What's Next?

What Next?
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Uprooting the family and throwing us in a van for a month had the perhaps unsurprising but somewhat unsettling effect of sending all of us down the “what's next” rat hole. It's almost impossible to think ahead; The variables are too many, the options almost unlimited. Nevertheless, weeks of long drives and longer hikes with nothing to do but think and flap our lips at one another have yielded familial consensus on a number of points.

More Boat -- We all agree that we are not done yet with s/v Don Quixote. No one wants to sell her. No one wants to step on to land without at least another season cruising. We disagree on how much longer, but we all agree on “longer.”

Not Back -- A little surprising to me is the degree of consensus on the proposition: This family is not returning to Seattle. While we all love the city, none of us – not even a single one – wants to return to our house or anything like our old routine. It might be more symbolic of a rejection of that lifestyle rather than a specific repudiation of Seattle itself. Any return to Seattle would by necessity require a complete change of lifestyle which might be harder to do within sight of our old life. It may lack courage, but it is probably easier to simply go someplace else.

Another Adventure -- It's not just boating any more. The girls ask about living in other countries. DrC talks about hiking the Appalachian Trail or back packing through Europe. I've mentioned long distance bike trips we could take in the United States and abroad. Many of these ideas have the benefit of fairly low cost. Some require Aeron and Mera to grow a bit more. Almost all require we sell the boat which smacks head on with the More Boat agreement. The exciting part for me is the eagerness and enthusiasm with which the entire family embraces these proposals. We are now a family for whom big adventures, physical hardships, and limited resources engender excitement and speculation rather than fear and dismay. We are ready to meet new challenges head on.

New Zealand -- Which is good because we are still working very hard to set up a year abroad. Our strongest lead at present is a job in Auckland, New Zealand for DrC. The year-long contract would start sometime after the first of the year. While DrC worked, the girls would attend the local schools, and I would... Okay, that's a problem. We don't know if I'd be allowed to work, or if I could find a job even if allowed by authorities to do so. It might be time to start my career as a romance novelist. We'll see. The flaw in this plan is again – what do we do with Don Quixote? In an ideal world, we'd lease her for a year to another cruising couple or family. If you're interested, please let me know. We'll give you a good rate on a fully outfitted cruising catamaran for a year in Mexico. We'd come back in a year and proceed to Plan B.

Plan B -- Bottom line is that we're going to run out of money in about another year of cruising. Even if we delay that with a side trip to New Zealand, we can't keep this up indefinitely. The girls and DrC hammered out an itinerary that would take us down to El Salvador, over to Hawaii, and then up to British Columbia. We'd end up back in Seattle in late fall where presumably we'd work all winter and sell the boat to finance the next phase of our lives.

One Step Forward
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Road Trip -- Another strong area of consensus is that we want to take another, much longer road trip in the United States before we pick a place to live in our home country. We've all learned a great deal on this trip about what type of community appeals to all members of the family. Not too small, not too big. Must have trees. Only college towns with a “funky vibe” need apply. Mera says, “Large library.” Jaime wants “high school age kids.” Aeron would like a community swimming pool while DrC wants someone from whom he can take guitar lessons. I want cheap broadband Internet and a really good grocery store. We're willing to rent or live in an RV or modular housing until we can find the right fixer upper.

Consensus was the first step. We now have a pretty good idea what the family is looking for, both individually and collectively. As I write these words, I realize that this article is probably the first in a series that gradually unravels and shuts down the Toast Floats blog. Just as I began writing when the idea of the sailing life first came to us, it seems appropriate that I close it when we let go of Don Quixote and move on to the next adventure.

Which means I suspect it's time for me to squat on a few new domains. toastrides? toasthikes? toastrollsaroundinanrv? Who knows? Maybe the biggest adventure would be to start using toastworks again. *shudder* Scary thought.

Summer Summers

Families That Hike Together
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Finally. We're all done with the hurricane drama. Since I wrote the last piece, we've been relaxing up in Bahia de Los Angeles, nearly 130 miles north of Santa Rosalia. The girls and I have been able to return to the rhythm of boat life, albeit a stunted version without DrC. While a few storms have been worth monitoring closely and we've had a few exciting moments of high wind, the weather has largely been mild and the conditions perfect for cruising.

