Lost

I guess I am about 400 miles and a month or two behind. When I left off we had just gotten back from the Jumentos and were planning a slow sail through the Bahamas for the summer.  All was peaceful and good. We are in sweaty-hot Florida now.  What happened?  Well, after an afternoon of soaking in the pretty Bahama water and listing the places we wanted to see there this summer, we came back to the boat and were greeted with a copy of our new insurance policy. I am a good girl and read it start to finish-not just the summary of changes.  I was rewarded with learning that we were about to ONLY be covered in the USA-in like three weeks.  SHIPS! Um, glad we were not in Grenada when I read that!  Or hadn’t just paid for the entire summer of arrangements in the Bahamas! Bahamas in hurricane season, without a secure plan and without insurance just wasn’t happening for us.  So, a leisurely gunk-holey cruise turned into a two-stop run up to the Abacos while we had a good window to do so. Zoom-zoom. Of course, once there, we got the insurance mess cleared up.  Just a little computer generated error. Of course.

Somehow, though, the damage was already done.  We had already mentally switched gears to H-season in Florida.  Absolutely what we said we didn’t want when we turned around in the Virgin Islands.  Strangely, we were ready to head back to Florida-even after we didn’t have to go. I still don’t really understand it.  In those days I can’t count how many time we said to each other “I thought we’d want to do this for longer” and also “I think I’m ready to try something new”. It befuddled us. Completely. But it was, however odd, how we were both feeling.  And as simple and quiet as that our cruising came to an end. We sailed back with plans to haul out the boat, put her on the market, follow through with our road trip to Alaska and go on from there to who knows where.  There was no frustration or disappointment, in fact our whole crossing we spent recounting what a wonderful, amazing, adventurous two and a half years we just had.  Hell, we had just crossed off our number one bucket list item not once but twice! Still, maybe you can understand how I wasn’t keen on writing about our final sail.  It made it too real, too done, and I hadn’t quite come to grips that it was over and so I just kept putting it off.

Here is where it gets messy though.  Part of putting the boat on the market meant giving a new coat of bottom paint and a good scrub top to bottom and some touch ups.  First, though, we took a few days and found our selves a truck, you know, to haul the 14 foot camper we plan on living in while we drive across country.  Then we hauled the boat. Next we rented a storage unit so we could unload everything single thing off of it to sort what we wouldn’t need any more and make deep-cleaning the boat easier.  I think here is where our “new plan” showed its first few cracks.  As we unloaded and sorted all of our belongings we were unable to put a single piece of fishing gear or snorkel gear in the “get rid of pile”.  Not a thing. Same with our safety harnesses, binoculars, or almost any other piece of sailing gear.  Not sure what we are going to do with it on our road trip or when we don’t have a boat anymore, but we can’t imagine parting with these things either. More cracks showed up while putting a coat of varnish on the teak and I realized I had spent the entire time envisioning cruising. On this boat. In the future. To places we have yet to go. Hmmmmm. 

Fine, plan adjustment, don’t sell the boat.  Keep it, do our road trip/Alaska thing and come back and go sail again. Problem solved.  Except vehicles, boats, campers, insurances for all, storage fees, and State-side living totally blows the budget. Not to mention it doesn’t seem to be the simple life we are working toward. Urf.

Oh, and tangent, we found a little wrinkle in our original drive to Alaska and start a job there in the Spring plan.  It would mean doing our cross-country part of the trip, which we are really excited about, in the dead of winter.  I don’t have a good grasp on the concept of winter, I know this, and it is probably even worse after spending the last two in the islands, but when I read I needed a special little heater for the holding tank in the camper to keep the poop from freezing-I started to get a clearer picture.  We’ve decided we will definitely need to make some adjustment to when we make our trip! It will NOT be in the dead of winter.  No poopsicles.  

Anyway, if you are still reading this rambling mess, at least you might understand why I haven’t written in a bit.  It’s kind of hard to open yourself up when in such a state of transition or uncertainty. It feels extremely vulnerable to do so.  I just kept thinking we’d have a clear path soon enough and I’d write then. It just doesn’t seem to be happening.  We are lost at the moment.  Not unhappy, not at all, just lost. 

In all of this, I don’t have current pics ready to post so instead of using that as one more excuse not finish this post, I’ll add these old ones instead.  I still laugh when I look at them:

Kai, despite having grown up a beach pup, had never discovered crabs-no matter how many we pointed out.  When we were at Attwood Harbour he finally discovered them.  I caught his first encounter on camera. 

And the winner is………

“Not all who wander are lost”  

…..then again, some are.  We know because we are in that other group!