by Michele | May 5, 2012 | Preparation Stage
I have a confession to make. I’m afraid of water. Growing up, my whole family was uncomfortable when in the water. I didn’t learn how to swim until I was eight years old, and I’m sure that Carter will be a better swimmer than me by the time he’s five. I don’t even like getting my face wet in the shower…yea, it’s pretty stupid I know.
A year ago, Dan started talking about getting our SCUBA certifications. Kyle and Becca, his brother and sister-in-law, had already gotten theirs and went diving in Mexico for their honeymoon and had really enjoyed it. The idea of scuba diving made me want to hyperventilate… which is somewhat ironic considering that I’ve willingly jumped out of a plane three times and I would have no problem doing it again. I just don’t like to be underwater. But I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet; if Becca could do it, then I could do it.
For the most part, our class was uneventful. I wasn’t even the worst one there! The only problem that I had was taking off my mask underwater and having to clear it again (see above statement about getting my face wet.) It was time for our certification dives at Haigh Quarry in Kankakee, Illinois. I wasn’t too worried, because I knew I could do everything. Unfortunately, I had decided to buy a new mask from our dive shop and hadn’t tested it yet. Bad idea. As soon as I would go under water, my mask would instantly start filling with water. I am ashamed to admit that I started freaking out, not quite hyperventilation, but definitely freaking out. I was done with this. Luckily, our instructor that day noticed my problem and traded masks with me so that I could complete my dives. Poor guy had to wear a pink mask all day.
I’m happy to report that while I’m not entirely cured of my fears of the water, I do really like scuba diving. Diving in the Caribbean was one of the most amazing things that I have experienced. For now, I’m happy to just go diving with Dan. I’m not interested in starting Divemaster training like he is until I am significantly more comfortable. However, there is something to be said for facing your fears. The confidence earned is definitely worth the cost.
by Michele | Apr 28, 2012 | Preparation Stage
So why can't I go in again?
Carter is our smallest-in-stature, biggest-in-attitude crew member. I’ll refrain from any 2-going-on-20 cliches, but this kid definitely thinks he is running the show around here (and he might be right!) He loves all things “boy”- trucks, cars, trains, and of course boats a.k.a “buhts” to him. Since he was only about 2 months old, the best way to get Carter to relax has been to take him outside. He will be in a terrible tantrum mood, but as soon as you get him outside he will play peacefully for literally hours.
Carter not only has the love of the outdoors going for him, he is completely obsessed with water. Talk about a boy meant for the ocean. He’ll splash in anything he can find: pools, ponds, dog dishes, and (as a mother I am ashamed to admit) the occasional open toilet. Yuck. He will even pour out drops of juice on the floor just to rub them around on his hands. He LOVES water.
One of our biggest motivations for wanting to live on a sailboat and travel is to give our son the opportunity to grow up with an open mind. To experience humanity instead of being just a passive member of it. To learn by touch and feel instead of by being told. Carter may not want to live on a boat for the rest of his life, and maybe we won’t either, but that’s not our ultimate goal for him. We want him to know that anything is possible, no matter what his horizon is.
by Michele | Mar 24, 2012 | Preparation Stage
“Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement – and we will make the goal.”-Robert Collier
Do you remember when you were in school and you finished a test that you felt pretty good about, but you weren’t really sure if you had gotten a good grade or not? It’s not that you weren’t confident in the information you knew, but you just had a little nagging voice telling you all day that maybe there was something you missed. That’s a little like I’d been feeling about our plans for cruising. We were doing all of the research that we could, reading blogs, crunching numbers, but there was still that little voice saying “you’re missing something, this is all going to come crashing down at any minute now.”
Well, the little voice has been banished (for now at least) with some help from our new friends Scott and Brittany of Wind Traveler. I’d been following their blog recently and knew that they were back in the Chicago area awaiting the arrival of their new crew member (see: baby). Dan and I were also planning on going up to Chicago to spend some time with my family over the weekend, so I decided to take a shot in the dark and email Brittany to ask if the two of them would have a coffee with us and let us pick their brains a little. It was a bit of a stretch out of my comfort zone, I don’t normally invite people to coffee that I’ve never met before, but I’m so glad that I did.
