Great Things Ahead

This was the scene yesterday morning - 38 days into our two-week haulout, we launched.

The good part is that we did the right thing by the boat - the bottom has been professionally sandblasted and painted, and should be in good nick for years and years to come.  The bad news was the 38-day part, and the associated costs.

If you're nurturing the salty dream, and have plans of sailing the world's oceans in your own boat, beware of the maintenance surprises that will come along.  Plan, if you can, for the unplannable.

Pulling off the last of the blastyard wraps after we're afloat

But beware, too, just how firmly the sailing life might grip you, unpleasant surprises be damned.

A friend of short acquaintance came by in his dinghy to help us manage the lines as we slid into our barely-big-enough pile mooring on the Hatea River.  Another friend, someone whom we've known for five years or so, but, in the way of sailing people, have only shared a couple anchorages with, happened by in his dinghy.  Soon we were all having a coffee and a chat in the cockpit of Galactic.  These two sailors who were aboard are both of the "all-in" variety - been doing it full-time for decades, still have big goofy grins on their faces showing how much they're loving it, and have no plans to stop.

It was fun to watch the big globe-circling worlds of these two sailors overlap in a quick chat.  And, sitting there in our own expression of the maritime dream, floating once again, I realized how much I enjoy the company of other sailors, how much I enjoy being part of this international group of people who honor life by being forever on the move.

I guess I'm still hooked.

The boys, meanwhile, loved the boatyard.  (Elias said that he wants to own a boatyard when he grows up, which sort of has me worried.)

"Mommy, I measured the roof!  It's two minutes long!"

We got back in the water just in time for the arrival of cyclone Lusi (left).  It felt a bit odd to be hurrying to get into the water in time for the arrival of a blow, but the system appears to be giving us nothing more than a day or two of agreeably rainy/blustery weather to snuggle down on board and think about the future, near-term and far.

Near-term, we have a month or so of prep time left to us, then we plan to jet eastwards, bound for French Poly and Patagonia.  I can't shake the conviction that great things await - it's the incorrigible dreamer in me.

Longer term, I can't shake this idea of the family doing some serious sailboat-based biology in the Arctic a few years from now.

It's the incorrigible dreamer in me…