As I found myself trolling the internet and cruising forums once again trying to find an answer to a question I already knew, but was trying to rationalize why I should do what I know not to, I came upon an old email exchange I had with an extremely knowledgeable man. He and his wife are circumnavigators and did so with young kids no less. They offer coaching services. Payment was made and said coaching services were procured. My goodness, why did we wait so long to reach out to these people?! While we’ve only had a 90 minute Zoom call so far the wisdom and advice that was given was priceless. And it confirmed my suspicion that paying a boat yard gobs of money to do subpar work was a bad idea. #duh

What we’re doing is no small task. I don’t say this to show off in the least. Simply to illustrate that getting help was way past due. Managing a transition from land life to #boatlife, pulling up roots in a neighborhood that we’ve come to love, packing up a house we adore, managing the crazy amount of administrative variables one must when planning to live an itinerant, international lifestyle, all while moving aboard a small space and working on something that needs to be fixed or upgraded constantly…it’s a lot! While coaching doesn’t solve the main issue of just putting one’s head down and getting work done, it has given us some shortcuts and refocused us on what’s really important. It’s also really helped us get excited again. We have a ton of work to do but, damn, we’re so fucking excited for what lies ahead. So a huge shout out to Jamie and Behan (a Conn College alum!) Gifford of Totem. We’ve admired this family from afar for a while and are now fortunate to be benefitting further from their coaching. If you’re a cruiser considering making the move we whole heartedly recommend their services. https://www.sailingtotem.com/ask-the-cruiser