Airabess Life

We are no longer in travel mode.  We are rooted.  And LOVING it. Making our house a home. Nurturing relationships.  Experiencing life in one place.
So, the nature of this space has changed.  And while I am not going to abandon it forever... it's just not about the travel right now.
So, until travel is in the forefront again,  I have started a new blog.  The focus is less on Airabess life, and more on the things I am doing.  Yoga, writing, homeschooling, vino, food...You get the idea. 

If you are so inclined, check it out.  If not... until we meet again.

http://findingmywaylivingthisdream.blogspot.com/

Making It Up as We Go Along

We had a plan. We always have 'a plan'. We also have learned that 50 percent of the time our plans change. 

So, the plan was to go to Blythe, California and stay for a week(ish). We had to take care of some responsibilities and it was on the way to where we were going to meet up with friends (a couple of weeks later). 

We pulled into Mayflower Park and immediately knew we did not want to be there for the week. It was an RV park style camp area (not our thing) and there wasn't anything to do. Since we hadn't made any commitments we decided to just stay for the night. 

We did get to stick our toes in the Colorado River, and we had somewhat functioning wifi for the first time in ages. 

The new plan~ the Grand Canyon. 

So, the next day we left Cali and stopped  in Nevada. It was, hands down, the WORST driving conditions we'd  had so far. While the scenery was gorgeous no one could appreciate it because it was super windy, dry, rough, and the rolly roads left us all with a little motion sickness.  

We stayed the night at Big Bend on the Colorado Park. Because we knew the camping at the Grand Canyon was dry camping, we had to fill up our water tanks and dump out our holding tanks. Also, after such a shit drive we needed the reprieve. 

Independance Day

Hubs and I both decided it was absolutely necessary for us to be on Airabess for the fourth. There were a couple of reasons~ 
First, we wanted to.  I love the fourth of July.  It is one of my favorite holidays.  Everybody just wants to have fun.  There are no family expectations, or presents to buy.  It is just good old-fashioned hanging out fun. 
It was also important for us to be on the boat because we are moored right  next to the channel that leads to the local boat ramp... and it's really dark.  I created all kind of crazy scenarios where drunken revelers slam into Airabess.

But I digress....

Coco showing her patriotism.

Sailor dog... passed out.

 

Fishing fun with Daddy.  

 We had great seats for the big show.

 Such fun with my lovelies.

It was a gorgeous day!  

Low humidity, blue sky, light breeze.  

And no one ran into our boat.

But, apparently there was a price to pay for such a fabulous day.  They came in the middle of the night... the no-see-ums.  We have netting, but it's not small enough to keep those little devils out.  About an our after finally getting somewhat comfortable (we are working on making our bunk more conducive to sleep) I woke myself up slapping my own shoulder.  

I could give you all of the gory details, but if you live in Florida you know how pesky those things can be....

Eventually, I crawled over the dog (who was sleeping at the entry to our bunk) and made my way to Coco's bunk.  It wasn't ideal.  I rolled up in a ball at the foot of her bed and with the fan blowing right on me I managed to get about an hour of sleep.    

Did I mention that the humitidy that had been noexistant during the day reared its ugly head around the same time as the bugs.  Yeah, it did.  

I contemplated sleeping out in the cockpit... but I was afraid I would be carried away by the no-see-ums and lost forever. 

So the next time we slept aboard you better believed we came armed with some heavy(ier) duty fans.    

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. 

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.

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.