by Michele | Oct 10, 2012 | Preparation Stage
Dan recently took this photo while on his day off with Carter
Recently, I had the opportunity to be part of a leadership seminar through my department at work. There were many excellent points discusses throughout the entire course of the seminar, but the portion on change is what really hit a chord with me. Hmm, I wonder why? The speaker, Chuck Stoner*, spoke specifically about the fact that every change in life comes with a sense of loss and grieving, even when the change is something positive that we are looking forward to.
When change comes, there is always a different path that will never be available to us again. Dan and I are currently standing in that divergence of choices and the other paths that we will be walking away from are so clear to me I can almost physically see them. I can see Carter at his first day of kindergarten, baseball game, and a host of other things that every mom cherishes and it does fill me with a sense of longing for that path. I can see that our grandparents are getting older and know in my heart that there is a very real possibility that being gone for 5-10 years or more means we might not get to see them again before they die. We may miss births of nieces and nephews, friends’ weddings, and a lot more events that we can never get back once they are over. We will be moving away from Dan’s very close-knit family that we spend time with multiple days a week.
All of these things and more impose a real weight to the decisions that we are making. They give more value to the good life that we are leaving behind to follow our dream of cruising. Does that mean that we will regret the choice to leave? I don’t think so. The excitement of moving forward and doing something new is far too great for us to look back wistfully for very long. But it does make me appreciate the time we have left a little more.
Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.
*Dr. Charles Stoner and his speaking partner Tom Bower gave one of the best seminars I have ever attended. If you ever have a chance to go to one, I would highly recommend it. Also, you can find some of Chuck’s books on business and leadership here.
by Dan | May 23, 2012 | Preparation Stage
As you might know, I am in the process of becoming a PADI divemaster. I have finished the class portion of PADI Rescue Diver in addition to being certified as an Emergency First Responder. I had completely overlooked the EFR class and didn’t know what to expect. SCUBA classes make sense, the things you are supposed to do or not do are intuitive. The methods we learned for rescuing someone underwater are challenging… but I feel that they are a valuable tool for both SCUBA and sailing.
The lessons on the EFR class were completely new to me. CPR? Emergency Response? I am a non-medical staff member at a medical practice… that stuff has always been for the “medical” people. The skills learned in the EFR class are not taught from a SCUBA perspective but from a general “emergency” perspective (think car crash). Nonetheless, the lessons are extremely valuable. There will be times when Michele, Carter, and I will be far into a crossing and it is definitely a comfort to know that I have the skills to at least stabilize an emergency situation.
We will be at Bull Shoals, AR this weekend diving off of a 60 foot houseboat with Kyle and Becca. If all goes well I’ll pass my Rescue Diver certification! Next class: Divemaster.
by Dan | May 16, 2012 | Preparation Stage
It turns out Kyle is as crazy as we are.
I’ve talked about my brother Kyle previously when discussing various sailing adventures 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.
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.
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.