What the heck are we up to?
This photo is the first ever photo of Sargo's crew, taken immediately before we slipped her old mooring in the Merrimack River off Rings Island Marina and sailed her to her new home in Rockport, Maine. A seasoned sailor once told me that she "only allows herself one really stupid mistake each day." Well I guess we did pretty good then - as we only made one really stupid mistake during the entire trip to Maine. It's just that we accomplished this only 20 minutes after this photo was taken.
We exited the mouth of the Merrimack river on a strong outgoing tide into a brisk easterly wind. I highly DON'T recommend it. It was certainly a stupid thing to do and if we had stopped for even just two seconds and thought about it we would have planned otherwise. But excitement for the voyage and our plan of sailing to Isle of Shoals for the night overrode our better judgement. This wasn't the first time we've experience river to ocean encounters - we should have know better! In the end Sargo handled the large, steep and confused waves like a champ. I was at the helm and felt safe and in control. But still it was a completely unnecessary risk and I hope that the mistake imparted even a small shred of wisdom that will carry us forward toward our new adventures.
But really I want to write about what's next. We are a family of four (read about Sargo's Crew here) - gearing up for a sailing voyage aboard our "new to us" 46' Garcia Passoa (read about the boat here)! I hesitate to put into writing exactly what our route will be - as we seem to change it often. But the general plan is to head off for 2-3 (maybe more) years, cross an Ocean (or maybe more than one).
Perhaps the more interesting question than WHAT? is actually WHY? I have to give some major kudos to our friends and family as they have been wildly supportive of our plans. This has surprised us - as there is a whole chapter in the "Voyaging with Kids" book that helps couples combat the naysayers in their lives. We've been lucky and haven't run up against any of those yet. In fact, perhaps my biggest critic has been myself, or our son Toren (more on that in a future blog post). Bjorn and I both have good jobs, we live in the best place in the world (totally not biased), we love our friends, and our kids are thriving, happy and healthy. I guess the reason then is because we can, and because is scares the crap out of me! If your dreams don't scare you they aren't big enough. Probably a more straight forward assessment is that we're totally having a mid-life crisis. But that's cool I'm happy to walk right into it. This adventure has captured our imagination and energy like nothing else in a long time.
So we hope to share some of our experience with you through this website. The Mouth of the Merrimack may have been our first mistake but it certainty isn't our last. So stay tuned!
