Let's run away to sea

I’ve been thinking about my incredibly strong urge to up and leave.  Ever since Matt reintroduced  “The Dream” into our lives a few weeks ago, I’ve been so excited that I feel like I have ants in my pants.  Sometimes I get so full of the compulsion to GO NOW that I want to find a skipping rope and do 100 or 200 fast skips to discharge the excess energy.  I can feel it brimming out of me.  I can’t remember the last time anything fired me up so much.

But our lives here are so content, so stable, so full of everything that we’re supposed to want, that I know we’re going to face some serious lack of comprehension when we go public with our plans.  So, in no particular order, here are my 10 top reasons for wanting to grab my family and run away to sea.

1.     Everything on board “has to work for everyone”.  I can’t think of a better family mantra.

2.     We get to hang out as family, all the time (sometimes I think that will be a good point for NOT going!)

3.     Matt and I are a good team, and we work best when aiming for a common goal (what couple doesn’t?)

4.     I love the sound of the cruising community.  I have a strong need to belong.

5.     I love the anti-consumerism ethos; the idea of “stuff” as the enemy.

6.     I’m happy being in and around Nature.

7.     I get a buzz out of the idea of living self-sufficiently and resourcefully, the need to use our creativity and ingenuity.

8.     I hope it will slow life right down.

9.     I get excited about challenges and adventures – approached with caution and courage.

10. Since my health overhaul (Feb 2016) my life has both expanded and sped up.  It has blossomed into spectacular technicolour.  I feel the need to seize every chance to fully inhabit my life, to make it matter, to make every bit of it count.

I feel almost panicky that something might happen to stop us going.  I pray that we encounter no health problems to stop us going, because anything else, surely is surmountable. 

I really, really can’t wait. 

Fights

Matt and I have had our first argument of the trip, and we haven't even left yet!

So it was Matt that recently brought up the subject of leaving again.  This is something we decided we wanted to do several years ago, when the kids were very very little.  We plotted and planned, got excited, put our one and only rental property on the market to realise the capital to buy a boat and ... nothing.  We couldn't sell the damn thing.  And with no money to buy a boat, we carried on with life, got busy, got sucked in (as you do) and the dream faded.  The kids got bigger and started at a great local school, I got a job at the local school, Matt got a job locally, instead of working away for weeks at a time; we were all thriving and counting our blessings.  Matt and I felt very lucky to have jobs at all in the fall-out of the GFC, especially ones that we enjoyed.  The girls stopped asking "are we going away on a boat soon?" as we talked about it less, and the subject of homeschooling also stopped coming up.  We took the rental unit of the market, resigned ourselves to being landlubbers and enjoying the journey of family life.

But a couple of things happened recently that changed all that.  Firstly, some good friends, with daughters roughly the same age as ours, returned from a two-year "Big Lap" of Australia.  We had them over straight away for a barbecue and had a wonderful time catching up, lolling around on our verandah while the kids played happily and the smoke from the barbie drifted away into the blue sky, drinking beer and hearing about their tales of wonderful places discovered, friends made and farewelled, heat, dust, waterfalls, and snow.  We had been planning our getaway over two years ago, when they were planning theirs.  We had all made jokes about swapping modes of transport when we all returned - we'd get their truck and off-road caravan, and they could have our boat.  Now here they were having done it, and our two years had passed in a blur of school fees and mowing the lawn.

The other thing that changed our direction was Matt.  He came home one day, and with a slightly wild look in his eye, announced that he still wanted us to go.  He wanted to buy a boat, pull the kids out of school, and cruise the East Coast of Queensland for 6 months or a year.  And he thought the best time to do it would be the end of the school year, December 2017.  I was taken aback and blurted "I don't think I want to go!".  I like my life here, we have good friends, the kids are settled, we take nice holidays - what's not to love?  But when I thought about it further, I realised that it was fear holding me back.  I was scared of the unknown.  Scared of keeping our kids safe.  Scared of being emotionally reliant on just us - there was so much I was frightened of.  And once I realised that, and we talked about it, and I thought about it, I found that my fear had dissipated and I was actually just excited! The possibilities seemed vast and endless - I loved the sound of an adventure and I loved the idea of spending time together as a family.

