So close... yet so surreal

I think we're ready... I'm pretty sure the boat is ready.  Now, we just need the wind to be ready (though the longer we stay, the more we find to get done before we leave - so who knows whether or not we are actually ready?!)  This has to be one of the most surreal and chillingly realistic points of my life so far.  All I can imagine coming close to this feeling is being a week away from your first child's due date: you know you've gotten as ready as you're going to be, you see that there is SO much more to be done, you know it's about to happen, and you feel this huge emptiness of having NO idea what is about to be "reality" though you know it will change everything.


Why, you may ask, is leaving so surreal and the most hardcore reality check when this has been the plan the whole time?  Glad you asked!  It gives me a chance to wrap my head around it!

About four weeks ago, I told the owner of the restaurant I worked at that we were ready to set sail.  He looked at me surprised and said he had expected us to be here longer.  I have to be very honest and say that there is part of my own deep-down sub-conscience that is VERY shocked we are ready to go, too.  Not because I didn't think we could get everything done this fast (Rob and I are some very motivated people, as you may well know), but because there is a part of my brain that is still holding onto the "sane life"...  You know, the one where both of us have jobs, a car, a phone, and we are here in one place where people can reach us.

We aren't the first people to set out on an adventure such as the one that is right around the corner for us, but any of you parents know that it doesn't take being a pioneer to feel nervous.  No matter how many people have done it before, we haven't jumped off this cliff before and we have no idea how this journey will go for us.  But, every time we make a "To Do Before Setting Sail" List, it gets shorter and shorter, reminding me that we at least have the essentials everyone believes we can't live without.

In my last post, I spoke of the 25-gallon water tank that came with the boat and the 6-gallon jerryjugs we have to help supplement this holding tank.  We put the contents of one of those jerryjugs into the holding tank about a week ago and just ran out yesterday; I'd say our water conservation skills are improving, though they were fairly good to begin with.  However, to help ourselves out, we were able to buy a 50-gallon collapsible water tank for what seems to be about 1/5 of the price!  So, that will help when we get to the Bahamas where water is $.50/gallon versus the $.05/gallon we pay here.  It took a couple of weeks, a LOT of cursing, and quite a bit of time, but the bladder is in and working due to my husband's craftiness!  I am so excited to know that I can wash my hands from the sink again!!!

Another point I mentioned in the previous post was the fact that we didn't need great quantities of power due to our lack of refrigeration.  In our galley (kitchen) is a roughly 2.5' x 2.5' x 3' icebox which is the only area we had at that point to put cold food, then we would put dry ice on the bottom which helps keep regular ice frozen for about a week (when you use 20 pounds of ice).  This was a task and one that we were not looking forward to recreating in countries where dry ice is about as accessible as drive-through "restaurants"...  However, us looking at a cold plate which would fit into our built-in icebox was us looking into a $1,200+ gun barrel - something we did NOT relish.

Once we realized that a small refrigerator was available for boats, we started poking around for one, but were still looking at $800+ for a fridge, still a pretty painful price for us.  HOWEVER, my avid two readers will remember the Net that we have in the sailing community here, a VHF radio broadcast every morning where people sell those things they no longer need on their boat.  We were able to buy a barely-used, top-name marine fridge for just over half the price of a new one!  BAM!  Now, we have everything we need on-board to be fairly comfortable (except, of course, eight more feet of room from side-to-side) for our trip AND we know that the solar panel brings in enough power to make sure we are consistently having a cold drink!

As I mentioned, we are ready to go, but the weather has kept us parked for almost two more weeks than we were hoping.  Since we have to be here, we are taking this time to do other needed-but-wanted-to-put-off projects, like learning how to go up the mast!  While this particular trip was not exactly necessary for a particular project, it WAS necessary for us to know how to do this in case it is ever necessary.  Throughout sailing history, there are times a light needs to be changed, a wire needs to be reconnected, or an event that I can't begin to imagine happens that necessitates someone going up the mast.  My fear was that, as the heavier-weighted person, I would have to hoist the Captain up using my body weight and a winch.  While we have done this in a padded, controlled situation while indoor rock climbing, I was having a hard time stomaching the idea of doing it up a 50-foot mast with no safe guards.  Thanks to a fellow sailor (who has been dropped before), we were able to learn a method which keeps Rob in complete control and cuts down on the chances of him coming down at an accelerated rate because he does it all himself!  (Never mind that it takes the responsibility off of me!!! ;-) )

And, alas, we have been "granted" (I SO wish there was a CTRL+____ command for sarcasm) the opportunity to clean the bottom of our boats.  When we bought our boat, she had been living in a canal for three months and she stayed there with us for another two months without so much as a seaweed on her!  When we moved to the harbor, which is protected partially by a finger of land with a golf course laid out on the end, we started having growth on the bottom of our boats within weeks!  Today, we pulled the little one out of the water for the first time and started scraping... and kept scraping for two hours!

Now, I had done a very short version of this scraping while in the water once before... and could not see six inches in front of my diving mask!  I climbed out of the water and back into the boat, where I PROMPTLY took off my clothes and begged Rob to pour fresh water on me as I had the little buggers who make barnacles crawling all over me.  While I now know that these are NOT actually sea lice and that they can cause no harm to me, that's the same as saying letting small cockroaches walk around on me causes no harm...  Except all that mental harm of my skin crawling EVERY TIME I think about it!

So, instead, we pulled the dinghy out of the water and faced the growth head-on.

It made me realize how badly I want to get out of this harbor.

I signed on for waking up in the morning and jumping off the bow of my boat into water so crystal clear you can see to the bottom even when it is 20 feet deep.  I signed on for living creatures coming up to see who we are and what bread we have to feed them.  I signed on for sailing... not sitting in a harbor with 300+ other boats, all of whom live comfortably with the idea of "liquids over the side, solids stay in" when it comes to potty time.  I am SO ready to get out of here and face the future adventure!

However, I am anxious about what lay ahead of us, I am anxious about the path we will take, I am anxious about our knowledge/skill level, I am anxious every time we see a glimpse of promise that we may be able to leave here soon.  It really is a love/hate relationship with the end of the cliff...  But, in the end, I know we will jump off and I know it will be exhilarating!

However, it's not up to me anymore: now that the boat is ready, the car is sold, the cupboards are stocked, and the bottom is clean, it is up to the Winds to let us out of here.  And, right now, I have four different weather websites giving me four different answers about when that will be.  So, I will keep you posted... though the next one may just come from the Bahamas!

Until then, I share with you one of the many reasons we moved to the sea:

A manatee getting a fresh water drink from our marina!