Our Future?

For months we have been toying with the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ocean. However, unlike many people who would job search, list their home for sale and transition their life we just want a boat. A sailboat to be exact. over the last 6 months we have watched more hours of YouTube sailing vlogs than we care to admit and are starting to put our own plan in motion. For us, step one was turn the tv off and go find a boat to sail and spend a few nights on, after all this big of a life change is not to be taken lightly. Luckily, we have some great friends a few states over who were gracious enough to host us for a week and indulge our curiosity. We flew out of the snow and cold of Colorado and into the sunny shores of California. The first few days of our adventure were spent sailing short distances and getting our sea legs. Our end goal was to make the passage from San Pedro to Catalina, life the boat life on a mooring and sail back. Unfortunately, this never panned out as the wind and surf were never in our favor. 8-foot swells on a 36 foot boat can be done however it’s not our boat and this was supposed to be a learning experience not a test of will. We returned to the safety of the harbor and got on with boat life. There is far more to sailing than raising the sails and hitting the open ocean. We were more than happy to help with some of the overdue maintenance issues the boats. The first of which was washing and cleaning the boats. I say boats because our friends have two Catalinas, a 26 foot and a 36 foot. Next on the list was a halyard replacement for the 26. Our hosts had mentioned that they had been looking for someone to go up mast as part of the job but finding anyone was proving to be difficult. Not being much afraid of heights anymore I volunteered and after a quick lesson with the bosons chair we set to cutting the damaged halyard and stitching the end to the new replacement. Our friends then hooked me to the main sail halyard and up the mast I went. The views from the top of the mast were awesome but despite the short amount of work to be done I found the chair to be pretty uncomfortable. Something to remember when shopping for our own I guess. Once the halyard was replaced and my Instagram photoshoot complete I was lowered safely down and cracked open a well-earned beer. For the rest of our time in California, we enjoyed conversation and experiencing what life on the docks could be. We met great people and learned a lot, the most important of which was on our last day when we contacted a few yacht dealers and started looking at boats. But more on that to come. #sailing #sailboat #adventure #freedom #lifeatsea