The most common question we get is “Why”, or what led you to this absurd or crazy decision to start a cruising lifestyle? Ok so maybe the question isn’t always this direct, but there have been a few occasions where it has been. The answer to that question is simply, we have completely lost our minds.

The WABAC Machine

Now having confirmed all your suspicions, let’s adjust our setting on the “WABAC machine” and take a look at how we got here. For those of you not familiar with the WABAC machine, not to be confused with the Internet’s Wayback machine, it comes from a cartoon segment in the 1960s on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. In that segment, Mr. Peabody and Sherman used this device to transport themselves back in time to visit some important events in history. For our purposes here, we will use it to transcend the manic madness of this decision in search of the trigger that set us upon this path. For disclaimer purposes, this is this author’s perspective. So I use the term “we” completely out of context. We have discovered that the catalysts that precipitate one to make these kinds of decisions are about as different as Argyle socks: you might find one that is similar…but never exactly alike.

Argyle Socks

Several years ago, I began to contemplate what I would do with my time once I decided that I was tired of working the 9-to-5, or in my case it was more like the 6:30-to-6:30-dinner-7:30-to-9:30. Outside of general hobbies (of which I have many), I really enjoy travel, experiencing the wonders of culture, being in the majesty of nature, and the serenity of calm. In this, Deanna and I are largely aligned. I also recognized that we often sought opportunities to sail when we were near coastal waters. It dawned on me, that sailing checks most of our aspirational boxes. That was the mindset that began to percolate the steaming cup of our “Why” going into this. We would soon come to learn that there is so much more to this lifestyle than casting lines and hoisting sails.

Out with the Spaghetti

I am not sure what sparked our interest to become sailors, I suspect it is different for each of us. For me, interest began to germinate around the idea of trying to determine how to travel and have these experiences after we retire. Shortly after that, traveling via a sailboat slowly began to materialize before us. What we are really talking about is a nomadic approach to minimalist living. Now just wrap your head around that for a minute. Nomad – living by traveling from place to place, and a minimalist life – which is freeing yourself from clutter. Not just the clutter of “stuff”, but perhaps some philosophical clutter of attachments we have learned to cling to throughout our lives. Looking back through the WABAC machine, those concepts are like waffles. Nomadic life is in one box, minimalist living is in another, and I specifically was way down in the corner box loving all the stuff I had collected over the years coveting all the fancy little bits and bobs, the nice cars, and the big house. These three concepts were in no way, shape, or form connected. What I would come to learn is that they are all like spaghetti… they are all connected and something was going to need to change.

Learning vs Understanding

The next several years were about understanding. I will use the word understanding versus learning because it took awhile to really grasp the significance of the change we were about to embark upon. Sure, we needed to learn more about sailing. We needed to learn about life on a boat. We needed to learn about all of the dynamics, systems, preferences, expectations, and idiosyncrasies of living life in a “tiny” house. Understanding all of that is what is beyond the written, taught, and shared. Understanding is the blossom of wisdom that will flourish and grow over the years.

All Boats are Not Created Equal

I have been on many boats in my lifetime. Some of those boats have been sailboats, ski boats, power cruising boats, military boats, paddle boats, kayaks, rescue boats, cruise liners, and rafts. I have even been in a submarine on the Submarine Voyage at Disneyland back in the day (ok maybe that does not qualify as a boat as it is really on rails, but it has been known to sink in the past). Coming into this I figured I had a pretty good idea what I was looking for. I am here to tell you that all boats are not created equal. As you have read in other posts, we enlisted the help of Kim and Simon on Britican to help us taste what life might be like living in a tiny house on the water. We have benefitted from the counsel of Wayne Goldman with Atomic Tuna Yachts who helped us purchase Erin Skye. We treasure the wisdom of Behan and Jamie on SV Totem for the sheer depth of their patience, knowledge, and experience. They helped us understand that it is ok to not know everything, that it is ok to ask questions, to learn from all of those around you, that boat karma is a real thing, and that the only thing constant on a boat is change. Without all of these insights, choosing the right boat for us would not have been possible.

Hearing the Music

So how does all of this relate to the original question of why? We started out thinking we had a good idea of the change in our lives that was before us. It seemed pretty straight forward. We knew the things we liked and the things we wanted to adjust. When I peer back through the WABAC view finder, all of this plays out in my mind in scattered images and a simple yearning tune. A tune with echoing piano keys lazily plucking away in some haunting melody of wanting and needing a different path. Somewhere in the  cacophony of rhythm, I feel an instrument resonating deep in my soul, fluttering my stomach, and pulling on my heart strings.

In the beginning we wandered through this kaleidoscope of hues and a mesmerizing tune trying to determine a destination unsure what that would be. I felt a need to be and do something different than I have for the last 40 years. Some notes were high, some were low as we roller-coastered through the emotions of this change, our successes, and failures. We feel the vibration of confused loved ones surrounding us, becoming part of this melody, some grappling to understand the path we have chosen. Each note sometimes struggling to build on one another.  Changes in our lives looking for the next accompanying note to complement this arrangement. A wavering arrangement always contemplating the possibility of an exciting horizon. 

