Still, Mark found plenty of interests to fit his budget and time restraints. He pursued hobbies like the "manias" of our beloved Mr. Toad; he would throw himself into learning and doing something new for days or months at a time, until another interest would entirely divert his attentions. We'd accepted that there was no one amusement that could hold him for long...when sailing came back to take hold and hasn't released him since!
In April 2022, life unfolded in a way that made it possible for Mark to take a real plunge into the sailing world. Inspired by his ambitions, I had to tag along. Our first course (Basic Keelboat Sailing) was through San Juan Sailing off the coast of Washington.
We had so much fun (and lacked so much in experience), that we immediately started looking for more options to get out on the water. We found our answer in a 23-foot Hunter from 1985, for sale right here on our local lake. We snatched it up (selling his motorcycle made it almost a clean trade!), and took our little family out on it weekly during the summer months.
Recognizing that the two of us needed to take the next two courses in order to qualify for chartering a boat in other locations, we signed up for both. ASA 103 was in early September 2022 with Passion Yachts on the Columbia River, and later that same month we took ASA 104 with Seattle Yachts Sailing Academy.
That's when the BVI (British Virgin Islands) came in. It was time to put our skills to the test! The two of us chartered a 38" Jeanneau in April 2023.
We hit up seven islands (Tortola-> Norman-> Virgin Gorda-> Beef Island-> Anegada-> Jost Van Dyke-> Little Jost Van Dyke), went on many adventures, and found that the self-sufficient sealife is for us. After, of course, I got seasick and tossed my cookies on the second day, falling asleep for the next hour or two (sleeping, it appears, is a common defense mechanism for an overstressed body).
Trials aside, we discovered that sailing delights us both in our individual ways. It is on the boat that the manias of Mark's younger years meet their match; there are limitless perplexities to consider, learn, manipulate. There's always more to explore (like the additional courses he's taken of Celestial Navagation, Marine Weather, and Marine Diesel Maintenance, to name a few), as answers in this realm only seem to generate new and exciting questions.
I thrive establishing self-sufficient systems and creating the domestic atmostphere that makes a daunting adventure feel doable. During the monotonous hours on passage between islands, I revel in the new levels of quiet for stretching my heart and mind (kindle & journal pages are a must-pack for me). And for anyone, can anything top time at the helm in fair winds?
We're both growing an increased reverence for complex life experiences, stretching ourselves beyond what we know, trying something new, seeing something new, being something new. We've found that with a few tweeks (like sailing off-season and packing most of our groceries), it can be a fairly affordable way to more deeply experience our world. And goodness, does our world have much to tell us!