2/8/25 - We’re doing this. (Expanded Version)
Holly
It’s Saturday morning and everyone else is sleeping. I’m in the saloon of the boat and it’s completely quiet other than the constant hum of the refrigerator.
*chuckle* I had intentions of starting this blog six months ago. But…like almost everything else on this adventure so far, things have not gone to plan and it’s taken months longer than expected. At this exact moment, I can laugh about this, but man (!), there have been some rough moments! Let me clarify here: “rough moments” = all relative 1st world papercuts. We are all healthy, warm, safe and well-fed. That said, the emotions that come with this adventure are VERY real and vivid.
I just wrote the “About Us” section of this blog and wrote “We’re doing this.” Ha! It sounds so confident. I’ve said that phrase many times over the last few years, but it’s been in soooo many different tones:
“We’re doing this.” - Confident and proud; “Oh yeah…we’re making this happen.” Ex: Anytime Steve and I were rocking the four-page 11x17 excel spreadsheet (portrait orientation) to do list in our preparations.
“We’re doing this!!!” - Disbelief and excitement - Ex: When we bought Layla, our 1997 Beneteau Oceanis 461, in May 2024.
“We’re doing this???” - Sick-to-stomach fear and panic - Ex: When Steve sent his resignation email for his 10+ year job with a steady paycheck and great benefits as I LITERALLY sat next to him in my parents’ basement spending thousands of dollars on boat gear.
“Uh, we’re doing this?” - Surprised in a ‘never-did-I think-we-would-be-doing-this’ way. Ex: When we made a unanimous, unflinching family decision not to flush toilet paper down the heads and to instead put it in an ever-present ziplock bag. (This should tell you how much time Steve—boat nickname “Head Master” (Get it?)—spent fixing the toilet in our first weeks onboard. Or when we bought a Poop Knife (Yes, really).
(silently to self) “We. Are. Doing. This.” - Defiant, exasperated and exhausted when we want to quit because it’s so hard - Ex: When yet another “project” appears unexpectedly (daily?) and completely hijacks our day. Like when I flooded the bathroom. Or when Steve discovered the dinghy had a leak on the way to fix the already unexpected holding tank vent issue. Or when the water pump kept randomly going off every few minutes. (FYI - This is all in the last few DAYS!). Or when one of us is really missing family and friends. It is typically said as a mantra in a “We have spent YEARS preparing for this and we haven’t even left the #%&!ing dock yet! We are NOT quitting before we get to the good stuff!” sort of way.
I imagine that most people think this adventure is “about to start” since we’re about to set sail. That is grossly incorrect. This adventure very much started four years ago when we started discussing this plan. Words cannot begin to describe the amount of preparation that making this idea a reality has taken. We’re exhausted! We’ll hopefully catch up with all of that backstory soon. Right now, let’s focus on right now. Finally, let’s live in the present.
We’re currently docked in New Bern, NC. We plan to leave Thursday (we’ll see!) to head south to Ft. Pierce, FL with a delivery captain named Jeremy. After that, as a family of four, we will (FINALLY!) venture to the Bahamas. Today we need to come up with our plan for the weekend. What to do before we leave? Emergency procedures and drills. Chicken and Waffles at Baker’s Kitchen, our favorite breakfast place. Organize the month’s worth of food we bought, vacuum sealed, and stuffed everywhere we could last night. Check to make sure the sealant Steve put on the dinghy to stop the leak works. Start a blog. :-)
More from us (all of us!) soon! Right now, it’s time for some tea and Wordle.