My life is a Sprint

Recently I had an ah-ha moment. You are going to laugh when you hear what it was because I imagine most of our friends already knew this but it took me this long to realize it. I think "Sprint-Mode" is our happy place. Ground breaking news right! It isn't that we need to go have some fun because I think in our warped way we are, it's that we need to figure out balance in our lives. No matter what we do we tend to go full in. I've been fighting sprint mode my whole adult life. When I was younger I thought that if I took breaks from work I could combat this syndrome but I didn't realize I would just go full throttle into whatever was in my orbit. Sprint mode has allowed us to do some pretty awesome things in our lives and turning this 2008 Island Packet into our new floating home is one of them. 

Our first sail was a perfect re-introduction to moving our house. It was nice to have Millie and Elliott (**new couple name "Millett" 😂) on board for this. The wind was only 8-15 knots and no squalls 😃. We had almost every wind angle as we made our way up and around the bottom of Grenada and then back up the other side and off to the next Grenadian island called Carriacou. We got to have the full main and jib out and even got a bit of lean on at close hauled. We were able to see how she handles and how things shifted down below or stayed in place. Our first anchor went great, albeit we chose the least risky spot at the very back of the fleet and just like that we were "on the hook" and our new normal was underway. Mother nature applauded our accomplishment with an epic sunset. (see pics here)

Life has been feeling really good, like we are right where we are suppose to be. It feels so cozy and familiar as we settle into our new life. I am very grateful to have all these "Ailsa Firsts" with my water baby on board and her lovely partner Elliott. Amelia has grown into a strong, loving, interesting, funny and confident women. There are days I miss lil'Millie but this chapter is pretty darn awesome. 

"Millett" have been the cure for "Sprint-Mode". They have been our "Joy Enforcers" on board and have been putting some serious balance into our lives. Activities include snorkeling, swimming, dancing, beach time, reading, happy hours, cooking, late breakfasts, and a heck of a lot of laughing, ahhh the life. Love these two.

Perhaps guests in general will be the cure for sprint mode. A bunch of mini vaca's in our otherwise busy lives ;-). Hope to see you soon!

Aren’t you scared?

Aren’t you scared? I seem to get this question a lot when people hear our story. I think my natural state might be scared. It’s definitely an emotion I am very familiar with. Given this question comes up so often I think maybe that when others anticipate fear, worry or being scared this may be a natural inhibitor from continuing. Often for me it does distill the extent of my activity, for example I snorkel rather than dive, I ski but only the green runs, I sail but I don’t race ;-). You get the gist. I tend not to go full throttle on things but still get to dip my toe in. Sometimes with this lifestyle though it’s difficult to be this cautious. Sometimes it feels as if I have my mischievous brother Rob behind me as I try to dip just my toe in and he pushed me in. It is exhilarating to do something I thought I couldn’t but yes it is also “scary”!

This past week has been full of firsts with Alisa and with firsts comes fear. I try to combat the fear with preparation and planning but this never completely rids the feeling.  Launching Alisa and bringing her to the dock was our first challenge. The

spot they had for us meant we had to parallel park between a 60 foot monohull and a huge catamaran. The wind was also slightly forward of our nose pushing us away from the dock so we would need momentum to get up to it but also not too much momentum as not to hit the boat in front. And just to make the whole experience more fun for us a Caribbean squall was bearing down on us. If you haven’t seen a squall before on the water its basically a literal line of weather moving fast towards you. You see the rain wall and wind line on the water coming at you from light to grey. 