In fact I was consumed with enthusiasm, started reading everything I could get my hands on about voyaging - I'll add a reading list next - talking to the girls about going on an adventure, using our vast wall map to choose places we'd love to sail to, absorbing blogs, browsing boat-brokers lists and generally hurling myself into the whole thing.  I calculated that it's now February and we plan to sail away in December, that only leaves us 10 months to "do up" the unit (it needs painting internally after years of renters), sell it, actually get the money in the bank, go boat shopping from our relatively remote location of the Whitsundays, rent the house, sell pretty much everything we own, put everything else into a shipping container (buy that too), arrange homeschooling and move onto our (theroretical) boat.  It seemed we had not a moment to lose!

However, I had reckoned without Matt's exhaustion and the long hours he was putting into his current job.  Matt "only" works 3 or 4 days a week, but man, they are long days.  He often gets up in the dark before 5am, drives to the Port, spends all day driving a big expensive vessel to the islands and back to the Port several times, meeting aeroplane flights that were often delayed, explaining delays to tired ands stressed travellers, managing crew, dealing with breakdowns, washing the vessel down, eating lunches on the go in the late afternoon and finally getting the boat tied up and stepping off in the dark, getting home after 7pm in time for goodnight kisses from his daughters.

So when I broached the subject one night, intent on galvanising us and getting things going, I approached the whole thing with the subtlety and finesse of a battering ram.  Matt was tired and cranky and just blocked me with monosyllabic answers until I exploded in frustration.  I really, really want to go and am excited about it.   He floated the idea, he started it, now I'm excited and he keeps shutting me down.  He explained that he's just tired and can't muster enthusiasm for anything except going to bed!  When I realised that, I simmered down.  I got him to shake on it though - we ARE going, this IS going to happen and we'll talk about it when he has some energy! 

So this weekend we're planning on walking the Whitsunday Great Walk.  It's 28kms through the rainforest and something we've always wanted to do.  The kids are being dropped off with friends early and we'll set off with water and stout boots, and are hoping to complete the whole thing in 6-7 hours.  I will have a captive audience for the whole day and intend to make the most of it!

Planning the Leap

It's February 2017 and we are keen to go sailing.  Pack up what we need, sell the rest, rent the house, buy a boat, pull the kids out of school and head off!

So I'm Bel and my husband Matt and I both love being on the water.  We've both worked on boats in the past.  I dabbled for a few years, he's an experienced, qualified captain who has been in the industry his whole working life.  We met working on an amazing 50m private motor yacht, as part of a crew of 12.  A few years later we decided to settle down in his native Australia and start a family.  As a Pom, who went to sea primarily to escape the British weather, this was a no-brainer for me!  

We have our two beautiful daughters, Tilly and Sasha who, right now, are 8 and 7.  Although Tilly actually turns 9 next month and planning dinner out with two good friends (and us, I hope!) followed by a visit to a Cold Rock ice cream shop and back home for a sleepover.

We live in the very beautiful Whitsundays area, in the Tropical North of Oz, a stunning area of tropical rainforests, turquoise waters, coral reefs, palm trees and many gorgeous uninhabited islands.  We bought three acres of land 10 years ago and Matt and his Dad built our house, on the side of a hill, with great valley views and lots of creepy crawlies!  We keep chooks, grow veg and have regular visits from wallabies, cockatoos and rainbow lorrikeets.

Matt works locally, driving ferries to the islands, and I'm the librarian at the same school that our kids attend.  It's a great local community, we're all comfortable and happy.

We feel very lucky, very blessed ... and we feel like we need to go sailing! It's not that anything is missing, it's that we both feel the pull of the sea.  After 10 years ashore, and working steadily, and being landlubbers, and having our kids we feel that - now it's time.  If we don't do it now, we never will. 

We're pretty nervous.  It feels like a huge step.  It IS a huge step.  What will we do for money? Will we rent the house or sell it?  How long for?  Will we come back here, if we do, what will we do for work? What about schooling? What about friends?  Will the kids hate us? Will we hate each other?! How on earth will all of us live in such a tiny space after having this lovely house and acres of land?  How will I manage my fear of keeping the girls safe? So many questions ... but we feel we have to do this now, or we'll regret it forever.  We are both very excited!

There's a lot to think about and a lot to plan ... and this is where I'm going to blog it out.