Friday, January 22, 2010

A week of Saturdays

I created this blog a few weeks ago as a place to post updates to our adventures in retirement as we travel the Caribbean and who knows where else. Since creating the page actually posting to it has been like a lazy guy's promise to start exercising that keeps getting put off for another day. Enough procrastination.

This week I left Tallahassee, a place I've put on return address labels for the last nine years. It's a great place and I'm sure I'll miss certain aspects of it like the comfort that comes with being able to see people you know anytime you leave the house. It's satisfying to remember planning our escape one day three months ago during a lunch break at Tropical Smoothie. Through the course of selling everything, taking sailing courses and purchasing a boat we didn't refer back to the date. It wasn't until we were packing our stuff we remembered we set Jan. 15 as a target date to leave Tallahassee and stuck to it accidentally intentionally.

Along with leaving Tallahassee I sold my truck that I've had for the last 7 years. For an American there is a certain amount of discomfort that comes with not having your own vehicle to get you where you need to go.

For now our temporary home is Chris's Dad's home as we prepare our boat for cruising. The amount of preparation that still remains will test our discipline in balancing our new freedom and desire to have fun NOW with our ability to get the things done so that we can have fun on the boat. The realization that everyday is Saturday makes it difficult to be productive. Our intended departure date of Feb. 3 is going to have to be pushed back as the boatyard is taking longer with the repairs than we anticipated.

A short list of things we have to accomplish before we leave is as follows:
  • Rewire the shore power to make wire to make sure it is the same gauge as the rest of the wiring running through the boat.
  • Fix the head.
  • Replace the leaking plexiglass on the deck of the boat.
  • Build additional shelving for storage in the galley. 
  • Purchase a 15 hp outboard for our dinghy.
  • Purchase international health insurance.
  • Do our taxes before we depart.
  • Take first aid and CPR courses.
  • Purchase all of the remaining items we need have the boat ready to cruise (this is a two page list).
  • Stock the boat with our clothing, supplies and food.
  • Change the name of the boat from Freixenet to Desdemona (inclluding peforming a renaming ceremony).
We figured attending Gasparilla would be good training for becoming pirates. so we'll be there in Tampa Bay with eye patches and booty aboard Desdemona. If you'd like to come hang out just give us a call or email jeff@phpsailing.com. We'd love to see your face, with an eye patch of course.

P.S. If anyone from AARP is reading this we still have not received membership applications and feel that excluding us based on age is entirely unfair as we are effectively retired and we'd like to join your club.

3 comments:

  1. Awesome Jeff! Miss ya bud...

    Kyle

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks kyle! miss ya too come visit us and teach us how to fish

    ReplyDelete
  3. Please write some baby..I like to read now

    ReplyDelete