In a matter of days, we'll return to Santa Rosalia to pick up DrC. Our friends on s/v Ocean Blue tell us the city is recovering rapidly. However, there are still many people in Baja and mainland Mexico who lost everything – including their homes – to Hurricane Jimena. If you are interested in supporting these people, I encourage you to contribute to the recovery effort through the Red Cross. You can also join the Victims of Jimena.

So now we'll shift the articles back to those I wrote during the month post hurricane as well as those I wrote up in the United States during our summer road trip.

For Those Playing Along

Okay, we're leaving Santa Rosalia now. For those who want to either stalk the Congers or invite us over for dinner – and assuming those are not one and the same – you can follow our land travels in a number of ways:

Twitter – Whenever we are able to connect to the Internet, I will tweet our location. At least for the first week, I will not have access to a cell phone so the updates are likely to be sporadic. Once reconnected with DrC and Jaime, however, we should be able to tweet our location regularly via their cell phones. I'll set it so that @toastfloats tweets go directly to DrC's phone.

S.P.O.T. – I'm going to take the S.P.O.T. with me for safety reasons. I'll try to keep tracking turned on when we're moving or at least remember to mark where we stop.

The plan is for Mera, Aeron and I to spend about a week driving from Santa Rosalia to a wedding just north of Sante Fe, New Mexico. We're taking our time to give Dulcinea a chance to adapt as well as to take it easy on my back. I don't really want to drive more than a few hours per day. We'll be crossing the border in Tecate so San Diego folks will have to wait. We plan to by-pass Phoenix as well unless someone can give me a really compelling reason to go that way.

After the wedding, we pick up Grandma Sue and start hopping all over the southwest. We'd like to visit the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Navajo National Monument, Yosemite, and Mammoth before heading up to Sacramento. We'll also visit college towns about the size of Chico and Humboldt State so if folks know of nice college towns on our basic route, please send me the information. “College Town Life” might be phase 15 of the long term Dean and Toast Life Trajectory.

I'm a little fuzzy what happens after that. I'll let you know. Planning that far ahead gives me a headache. We do eventually have to make our way back to Mexico which will no doubt involving swinging through San Francisco, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego sometime in September. Again, we're always looking for places to mooch a back yard for our tent and a flush toilet. If you're volunteering, please let me know.

Painted Backdrop
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Still Here!

I haven't completely broken down and fallen off, though it sometimes feels like it. Thank you to everyone who has sent comments, emails and support. However, all those well wishes are falling on deaf and dumb muscles, bones and nerves which are NOT cooperating. Sorry 'bout that.

DrC arrived back on the boat on February 4 to find us almost as dirty, unprovisioned, and ill equipped to continue as when he had left. All the work we'd done in the first two weeks dissolved during the last few days when I couldn't move. The girls were extremely happy to see their father. I couldn't actually see him through the haze of muscle relaxants.

A few days ago, DrC completely gave up on the idea of my back healing without stronger intervention and stuck me on steroids. These are not very good for you but they do a damn fine job on fixing your back. Things started looking up, I started moving around, and I actually was able to complete a session of mild, modified pilates.

Then the head cold hit. As head colds go, this one is pretty tame. Slight post nasal drip, itchy eyes, slight headache. Mera blew through it in three days, Aeron just got started. The problem is the itchy nose makes me sneeze. And every time I sneeze, my back seizes up. I'll feel great when I wake up from a nap or in the morning, I'll work through the first three or four sneezes with bracing and heavy breathing, and then >pop< a sneeze blasts through the system and throws us back to square one on the back.

Then there are my clients. They apparently finally remembered that I was planning on hanging around Zihua for a few weeks and promised to work. One of them just released a code base to me that I've been waiting for since mid-September. Happy day, I love the work, but between the muscle relaxants and now the anti-histamines, I'm about as functional as a frat boy on the third day of pledge week. As Aeron so brightly put it, "Every time we give Mom a pill, we end up stuck in Zihua another day."