Brittany and Scott were extremely helpful and very encouraging to talk to. They really helped validate our plans and gave us a lot more confidence in the knowledge that we had already acquired through reading books and blogs. They also gave us some great advice about how we can be better prepared. (I’ve already been scouring the internet for books/lessons on weather forecasting. I think I’m going to buy this set by Tim Vasquez.) I don’t think that they can fully appreciate how much it meant to us when they looked at us and said, “We can tell you guys are going to make it.”
It felt like a big A on the test.
by Dan | Oct 19, 2011 | Preparation Stage
We have been extremely fortunate… we have a wonderfully healthy and exciting son, way too big of a house (there are rooms we haven’t seen for months), great cars, etc… you get the point. Our entire lives we had been told both through media and quite directly by teachers, friends, and even family at times, that we would be happy after we had just a little more money or a slightly larger house. We’ve gone through several iterations of a little more money and a slightly larger house and it isn’t fulfilling. What is fulfilling is our walks on the riverfront at lunch time, watching Carter try to figure out the world, marveling at the sunrises while hunting, talking with friends way too late in the night… life is what is fulfilling, not things.
We recognized this a few years ago but until recently were lost in the quandary of how to maximize life when we needed a constant flow of income to support our lifestyle. Living aboard is a perfect solution to this problem… at least for us. Living aboard will allow us to experience life to the fullest without the constant need for a large stream of income, all while experiencing some of the best sights and most unique people this world has to offer.
Western culture has been drifting away from reality for a while now. I was just over a friend’s house and there were two middle school girls that were good friends and hadn’t seen each other in a while. After the cursory greetings, etc they each whipped out their cellphones and began to text random people and post on their Facebook walls what they had done in the last five seconds since their last post. They then moved to the computer where more such machinations were to follow. Unfortunately it is quite normal for people to go work for 8-9 hours, start dinner, turn on the TV, and tune out of life until bedtime. In 10-20 years (hell, 10-20 days or even hours) will it matter what TV show you watched? What team won the sports game? Who the next idol is? No, it won’t. What will matter is what impact you had on the world. Whom you experienced life with. The time you were able to spend with your children. What difference you made in the lives of people you met. These are things that matter now and forever.
I don’t expect living aboard to solve any of my problems, but I expect it to give me the time to experience life. There are a lot of hardships involved with life on a boat, I get that. I don’t mean to demean the people living in western culture or even the people enjoying it, it’s just that I have found it to be unfulfilling and circular. What is the point of spinning your wheels maxing out yourself so you can buy the next great thing that you will need to replace in six months due to planned obsolescence? So you can do it all again? No thanks.
by Dan | Oct 12, 2011 | Preparation Stage
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.
Around a year ago I came across the concept of live aboard sailing… and after talking with Michele about it for a while, we’ve decided to take the plunge. While some people encourage nearly wanton haste like “sell everything, buy a boat, cast of the lines” we are slightly (only slightly, mind you) more pragmatic. Our son is 11 months old this month and we aren’t comfortable having an infant/toddler on a cruiser. We don’t judge people who do, its just not for us. We plan to wait until he is around 4 years old and by that time have enough investments to be able to purchase a boat and sail to wherever Horizon (the name of our future boat, explanation to come later) might take us.
I am an IT manager of a medium sized organization. I attended one of the top computer science universities in the world, dropped out early because I hate(d) school and became a network engineer when I was 20. It has been 3 years since and I have been the IT Director of a small hospital and now of a medium sized medical practice. I am not saying all of this to try to impress anyone… I am saying this because I believe some people get obsessed with climbing a ladder somewhere and don’t stop to look around and just enjoy what they have. Time travels in one direction and we have a finite supply. My wife Michele and I are fortunate enough to understand this at our ages and we plan to take advantage of this wisdom.
So how’d I get Michele to agree to this craziness? In her own words…
When Dan first came to me with the idea of living on a boat full-time, I was somewhat stunned. Carter was only 9 months old and a lot of our financial issues (promotions at work, loans getting paid off, etc.) were really starting to look up. We were almost to the point of being able to do whatever we wanted with our money and being set for life! But I could tell from the way he was talking about it that Dan was really serious about this, so I at least needed to give it some serious thought. The more I thought about it, read about it, and talked about it with him, the more I realized that not only was it possible to do this but that it was something I really wanted to go for too. Not only for myself and Dan, but for Carter too. I don’t want my son growing up in front of a screen.
I’m still nervous about the idea, but I figure its kind of like the nervous energy performers get before going on stage…its what keeps you from getting bored.
