Coming right down to it!

Dan says he has two bits of wisdom to pass along to others who plan to retire aboard a boat and cruise away: first, ALL the money you make in your last working year will go right straight into the boat; second, you really don’t have time to keep up a blog.

April was a bittersweet month.  We both became ill with what turned out to be a long slog through a nasty head cold that settled in our sinuses, ears, and chest, giving us a roller coaster ride as we struggled to work the remaining weeks of our jobs and prepare for our departure in May.  While Dan literally counted down, (for the last 18 months!)  the days to his retirement, my leaving my employment working for folksinger Gordon Bok was tearful.  I’ve worked for this wonderful man for eight years and enjoyed every minute of it.  I cried all the way home on my last day.

Dan’s been very busy installing all the equipment - the new radar, the new GPS plotter, the new autopilot, new fuel tanks, complete re-installation of the engine and drive shaft - as well as tweaking the boat in small ways to find new places to store things.  As any boat owner will tell you, new installations and tweaking of any kind don’t always go as planned; they usually involve multiple trips to the marine hardware store or some re-thinking of what seemed like a great idea at first.  I have gotten used to supper time discussions that start out “I changed my mind about where the [insert current project] will go...” 

I, (if you haven't figured it out yet, Kathy)  have been busy preparing our house to rent, making sure we have all our finances, documents, bills, etc up to date, online, and generally in order, scanned and copied as necessary.  We have lists and lists on what we’re bringing -  not just what we’d normally bring on a cruise, but what we’ll want to have with us because we’re not just cruising, we’re living aboard.  For instance, I’ll want all my knitting needles, not just a small bag with the current project.  The tricky part is knowing what we really will need and use, so we aren’t lugging things that just take up space.  A thirty foot boat only has so much room...