Obsessions

Source: thatgreatbeginning

Coco has forever been obsessed with mermaids.  Not the Disney variety, just mermaids.  She is also the biggest tree hugger I know. 
My kid is super cool.  She is her father completely.  The only thing she has gotten from me is her love of reading and learning, and a crinkle in her nose when she is smitten.

But she is her own person too.  She has her own worth and her own freedoms. She has passions and loves and she is not afraid to let you know.

Holy, Bloody, Hot Summer

We moved Airabess in May, 2011.  It is probably my favorite time of the year.  St. Augustine is so beautiful in  May .  All of the flowers are in full bloom.  The days are warm, the evenings still cool. 

Spring

Savor the flavors that make this an existence.
More than just substance and matter.
Take time to taste the sweetness of spring on your tongue.

The pigments in the cycle of this moment create a palette.
A substantial breath amongst the monotony of the world.

Joy that explodes from the stem and root bleeding out in the fields of green.
It can not wait.
The moment is ripe
With anticipation,
Cultivation,
And,
Inspiration.

The mockingbirds’ eagerness is transferred.
Spread your wings.
Fly, fully
Into this season of life.

But if you look on the calendar you know June follows May. Which means an oppressive blanket of heat is laid upon Florida... for the next 4 months. 

Damn.  And things were looking so promising.   

Life and Working on a Boat

      
We are in full swing of busy season where we live, and Hubs and I both work in the service industry.  We have a force of nature also known as our fabulous daughter. We have our own home… and all that entails, as well as a rental property.  We have family obligations and celebrations.  Working on Airabess, which is on the hard.  Oh, and it is about 500 degrees in the sun.

All that being said…we, meaning Hubs, is making some progress on her.  Most of it off.  Did I mention it is hot.  REALLY, really hot.  Hotter than hot.
Getting there early is the key.  Getting off before the midday sun is in full effect is absolutely necessary. 
We have enlisted the ‘help’ of our nephew who is fifteen.  Young and clueless and to be honest… willing to do some of the stuff Hubs and I don’t really want to do.  Like for example~ climbing up inside the forward berth sanding upside down, and inside out.

But, we can only find the time to get on the boat for a few hours every week. So, we are trying to focus on things we can do at home when we have an hour here and there to spare.  Sanding and painting everything we brought home.  Fixing the oven, pumps, redid the propane system….

Pump before (yuck!):


And after (Niiicceee):


Much better.
Little by little~ when we can find the time.
I keep saying we.  Hubs is doing almost all of the work. To be more accurate, 99% of the work.  He knows what to do.  I don’t.  I am taking care of the kid, the laundry, the yard… the life stuff.  Different jobs right now.  Once everything is painted and sealed up on the boat I will actually be participating the some of the labor.  For right now, that is impossible.  We have tried a couple of times… not happening… yet.  There is a whole lot of hull sanding in my future!

But, and there is always a but… we have our boat.  We have Airabess.  So much earlier than we planned.  So, I like to think we are ahead of the game.

Touche', Shakespeare. Touche'.

We had to name our boat.  I had no idea how challenging it was going to be.  Naming it wasn't urgent, but it had to be done.  Sundsvalla just wasn't cutting it. 

We also needed to do the documentation paper work... which required a name. 
But we couldn't agree on anything.

Hubs didn't have any ideas.  He just liked saying 'no' to every suggestion I made.  I love words.  I live in them.  I breathe them.  I wanted her to have a name with meaning.  It needed to be sentimental and thoughtful. 

Coco wanted to call her Princess Sparkle Shine....

Eventually, we decided on Tempus.  It is the Latin word for time.  It seemed appropriate for our family, so desperate for moments together.  And, for a few months we called her that.

So we went about the laborious business of restoring Tempus. 

Months went by, and we still hadn't sent in the documentation paper work, and Tempus just didn't feel right.  It seemed too pretentious for our humble little cat.  Our very old, decrepit cat.  It was too big of name for us.  Oh, and Coco didn't like it.

But we had to fill in the blank...  It was time.

Once again we asked the little person in our family what she thought, because that's how we do things around here.
"Airabess," she answered with a great big smile on her face. 
"Airawhat?" I asked. 
Interject an enthusiastic Hubs, "Perfect, I love it!"

Really?!  Airabess.  What does that even mean?

 

 Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

 

Here We Go...

Hub's last trip to Port Charlotte (he had several) found him coming home with a U-Haul full of boat stuff.  The previous owners had similar intentions as us.  And, fortunately for us, they bought all the big ticket stuff- new; wind generator, engine (still in the box), water maker, inverter, etc... There was an entire library (technical and pleasure reading), plates, tools.  You name it, and it was in our U-Haul. 

So, we unloaded ALL of it into our garage.  It was overwhelming.  For the first time during the whole process I was dumbfounded.  The doubts began to swirl around in my mind. 

 

What are we doing? And, how are we going to do it?  I don't know anything about sailing.  Seriously!  What were we thinking?

I had no idea what half of the stuff was.  I also knew that before we could move any of this stuff out of our garage we had a mountain to climb.  Or rather, we had a boat to rebuild. 

And, though not as big a deal, we had to name her.  We couldn't keep calling it Her. 

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

—	Paolo Coehlo

Living in that "possibility" of things right now. Looking towards the future.

Source: how-majestic

Sleeping Arrangements

So, we had taken the plunge and forked over the dough.   Unfortunately, we still had some loose ends to tie up in Port Charlotte before we could ship her home.  Everything had to be secured, the mast needed to be lowered, and two jam-packed storage units full of boat paraphernalia had to be emptied. 

So,  Hubs made a solo journey to get every thing in order. 

The plan was for him to spend the night aboard.  I mean, we were planning to live on her eventually.  There was a problem though.... she had been on the hard for so long, and no one had really paid much attention to her.  A neglected anything invites new residents... and not of the human variety.  There was also the issue of water that had been sitting in the bilges for years.  Really gross, stagnate, (I'm sure) bacteria infested water.

But, of course my Hubs was Hell bent on staying aboard.  He was not going to stay in a hotel when he had a perfectly good place (that we had just paid for) to rest his head.

So, after finishing his chores and setting her up for travel,  it was time to hit the hay. 

That's when the bugs came out to party.  Lots and lots and lots of them. 
I was still trying to convince him to go get a room, but he STILL wouldn't listen to me.  He WAS going to stay on the boat.  That was about 8 o'clock.

An hour later he called me from an hotel. 

Read

I had a really hard time becoming engaged in the project of our boat. For starters, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't even know the what questions to ask.

I also had no point of reference. It was the first time in my life that I was totally clueless. THAT made me uncomfortable. I don't like not knowing what's going on. I am one of those people who bury themselves into comfort; particularly the comfort of the familiar.

I had no idea how to push past that barrier. Yes, I was totally stoked on the future. I wasn't scared or unsure. I was confident with the direction we were headed in. I just didn't know my place. My contribution was eluding me.

Then the Hubs reminded me of what I was good at, what I excel at.
Books, research~ he encouraged me to approach our project the way I approach most things... Open a book. Read about it. Do the research.

And that's where I had been going about it the wrong way. I was trying to learn my place using the wrong skill set, one that I didn't even possess.

I'm not tactile. I'm a reader. That's how I learn. Thats how I relate. That's how I experience life- through books.

Finally! I had a starting point. It was time to get to work.

Back to the Present

At the marina, doing the home school thing.

"But if a person has had the sense of the Call — the feeling that there’s an adventure for him — and if he doesn’t follow that, but remains in the society because it’s safe and secure, then life dries up. And then he comes to that condition in late middle age: he’s gotten to the top of the ladder, and found that it’s against the wrong wall. If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, opens up all along the line.”

—	Joseph Campbell

“It is good to have an end to journey toward, But it is the journeythat matters in the end.”

