Phase Two

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan W. Watts.

  

When we first made the decision to embark on this voyage, I thought that Phase One would be the six months of prep and planning before we untied the docklines. But there has been a distinct change between our lives and our mindsets three weeks ago and our lives now, and I realize now that the transition of “phases” won’t necessarily happen at obvious times – like departure or entering a new city or country – but rather that the phases will be reflected in our mindsets, outlook, actions, and adaptations.

Phase One was characterized by high emotions, planning, work, and prepping our house for sale: complete overwhelm, ups and downs of excitement, lots of research, maybe a little denial, the upheaval of finishing up and transitioning away at work, and the mapping out of all the small and big steps that need to happen. We were still living our day to day lives, but feeling extra busy, extra overwhelmed, and extra crazy.  We straddled two worlds, the former still feeling more real, and the future feeling more like a fuzzy dream.

 

Phase Two began a few weeks ago when Tom and I finished up at work. When our work became our family and our adventure. Phase Two has thus far been characterized by two seemingly opposing forces: pure exhaustion and constant task-focus. Remember what used to happen at the end of a college semester, when you finished all your papers and finals, and you immediately got sick and stayed on the couch for a week? That’s about how both of us handled our first week and a half away from work. There may have been a few naps. There may have been a little staring at walls. But the long to-do list still loomed. My strategy has been to use the morning hours to the best of my productive type-A ability and let the afternoon be what it needs to be: napping, cooking, packing, purging, or lying on the couch staring at the ceiling repeating permission to myself that it is okay to sit still for ten minutes. As our brains have gotten used to our new routines, so have our bodies, and the exhaustion isn’t quite so potent.

We are no longer straddling two worlds with our weight on our back foot. If Phase One was dominated by the question “Are we crazy,” then Phase Two has been dominated by more practical questions: What is the new battery configuration going to look like? What is our man-overboard plan? How are we going to set up the jacklines and tethers (to keep everyone on board in rough weather)? How many solar panels do we need? What are the measurements of our storage cabinets? Where are we going to store fruits and vegetables? How am I going to find a way to sleep with the rocking and clanging every night for four years? How much money is left in the bank account? Even Dylan has begun to ask the practical questions: Where is Andy’s fire truck potty going to go on the boat? What size toy bin can I take on the boat? And in asking and answering these questions, we move forward in the dance, weight now firmly on the forward foot.

So, where are we and what have we done? My own list below doesn’t have much in the way of pictures because pictures of tax returns and lease agreements are really boring, but here’s a short list what I’ve done:

• Submitted 2017 taxes
• Written our sailing resumes (and Tom submitted to insurance companies)
• Have secured renters for our house and finalized paperwork
• Have finally started studying for the ISPA certifications I need to get (which includes about 700 pages of reading and associated assessments)
• Have a concrete list of the documents we need to enter Mexico
• Have bought the remainder of the hardware and software I need to make videos, as well as a new computer because my old one just died. Not that that was in the budget.
• Have mostly kept the children fed and happy. Okay, maybe not happy. There’s a lot of whining, but they are well fed and looking forward to going sailing.
• Have hosted some old friends from Canada for a weekend.
• Have sold my bike, because it took leaving on a sailing trip (and not multiple injuries) to make me finally admit that I am not likely to do anymore triathlons.
• And have celebrated a few birthdays! 

 

 

Tom and the yard have been hard at work on the boat. This part is way more exciting and comes with pictures.  The most exciting news is that we are back in the water after months on dry land! Boats are meant to be in the water, and it just feels better to have the boat there and ready to clean up and move on to.

The yard welded on our new anchor roller, so we now have our hefty 85-pound Mantus (almost) ready to deploy – as soon as the new chain and windlass arrive.

We have clean fuel tanks with inspection ports! Yay for not having clogged fuel filters in the first month on the water (or at least the reduced likelihood)! 

 

We have replaced the dripless packing gland, which is where the propeller shaft enters the boat. It’s best to have a functioning one of these for obvious reasons.

 

We have new batteries and chargers that Tom has wired up and gotten ready for the boat. He’s already started wiring up the new starting battery and new batteries for the bow-thruster. Not sure how we limped along for the past four years on the hanging-by-a-thread batteries that were on the boat, but Tom worked his magic. 

This is a hold-over from Phase One, but we have new sails and rigging! Here are a few photos of our new main sail (rolled up on the roller furling boom), some new running backstays, a new headsail and staysail, and a new mizzen sail with sail cover and lazy-jacks (to guide the sail down so it doesn’t fall into our heads in the cockpit):

     

We have one month to go until our scheduled departure date of May 13. Thanks to some delays in boat work, parts orders, and a few other factors, that date has turned into a soft launch for some mini-shakedown-cruises to ensure that everything works and we know where everything goes. The new departure date – weather willing – is June 3. But we’re okay with that. We know that the most dangerous thing you can do while boating is stick to a schedule, so we will let our own preparation and the boat’s readiness be our guide, as it should be. And perhaps that’s one more manifestation of the reality of being in Phase Two: that our mindsets are already becoming more flexible to the needs of our family, our boat, and the weather. That we are plunging in, moving with it, and just joining the dance of our changing reality.