Ten days to go! That’s it – ten days before our new life becomes real.
So how do I feel 10 days before we set sail on our grand adventure?
I still oscillate between feeling excited, scared, and flat out exhausted. Sometimes the fear overwhelms me a bit but I keep reminding myself that ‘everything will be fine.’ In England, the smell of spring is in the air right now and all the flowers are popping up. The smells and colours seem to be pulling me towards warmer weather and the ability to spend more time outside! Whenever spring starts, I feel giddy – I just want to get out and enjoy the outdoors.
Interestingly, I haven’t once thought about our old house or any of the many possessions we sold, gave away, or sent to the dumps. And two days ago, the car finally went. I’m not much of a car person so I can guarantee I won’t be bothered by the lack of our car. Fortunately, we can use my father-in-law’s car until we leave.
As far as planning and preparations go, there’s very little left to do other than pack up our remaining bits and bobs to take with us on the plane. The pallet is packed up and is ready to go. We drove to Oyster in Ipswich and the kind staff there helped us load up two pallets. One contained all our stuff and the other contained a sail, the workshop bed, and some other cushions that the previous owner needed to send to us. Although it was a 4-hour journey to get to Ipswich, we managed to stop off and see Simon’s aunt. And on the way home, we took a detour and enjoyed a day out at Hever Castle – home to Anne Boleyn (one of King Henry the VIII’s wives).
Anyway…I’ll get some new make-up to bring with me and perhaps something for Sienna to play with on the plane, but that will be it. We opted to get three vaccinations. Simon and I got our Tetanus, HepA, and Typhoid injection. We had Sienna get HepA and Typhoid. There is Yellow Fever in the South Caribbean but we thought we’ll avoid those areas.
And all the jobs, bar one, are finished on the boat
We have to get the water-marker serviced or perhaps do it ourselves? Our contact in Gibraltar has told us to give it a go ourselves.
Otherwise, it’s all about getting this website up to date, finishing and publishing a book I’m creating on sailing checklists, and sorting out the technology side of things. I’m not sure how and while I’ll get internet access and I’m not sure about the quality of it either. I’ll just have to play it by ear.
So, this is the plan from here on out:
- Pick out my father-in-law at the airport on Monday. He’s returning from his 35-day cruise around the Pacific. We purposely decided on our leave date for the 24th of March so that we could spend a week with him before we left. The cruise was booked way before we decided to sell up and sail away!
- On Friday, I’m driving to Heathrow to pick up my cousin and first crew member! Loryn is joining us from the very beginning and I’m so happy to have her with us. She’s never been on a sailboat before so I hope she likes it! Like us, Loryn has taken the plunge and sold everything she owns back home in Fredonia, New York to join us on our adventure. She just turned 30 and thought it’s time to shake up her life a bit…we’ll, she’s shaking.
- A week from Monday, Simon, Sienna, Loryn and I all fly from Gatwick to Gibraltar – heading for a new future full of adventure, fun, experience, new memories, and ???
- Five days later, Skipper Mike arrives. Due to regulations we need to have a professional skipper take us into Malta so that we can take care of our taxes. Skipper Mike is the same skipper that help us bring our first boat, Selene, from Oban, Scotland to England’s South Coast. Since our first meeting, Skipper Mike has become a Friend Mike. We’re delighted to have him with us.
- In addition to Mike, my great friend Eneka Stewart will also be arriving in Gibraltar. Ene is a professional photographer and will be taking pictures of our first voyage! I’m so thankful to have her with us. It’s s dream come true to be able to share these memories with others.
- By April something, we’ll hopefully be in Malta! From there we’ll figure out our next steps. Hubby wants to head to Crete but I’m thinking a nice short sail might be better. Perhaps Sicily? OMG. How exciting.
Back to today
Today and the next few days, however, will be about amusing Sienna. Yesterday we were told that she has chickenpox! The timing is actually perfect. We’re not doing anything over the next several days. Furthermore, I’d rather have her get the pox here…and get them out of the way.
So – I’m going to get this website all up to date. Set up my newsletter – enter your email address at the very top if you’d like email updates. I need to turn off some old websites I no longer work on. Figure out how to use my external hard drive with all my Mac products… It’s all small fiddley stuff.
OMG – only 10 days to go!!!! Only 10 days before we set sail on our grand adventure!!
Next Chapter: 34. Will this sailing adventure turn me into a dreadlocked, pot smoking, whale saver?
Previous Chapter: 32. Less than 3 weeks to go before we sail off into the sunset
Or…if you’d like to carry on reading all about our journey from selling up and sailing away, you can purchase my book, ‘Changing Lifestyles – Trading the Rat Race in For A Sail Around The World,’
 | READER REVIEW On Amazon. 5 Star Review! "Interested in The Sailing Lifestyle? Are your needing just one more reason to change your life for the better, Just buy this book. I actually bought this for my wife(Workaholic) last year. It was the deciding factor for us to change things 😉 , After she read Kim's Book & we watched a few episodes of Sailing Britican (& a few others) we realized there is more to life than the rat race.....! Thanks." Jon D. |