Hubs~ Did you look at the hatches?
Me~ Of course I did.  They look great.
Hubs~ Seriously, did you really look at them?
Me~ Yes, I looked at them.
Hubs~ Well… what do you think?
Me~ Babe, they look really great.  Good job.
Hubs~ You didn’t look at them. Did you?
Me~ Yes, they are FANTASTIC.  Truly.  Awesome job.
Hubs~ Whatever, you don’t get it.  It’s like your yoga.  Some pose… it’s cool and all, but… you don’t get it.
He goes outside.  I presume to admire his hatches (that I don’t get).  Two minutes later he comes back in the house with said hatches.
He made me really look at them.  And, well, he did do an awesome job.  He shaped them, sanded them, sanded them again, and again.  Painted them, sanded, sanded, sanded, and painted.  I could see my reflection, and apparently there is another coat of paint to go on.
I’m not going to lie.  I don’t have that kind of patience. 
But, he was right. 
Sunday morning yoga is my thing.  And every Sunday I come home and try to show him whatever new asana I have been working on.  He really doesn't care, but he humors me... every single time.  So, tomorrow, our conversation will just be flipped around.  AND then he will go back out in the garage to his hatches.
It dawned on me when he made the yoga comment, though.  I practice yoga.  And every day I mark my progress.  He is marking progress.  He is taking pride… just like I do when I come home from class and show off, what Coco calls, my new trick.  Me with my yoga, my man and the boat. Neither of us will ever be done.  But, every day we move forward.  It becomes more a part of us.  I will never get there within my practice, but I will always be putting in the work.  Working on, living on, dreaming on a boat are no different.
I get it.

Work Day

Tomorrow Coco is going with her grandmother for part of the day.  She is going to have a great time playing at Splash Park for her friend’s birthday.  I, however, am not going to be having a great time.

I suggested to the Hubs, “Hey, wouldn’t that be a great chance for a us to work on the boat together!”  Why, oh, why.  YES, it is a good chance for me to get my hands dirty and get in there and participate.  Truly, I want to.  I am going to.  I am 100% in.  Even though there are about 500 other things I would rather be doing. But, alas, I will be sweating my ass, and arms, and legs, and ears, and everything else off tomorrow.  But, so will he.  And he has been.
He spends every free second he has, and can, doing something to work on the boat.  This week he cut new hatches then fiber-glassed, sanded, and painted them.  Today he was sanding them again.  It is not pretty work.  It is just straight-up work.  And he is doing it.  ALL of it.

So, tomorrow, if you need me I will be pitching in and getting dirty too.

Side note on the sanding…
Fiberglass is nasty stuff to work with.  It is toxic (which kills my green sensitivities, though I get why), and it is super itchy.  Ridiculously tiny pieces of yes ~ Glass. So, when you sand it, it goes EVERYWHERE.
The Hubs has a suit he wears when he does have to sand it.  And when he wears it, well, he kind of looks like the Michelin Man.  I’m just sayin.                                                                                                                          

Sailor Style Thrift

I love to go to thrift stores.  I prefer them to “real” stores.  In fact, both mine and Coco’s wardrobes are made up entirely from thrift store finds.  There are many, many reasons for my love of all things thrift… but that is for another post (and blog) entirely.

The reason for my rant though is this… Sailor’s Exchange.  It is part consignment, part thrift, part junk, part ‘oh my gosh can you believe I scored this for ~ insert $$$ amount here’.  It is pretty cool.   But I can not even walk in the  place without having a slight anxiety attack.  Which should be weird.  Because in theory it is my kind of place. But there is just SO MUCH STUFF. I can not even begin to tell you how much.   It reminds of a, slightly more organized, episode of Hoarders.  And it is all boat stuff.  Big and little.  Not so clean, and brand new.  Things I can recognize, and things that look like they don’t really have any purpose except to just be strange and ugly.

The Hubs on the other hand could be lost in there for days on end and be perfectly happy.  And I get that.
Plus~ it is really cool.  You can find some amazing things there.  Well, my man has.  And he has unloaded some things that we didn’t need or want.  The dingy we had was too small for us.  So they took it.  Yay!  Of course they didn’t give us full value, and we COULD have put it on eBay or craig’s list and gotten more for it.  We definitely could have taken a photo copy with specs to one of the many marinas in town.  But honestly Sailor’s Exchange was WAY easier. And we have enough to deal with as it is with out driving and dropping at marinas or answering questions.  Win -win. They gave us store credit and we were able to get some adapter thing we needed.

A few other things were exchanged… again I will get the specifics, and I am sure there will many more.
Have I mentioned that our boat is a fixer upper.  There is lots to fix and upgrade.
I do believe that by the end of all of this I will be able to walk into the Exchange and not feel so… lost.