Docking for the first time means not only boat handling but also placing all your bumpers (fenders) at the right height for the dock and having all your dock lines attached and ready to throw to the dockhand. We had our friend John with us on board to help out with lines. He had the stern line and I had the bow line. We also both had a fender not tied on just in case we needed to fend off another boat or the dock. As Graham got closer to the spot, slowly, cautiously trying things out, John says “You have 5 minutes to get onto the dock before that squall hits”. My stomach lurches and I looked up to see the Caribbean squall line coming at us. Oh lord, here we go again. The wind was pushing us off the dock, so Graham was trying to figure out the bow thruster so that he wouldn’t need to drive forward but rather just push us to the right to the dock. The learning curve with our big heavy boat was steep though as she doesn’t respond as quickly as our previous light Jeanneau. As Graham ease us slowly closer, I had the long dock line all coiled up and was preparing to throw it but knowing there was no way in hell I could make the 10 feet distance to the dock at this point. Luckily John came up and grabbed the line from me and threw it like nobodies business. I literally clapped my hands as Jose caught it! Jose began to pull us in and John threw the stern line and just like that we were on the dock with only a moment to spare before full torrential rain!

Our new home was now our new floating home. Man does she look pretty on the water. After a few days at the dock, checking systems, getting comfortable and having Amelia and her partner Elliott join us on board it was time to move to the mooring field. Unfortunately we had been backed up on the dock as the catamaran behind us had left and we were now boxed in a bit. Another challenge.

We had everyone with a fender in hand and we managed to eek our way out and just like that we were off and motoring through the fleet to our mooring ball off a little island not to far away. Getting on the ball was fairly easy with the help of our friend in a dinghy and now for the past few days we have been getting use to being self sufficient…Making power with our solar farm and making water with this power! We have been checking jobs off our list and preparing for our first sail!! Tomorrow we head off to Carriacou. It’s about a 6 hour journey. We are pretty excited and of course I am a little bit scared but this hasn’t stopped me yet. 

-Check out pictures and short videos here of our past couple weeks

Comic Books

 Coming back to Grenada has surfaced a bit of PTSD for us. Not sure if folks remember that this was where we came with Artemo (our first boat) and did a major overhaul to her. We moved into a fourplex in what felt to us like the middle of the jungle, way out in the middle of nowhere. We had no car, no AC, no fan (we did end up borrowing one). The trek to the boat yard was a challenge. It involved a

walk to the main road and if it had rained there was often a river flowing over this road to our home. It then involved hailing a bus to the top of the marina road and then hiking 1.5kms to the yard. Getting to town to grocery shop was even worse. Graham and I reflect often on these 5 months of our life, and we ask ourselves “What the heck were we thinking?”. I think this was when we coined the phrase “Perry Style”. Basically, on the cheap 😉 and the hard way.  A boat reno is stressful enough and we had totally removed our coach roof but then to couple this with no comfy retreat to relax at after a long hot day was totally crazy. Also, isolating us in the middle of nowhere homeschooling was a recipe for mental breakdown. Don’t get me wrong, we have lots of good memories from this time and overcoming all these hardships definitely brought us very close together but if I could go back and talk to Past Julie….I’d have a lot to say!

Given this learning, we may have now swung to far to the other side of the pendulum. When we arrived in Grenada this time, we had booked into a resort to spend our week of quarantine and it was glorious. So glorious in fact that we ended up moving in and spending our first two months in Grenada as we worked through the purchase of Ailsa, living at the RESORT! I felt like Richie Rich – remember that
comic?  Once we were the official owners of Ailsa and had made our project’s list and I retired from work (gulp), we moved into a more modest apartment, but it had AC! We also rented a car and being able to go where we wanted, when we wanted allowed us to explore this (what we now realize) beautiful island.

We balanced our days with boat work, exploring and time with new friends. Over the course of three months, we completely gutted our anchor locker removed any traces of rotted wood and refilled with coosaboard which is a heavy duty fiberglass composite and replaced our corroded windlass. This project slowly grew in size and complexity but luckily our expectations were set with past experiences, and we rolled with the punches and were prepared for the flow of money from our wallet. We also decided that now was the time to replace the tiny solar arch on the back deck with a new one that spans the entire width and allows

for more solar panels across it. In amongst these two big projects, we did a lot of smaller items as well, getting to know Ailsa and making her feel like ours in the process.  (see before and after pics here)

It wasn’t to long before we realized the work would take us until the beginning of hurricane season, so it was best not to launch Ailsa until the fall and use the summer to fly home and spend time with family and pack up our belongings that we want to ship to the boat. It is a bit disheartening, but it is going to be oh so sweet in November when we returned to our newly reno’d boat and sail away. 