So here we sit in paradise with the barnacles growing a foot deep on the hulls. Everyone else is starting to drift north or prepare for the puddle jump. Our departure is gated on my retaining sufficient brain cells for 40 hours in a row to finish my contract. Then we'll start heading north ourselves... hopefully before the weather starts to heat up or our anchor becomes a permanent addition to the floor of Zihua Bay.

Itinerary - June 23 to mid-August

I've had a few requests that I post an itinerary to this blog as well as the ship log , so folks that don't subscribe to the later can still know where we plan to visit. This is a good time to get that done as Mom's visit and requirements that DrC be in Seattle for a few weeks have actually set some boundaries on our plans for the next six weeks.

June 23 to 26 Desolation Sound We arrived in Desolation Sound a few days ago, and the weather celebrated by introducing us to a big yellow orb in the sky, heretofore unseen by the crew of Don Quixote. Sometime during the next few days, we need to get a bit more fresh food and water, though honestly if we had to we could go another two weeks. I thought there wouldn't be any place to get provisions up here and set up the boat for three weeks when we touched down in Pender Harbor last week.

June 27 - July 6 More Desolation Sound We pick up my mother in Mink I Cove on June 27. She's with us for just over a week. We'll travel in Desolation area. We plan to take her up to Pendrall Sound as well as visit Prideaux Haven, Refuge Cove, etc. All the highlights. She flies out of Campbell River on the 7th.*

July 7 to July 10 Johnstone Strait I've worked through a VERY specific itinerary which will take us through this very rough section from Campbell River to Port McNeil during the neap tide. We have set some alternative anchorages and routes as well as extra days to allow for bad weather. However, we'd like to do this by heading straight up Discovery Passage, then taking the inside route over to Sunderland Channel. After that, we'll try to suck it up and push down Johnstone Strait for the rest of the journey. Fingers crossed we'll be late enough in the year to make this possible. If it gets ugly in Johnstone, we'll pop back up into the inside passage at Port Harvey. I'd rather not, if we can avoid it. Planning this leg is a lot about timing the tide and weather. Fortunately, the entire week is a permanent ebb in our favor. Now, if the winds just cooperate... If nothing else, the week should make for some interesting reading in the ship log.

July 12 to 26 - Port McNeil DrC is going to bus back to Campbell River and then fly to Seattle. He works for two weeks before returning to us. We'll be anchored in Port McNeil harbor for at least the first week. I'm going to see if we can make it the whole two weeks without going into the dock. We'll just use the dinghy. I hope to get some client work during this "down time." We also have a lot of maintenance and provisioning tasks that need to be accomplished in order to prepare us for the "outside."

July 26 - mid-August West Vancouver Island The hardest part of our first voyage will be Cape Scott as we round the north western tip of Vancouver I. After that, we just need to listen to the weather and sail downwind on the good days... duck into harbors and inlets the icky days. This is going to be a long slog with few services, but the scenery is supposed to be spectacular. We'll also get our first taste of "ocean." Except for Cape Scott, DrC and I are not particularly worried about the journey. Our only qualm is that we still haven't managed to get the SSB up and running. Hopefully, the last bits we need will come back from Seattle with DrC and we'll get then set up before we head out. A reassurance to the salty sailors out there (e.g. Behan and my FIL), we will NOT come back via the west side if we do not get the SSB running. If we're still having trouble and there's nothing we can do in Port McNeil, we'll come back via the inside passage. No ocean without SSB is a pretty basic and solid rule. Port McNeil is supposed to be a fairly good sized city with many services for boats, however, so I suspect that even if we're not able to do this ourselves, we'll be able to get help in town.

* * *

Obviously, we face quite a few sections with few services and no Internet. I've been working hard these past weeks to get a lot of articles prepped and in the queue. My apologies if some of these do not feel timely or immediate when they go to press. While it would be more interesting to hear about Don Quixote riding the rapids of Wellbore and Seymour Narrows, I can't see any way to tell you about it while it's happening. Hopefully, I'll still be able to drop a line to my twitter feed, though, so folks will know we're still alive and kicking.

* Patricia of R-Tyme, I believe you said you lived in Campbell River?