Blog Detour

We created and named this blog 2 ½ years ago (is that all?!) when we lived in a house in a borough of Seattle with day jobs, a truck, and three seemingly insurmountable goals. In our “free” time, when we weren’t racing, we were inspecting sailboats, engulfed in an eternal search for our first boat- our first home. I meant to wait until we owned a boat to create the blog, but I got impatient. We wanted a name that was vague enough to encompass whatever was to come, but one that held us to our dream of a sailboat. Something clever, easy to remember, and still available.

How did we do? As I look back over the last year of blog posts, a sad minority of them incorporate sailing. That is an accurate portrayal, though; as I look back over the last year of our lives, a sad minority of it includes sailing. But don’t misunderstand me, I am not complaining.

We surmounted our first and second “insurmountable” goals, along with a few we didn’t know we had. We did, finally, find the boat. And we bought her, moved aboard, adjusted to our new aquatic life, and timidly began drilling holes, painting shelves, replacing wires. Number one: check. Then, with a weeks’ notice, we untied the lines and headed north, freshly printed Canadian work visas in hand. Number two: check.

There, we taught ourselves how to replace alternators, dis- and re-assemble head (toilet) pumps, re-bed stanchions (poorly), wire batteries, and work with fiberglass.  All while living remotely, without the knowledgeable sailing community in Seattle on which we had so quickly come to depend. Simultaneously, we taught ourselves all we could about hydrophones, fuel cells, radio transmitters, and remote cameras. Those were the goals we didn’t know we had.

Our move to Ketchikan did little to improve our sailing percentage; in the last month we have slept only 3 nights on Halcyon, sneaking in a few hours of boat maintenance when possible. Two days ago, we closed her up and hopped on a ferry to BC. For the next month or so, we will be land- and air-based, driving and flying through British Columbia and Alberta. It is hard to leave Halcyon, completely unattended, between an anchor and a mooring ball, in a secluded bay outside Ketchikan. But as doors open, goals change.

That third one, though, that one hasn’t changed. Halcyon was built to cross oceans, and we’re getting her ready to do just that. We are putting away our pennies, searching for the best deals on wind vanes and life rafts, and day dreaming about a life at sea. There is, in my opinion, no better way to see the world. That’s when this blog will find its true identity, when we are just Strait Sailing. 

In the meantime, I will continue to share our upgrades and preparations, among the bear sightings and cultural experiences, if you’ll forgive the temporarily unsuitable blog name.