Trying to figure out 2021
Here we are again. Trying to plan what to do next.
For our family, there is a serious up-side to taking life as it comes (more or less), to taking sailing one ‘season’ at a time. The upside for us has been that we have been able to totally flex in response to COVID travel restrictions without feeling like we were missing out on what we planned to do / accomplish. We didn’t have (and still don’t have) a definitive end goal for this phase of life for us. As a super mega planner this has been an adjustment in my life, forced by sailing, that has been really positive for me. Like really really positive. I am waaaay more accepting of change, it causes me much less stress than it would have in the past. I can quickly let go of an idea and move on to the next one as new data emerges. This really began when we started cruising on Lake Ontario with the kids as babies and has accelerated while living on Matriarch. As a family I think we have all perfected this art as well. Greg can been super stubborn and can hold on tightly to a plan; however, now he can zag (slowly and methodically with careful consideration, but still, a zag can happen) when needed and the kids are able to adapt with ease to any situation they’ve been in so far. They literally have found happiness everywhere, doing anything. It’s unbelievably awesome.
However, of course, we have to know where we are headed next. There has to be some sort of destination if we are going to travel hahaha…I know it sounds super obvious but it’s sort of important to say. If we don’t have a plan, then we don’t go anywhere right? Ok so we have to figure some shit out and now is the time.
Hurricane season is coming to a close and (knock on wood) we’ve been spared the worst of it. We are super grateful that most of the big ones have spun out into the Atlantic and haven’t wreaked too much havoc on the islands (though the Gulf got hammered repeatedly and Bermuda saw a lot of action this year). As this insurance-related threat dies down, we need to ready ourselves for the next 6 months of mobility we have before the storms return.
Maybe that’s why planning is less important to me when sailing / living on the boat…to some extent, the options are limited by the big seasonal weather patterns. You can only go to certain places, during certain timeframes in the year. Anyway, I digress.
So Greg and I have been spending more and more of our downtime (i.e. time when we aren’t getting stuff, fixing stuff, or teaching the kids stuff), we’ve been talking about options and parameters.
Now some of you may recall that we were thinking of sailing across the Pacific Ocean…we still want to, very much. But now just isn’t the right time. Things with COVID travel restrictions are still just too uncertain for us to make that big commitment to cross the canal. French Polynesia isn’t issuing long-stay Visas at the time of this post and 3 months isn’t enough time for us to make our way through those islands and then onto New Zealand or Australia…oh ya, which are both closed. Soooo we fear being ‘trapped’ and are going to avoid that possibly. This wasn’t an easy decision to make. Our kindred spirits Kris and George, Lucia and Leo on Alley Cat are over there and our hearts want to join them so much. Sea of Cortez would be very very cool but it just doesn’t feel like the right direction for us at this moment. I can’t get more specific than that but I know that Kris and George totally subscribe to ‘trusting your gut’ and support our decision. It is strange to decide against something your heart wants but your gut doesn’t. I haven’t had that experience much, usually all my organs are in agreement…
Another key piece of information we didn’t have when we talked about the Pacific was the real state of our deck. Bottom line, it’s not good. Rewind 2 or so years ago (holy shit time flies) when we were looking at this boat and had it surveyed by a person who at the time we thought was pretty good but now we would approach differently…this person told us “these decks will outlive me”. Spoiler: that was BS. Our deck is not in good shape. We have loose boards, many grooves in the teak and caulking so proud you’d think it was American ;P. We were so wet behind the ears when we bought this boat we didn’t know how to assess the state of the deck ourselves and took this persons word as good. Our bad. Also to be honest we were so nervous about having a boat with teak decks for this EXACT REASON, we really wanted to believe what this person told us. Now being a bit more salty and having sought multiple professional opinions we know the real state. We have about 2 years before it becomes an actual risk to the integrity of the boat but we know there are already some spots where water could be getting in. This needs to be dealt with.
On the bright side we planned to own this boat long enough to replace the decks; we figured we’d have 5 or so years but instead we got 18 months. It could be worse. If this wasn’t on our radar at all it would have been more of a shock. So the impact of this is more than it will direct our sail plan earlier than we anticipated. And the lesson is to get more than one opinion on something so expensive to replace prior to negotiating a boat price.
So How Do We Move Forward From Here?
To have this conversation Greg suggested we work back from where our “end point” would be on May 1st. Since I’m feeling generous I’m going to let him lead this brainstorm (lol)…for those of you who know us you know that we think VERY differently (same values and shared goals but I swear he explains everything backwards and starts at the beginning of time…it drives me bonkers…especially because he thinks his process is crystal clear. It’s not.)
Anyhoo…since during our conversation we needed to take notes we thought we might as well share them with you to get a sense of how we go about making these decisions. Obviously there is much more work to do here but getting things down on paper is aways an “official” start for us.
Here are our rough notes organized in a way that hopefully makes sense:
Foundational Decisions:
not spending a third winter in the Caribbean (we will have already spend 2 winters in the Caribbean / tropics at that point)
not going west (yet) because it’s too uncertain
we need a new teak deck and there are only a few places where we can get that done reliably
Foundational Assumptions:
we can actually get into these countries (!)
refit would begin in late fall
we pay between $500-$1,000CND in COVID tests in every new country we visit
bailout is to summer in USA and head south again to somewhere….
