One morning in 2019, while waiting for the tide to rise high enough to take our last sailboat About Time out for a day sail, Jimmy and I had a conversation that wound up with a serious talk about our future and lead to our implementing a five-year plan to go full time cruising. The conversation just kind of happened organically; I had never intended to ask Jimmy the “big question” that day, it just happened.
It started with small dreams
When we purchased About Time in 2016, we only envisioned making sailing trips that can be done during work vacations. She was a great boat to hold us over until we retired at age 62 in 2030. We imagined taking her to the Bahamas. Perhaps we could take a series of small vacations to bring About Time to the east coast of Florida, staging for a future crossing over to the Bahamas. Then, weather permitting, we might be able to use a two-week vacation to make the jump, cruise around a few days, and cross back to Florida. A reversal of the small weekend sails clockwise around Florida would be needed to get her back home. That trip never took place because we had of the wait-for-the-tide-to-rise conversation that happened in 2019.
I believe our small dreams were fueled into bigger dreams because of the people that we were surrounded by. In 2014 we moved to Shell Point and joined the Apalachee Bay Yacht Club so that we can surround ourselves with people who sail. We were looking to learn about sail trim, types of boats and the maintenance and upkeep of sailboats. It turns out that we ended up meeting many people with great cruising experience. Hearing their stories about coastal cruising, ocean crossings, or selling everything that they owned, along with listening to sailing podcasts, watching cruising videos started to spark our interest in doing something bigger with our sailing.
Just a Dream?
Jimmy and I would lightly talk about retiring early for full time cruising, but those conversations were mostly dreamlike, more like a fun fantasy. However, that dreamlike talk began to become a real desire of mine. I was aware that it would not be easy work, but the lifestyle of taking off and traveling by sailboat appeared to fit me. On top of it all, I did not necessarily want to wait 10 years to see this happen; I wanted to do it while I knew I was physically able to, even if it meant taking a large financial gamble. Over time I got to the point where I needed to stop imagining that type of life if I was not going to be able to do it. I needed to know if it was a farfetched fantasy or something Jimmy really was willing to do, to make a sacrifice to make it happen.
So, while we sat in our comfortable house, waiting for the tide to rise that spring day in 2019, I decided to press the question to Jimmy:
"Just how serious are you about fulltime cruising?"
Although he said he was serious, I fired off more questions to check it was a real desire, and not just something fun to dream about… How willing are you to sell this house? Can you part with nearly all of our belongings? Are you okay with quitting our jobs and living frugally? Would you be okay with frequently moving around and not having a home base?
Big Dreams turn into Big Plans
I think whichever direction that conversation would have ended up, it would have been a relief to me. To either let go of a dream to fill it with another, or to be able to follow this one through was what I needed. It really was a big day for us as we came to an agreement that we were seriously going to develop a plan for full-time cruising. At first it seemed a bit overwhelming to figure out what needed to be done, but like any project I just broke it up into manageable parts. I’ll cover the highlights of our “five” year plan in another blog.
23-19
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