Oh Happy Day

Getting her to the boat yard was a little stressful.  There needed to be a rolling roadblock down one of the busiest streets in downtown during rush hour.  A permit needed to be pulled to open up a closed street so that she could finish the trip from Punta Gorda.  And all of this hinged on a delivery guy  who was not exactly dependable.
BUT ~ he made it, and so did our boat.  We got to watch her make the turn down King Street.
Kind of a little emotional for me.  Because, well, we actually bought the boat.  And now it was here, and the work was going to really begin. 
It seems so unbelievable to me that we are actually doing this.  We have talked, and dreamed, and plotted and schemed.  And HOLY SHIT we are doing it!  For real.
I think Hubs wants this blog to be about the restoration and adventure of it all.  But, those things are very different for us.  So, instead, it will be my take on the whole thing.
Hopefully.

Oh, happy day.
That's her the one on the lift…not the bigger one right behind us.  It’s the only picture I have of all three of us with her.  And, it’s not a very good one… oh, well.
This is before the work began and all the possibilities were before us.  Over a year ago, and we have done so much and so little.  But… we are doing it.  That is the mantra that I keep repeating to my Hubs .  He is discouraged and overwhelmed.   He is hopeful and optimistic, and doing the work.
Still blown away that our dream is coming true.

Did I mention?

She had been on the hard for, oh, 5 years. 
Awesome. 
So, we had to have her shipped~ on land (a boat).  Fun times. 

It was about to get REAL.

It's time...

Hubs spent a lot of time window shopping.  He knew it wasn't time.  He looked anyway.  He knew we couldn't afford it yet.  He looked anyway.  He knew I wasn't ready.  He looked anyway.

When we had some free time we would go look at boats.  Living in a beautiful coastal local, we had lots of marinas to choose from.  So, we would walk the docks and daydream.

We did so much daydreaming back then.  We honed in on what we really wanted.  We were still plotting the 'how' part of getting it, but the daydreaming... that's what was fun.

He had narrowed it down to an affordable catamaran option.  Affordable meaning if we could find an older model of it we might be able to swing it.  I still hadn't comprimised on my one condition... and I wasn't going to.


Long story short~ years and months went by, and then one December night the Hubs said we had to go tomorrow.  He found her.  But... we had to cross the state... THE NEXT DAY. Work~shmurk.  Figure it out. 

So, we went.  I called out of work.  Someone stepped up and took Coco for the day, and we went. 


We put an offer down that day.  She was old.  Well, old is relative.  But, techinically speaking, for a boat, yes, she was old.  Not for a human, as we share the same year of birth.... but still.  A fixer-upper.

And, oh dear lord, did she need work.  And a new name.  Sundsvalla....really?!

 

Ok... But on one condition.

At some point we had to talk details.  The Hubs and I had already committed to pursuing a cruising life.  We had started taking the steps to get there.  But... we hadn't really talked specifics.  Boat specs that is.

I have always loved being on the water.  In our early years (pre- Coco) we had a 19 foot fishing boat.  Too many times you could find us too far offshore fishing our favorite honey hole.  That boat, which had a really cheesy cliche name, was really his purchase.  I just was along for the ride.  It WAS the early years after all.  We still had separate bank accounts and lives, we just shared our time.

This was different.  This was going to be a purchase we made together.  A life beyond the one we were already living.  A BIG HUGE jump into the unknown. 

I had one condition... I wanted a cat.  I needed a cat.  I would be more comfortable on a cat.
My love had many very valid points for why that wasn't really an option.  Catamarans are WAY, WAY more expensive.  They don't right themselves.  They are WAY, WAY more expensive.  And I'm sure there were many more... but all I could hear was that we would never be able to afford one.

My response, "You'll figure it out." 

The truth is, this whole big fabulous dream really was his.  I completely bought in.  I loved the idea.  I am pretty smart, so I know it's not all sunsets and happy hour.  I get that.  Anything that is worth it is going to be hard.  But, after so many late night talks, and daydreaming... I really wanted it too.  I just had the one condition. 

And I know my Hubs.  He has serious tunnel vision.  His ability to focus on a goal is ridiculously amazing.  He hones in on it and nothing stands in his way.  He always makes it happen.  I knew he would figure it out. 

