Every Journey Begins With a First Step

Every journey begins with a first step.  I guess you might say we took the first step on what we hope will be a long, life changing journey a little over a year ago.  The fact that we have no definite start date or the slightest clue of where and when it will end...is honestly part of what makes it so exciting.

This all started a year or so ago when Kara and I really started to talk seriously about the idea of upsetting what most would consider a great life by selling it all so we could sail away into the sunset.  That idea has always held some appeal for me, but the more you really start to think it through, the more overwhelming it seems.  Obviously it's not a decision either of us takes lightly but the more we talked it through, the more it seemed possible, maybe even plausible?

I mean sure, neither of us knew the first thing about actually sailing, we both had (still do) excellent jobs working for a top notch company. At home we've got two crazy cats, an awesome dog, a nice little condo in Austin and our little weekend getaway on lake LBJ about an hour away.  In short, a great life, but we couldn't help feeling something was missing.  We both work crazy hours all year long, so we can indulge our love of travel, a couple times a year.  Which really makes you start to think about why you work so hard and spend a ton of money, for a couple weeks somewhere special.  Why not find a way to live on a lot less $ and take the time to enjoy life a bit more?  I'm fairly sure that no one was ever on their death bed and said, "I wish I'd worked more".  So for the last year and a half we've been working to put as much as possible into the cruising kitty, bought a funky old Catalina 22 with a 2 stroke 6HP Suzuki outboard and started learning to sail it.  We know we have a long way to go, but we're taking the crawl walk run approach.

So for now, most weekends you'll find us out on our little lake sailing for the day.  We took our first class (ASA 101 - Basic Keelboat) in February which helped a lot with our communication and basic technique.  I've become a very active lurker on crusiersforum which has proven to be a great source of knowledge, sometimes you have to dig for it, but it's definitely there.  We've also been actively looking for crewing opportunities to start getting in some ocean sailing.  In addition we're planning a couple weeks in the BVI's to get some experience living on a charter boat and a couple new classes (ASA 103/104 - Coastal Cruising / Bareboat charter.

Anyway, for us the journey as begun and we thought it might be fun to begin documenting the process from it's infancy instead of waiting until we get a bigger boat and are closer to the end goal. So settle in and get comfortable, this will be a long slow progression, but then...we didn't get into sailing because we're in a hurry.  In a very real way, this is all about the journey and not the destination.