It was a dark and stormy night…

Not really, but sounded good. So there we were awake at 230a on the Friday morning after we closed on the boat purchase. We already had a long list of stuff that we wanted to change on the boat. We had seen our friends who live on a 42′ boat in Alameda earlier that week, and they mentioned that Marina Village in Alameda had 8 open liveaboard slots available. This is unheard of… it’s usually a very long waitlist to get a 40-42′ slip, much less getting a liveaboard. Add to that the adrenaline of just having made a large purchase and we start talking.

D – “You know, we just bought a cruising boat and we’re heading back up to Port Townsend on Sunday.”

K – “Yeah, I know. I was just thinking about bringing the boat back up to the PNW and all the work we need to do on her. We don’t have the group of sailing people, the people to work on the boat, not to mention our friends like we do in the Bay Area.”

D – “I was just thinking about all of that too. What do you think about coming back to the Bay Area and moving onto the boat? We can get a liveaboard slip in Alameda. I realized earlier that I can make more money working just 10 hours a week in the Bay Area than I can working an entire month in Port Townsend.”

K – “But, I want to go cruising in the PNW, and I really want to do that Alaska roundtrip.”

D – “We can come back to the PNW first. That could be our shakedown cruise to see if the internet/working thing will work for you. And we can start cruising from there.”

K – “OK, sounds good, let’s do it. We’re both in our 50’s, and it’s time, because if we don’t we may never. Let’s get this show on the road.”

As my Uncle Pat, who is just 6 years older than me and currently “cruising” on a motorcycle says, “If not now, when?”

Absolutely. So, mid-October, we’re going back, but not backward… actually a huge leap forward.