He did try to talk me down from it on several (thousand) occasions.  I stood firm.  It really was important to me, or I wouldn't have made it my one condition. He knew that.

He made it happen. Just like I knew he would. 

Sunday

From 2007 through 2009, our little family was very busy working on "Our Plan".  We referenced our many lists every month to see how far up the mountain we had climbed.  It was not fun.  The work part.  The work part sucked.  But, the life and love~ those were the best.

When we have had our adventures and are looking back I am sure we will reflect upon the early years of our boat life as hard.  But I also think that it has only made us so much stronger as a family.  Of course we had normal, everyday family issues.  They just seemed compounded because we never had time as a family.

Except for Sundays.  Sundays were our day.  Every week.  We made it happen.  We would foster the joy and the beauty that was our little family. We learned and we grew.  Not in numbers, but in trust and love.  I lived for Sundays.  I could get through anything knowing Sunday was just around the corner.  Those days we were so present and 'there' that we became closer.  We really valued our time... and we definitely weren't afraid to let anyone know.

It was common knowledge among our friends and family to leave us alone on Sunday.  We needed that time to be only us. 

The work part really did stink.  But, I don't think that is what I'll remember.  That is not what I took so many pictures of...

I'm going to remember taking Coco (by myself) on a walk to the beach EVERY DAY.  The hubs was on dinner and bath duty  (by himself) EVERY NIGHT.  And on Sundays we were all together.  I wouldn't trade our beach trips for anything, and Coco having that one-on-one with her Daddy is priceless.
So, I think, that we were lucky.

We probably should have named her Sunday....

And, Away We Go

The Hubs and I said to life, "Hey, we are going to take you on.  We ARE going to have adventure.  So get ready..here, we cooo."  Life interrupted, "Tsk, tsk.  You mustn't forget your responsibilities."

Oh right.  Responsibilities.  I needn't bore you with all the lame details.  Needless to say, finances were assessed, work was found, and the business of planning our future was gotten down to.  And, yep we had a newborn too.  But that's the joy!  So, we found that joy by playing pass the baby and savoring the time we  had~ when we had it, and hunkered down for the five-year-plan of five-year-plans.

I don't remember, if before we chose this destiny of ours, if I was a planner or a schedule keeper.  Now I am.  There is absolutely NO WAY to do what we were planning on doing without a schedule.  Multiple ones in fact.

There is the family schedule, the work schedule, the financial schedule.  I was a slave of the calender.  No complaints though.  I mean, we had a lot on our plate, but we also had an awesome baby.  A baby that didn't really sleep that much.  So, we would have been on lock down anyway.  At least we were paying some bills, RIGHT!

It's about a boat.

I'm not sure when we made the decision, or how it took us so long to get there. Or if we even REALLY discussed it.  But our beautiful life was waiting to become even more amazing... with a lot of hard work.

It's about a boat.  A life.  A hope.  A journey.  A dream.  And we were going to do it.
Unfortunately it was financially impossible.  So we had lots of really heavy conversations and arguments and discussions about money; the money we had already spent, the money we owed, and the money we would need.  This family had  an overhaul on the agenda before anything could happen, and it wasn't always pretty.

Revisiting  our monetary history was depressing.  I can't tell you how many times the phrase, "Why did we do that?" was heard around our house.     The nitty gritty was pretty straight forward.  We could not spend any money on anything.  Everything had to go to bills.  And boy, did we have a ton.  Just to give you a glimpse into our financial drama~ 3 mortgages; the house we lived in, the house my mom lived in (I will come back to another time), and an equity loan on our house.  Plus there were credit cards, and car payments, and regular life bills.  And did I mention that I was a stay-at-home mom to Coco (named changed for obvious reasons) and the hubs had just started a new entry level job.  Six months prior we had both been gainfully employed,  myself as a high school English teacher and the hubs was an Executive Chef at an up and coming restaurant. 

I'm rambling now.  Long story short- we had some stuff to figure out. 

Not to give too much away, but we did get some things right.  We got other things wrong.  This is our journey. 

No Haters on Board.

Here’s the thing about a dream.  Not many people get it, or buy into like you do.  Because it’s not their dream.  I understand that.  I do.  But don’t hate on my dream.   This is not a whim, or a phase.  It’s for real.