As this tune has grown these last few years it has become less complicated, lighter, clear. The smiles are perhaps less guarded, the laughter comes from a deeper place these days. The notes bring shivers of excitement, thrills of wonder. We have made vast changes, shed great clutter, some treasures. We have gained a measure of simplicity. We also experience the reverberation of leaving friends, loved ones, and perhaps the hardest… family, even close family. These are some of the choices we all make. Now is the time to experience it and really listen to the music we have created. Revel in the solemnity of what is now underway, acknowledge sacrifices we have made, and communicate the experiences with those who have sacrificed to let us go.

There is much to this world. Although we have traveled greatly, there are so many more things to experience. It is our hope that we can find a means to do so with each and everyone of you. Be it through this blog, photos and video as we can capture it, or perhaps we can meet up somewhere along this journey and share a few laughs and smiles with each other across the table. We choose to appreciate the past, live in the present, and to pursue a path less traveled for new experiences to share. We hope to add a little color to these experiences, and perhaps a little of our perspective. Be it near or far, we hope to see you there.

In this post we will attempt to do something we have never done before. We will merge our two voices. Our voices are so very different at times and yet our thoughts can be very similar. I think it is the pulse and resonance of our individual voices that really set us apart. I suppose you could say I am her sweet as she is my savory. Very different but I hope meaningful to each to our own.

Life Is Change

Without pauses in the rush to get things done, sometimes we don’t allow ourselves time or perspective to reflect, grow, to evolve past the busyness… to appreciate the moment. Last month we were forced to pause, to stop, and say goodbye for the second time in four months to a family member, a soul we have loved deeply, cared for, laughed with, cried for. Some say that our furry friends don’t laugh, but I would disagree. I have felt a bubbling warmth through a doggy grin, a wagging tail, slurping kisses, and playful grunts and growls as heartfelt as any human belly laugh. Recently we said goodbye to our sweet Guinness followed by our big red guy Foster, souls as big as any being we have ever known.

Foster and Guinness in the spotlight

The emptiness we have in our hearts is hollow, quiet, and still. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t feel a lump in my throat and a longing for something that we know will forever be missing.

We will be writing the next chapter of our story within a household that isn’t graced by their presence, who have warmed our hearts, our lives, and our home for so long.

Guinness, in her younger years, before the gray

The Dogful Years

The previous chapter, the dogful one, was pretty long – it started in 2004, the year we got married. 2004 was full of so many promises that would bear fruit for years to come. It was filled with warm laps, food-free floors, furry blankets, loyalty as thick and sweet as honey, and pure companionship. As with many relationships, it was also forged and tempered in the fire of challenges. It was filled with lots of vet visits, cone heads, stomachs pumped, surgeries, and worrying while they spent time in animal hospitals. To offset that, they made us laugh so often, with honks and snorts, and provided enormous heartwarming comfort with their morning huggies.

Foster and Guinness teaching Ethan how to go outside

When we embarked upon these dogful adventures all those years ago, we never expected how those fur babies would impact and enrich our lives for years to come. We feel their loss now with the simplest reminders that follow us through our home-like shadows that are so close but without substance, untouchable, empty. We no longer take strolls around the courtyard or sit down on the couch in the evenings to spend time with Foster and Guinness in our laps. Their blankets are gone where they were once heaped on the couch, nor is there a fluffy bed in front of the fireplace. Sometimes we even miss the noises of elderly dogs that would invariably wake us up in the middle of the night. That light has faded from our lives but not our thoughts, our memories. At times I can almost sense them if I close my eyes and reach out with my heart. It is still too soon and the loss is painful yet bittersweet. Bitter for the loss, and sweet to know they will suffer pain no longer, they are free.

Foster soaking in the sun

With their memories tucked close to our hearts, it is our new adventures that carry us forward.

The New Norm

This change in family makeup forced some much-needed reflection. There are new pages before us, some we have outlined in pencil as they are still in the making, some we have scribbled in ink as they are well underway, many we will write as we go. Through all of them we try to live in the moment as we wait for all the pieces to begin to fit into place. Recently it occurred to Deanna that we had spent some of our last 4-5 months thinking of our current situation as a mere stopover, a temporary place to wait until the pieces become more clear and the REAL adventure begins. This brings to mind Dr. Seuss’s inspirational book about the journey of life and its challenges Oh, the Places You’ll Go! which warns about “The Waiting Place… for people just waiting.” We definitely don’t want to be stuck in the languid grey of that place. While waiting is neither productive, fulfilling, nor renewing, waiting can include value – it just requires a conscious decision to achieve that value.

