So, we’re leaving.
By June of 2012 our house will be sold, my wife’s practice will have wound to a close, the kids will be winding up their school year and we will be living on Evenstar heading for a permanent live aboard life cruising all over the world.
I said it, it’s out there.
It’s been a long time coming and a looong time not talking about it. But for various reasons – primarily business related with regards to my wife’s practice – we had to keep fairly mum. Which is difficult when you have a life changing decision made for years that you have been striving towards and hoping for and you can only share it with a couple of people, lest word get out and make a mess of things before all the plans are right.
Sure the astute observer could see the upgrades we’ve been doing on the boat and maybe read between the lines in some of my comments. In many cases though the people in one part of our lives (the non sailors) and the people in the sailing part of our lives don’t always see the whole elephant and connect the dots. Certainly we’ve shocked, surprised, and saddened a lot of people with this news. You can’t make this big of a change without it, and we also are to a certain extent surprised, shocked and saddened because there are many parts of our lives – primarily relationships with family and friends – that will be changed as we head off shore.
Late this past January we realized that in spite our best plans certain key events that we had placed as triggers to make this happen…weren’t happening. With our children both changing schools (elementary to middle, middle to high school) it seemed an opportune time to Just Do It as a certain shoe manufacturer is want to say. So she sat down with her partners, explained out intentions and our plans to leave in August of 2011 (that date isn’t happening, as the astute observer will also note!).
Perfect timing? No, but then no time is perfect to completely turn life upside down and make a monumental change like this. There were also certain pragmatic issues, such as the timing with hiring replacement physicians and leaving behind patients. The end result of a long series of discussions was a slightly longer exit plan with a better resolution for all parties. We’ve waited a long time to do this; a few more months is disappointing but worth it for the cleaner exit.
Our initial thoughts are to spend the summer of 2012 kicking around the East Coast, working our way up to Maine and eventually making it down to Hampton, VA to join the Caribbean 1500 rally to the Virgin Islands in November. From there we plan to spend most of the winter in the Caribbean, heading to the Panama Canal as spring approaches and spending much of 2013 on the West Coast, in the states and South and Central America. When the seasons and weather are right, we point Evenstar West and head across the Pacific.
Of course that’s a rough plan; our mileage WILL vary and we know that it may all change. As much as it changed from January of this year to June. As much as it will change next summer.
But for now – we have a direction and a plan. And we have a lot of work to do. We have to pare down the contents of a house we’ve lived in for 15 years, “Stuff” we’ve accumulated in almost twenty-five years together, to fit in a small storage area and a couple of boxes in some family member’s basement. We’ve got to finish the sale of the house and most of the stuff in it, finish the long list of boat work (though I have a bit more time now!) and adding to it once again. We’ve got one more long winter to endure. Then…we’re off.
