2nd 3rd 4th thoughts

[weavis]

I always ask myself: "regardless of the outcome, would I regret not doing it?"

[TrentePieds]

Chriscook:

I've been here for very nigh on 60 years. I still think "Beastly" Columbia is a wonderful, wonderful place to live. Prosperous, easygoing, multicultural, polyglot, a sophisticated "Arts and Culture" community, fascinating history, excellent medical services, excellent educational services - just absolutely the cat's pyjamas!

Wonderful cruising water, small communities where property can still be bought for reasonable money. When we broke the piggy-bank MyBeloved and I decided that we'd split the contents and buy a boat for the summers and a condo for the winters.

You will find that, like everywhere, sailors "stick together". No boat owner can go for a walk on the floats in a marina without making new friends. So put your fears aside, and come on in :-)!

TrentePieds

[Chriscook]

Thanks everyone for your words of wisdom, reading the replys fill me with encouragement and confidence that we are doing the right thing, cheechako we are moving from saskatchewan where we have spent 12 years after moving from England. Thank you all again and look forward to meeting some of you over in BC.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[tkeithlu]

If you're worried about your daughter, consider for a moment just how awesome her college application is going to be. All that travel, experiences, skills, practical knowledge of things like trigonometry; If I was reading that application, as I might have ten years ago in a very selective college, I'd vote for her over any run of the mill experienced high school student with similar scores.

[bruce v]

Got to agree that buy selling and investing with a large portion of your livelihood should bring some moments of fear, hesitation and even regret. I sold my home of 25 years, became a full time RVer almost six years ago and have no regrets. I am presently working out the logistics of selling the RV, purchasing a "new to us" liveaboard boat. Of course living aboard a boat is not completely new to us as we lived aboard a 36' Piver trimaran I the Hawaiian Islands for six years back in the eighties. We had 4 kids ranging from 5 to 15 back then and they, of course, had mixed feelings about boat life. Maybe I am harshly unrealistic but I suggest that kids will adapt readily and if they don't, they will make their own life when time is appropriate excepting what they did not like or incorporating what they choose. Not to get too far afield of your question but parenting creates issues for too many young folk today. I suggest you live your life including your kids and let them adapt. The other side of that, don't even think about living vicariously through them when they leave the nest. All that means is you are wishfully thinking about what you mighta, woulda, coulda, shoulda done. Just go out and do it. If you have too many reservations, you'll end up regretting not taking the chance. Life is an adventure. Live it! (Oh by the way, all my kids were mad at me when I sold the boat in Hawaii-even those who suggested they hated boat life. Guess they adapted. They are now grown ranging in age from 51 to 41 with grown kids of their own. We are still an interactive family although I suspect that some of them believe we are crazy for returning to the boat life and abandoning everything (especially at our age). No, we have never regretted it and never look back. Sharing what is in the rear view is fun but it can't or shouldn't impair your vision of what's to come.

[noelex 77]

Here is a photo of me having second thoughts

[Manos1955]

Don't wait two years in BC
sail south now
Kid is lucky don't worry

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Dave22q

For me part of the charm of the live-aboard life is the flexibility to relocate as the mood strikes. Staying in the same location has little appeal vs the comforts of a modest apartment and a small daysailor for less money. With kids the issues change. When mine were school age a priority was stability and a stable social environment. Kids need friends as much as they need education and a mobile lifestyle is difficult. The military recognizes this and works hard to offset the family problems with some success. Parents need to think hard about this. Academic excellence via homestudy is only one thing kids need.

Dave, academic excellence is indeed only one factor, but in our experience of decades of cruising and the meeting of countless cruising families, the kids are outstanding in many ways other than academics. They have been extremely mature for their ages, socially active and confident, interested in the world around them, and in general superior to t he kids we meet on land. They don't spend their free time buried in a computer screen or gameboy, actually interact face to face with their peers rather than via SMS, voluntarily interact with adults in a meaningful fashion and none seem to have drug problems.

In all our years, we've met only a very few that I wouldn't have happily taken on board as crew... or family! I sure can't say that about landlubber kids we've encountered.

Jim

[barnakiel]

If you are a worryior then that's just that. I am 6 ft tall. Can't change things we are born with.

So maybe this or maybe that and what ifs. Meanwhile the sea watches you, indifferent.

Maybe your boat will sink and you will die. Or maybe not. Just think about this, and you quickly discover you have more than 99% chance of actually NOT sinking ... That's pretty awesome, huh? Considering our 100% certainty of dying anyways.

Life ends in death and that's normal and natural. Now it is up to you if you want to do something exciting before that day or rather sit and wait. So to say, you can die once, or every day. Your choice. No brainer otherwise.

2nds 3rds aand 4ths .... normal thing in people who grew up in systems, where decisions are delegated to others (parents, governments, priests, etc). Elsewhere, a decision is made and then you are left to live with it and see what ensues. This is what life used to be all about before societies made humans but pawns on the board of capitalism, religion and socialisation.-zation

Just do it.

Go for it.

Grab it.

Live this dream and imagine you may yet live to get another.

So to say, it is normal, fairly common, expected. It is the why of so many can and so few will do.

I started early, took my dog
And visited the sea,
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me ...

Ha!

All the best,
b.

poem attribution: Emily Dickinson

[tkeithlu]

Chriscook, you're getting a bunch of encouragement to enter a new world (the cruising community is different, in a lot of good ways) and a few cautions to watch for. It's scary, so do it the same way I built a boat - one little unscary step at a time. Know in the back of your mind that if it turns out to be wrong for any of the three of you, you can reverse the process. You can anchor/dock in one place for nine months and put your daughter in school. You can bail out, find a job, and sail on holidays. You're not signing your life away, just trying something new that has the potential, but not the guarantee, to make you all very happy. I hope you post progress messages.

[darylat8750]

Go Now!
Your daughter is at a great age for this. If she has structure and chores now the transition to the boat will be fine. I read a book many years ago that title escapes me now and I'm not home to dig through the library so maybe someone else can provide the title and author. The cruiser interviewed all the other cruisers that they came across and asked the same questions. One conclusion that they reached is that pre pubescent children thrived in the cruising environment . They also concluded that somewhere in the 12-13 year old range that it was beneficial for the children to land someplace where they could get the needed socialization . He mentioned one place (I think with tongue in cheek) that every boat that had teenagers one had at least one parent that drank too much!

[Chriscook]

My wife and I have read the posts numerous times and we know we are doing the right thing for all of us, thank you all for the reassurance and we will definately continue updating on our progress (and fails) .

Sent from my SM-N910V using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[roygee]

thunder makes the nitrogen, that is in the rain, that makes the plants grow!

[RaymondR]

Apply the wisdom of Omar the tent maker:


The moving finger writes and having writ moves on, and all your piety and wit won't move it back to cancel half a line nor all your tears wash out a word of it.


Or, you could go the way of Descartes (The French graph paper bloke) who said something like:


When lost in a forest choose a direction and march steadfastly in it, because sooner or later you will come to somewhere where you will know where you are, and anyway almost everywhere is better than being stuck in the middle of a forest.


I find that having a firm plan for the future and immersing myself in planning it in detail helps to allay my doubts.

[texpie]

Best of luck to you guys!!

Understand completely what you are going through. We made an offer on a boat during the sell of our home. Between selling our home, moving, downsizing, boat purchase, boat survey and etc, ; it seems we have little time for the trepidation and second thoughts but they do appear. We move to the boat this week and then it is very real!

Hope you guys the very best and remember you started the process for a reason. Stu had a good idea!

Just remember the reasons for starting down this path.