From Plan A to Plan C / Plan See

Mar 22

Mar 22 From Plan A to Plan C / Plan See

Well here we go again, talking about sail plans.

Without a doubt this is the most talked-about issue for cruisers in the last 12 months. Where to go given COVID, boarders, restrictions, curfews, testing, personal risk, weather patterns, and at the very bottom of the list, personal preferences.

No this isn’t woe-is-me…we’ve got it good and we know it. Nevertheless, countries don’t like it when you set up shop permanently and we can’t put ourselves smack-dab in the middle of “Hurricane Alley” in the summer so we finally had to figure this shit out.

No. We do not feel sorry for ourselves that planning has been difficult. We are so so so so so so fortunate. Nevertheless, planning is required. But what a lovely backdrop for inspiration!

Our thinking has evolved as time has moved on…back in an optimistic November we were committed to a plan and we were just working out the details. For more background on that check out this post. More recently, on Instagram (my preferred and frequently used platform), I had talked a few times about how we were getting to a go-no-go decision point. Specifically between Plan A and Plan B.

Plan A: Summer = Crossing Atlantic // Winter = Refit in Sweden // Spring = Explore Europe

Plan B: Summer = East Coast USA // Winter = Bahamas // Spring = Crossing Atlantic

There are a few reasons to go to Europe. The least romantic of them is that our teak decks need to be replaced. We are low on millimetres…we have gaps where there is no caulking…we have a few loose boards. It’s not awesome. Replacing the decks is a massive job, and massive expense. So why not knock off a few other jobs while Matriarch is on the hard for so long? Bottom line is we have spent a lot of time in the last few months (or more) planning out, pricing out and researching all the components for a boat refit. Decks, galley, portlights, hatch refurbish, among other things mean we need to go somewhere capable of high quality work and also is a place we can get to within the prescribed seasonal sailing (Europe doesn’t have the same hurricane risk but they definitely have seasons where sailing becomes nasty and / or dangerous).

So the refit is one reason to go there. We’ve been in touch with our preferred boat yard and have things mapped out.

Another reason is that…well…we want to!

Since the beginning of this trip we planned to go from the Caribbean to Europe and back again…we were a bit fuzzy on the timeline. Greg was thinking originally 1 year in the Caribbean, 1 year in Europe and then back but I definitely felt we would need longer in each place…I mean just given how long it takes us to clean up from breakfast and start our day I figured it would be a bit ambitious to explore EUROPE in ONE YEAR ;)

Now to be fair to Greg his idea of timelines was before we actually started out. Fairly quickly we saw the benefits of moving slowly and really living in each country for several weeks or even months at a time. We’ve made friends, we’ve learned the ins and outs of communities, we’ve become “regulars” in certain spots, we’ve had people get to know us and care enough about us to look out for us. We were starting to realize these benefits before COVID hit but of course we really realized it when we were in Dominica for 4 months, followed by the Grenadines for 2.5 months, then Grenada for 4.5 months, then St. Martin for 2.5 months…We’ve lived, not visited, but really lived in each of these countries. So gone now is the idea of zipping through Europe. We know when we get there we are going to want to fully immerse into the communities we come in contact with. We want to become “regulars”. Now we embrace the long and undefined timeline…we love living this way and it appears to be sustainable for us…so with no end in sight the pressure is off us to push to places that might not be the right place to go at the moment.

Which of course is the case right now….frigging COVID. When we do the jump we very much want to explore and engage and while Europe is moving along well in terms of vaccinations they are still very much not open for tourism. Plan A started to feel unattainable a month ago as our self-imposed deadline of April 1 loomed. We knew we were going to have to head to Bermuda by the end of April and crossing the Atlantic isn’t something that we would just pull the trigger on at the last moment. We are planners. Obviously :P As we entered March we both knew it was going to be a long-shot. Countries still hadn’t announced re-opening plans, let alone actually opening. We were hoping the momentum in the UK would catch on but, alas, it’s the end of March and we still aren’t optimistic Europe will be “open” by the summer. And we aren’t the kind of people that would just go and hope for the best. Nope sorry. Not gonna happen.

At least we know that between the refit and the desire to move slowly, when we get to Europe, we will be there for awhile….

