Finally

Well after years of dreaming, 2 years of planning, 6 months of intensive work on the boat, it’s hard to believe it happened. At 8:30 AM on Thursday April 19 we cut the mooring lines. Figuratively speaking, I’m to cheap to ruin a good mooring line for real.

The boat is not perfect, but when is a boat ever perfect. The important stuff is done. The rest can be worked on while we are underway. After all they say “cruising is just fixing stuff in exotic locations” and besides we will need something to do while we wait out bad weather.
We had family over yesterday afternoon for a bon voyage lunch. We had one final course last night with our Blue Water Cruising Association and many members congratulated us, were very supportive and excited about our eminent departure. It was great to have everyone’s support, but it never really set in that we were leaving.
I have been so focused on the preparations and tasks at hand I have not had the time to fully appreciate that we were leaving. It was not until we were underway, and Barb looks back at Vancouver and says, “hey we should have one last picture of Vancouver for the blog”.

Suddenly I need to choke back a couple of tears. We are actually doing this!
It’s a real mix of emotions that you need to work through as you plan and set out on an adventure like this. All that you are used to, is changing in a very significant way.
In our case we had to deal with the financial implications of our choice to sell everything in order to do this. You stay awake at nights thinking about the thousands of what ifs? Thanks to Excel spreadsheets, you can spend most of the next day thinking about them to.
We are leaving behind aging parents. There is a certain amount of guilt that comes with that choice. We are fortunate that both Barb and I have sisters and they live reasonably close to the parents but even then, you wonder if its fair to lay all that potential responsibility in their laps.
We have an adult son and daughter. One married and the other in a relationship. The possibly of grand children is present and how are we going to deal with that from a distance?
We both retired from long term employments. How does one define themselves after they are no longer “Derick at First Truck Centre” I’ve been that for nearly 20 years.
All that being the case this is an adventure we dreamed about. To not have tried would have left us forever guessing what it would have been like. We have been given an opportunity and we must give it a shot. If it works as we hope, we could be at this for many years. If not, at least we can say we tried.
Our son has always said “Do it for the story” We hope you will follow ours.

It’s impossible said pride
It’s risky said experience
It’s pointless said reason
Give it a try whispered the heart