Counting down the weeks

It doesn't seem so long ago that I heralded the fact that Mary and I were going cruising in 2011 and that we were counting down the months. Well 2011 is here and we're still counting down, only now we've divided our countdown into weeks rather than months.

On Thursday of this week Mary is going to give her two weeks' notice at work. At that point there's no turning back. The steady paycheck will be no more. I'm not complaining, but it is a little scary. Now don't get me wrong. We've been planning for this day for fifteen years, ever since we bought our Islander 36 sailboat. We were married on the boat as we sailed up to the Mackinac Bridge and we knew then that this was what we wanted to do.

Going a little further on the counting down the weeks theme, it's only four weeks until I can apply for social security. Where did all those years go? It doesn't seem so long ago that I was going through my hippy phase and living in the woods of Maine where I built a log cabin. But that was 1976. Thirty-five years ago. That's a little scary to think about too.

We're giving ourselves 8 weeks to finish the work we need to do on the boat, then two weeks to pull her and do a bottom job. Last year we were talking twelve months, now we're talking twelve weeks. Of course we realize we have to build a little flexibility into our plans. Anyone who's ever worked on the boat, the adage, it takes twice as long and cost three times as much, is reality. So if it takes us fourteen or sixteen weeks before we're ready to leave, then we'll adjust.

Mary and I discovered the secret of getting away from the dock eight years ago when we first moved aboard Rough Draft. You need to cut the safety cords, no matter how scary it seems. It's what we did before we sailed away from Minnesota. It's what Hurricane Katrina forced us to do when we sailed away from Mobile, Alabama. And it's what we know we have to do to get away from Ft. Lauderdale.

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