Orion and the Sea

If there is one thing we’ve learned so far on this journey its how not to be in a hurry. I find that I can feel rushed all I want, but it doesn’t get us anywhere any faster… just makes the process less fun.

We did a LOT to get ready for this journey. Some might argue that we did too much, some may not. We added quite a bit of gear and replaced many parts that weren’t broken (yet), but we did what we thought was necessary to have some creature comforts, be self-sufficient, and trust the workings of the boat and her systems.

The plan was to leave Moss Landing in early November. I wouldn’t even talk to people about Thanksgiving plans, because of course we’d be long gone. Then all of a sudden Christmas rolled around…wait, what?! I admit our plan was faulty to begin with. We quit our jobs in early October and planned to take a month to work full-time on a suite of projects including: wood-work some shelving, install solar panels and wind generator and tie into electrical system, install hydrovane, install deck boxes and life raft, add insulation to and reseal the inside of the refrigerator, convert second head to dive locker with tank racks and shelving, run wiring for radar, chartplotter, SSB, AIS, cut a hole in the wall and make a cabinet for our portable generator, convert our old scuba compressor from electric to gas motor, set up stern anchoring system, set up drogue, service our motor, move out of our garage, sell all our stuff at garage sale and on craigslist, sell my car, find places for everything on the boat, pack up everything we planned to keep in our van and trailer, drive them to store at dad’s house in Arizona along with a nice goodbye visit, have three goodbye parties, provision for the trip….. A month was simply not long enough.

We got to work, received generous help from our friends, enjoyed the last weeks with our amazing community in Santa Cruz, and didn’t feel ready to go until mid-December. And that’s when the crazy winter storms hit…. crazy as in Mavericks was breaking kind of crazy. We got our first dose of waiting for a weather window, spent Christmas with our friends, and found more projects to do. We had a small turnout of friends for our send off on Dec 26th, who all chipped in helping with those last little details, before we realized it was too late to leave and instead cracked open some beers, fired up the barbecue, and relaxed over a movie together. We did actually leave the next morning.

And now as I write this we are celebrating our two month anniversary of living in San Diego bay…. where we had originally planned to stop for a few days. Fortunately they have excellent beer in this town to raise in our glass as we cheers to our ridiculous schmans.

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