Research Begins!

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We’ve been spending endless hours pouring over websites, reading magazines and books about people who live aboard boats and sail the waters of the world.  We’re still convinced that we can do this and that we WILL do this someday.  Neither of us are interested in circumnavigating or blue water sailing.  These are two new words we’ve learned the meaning of recently…to lose sight of the shore and disappear into the horizon for days and days without seeing land.  Somehow, that just doesn’t appeal to us.  Maybe because we don’t know a thing about sailing.  There’s lots of reasons…fear being one of them.  I don’t want to be buried at sea.  Seriously though, what we want to do is what’s called “Coastal Cruising.”  Makes sense.  You cruise on your boat using sail power when there’s any breeze and the motor when there’s no breeze and you want to keep moving.  The majority of the time would be spent in port…visiting different islands.  You don’t have to pay any fees to anchor offshore and you take your little dinghy into shore when you want or need to be off your boat.  I can envision spending several months at a time at one place, REALLY getting to know the culture, the people, everything about it.  When you get tired of that place you pull up your anchor and move to the next island.

We’re not quite sure how this will all work itself out or when in our timeline of the foreseeable future this new dream might take shape but we do want to move forward.  We should start planning and preparing for this now like, paying off debt etc. so we can start planning for the purchase of a live-aboard boat someday.  This would be our house, so we’re not talking about a “spend-the-day-at-the-lake” sailboat here.  Then there’s the small detail of income.  Hmmm…so much to consider.

I bought a book at Boarders the other day…it’s a travel book about all of the Caribbean Islands!  It’s full of details about each and every island.  Facts, what to see, climate & when to go, history, maps, culture, arts, cinema, literature,music, the land, food & drink, details on various towns/villages on the islands, emergency info, internet access sites, laundry, medical services, money, tourist info, dangers & annoyances, sights, activities, festivals & events, and so much more!  It looks like a wealth of information!  It’ll even help us decide what to see and do on the islands we’ll visit on our upcoming 25th anniversary cruise to the Eastern Caribbean in January 2010!  Counting the days!

Until next time…

A Dream is Revealed

Today, Jon’s first full day back from his recent trip to Florida, he causally showed me the magazine he had been reading during his visit to Florida but didn’t say a whole lot about it.  He just said, “check this out.”  Lots of pretty pictures and articles about things that sounded rather foreign to me.  I didn’t catch on.

We headed to town later in the day & were riding in the car when Jon revealed his compromise to our separate but similar fantasies.  I believe my first reaction to his suggestion that we “sell everything, buy a boat, home port on the coast of Florida and cruise from island to island at our own pace through the Caribbean!” was, “Yea, right.  Whatever.”  But he persisted and suggested many ways it could work and was SO excited and full of ideas.  He had really been giving this crazy notion a LOT of careful consideration!  I wondered if he could really be serious?!  Later, I realized he was very serious.  He was convinced that this would be a perfect compromise and convinced it could actually be our next life adventure.

Life for Jon & I from childhood has been with shallow roots.  Jon lived in just two different towns for many years growing up, but with his parents divorce came the beginning of the shallow roots for him.  He stayed with his mom for a while, then with his dad, etc.  My entire life from day one has been rather “gypsy-like” as my mom moved from place to place all over southern California searching, I believe for the perfect place to raise her 10 kids.  She married & divorced several times.  Nothing or no one was permanent for me.  Subsequently, Jon and I both joined the U.S. Air Force and met on assignment in Germany in September of 1984.  We married in January of 1985.  For those of you that are doing the math, there’s another story behind the short courtship and no, it doesn’t involve a pregnancy.  We did, however, have our first and only child, a son, in March of 1986 & we moved wherever the military sent us.  Neither of us had a problem with this nomadic way of life as it was pretty much all we knew.

Until next time…

A Dream is Born

Jon’s folks, (Dad & Tiny) are both in their mid-80′s and their health is beginning to decline and are needing more and more attention as they slowly lose their abilities to do a lot of things they used to do.  Both have had mild strokes, Tiny has had multiple, and she has had more long-term effects than he has but dad is still showing his age more and more.  Among the other things, Jon’s dad was diagnosed with colon cancer last month.  Jon flew to Florida to be with him & Tiny during the initial days spent in the hospital during surgery and additional testing.

While sitting and waiting one day, Jon picked up a May 2009 issue of a magazine titled “Latitudes & Attitudes ~ Seafaring”  Subtitled, “A boating lifestyle magazine.” It looked interesting enough so Jon started thumbing through it’s pages.  There was some stunning photography and he was reading articles in it’s pages such as:

From the World: Letters from cruisers the world over

Featured boats: Reviews of various live-aboard cruising boats

There’s this Place: Experienced cruisers report on a ’must see’ place somewhere in the world.

Underway!: Slices of life from cruisers the world over.

The Admiral’s Angle: Cruising from the female point of view

Galley Gourmet: Recipes you can’t get tired of

Noah’s Ark: Cruising with the furry people

Cruising 101 with Capt. Jack: Sound advice for newbies

I could go on and on.  Every article was luring him to read more, and more, and more!  He was stricken by the notion that people actually live aboard boats and move from place to place, wherever & whenever.  They choose to stay for a short visit or as long as they want to.  When they get tired or full of one place, they pull up the anchor and go somewhere else.  And so the cycle goes.

You see…ever since our cruise to the Western Caribbean in October of 2008, we fell in love with the area and the people that we met while we were there.  The Jamaican people especially struck me.  The culture, the music, the people, & the climate of course!  We fantisize & joke about selling everything we have and somehow living in the Caribbean, escaping the rat race of the U.S.  On the other hand, Jon has always felt a draw back to Florida but I have never been wild about it…it’s flatness mainly.  I love my hills!  Every time Jon goes to Florida to visit his dad, he falls in love with Florida all over again.  The sunshine, the palm trees, the tropical plants & flowers, the ocean…He goes through a phase of “we need to live here” depression and this can last for weeks after he returns home to Missouri.  He lived in Florida for a short time as a teenager and still loves the idea of living there again someday, especially since his dad is not in the best of health now, the urge is stronger than ever these days for him to be there for his dad and help him & Tiny out however we can.  Me, on the other hand…I feel the need to see at least an ant hill!  I find Florida so flat that there’s really no scenery as you can only see so far.  I love a rolling green meadow in the spring with bales of hay waiting to be gathered and stored for feed of livestock.  The mountains can take my breath away!  I do love the Florida climate however, and I completely understand and agree with Jon that it would be really nice to be near his father & step-mom for support and help when they need us.

All of this, dreams for both of us, but each of us having somewhat separate dreams and knowing that we need to find a happy medium for both of us.  Suddenly, there’s the nagging question, “How could we make a living on a boat?” Jon has a good job right now working for GE Security and he would have to change jobs or get a transfer to an open position in order to move to Florida, which is scary and usually brings us back to reality.  So, resolving to continue our current dream-come-true as alpaca farmers, we blink our eyes, take a deep breath and enjoy the breeze, the fresh air and views from the front porch of our 20 acre paradise in our tiny town of Lathrop, Missouri.  The alpacas and horses are quietly grazing, baby alpacas romp from one end of the pasture to the other & instigate play from anyone who’ll take the challenge.  Cats stalk their shadows and dogs lay in the shade of the flower gardens.  Listening to the birds singing and the Koi pond fountain as it splashes back in the water is just background music.

Jon spent a full week in Florida with his dad and his wheels were starting to turn as he read article after article in the Seafaring magazine.  He was chomping at the bit to get home and run his wild idea past his bride.