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will

 As I get older I find I question my decisions more than when I was young. It's like my knowledge and experience are a set of handcuffs. I envy my youth and naivety. Decision making was so much easier then without any doubt.

Graham and I managed to jump through all the covid travel hoops and the "pack up our lives in 13 days" hoops and now here we are out of our 10 day quarantine and climbing up the ladder of Ailsa. A 46 foot, 2008 Island Packet sailboat in Grenada, out of the water and in the marina's yard. 

As we stepped into the cockpit it was a bit overwhelming. We put an offer on this vessel sight unseen and had moved mountains to get here.  This time it feels like we are buying a home not just a sailboat and for some reason I feel a heavy pressure to make the right decision. We put conditions on the offer, so now was our time to be sure.

Graham immediately started going over everything outside and I headed down below. The yacht broker followed me. Ailsa had been tidied down below but you could tell the previous owners had left her in a hurry once covid had started. Things were a bit messy and given it had been awhile surfaces, cupboards and storage areas

were dirty. It wasn't the grand reveal I was hoping for. I felt a bit of a "gulp" in my throat as the broker watched my face and tried to get me talking. I felt stunned to silence and I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts as I inspected every inch and began to wonder "are we making the right decision". He wasn't having any of that and began to ask me questions. I was getting irritated. He wanted to go over systems with me and I was thinking "Hold on Nelly, I haven't signed anything yet".

I kept trying to see past the mess to the bones but my expectations were so high it was hard. I was wishing Graham would return from up top and save me from being rude to our very kind broker. I finally had to join him on deck and I could see he had found his own surprises. He let us know that when he opened the anchor locker at the bow of the boat he saw a very rusted and corroded windlass which is used to raise the anchor. The state of the locker also caused him to pause for a moment and adjust his expectations. 

Needless to say, we returned back to our resort that night with a lot to think about. For those of you who followed our adventures on Artemo you know we may have jumped too quickly into a full on "project" boat. We didn't want to make the same mistake here. 

Over the next month we had Ailsa surveyed and took her for a sea trial sail. We also carefully examined every inch of her and her equipment. We priced out replacing the windlass, cleaning up the anchor locker and a few other odds and ends we found. We considered time and effort required and finally after probably way too much deliberation and negotiation we successfully purchased our new floating home. We are excited to fix the things we found, add some new things we want and give her a good cleaning to make her our own. This will also give us an opportunity to learn a lot about Ailsa in the process. 

The bones of this boat are stellar. She has a full keel, a center cockpit and a huge 11 by 7 foot aft deck. The boat is built to take care of us in a storm and is rock solid at 34,500 lbs! Down below there is 7 feet of headroom with raised windows surrounding the saloon. The navigation station has a comfy captain chair and there are two separate accommodations at either end of the boat both with a bathroom and seated shower. The galley kitchen is spacious with a huge fridge and separate freezer and even a separate drink fridge drawer. The saloon is big enough for a few of us to do yoga in.....which I am always planning to begin doing....tomorrow ;-).

The other pluses are that the previous owners believed in redundancy and there seems to be a second of everything, including auto pilot, alternators, pumps, etc. The cupboards are full!

We did good with this boat. I feel good saying this now but man decisions are hard as you get older. I'm looking forward to sharing our adventures and renovations with you all! 

Wild Fire

Here we were as COVID-19 continued to rage during the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021 in our 6-month townhouse rental in a suburb of Calgary, working from home. The space was cozy enough but we had stripped any remaining normalcy from our lives by selling our home in Toronto, packing up and driving across the country to this new temporary home. It didn’t help that we couldn’t visit with family and friends, that there was 16 hours of darkness a day or the weird Alberta fluctuations in weather with -30 without the wind chill and hard packed snow- and ice-covered streets being very normal. We resigned ourselves to the situation and focused on the good stuff like Christmas planning with the kids, skiing and of course on-line sailboat shopping!!

