Many sailors we know dream about getting a "big boat" and heading off on a cruise to some far distant sea and the lands attached thereto, and Judy and I (and our daughters for that matter) are no different. Since we moved to the water's edge of the Northwest Arm four years ago, we have encountered quite a few sailors-of-seven-seas who have anchored within sight of our house during their visits to Halifax. A quick sweep of the visiting yacht with binoculars has often been followed by a short paddle in our kayaks to say hello, bonjour or guten Tag, and on more than several occasions I have come home from the office to find unfamiliar laundry hanging on our clothes-line and strangers sitting at our kitchen table having coffee, while Judy oriented them to Halifax and whatever services they required. Listening to them recount their voyages to date and plans for the next trip was enough to infect us with yet another bout of wanderlust, and it had always been our intention to someday buy a boat, yank the girls out of school for a year and head out to sea and some paradise-over-the-horizon. We just weren't getting around to it yet. Apart from contemplating the enormity of the challenge, I was still settling into a new position with the civil service, and I had been putting off starting an income averaging program that would allow me to take up to a year off at reduced salary.

"Don't wait!" advised Christophe and Maiken, a French couple with a then one-year old daughter whom we had gotten to know during the summer of 2006 when they made two stopovers in Halifax. The first stop was on their way to Labrador, and the second on their return leg en route for the western Caribbean and potential charter work. It was during their second visit last September when they urged us to commit to the dream. "The girls are the perfect age (8 and 11), and if you wait too long, they will be harder to pry out of school and their social circles, and home-schooling will be more difficult," they said. True, it would be simpler for me to teach long division rather than logarithms, but that's mainly because I bombed math in school, and which is why I will leave that to Judy, a former school teacher who actually enjoys the stuff. Then there is that phase of growing up that everyone says will eventually arrive: when children view their parents as just to the left of imbecilic and not to be seen with in public except in extenuating circumstances, or so it goes.

Christophe and Maiken began discussing the type of boat and features we should look for, and then they set a deadline for us. They gave us six months to find a boat, and they would keep a weather eye out for something as they sailed south. Another six months was allotted to plan for our departure, which would be immediately following hurricane season in late October or early November 2007.

Christophe and Maiken's urgings were further reinforced by a sailing acquaintance at our club, the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron. For years, he and his family hoped to sail away for a year, but the plans were delayed, postponed, sidelined and deferred for one reason or another. All of a sudden, the kids grew up and left home and, to his lasting regret, they never embarked on that family voyage. No wishing to have a similar regret, we decided to go for it!