail within a few hours notice for whatever port you would like definitely is quite alluring for the both of us. The time-freedom to explore those ports, as well as ourselves, is what calls us to the sea.
This post is part of our NaBloPoMo series. Follow the Horizon is participating in National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo). NaBloPoMo is for bloggers who commit to post each day in the month of May.
A few nights ago I couldn’t sleep. When this happens, I usually find myself watching a TED Talk. Michele and I were in the middle of trying to sell my car (see Good Bye Awesome Car, Hello Future for the whole story) and I was thinking about stuff. The kind of stuff that fills up our basements, attics, kitchens, garages, houses, and lives. We have a lot of stuff. Michele, Carter, and I live in a normal sized house… but we have rooms that we haven’t opened the door to for months. That brings me to the talk I was watching a few nights ago. In it writer and designer Graham Hill explores if having less “stuff” can actually lead to more happiness. Michele and I think so. Check it out for yourself below.
Americans have so much stuff that its possible to have shows like Hoarders and Storage Wars… maybe its time to look at the alternative?
Yesterday was a sad day in the life of my car ownership… I just sold the best car that I will ever own (previously of My Car and I went Diving fame). Car ownership and cruising don’t exactly go hand in hand, do they? Let me say that I like cars. I like driving, I like racing (not NASCAR, that doesn’t make sense to me), etc… I had a Saab 9-3 Aero with a 6 speed manual transmission. The engine was V6 Turbo Charged. That’s 276 screaming horse power in a sedan. I actually never lost a race, even against BMWs, Mercedes, Porches, Corvettes, and other less worthy challengers.
Hello future
It just wasn’t to be, however. Finance guru Michele figured out that we could save an additional $13,000 before our cast off if we traded my car for a cheaper one that we paid cash for. That $13,000 is around a year’s worth of expenses while cruising. Needless to say a year cruising the ocean beats a year cruising my 9-3 Aero to work any day… but it was still hard to drive off the lot leaving it behind. It is one thing to know and understand that following our dreams will require us to get rid of pretty much everything we own, but its another thing altogether to put those words into action. It’s bittersweet. I feel awesome that Michele was able to figure out how to save an additional year’s worth of expenses without needing to wait any longer before we cast off.
We now have one major To-Do List item checked off: pay off one of our car loans. We plan on doing the same with our other Saab 9-3 (yes, we used to own two…) in the future, but paying cash for our new GMC Jimmy kind of knocked our savings down temporarily. We will probably get nearly all of what we paid for the GMC back when we sell it, but we don’t have the cash to buy another car immediately. One car payment down, one to go, and a future to look forward to. Follow your dreams. Follow the Horizon.
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.