We both had notifications from the major websites letting us know when a boat with our desired specs would come available and we were also scouring the internet for any yachts for sale via other methods. Over the course of 3 months, we had found so many “perfect for us” boats and had gotten totally invested in owning them. We would have virtual tours, begin the planning process and could see ourselves as owners. Then when we would hear that an offer was pending and then eventually the boat would be sold. We had never seen boats selling so quickly ever before. It was definitely disheartening.

Come early January, I was done riding the “Get our hopes up excitement train” and just wanted to wait until we were actually ready to jump on a plane and put our money where our mouth was. Graham continued his search without me. Our intention was to stay at the rental until the end of March and then to put our belongings into storage and figure our next steps towards full time sailing.

Well, as is the case with all of our past adventures, a tiny spark builds to a raging Wild Fire in a matter of moments 😉. It was Monday, January 18^th and I was madly cleaning because the landlords had decided to list the home for sale just to make things more interesting during Covid. The videographer was coming that afternoon to take the pictures and videos for the brochure and website. I was in a full on sweat with mop in hand, my ear phones on and talking to a colleague from work when Graham comes into the kitchen and wants to chat. He proceeds to remind me about a boat we had looked at online awhile ago in Grenada which was everything we wanted but that we had dismissed because the price was a bit out of reach. We agree the boat was awesome but the price didn’t work. He suggests that we put in an offer for $30,000 USD less than they were asking and obviously on condition of survey and sea trial. We very briefly discuss what we would do if they accept the offer, such as “how the heck are we going to get to Grenada during Covid?”. We decide there is no way they will accept and then off he goes and I continue cleaning.

Well, I am sure you can imagine how the rest of this story goes. While we are out of the house for the photos, we receive a text from the broker that they have accepted the offer!! OMG, OMG, OMG. We are both in the car and are like…” Now what?”. That evening we have decided to completely pack our house and give the landlord our notice for the end of January. I remember calling my mom and she said, “how could I have kept all of this a secret?”. She really couldn’t believe we had decided to do all of this in one day 😉. Either could I!!

Now the hard part began, figuring out how to get from Calgary, Alberta to Grenada during Covid and while following the ever-changing Covid protocols. I am not going to lie to you this was a moving target that was very difficult to navigate. We booked and rebooked a number of flights and took way too many Covid tests. We needed to ensure that we had the Covid results in hand prior to departure in Calgary and that the results were less than 3 days old when we arrived in Grenada. There were also no direct flights to sunshine destinations so we had multiple flights and an overnight stay in the US prior to getting to Grenada, so you can imagine the difficulty in all of this. We also had to work out all the quarantine rules and paperwork in Grenada. The regular insane stuff like packing our house, renting a storage container, sorting out storage for our car, insurance and logistics of the move during Covid while still working (albeit part time for me but full time for Graham) seemed like a cake walk.

The other difficult stressful part was finding a new wonderful home for Aiden. I have known for the past couple years as we have talked about this next chapter of our lives that this would need to happen but it didn’t make it any easier. My sister agreed to take him while we figured out a long-term solution. Aiden loves it at their house but unfortunately, they just weren’t set up to keep him permanently.  Shockingly everything came together though, my Dad reached out to friends of theirs (Randy and Aleitha) who use to own a sheltie and asked if they would be interested. We set up a video chat and within moments they told us how excited they would be to be Aiden’s new parents. After getting off the call we both knew that Aiden was going to be loved and treasured by them. I took time to write them a short novel all about Aiden – from how to care for him to all his personality quirks 😉. Aleitha send me a response that read, “…Wish we could prepare him for us by letter!” I know he will love the attention and new love, and it won’t take him long to adjust. We got very lucky finding these two awesome parents!

So now here we are, the night before our one-way flight from Calgary to Dallas to Miami to Grenada, all alone at my brothers’ home as they are away, organizing our carry ons and 1 checked piece of luggage. There are so many unknowns ahead of us. My stomach is churning with a cocktail of fear and excitement. I have missed this feeling. I have craved this feeling.