New Era’s and Beautiful Places

There is this really neat blog that I’ve been following for a while now. It chronicles the journey of a young couple from Florida, who bought a sailboat, learned how to sail, quit their jobs and have been running around the Caribbean for the past year or so with their dog. She is a photographer, so needless to say, the pictures are out of this world. They weren’t planning on sailing off over the horizon and spending the rest of their lives as nomads on the sea. The original plan was just to take a short break from their regular lives to sail around the Caribbean for a year and a half.

Right now, they are in the Bahamas, on their way back to Florida, and somehow, the fact that their sailing adventures are coming to an end makes me really sad! I have been following their blog since before they left the US. I feel like I was right their with them as they installed solar panels on their boat and lost their dinghy temporarily in the Keys. I was so proud of them when they finally made it over to the Bahamas that I was happy all morning at work. It was really like watching kids take their first steps.

So now that they aren’t going to be sailing anymore, I have to say that I’m kind of glad that I’m not still at my old job. Reading blogs like theirs really gives you hope that someday you could do something adventurous and fun too. So, being stuck in a dull and boring job and losing such a comforting piece of hope would leave a tangible whole in your morale.

I have been a traveler at heart since I was small. The first big trip that my family made was a fun jet trip to Jamaica when I was 9. Swimming in the crystal clear water of the Caribbean got me hooked. Sailboat travel is my ideal form of travel. Something about sailing in general is just addictive. When you fly somewhere, you sit down, read or watch videos to keep yourself from getting bored, and then get off at your destination a few hours later. There is no work or thought involved. The pilots do all of that for you. You don’t have to worry about putting together meals while on a moving platform. The flight attendants take care of all of that. When you sail, you work with nature to get you where you want to go. You pick the destination, you plan the route, you trim the sails and make them work best with the wind. You also plan the meals and plan alternate meals in case of rough seas. By the time you get where you going, there is a real sense of accomplishment. Just getting where you wanted to go is a major achievement.

So reading blogs like the one at Lahowind make you imagine yourself in places that are so beautiful even a bad picture could be the cover of a magazine, with sunsets that you could stare at for hours. When we walk our dog Miss B, sometimes she forgets she’s on a leash and takes off like she is going to sprint across the yard, only to find herself jolted back when she reaches the end of the leash. When I think about sailing, I feel like Miss B on a leash. I am ready to take off now. If we already had a sailboat, I would gladly drop everything and just go. When we go to West Marine, I am ready to buy all the goodies that I might need- fenders, galley equipment, safety equipment. I feel like I am getting the boat ready and need to have everything on board and stowed away immediately so that we can shove off from the dock. Then I am jolted back by the end of the leash. We aren’t really ready for that yet, at least not where the boat and bank accounts are concerned. Mentally, I left the dock years ago. Mentally, I am on my way to beautiful beaches and new places with foods that I have never heard of. The water has been calling me since I was 9. If beaches could text, my phone’s memory would be full!