Dreams of Open Ocean

Life is crazy. Jason and I have been harboring a secret dream of living on a wooden sailboat. Kind of a funny thing for two people who live in a land-locked state and have spent almost no time sailing. It's been simmering in the back of our brains ever since we attended a boat show in Seattle while I was pregnant with Isaac. We both fell in love with the beauty of old wooden sailboats and the idea of the the simplicity of the life one might lead in tiny wooden quarters upon the ocean. Three summers ago in Port Townsend, we were walking through the docks checking out sailboats when we set our eyes upon Martha, a gorgeous 85 foot 1907 racing schooner. As we oohed and aahhed over the boat, we complimented the captain and we began talking. During th course of the conversation he invited us onboard to give us a tour where we discovered that he and his family give lessons on the boat. The following summer we booked a week-long sailing lesson on Martha. Needless to say, we had an amazing time sailing through the San Juan Islands while they showed us the ropes. Though we learned a lot, we did not feel we were ready to handle a sailboat alone yet. When we were in Portugal, the sailboat desire bubbled up again and we dreamed up a long-term plan of maybe going to the U.S. Virgin Islands to learn how to sail and get bare boat certified, we even daydreamed that maybe we could do it this spring but it seemed like a very unrealistic time frame. A week and two days ago Jason's boss asked if we would please go to Florida. Given Florida's much closer proximity to the Virgin Islands in comparison to home, we jumped at the opportunity. Over the course of the next day we lined up an eight day long sailing lesson in the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, went for a hike, attended a pow-wow, and booked tickets to leave for Florida and USVI in four days. So here we are sitting in a sailboat in the middle of the Caribbean learning the ropes and on our way to being certified so we can start sailing on our own and decide if a sailor's life is for us.