Ok so based on these decisions and assumptions… where to? Current short-list includes:
Northern Europe
Mediterranean
In order to be out of the Atlantic before hurricane season we need to be ready to leave either the Northern Caribbean (Antigua or St. Martin or USVI / BVI) or the Bahamas by May 1st.
Potential Destination 1: Northern Europe
Routes:
Bahamas / Northern Caribbean - Bermuda - Azores - UK - Sweden (through the English Channel to the North Sea)
Bahamas / Northern Caribbean - Bermuda - UK - Sweden (through the English Channel to the North Sea)
*Not stopping in Azores would be a more direct route to the UK…but of course longer time at sea in one leg; though could stop in other places once over to Europe…
Pros:
Totally beautiful place / we want to go
Most well known / highest rated place to get the refit done for boats like ours
Hallberg Rassy is there
already have 2 quotes from yards there
if we are being honest, there is something romantic about bringing the boat back to the waters it was meant to sail in…I know I know, barf.
Cons:
long winter means boat will be on the hard for a long time (what do we do then?)
cold (this was Greg’s point…Aden really wants to go somewhere cold and I’m up for a change)
rough / potentially dangerous weather, big tides
refit is expensive there
Sweden (and the Azores) is in the Schengen region where we can only stay for 90 days total; we would need to bounce to the UK or somewhere else outside of the region for 90 days to restart clock
Ok so we are in Sweden and it’s the fall of 2021, now what?
boat will be on the hard for at least 6 months (boat can stay past 90 days, humans can not)
backpacking around Europe / visit Canada if possible / ski / visit family in Ireland (this all sounds pretty GD good)
Ok so we are in Sweden and it’s the spring of 2022, now what?
summer in Sweden / Norway / UK / France / Germany (options!) head down to Spain / Portugal for the winter
summer in Sweden / Norway / UK / France / Germany (options!) head down to Caribbean for winter
Potential Destination 2: Mediterranean
Routes:
Bahamas / Northern Caribbean - Bermuda - Azores - Gibraltar - various stops in the Med making way to Turkey
Bahamas / Northern Caribbean - Bermuda - Gibraltar - various stops in the Med making way to Turkey
Pros:
Tons of amazing places to explore
Food, art, history!
longer cruising season (boat is on the hard for fewer months)
refit is less expensive in Turkey
Turkey is not in the Schengen region, which means if we wanted to we could stay close to the boat during the refit
Cons:
cruising is expensive on the way to Turkey
refit in Turkey, it’s a looooong way to go having not started the season already in the Med
Ok so we are in Turkey and it’s the fall of 2021, now what?
boat will be on the hard for a least 4 months
stay in Turkey / we have family that has a vacation home there who could show us around
backpack around that end of the Med but not venture out as far (less time to travel) / visit Canada if possible
Ok so we are in Turkey and it’s the spring of 2022, now what?
travel through the Med for the summer, winter in Spain / Portugal
travel through the Med for the summer, cross the Atlantic to winter in Caribbean
What Do We Need To Help Make This Decision?
quotes from boat yards in Turkey (at least 2)
learn more from people who’ve cruised in Northern Europe
learn more from people who’ve done refits in Turkey
books / cruising guides for both regions
review relevant Cruising Websites to support our research, e.g.:
https://www.59-north.com/offshore (planning very similar route to Northern Europe 2021)
https://www.sailinguma.com/our-story (currently in Northern Europe)
Time to Wrap This Up…
So to come full circle, in order to be out of the Atlantic before hurricane season we need to be ready to leave either the Northern Caribbean (Antigua or St. Martin or USVI / BVI) or the Bahamas by May 1st. We need to count on a couple months to prepare for such a big passage (bigger than we’ve ever done by far)…that means route planning, watching weather, rig checks, stocking up on spares, provisioning (multiple trips), re-stocking ditch bags, paperwork, and so on. So we have to decide where we want to be for that work...maybe it’s one place, maybe it’s multiple places…but we aren’t sure how do-able all that is in the Bahamas.
Given that we are hoping to have Diane and Bill visit us in Grenada, we plan to be here until mid-December. Grace would like to be in St. Lucia for her birthday (December 18th) so possibly after that (maybe early in the New Year) we position ourselves where we want to be for the start of passage prep.
PHEW!!!!! Ok so that process was extremely useful for me. Greg keeps most of this organized in his head (though without the discussion it’s an incomplete picture), whereas I need to write it out in order to see it all clearly. Not sure if it’s interesting or helpful for you to see these brainstormed notes and the bookended rationale but honestly I had to write it out anyway so thought we might as well share it!
If anyone reading this has experience sailing to and/or getting work done in Sweden or Turkey please don’t hesitate to share your experience with us! Also if you have experience prepping for and starting passage from the Bahamas, please let us know your experience with that. We are looking for all the salty opinions we can get because sometimes is feels like we don’t know what the hell we are doing.
Writing it out helps though :P
Much love,
MH