reactions . . . . . . from P

"You are going to do that for a whole year?" or "It must be nice to be in a position to just lay around on a boat for a year!" or, of course, "Is everything OK?" and "Have you thought about your health insurance plan?" I really did not know how people would react when we told them our plans. Overall I have been pleasantly surprised by the supportive words from everyone, mostly genuine I think. Friends, family and co-workers have graciously expressed happiness for us along with some appropriate, if not obvious concerns. We are just so relieved to finally be able to talk about this. Really, our plans are not overly ambitious. Josh Slocum sailed around the world at the end of the 19th century in Spray, a rickety re-built 36 foot wooden boat. Not much later, Thor Heyerdahl drifted across the Pacific on a bunch of balsa reeds wrapped together, for crying out loud. By the way, Kon Tiki is still one of my all time favorite books - it is one of those that I think everyone should read. No, our plans are simply to take a year off and sail up and down the east coast. Unlike Josh or Thor, we will have an engine. And a GPS. And a bunch of other stuff. We will leave the port of Hampton Roads in July, sail up the Chesapeake Bay, through the C&D canal, up and around to NY harbor, possibly up into New England. We will be in familiar waters until we get to the northern areas of the Chesapeake. In the fall we will make our way back south and stop at home to survey the damage to the house. We plan to set sail again in November, head south down the ditch (behind Cape Hatteras of course), pop outside for a while, bounce down the coast, and spend Christmas in Florida. Depending on how things are going I want to set eastward across the Gulf Stream and spend January exploring the Bahamian islands. We may take our time and stay put for a while somewhere if we like. Wow! - relative to how we normally live our life, this is a huge adventure for us. Really the adventure of our lifetime. It is no wonder we get a wide range of reactions - from incredulous to envious. Each time I imagine the trip I feel a little different reaction inside myself. Mostly I am just itching to get under way, but there is so much left to do.....