Plan B was our Bail-Out option as identified in that Optimistic November Blog Post I reference above. The pros of Plan B were that we would still be able to clock hundreds of miles…we feel like we’ve not sailed much this past year (a con of living somewhere vs. visiting) and we’d like to rise to the challenge of a big passage. Sailing up and down the East Coast of the USA is a long way to go in a short period of time…it was appealing. Also appealing was the idea that our list of refit items could maybe be partially tackled, piece-meal, along the way. The USA is an AMAZING place to get boat work done, especially DIY stuff…so easy to get your hands on anything you need basically immediately to do complicated work. So we thought we could maybe save some cash, learn some new skills and do a partial DIY refit over 6 weeks or so while there.

But then we started looking at the cons….and there were cons….in fact I made a pros / cons list between Plan A and Plan B that was fairly detailed to help Greg and I make the final decision. Some of the cons included the very real hurricane risk up there, the gruelling passage back down south (it’s not a fun one and our insurnacve has us doing it after Dec 1 which is late and shitty), the cold water (this was a big deal for Greg in particular).

Our pros and cons list (below) helped us decide right now wasn’t the right time for Europe, but it also highlighted the downside of Plan B.

Enter Plan C.

Plan C: Summer = ABC’s // Winter = Bahamas // Spring = Europe

Once it entered our minds it burrowed deep like a worm. MMmmmmm….warm clear waters, maybe getting our PADI SCUBA certification as a family, new countries, some multi-day passages, dramatically less risk of hurricanes….highly recommended by friends who choose this route 2020/2021. Why hadn’t we thought of this before??? We were so preoccupied with the Europe go-no-go decision we hadn’t really considered alternatives to the alternative.

Now in that Optimistic November Blog Post I had mentioned we didn’t want to be in the Caribbean for 3 seasons….why not though? What’s the rush? It’s not like the Caribbean is one place….it’s a huge collection of places where the people and the land and the water is different. There are many places to explore that we haven’t even gotten close to!

I believe EGO had a big part in our self-imposed limitation of “we don’t want to spend a 3rd season in the Caribbean”…I think we felt like good, adventurous cruisers always push on, move on, sail on to new horizons and that staying in the Caribbean was a cop-out. This is important realization. To let go of this we had to fully embrace the reality that our family, our boat, our life is truly our own. It doesn’t matter what other people do or think about how we choose to travel. It really doesn’t. Sailing can be like high school…or any other small niche group of people living a similar experience…and as such it can be hard to not seek out and act on the advice of others. But this whole Plan A // Plan B // Plan C debate has become intensely personal to Greg and I. It’s been a growth opportunity for us. It’s forced us to consider that at some point in the next 5 or 6 years our first born will likely be seeking some independence. That is not a long time when you are planning travel by the season. I can easily map out in my head the next 5 years that only just neatly brings us back to the Caribbean….

Plan SEE: One more year of carefree Caribbean life

We had already decided to embrace the benefits of really SEEING the place you are living. Of moving slowly. And now with this planning we had to embrace the limitations of it as well. We may not sail the Pacific with our kids, or with all of the kids or maybe ever. Liam may have other life plans…Of course it’s entirely possible we will still do this, and we are already thinking about how we can make that happen if it’s what Liam (and later Aden and Grace) want. But the bottom line here is that the gravity of fact that the kids may be aging-out of cruising with us shook us hard and basically solidified our commitment to Plan C.

One more year in the beautiful, warm, clear waters of the Caribbean. One more year to SEE our children laugh and play in the water all day off our stern. One more year to SEE their delight spotting underwater wildlife, SEE them diving deeper and for longer, SEE them grow in the sunshine and the freedom that these islands so generously provide. One more year for the rural, remote, relaxed life of the islands before we bring them to a different world that will inevitably be steeped in history and art but also in a few less moments of jump competitions off the side decks.

And if I am being honest with myself, this winter I want to discover and explore the islands of the Bahamas with Liam for the first time now….not 3 or so years from now when we’ve returned from Europe to the Caribbean and he is almost a man. I want to play in the water with my not-yet-man-boy for one more year before we make a big family transition and SEE what that fork in the cruising road brings us.

Now I’m off to hug my kids.

Much love,