Go Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

[Microship]

I love this post by Stillraining - very well said... and some excellent follow-ups as well. It's too easy to forget the poignantly personal matters of LIFE amidst all the gear choices, random boat traumas, destinations, and financial issues that make up so much of our discussions here.

I want to add a thought to the stay-vs-go question that hangs in the air...

It is often assumed that "going" also implies "leaving" in the sense that one gives up all other passions and careers to pursue a life of cruising. I don't believe that has to be true, and my own situation is a case in point.

In 1983 I fled my suburban life and took off around the US on a computerized recumbent bicycle, covering 17,000 miles over the next 8 years. The underlying motive was not so much a bicycle tour as the blending of my passions into a new lifestyle. Only one of those passions had anything to do with bicycling.

Fast-forwarding a quarter century, that is precisely what I'm doing now. The combination this time is to take two sailboats as the seed of a "technomadic flotilla," with my sweetie's boat focused on theatre/art (Dramanauts), and my own on some admittedly over-the-top technology including an on-board lab. The net effect of this approach is the feeling that all the best stuff that makes up my life is getting integrated into a cruising lifestyle... not that I am leaving the life (and/or important people) to "go."

I certainly never have the feeling that leaving the dock is going to be retirement... or even a decision about a massive lifestyle trade-off. It's just a new and more interesting context for the same evolving suite of passions.

With warm cheers from Nomadness... hope to meet some of you Out There this year!

Steve
Nomadness blog

[Southern Star]

Steve, a most interesting plan from someone who appears to have lived a most interesting life. You are right, of course, that not everyone needs to retire in order to go cruising - although in my case, I will have to retire from my present position as I am unable to take a lengthy sabbatical and, in any event, have no desire to return to it. That being said, I have no intention of 'retiring' in the classical sense, but rather will be 'tacking' towards a new career.

Does 'going' imply 'leaving'? For most of us I believe it does, even if only for a year or two. Certainly we will be leaving behind not only a career, but a lifestyle. We will leave behind family and friends. We will leave behind our roots, or to some, anchors that have become quite firmly set in a good holding ground.

Does that also mean that we must give up all other passions? Of course not. Indeed, for many of us it is an opportunity not only to continue with exisiting ones (perhaps cooking, or music, or photography, or writing, or travel, or languages, or...), but the opportunity to finally give these passions the time they deserve.

In the final analysis, however, I still believe that for most of us there is a 'massive lifestyle trade-off' in order to pursue our passions. The hope, of course, it that for the most part it will prove to be a trade up, rather than a trade down. And at least for me, in order to give this new lifestyle a fair chance, I would prefer to leave knowing that I have provided for the needs of my family, including those I have left behind. When I leave it will not be in order to run away from my past or present obligations, but to run towards a new and hopefully, brighter future.

Brad

[mintyspilot]

We are planning to go in 5 years time when the youngest will (hopefully) have finished her first year at University. Even then we will not be going far and will stay in UK waters. In the summer we expect that the kids may come aboard. After that summer we will sail to France or the Med and pick the kids up from the nearest cheap flights airport (Malaga / Alicante / etc) over the winter hols, so we will "be around" for them.

One other provision we are making to to have an emergency "full fare" stash of cash so that if we need to get back to the UK in a hurry on a standard flight we can do so.

Planning ahead and gradually tailing off the responsibilities seems a reasonable approach to me. That is why we are in no rush.

[senormechanico]

For those of you wishing to "Go", I hope you are able to do so.
I've gone and come back, but if it hadn't been for life's (and especially wife's) gravitational pull, I'd still be out there.

On my dying bed, my quote will be, "I'm glad I went".

[Southern Star]

Mintyspilot, sounds like a good and workable plan. And Steve, I'm always happy to hear people who packed up everything to 'go' and have no regrets about doing it. Gravitational pull or not, if you feel like that I have little doubt you'll get 'out there' again.

For some, the chance (and thereby the right time) to go cruising may be earlier in life than for others, but as was written in Ecclesiastes, 'for everything there is a season'.

Brad