[originally posted on 17 Jan on www.svoctopussy.com]


I thought I'd share some more today to follow up on a previous post:

The Call to Adventure
[go to: http://svoctopussy.com/the-call-to-adventure/ to read it]

It was actually our first post. I wrote about why we want to do this.

Today, I wanted to explain further why doing now is so important to us.

When deciding how to go about this endeavor, we started months ago with a spreadsheet. There were a few different columns, but they boiled down to variations on two main themes:



1. Get the boat now (with a boat loan), live aboard for a couple of years, and get our finances in order



2. Go back to our house in New Hampshire, try to find jobs up there in this depressed economy, save a bunch of money, and then in 2 years buy a boat (which would probably still equate to a large downpayment and getting a smaller boat loan)



After finding out we'd have to wait several months in order to qualify for a boat loan (as I said in the earlier post), we had a major epiphany: we do not want to carry a boat loan around for twenty years.

Even though we will have monthly retirement income, and could carry a boat loan... why would we want to? Sailing around the world, knowing that we pay $1500 a month for the boat, plus insurance. Plus we're at the mercy of the bank and the insurance agent. "Can't go there, don't go here, you're uninsured and the bank is mad!"

We realized that we wanted the experience more than we needed a large flashy boat. It was about getting out there and doing it, not about what make or model we were seen doing it in.

Also, another major consideration for us was the fact that we would like to be sailing in a couple of years. Sailing away is not like driving a brand new car off of the dealer's lot. With a car, minus some of the bells and whistles, you pretty much know how to drive a car.

But we knew we couldn't just buy a boat in two years, then sail off into the sunset that evening. We'd need to go over the boat; learn the boat; sail the boat; outfit the boat; fix the boat... basically what I am trying to say is that we would need to form a relationship with a boat before we trusted it to take us across oceans. And, relationships are not forged overnight.

Anyhoo...

The other reason we wanted to do this now is because of our son. We didn't want to wait two years, then get a boat, then get to know it and learn to sail it, then eventually go sailing.

While there are some who might find us irresponsible for "doing this to our son," we definitely recognize that we will need to get him back into a school system in the U.S. or Europe for a couple of years of high school, in order to take exams, get grades and have an academic background in order to apply to colleges. So, waiting another two years to do all of the above would push our "sail away" date up to four years down the road. Then that starts to cramp the whole high school "thing" severely.

We want to enrich his life and learning, not disadvantage him when he is required to re-enter the "system" that is society.

So, here we are, with an awesome boat, an awesome son, and an awesome dream.