And that’s where we are today. We are waiting less than 3 months before we move aboard our boat in the San Francisco Bay area, and we are more determined than ever to prepare and be ready, both for the move and also for the lifestyle change. We long to wake in the morning to hear waves lapping against the hull, see wildlife thriving around us, and feel purpose… wagging its tail before us like the two souls that we will forever carry in our hearts

, their spirits with us to in all the places we will go.

Our last family photo with both Foster and Guinness, September 2020

Our routine these days is focused on learning, planning, packing, practicing, sharing, maintaining and improving Erin Skye, and winding down our lives here in the Denver area. A new purpose awaits us and we can feel the promise coursing through our veins.

• By the end of the month, we will make a decision about where Ethan will go to high school
• Near the end of April, Deanna will likely decide whether or not to seek employment in her career field of project management, transition from a part-time to full-time role exploring the story of our world with Erin Skye, or identify an appropriate mixture of both. Whatever is decided in that space will need to be balanced with leadership in Project Managers Without Borders, PMI, and of course family time.
• We will also be identifying how to close out chapters here in Denver: How to bid adieu to friends accumulated over 25 years in this state, finalizing what to do with stuff that isn’t going on the boat, completing the middle school experience, and making the most of what we have here in this state, all during a pandemic. It’s not the way we envisioned it, but as it is with all things in this new life we will live, we will adjust and move forward.

Point Conception in the distance, near Santa Barbara, CA

There’s excitement in that agility, in not having a complete plan but knowing we can react and adjust with the preparations we’ve made. Fate will have its part too, fate and the weather. We can anticipate the wind, read the skies. Yet it is through experience and planning that we will control our destiny. From where we are now, we have a horizon full of possibilities.

Deanna started crafting the bones for these thoughts during a snowstorm, one of the last we expect to experience in a very long time. The scaffolding and the purpose is all hers.  The instrument is of her design, some of the coloring and of course, the chorus from the heartstrings is my doing. We were apart during the time she gave breath to this article while I was prepping Erin Skye for the next leg of her journey north. As the snow continued to fall and she wrapped up the first draft of this story, she passed on these thoughts to me so she and Ethan could be in the moment and not in the waiting place. Outside they went bundled for the storm to build a snowman together, perhaps for the last time in Colorado. We are moving on to create and explore the story of our world. The best place to start is where we are, and the best time is now.

With heartiest of regards,

James

Ethan’s last snowman for a while

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Jordan who treated our pups as her own and made them feel special when we were away, Dr. Deanna Miller and her practice Rising Sun Animal Care, who recognized that our dogs were family members and treated them that way, and to BJ and Brenda who hugged us (first time in a year!) despite the pandemic, the hour before we said goodbye to Foster. The heartiest of thanks go to James for holding every one of our canine children when they were freed from suffering, and providing the utmost of care and support, and to Ethan for the idea to give Foster the chance to have his previously-off-limits favorite treats one last time.

Deanna

Remembering back, oh many years ago now, our son had a classmate whose parents were going to take him out of school and sail around the world.  At the time, I thought that those people had lost their minds and I wondered if it was even legal.  There had to be some rule against that. There must be some law against just kidnapping your own children, shanghai yourself some wee deckhands, hoist a few bedsheets and off to the horizon you go.  Blimey mate, they must have completely been off their rocker. Yet somewhere in the deep recesses of my own thoughts, was a wiggling notion of how cool (is that dating myself?) it would be to just scurry myself aboard a craggy old windskiffer, hoist the main sheets, and let the wind carry me away. Being a fan of author Patrick O’Brien, the whole notion was deeply entertaining yet so far off the weather gauge from my reality that it quickly bobbed over the horizon and was gone like a green flash and a wink of an eye.

How many of you have either read or written an article on this?  Probably all of us. When we started this site, I think we had one primary purpose… to share our experiences.  Not just the excitement of travel, tantalizing new places – sights – tastes – smells, and the anticipation of distant horizons. We wanted to share the experience of the process of learning, its highs and lows, the fear of the unknown, the quest for truth, and information about/from the amazing veterans who have all experienced this before us.

Roughly two years ago, I stumbled onto a YouTube channel of a couple and their daughter who had sold most of their worldly possessions, loaded the rest of their essentials (clothes, tools, utensils, spices, and Legos) onto a sailboat, and headed south for adventure. At the time, I had just started a new job with a complicated and challenging objective and mission. Getting organized and aligned at this new work role was a herculean task, to say the least, and the idea of packing it all up and heading for the open sea was like ambrosia and nectar of the mind.

It wasn’t long after this discovery, that we started thinking more seriously about its possibilities and investigating what it would take to make this leap, originally thinking it was more like stepping off from dock to boat. Ok, we did think it was more complicated than that, but we had no idea what the path ahead had in store for us and that it would be more like jumping off a cliff into unknown waters with white cap waves crashing on jagged rocks below.

Photo Archive

These images were taken during a trip to the Scottish Highlands in 2014.