Sundowner Sails Again ~ Refit Rebels

So what is it we want to do?

This is a complex and difficult question to answer being that our families and friends are involved. If a stranger asks you, “What is your big plan?”, it is simple to say, “Sail around the world.” Usually they just look at you funny and walk off. However friends and family have a vested interest in your well being and state so they say a bit more generally.

But that is really the plan.  To one day around Jan 1st 2015 leave our homes and jobs behind to go sailing for several years, hopefully completing a circumnavigation of the globe.

This is the highest level view of our goals. Generally when faced with a high level goal like that, the first thing that comes to a person is, “Why?”

Q: “Tate, why do you want to sail around the world?”

A: To try to explain this to someone that doesn’t “get” it is very hard. I’ve been asked this same question hundreds of times over the course of my life. The question was “why” when I:

Hiked on the Appalachian trail or the north New Mexico deserts

Jumped off the Natahala river bridge before rafting it

Went bungee jumping

Hiked the Yukon 800 miles n of Edmonton in December

Went 180 mph on a motorcycle

Bought a Z06 corvette to haul ass in

Traveled to Burning Man

etc

You know what… I couldn’t get the answer through on any of them. I just couldn’t do it. I tried everything. Technical explanations to poetic “Take the road less traveled” expressions. It seems when you hear of something like this, it clicks or it doesn’t.  And to most it doesn’t.

Here I will allow the answer to come from Sterling Haydon. I believe he says it rather well,

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea – “cruising,” it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

~Tate

Q: “Dani, why do you want to sail around the world?”

A: I think there are so many places i’d love to visit and things to experience. We have our whole lives to work and we don’t have children yet.

I would say that quite a many people will call us crazy for choosing to leave our jobs, homes, friends and family behind on a 3 year “joy ride” on a boat, in lieu of the more conventional settle down, have kids and let the monthly payments pile up.

But thats ok, the great thing about life is you are free to live it anyway you want.

Tate and I are fortunate enough to have the means by saving and working hard to afford to take a 3 year journey, and I am so thankful for that.

The world has sped up so much over just my life time alone. I view us taking this trip as a way of slowing life down.

Getting us away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  We’ll learn to travel and experience amazing things. With the government taking more and more control of our everyday lives, I wonder if a trip like ours would even be possible in the future. Right now we can go, freely through international waters. So go we will, while we still can.

There are beautiful distant beaches calling our name, adventure beckoning us to join it.

~Dani

We started this blog to detail the trials and tribulations of a young married couple, working for everything they have to achieve this greater goal. It will hopefully help and attract others who would feel overwhelmed by such a goal but want it all the same.