One Year In

We left on our voyage one year ago today. One year in, we have visited three countries, over 30 islands, 15 marinas, and countless anchorages. We’ve plied through glassy waters and 15-foot waves. We’ve seen so many animals that we will only mention the ones that win special prizes: Smallest: No-see-um; Biggest: Blue Whale; Most colorful: Rainbow Wrasse (a small reef fish); Fuzziest: Sea Otter; Scariest: Grizzly Bear; Weirdest: Tube Worm.

There’s general consensus among us that the West Coast of Vancouver Island was a favorite; its deep green forests, multicolored beaches, and foggy low-tide explorations captivated our imaginations. Here in Mexico, Puerto Los Gatos is one of the places that rises to the top for all us with its bright red marshmallow rocks and flat trails. La Paz has not only become a home base, but a second home – a place where we feel comfortable, where we’ve found favorite places and are greeted with smiles of recognition, where we stroll the malecon in the evenings with the city’s families, dancers, scout troops, musicians, and running teams, and feel the joy of life.

I don’t know how much of this first year will make it into the kids’ long-term memories. Dylan may remember details of his emotions and the world’s natural playgrounds that exceed our own. Andy may only retain passing snapshots, images that may become dreamlike in their vagueness. They’re unlikely to remember the bigger evolution of this year, but I have hopes that a few things will stick with them: witnessing humpbacks and gray whales breach and dive in front of us, seeing hundreds of dolphins leaping and twirling in a feeding frenzy, building sandcastles and estuaries, spotting the omnipresent Angelfish and Panamic Sergeant Majors, playing with whale and fish skeletons strewn on rocky beaches, sprinting down the La Paz malecon dodging bikes and roller-bladers and strolling lovers, curling up in the v-berth to listen to bedtime stories.

We’ve embarked on this journey together as a family, but our perceptions of it, the things we enjoy, and the mental states we’re in aren’t always the same. Here are some verbal snapshots of where we are now. The kids’ words are mostly paraphrased versions of things they’ve actually said or what their brains could be thinking. I imagine this is also what they might say if prodded for answers, which they may or may not be willing to give. Tom’s words were dictated to me in a conversation. My words are my own of course. Some were written at a darker time, and some were written after I had a chance to pull my head up, breathe, and take a look around, like pausing in the middle of an open water swim to lift your goggles and appreciate the vast, gorgeous, and powerful world all around you.

Andy:
One year in, I love doing puzzles on the pilothouse floor. I love tracing animals. I love doing math with mommy in the back bedroom. I love talking people’s ears off, especially about whales and dolphins. I want to be a cetologist when I grow up. They study whales. Or maybe an paleontologist because they dig up dinosaurs, which are pretty cool too. So are spiders. And seals. And raccoons. And snakes. I love my new stuffed snake, Spotty, that I saved up my allowance for. I love crawling into bed with mommy and daddy in the middle of night. I tell them I have nightmares, but really I just want to be close to them. Nightmares are when you dream of giant squid.

Dylan:
One year in, I miss trees. I miss my grandparents. I miss house tents to play in. But I love running as fast as I can down really long beaches. And I love finding hermit crabs and building epic sandcastles. Building stuff with Legos and cardboard and duct tape is cool, too. I love hikes, though I’d like them more if there were trees. I’m way more acclimated to the heat in Mexico than the rest of my family. I love building forts, playing games on my tablet, and having movie nights with popcorn. I love jumping around in front of the cat and putting blankets on top of her, but she doesn’t seem to like it (I don’t know why). I don’t love boat school, but I guess science experiments are okay, especially when they explode or I get to use a lever like a catapult. I really just want to sit in mommy’s lap and listen to chapter books for hours before bedtime.

Demon:
Who takes a Himalayan snow cat to Mexico?

Tom:
I’m enjoying the lifestyle so far. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Mexico, the friendly and welcoming people and their willingness to have fun and celebrate anything and everything. I’ve been astounded by a clearly flourishing middle class. I figured I would like the Sea of Cortez, but I’ve really fallen in love with Mexico, and not just because of the Sea. I love exploring food, whether in restaurants, hole-in-the-wall taco joints, grocery stores, or markets. I’m also loving the frustrating challenge of fishing. I had anxieties about the number of significant breakages we would have, and I have been pleasantly surprised that the boat’s been doing really well. The heat has definitely been a problem for me, and I’m surprised that Dylan isn’t thriving the way we thought he would. I’m happy to be taking a break from medicine, but hopefully when I go back to it, I can go back reinvigorated with my passion for it renewed. I’m really excited and optimistic about the upcoming years.

Sandi:
One year in, I love hiking and exploring and learning a new language. But one year in, I still sometimes wonder if we’ve done the right thing. If leaving friends and family and a “normal” life to embark on this Pacific odyssey was the right decision. One year in, I still have dreams about work, dredging up the nagging guilt of leaving a job that I loved, even if the mental break was sorely needed. I would love to turn myself into a writer, but I live with the anxiety that lack of official training, internet, and time for writing and research means it may never happen. And it feeds a feeling of worthlessness that I have had to push away constantly. Perhaps this anxiety would be eased if I got more gratification out of teaching or parenting my children, but when daily life poses a constant flood of challenges – of how not to butt heads with Dylan, what tactic to use to get Andy to listen, what consequence to impose for inappropriate behavior – I am not only taxed, but just want to get as far away from my children as I can (which, on our boat, is about 25 feet, and I can still hear them).

But I realize that all of those things I struggle with would be the same back on land. We would still have a strong-willed 6 year old and a precocious but clingy 4 year old. We would still struggle with parenting and discipline methods. We would likely still struggle with anxiety and depression, especially if we had to undo all the things we put in place to make this life possible. There is no guarantee that anything would be any better if we were on land, and so instead of moving backward to an unplanned unknown, we move forward into the planned unknown and continue to have conversations as a family about how to make it smoother. I carry a little plaque with me that my parents gave me years ago that says: “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we will find it not.” And if we can’t find the beautiful here, then we will not find it on land.

There have been plenty of days when I have lost sight of the Beautiful, when I have forgotten our Why. But I am reminded when I see Andy dig his fascinated little face into his whale book, when I see Dylan build civilizations out of nothing but sand and rocks and sticks, when I see Tom fully engrossed in his new fishing hobby, when I see myself having full conversations in my broken but improving Spanish, when I see the kids excited about going to the place where sushi comes from. I see in all these things our Why – our deliberate choice to face the challenges of an alternative lifestyle for a while – and I know we’ve made the right decision.

When I have told Mexicans I’ve met about the life we are living, a very typical response has been: “Que una vida bonita!” What a beautiful life! My response has often been, in my limited Spanish, “Well, it’s nice but very difficult with two young children.” But what I really need to do is learn the right Spanish words for this response: “Yes, it is beautiful with all it’s ups and downs, with all its discoveries and disappointments, with all its happiness and hardships, with its moments of pure joy and brutal desperation. It is beautiful that we can spend time together as a family even if not every moment is beautiful.” And that’s probably what they mean; I’ve just had to discover it for myself.

A few select moments from the past year: