Replotting Our Course After Ian

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We Lost Our Boat. Now What?

Our current adventure is learning how to navigate not owning a boat!

Managing Disappointment

After hurricane Ian totaled our boat, the shock and adrenaline served to fuel us for a while. Then we felt utterly exhausted. We tried to give ourselves time to rest (while looking at Yachtworld much of the day). That didn’t work out too well. It was tiring to be spinning around and around on a merry-go-round of emotions and indecision.

Eventually, we settled on taking a few steps towards keeping our dream of sailing adventures alive.

How do you respond when things don’t go as planned?

We floundered for a while in how to respond to the loss of Terrapin; which for us was more than the loss of a physical boat. Terrapin was our means of adventure on the water. She was representative of our retirement dream of spending the winter months sailing and exploring the Caribbean islands.

For the past five years, we poured our hearts into Terrapin in both projects and improvements, along with taking sailing trips, to get her ready for extended voyaging.

We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can control our responses.

We’re not strangers to dealing with disappointment. As cruisers, we know the importance of being ready and willing to change our plans as needed. We’ve learned it helps to be flexible and to look for the good when things don’t go as we had hoped.

But this time, it was harder. Initially, the shock and adrenaline gave us energy and a fairly upbeat attitude. We did what we needed to do by driving to FL, removing our personal belongings into a storage unit, and completing all the paperwork for insurance.

Once that was all done, we assumed plan B was to find another boat. We had insurance on Terrapin but considering all the time, money, and improvements we poured into her, we took a loss on our settlement. With a lower price point to work with, we tried rearranging our priorities in a boat. “All boats are a compromise”.

Boat Shopping

We flew back to Florida to look at a handful of boats each with different pros and cons and compromises. We enjoyed staying at The Banyan House and being in Florida again. But, unfortunately, none of the boats seemed like the right next boat for us.

Our focus was on smaller boats to help with the purchase price. We like small boats and small homes and usually can figure out the storage and how to accommodate visitors, but how small is too small? We’re still figuring that out.

Some of the boats were project boats. Although every boat is going to have projects, we were guarded to not starting over with an extensive project list. We had just gotten Terrapin to where we wanted her not many months earlier.

As we looked at possible boats to purchase, we realized more deeply what we had lost.

Boat shopping questions:

Bluewater boat or coastal cruiser? This was hard to nail down so we looked at a few of both. If we pursue our original plan of a Caribbean circle, we prefer a bluewater boat. If we switch cruising grounds, then a coastal cruiser might fit the bill.

Price Range? Do we want to pay cash or take a loan? How do we want to budget for boat ownership and cruising in reference to our overall budget? Where do we want our retirement income to go?

Style? It’s always nice to look at your boat and think to yourself “isn’t she pretty!” We’ve owned previous boats that were higher in function and lower in aesthetic value. During those seasons of life, function was more important than aesthetics when choosing a boat. What about now, do we want to prioritize style or function, or both?

Do we want another Westsail 32? It’s tempting, but probably not. We haven’t seen one set up as nice as Terrapin and we don’t want to start over with a long project list.

What is our dream boat? What if the price wasn’t an issue? Pacific Seacraft, Morris, Shannon… It’s good to dream!

So many questions we’re still trying to answer!

Emotions

We couldn’t ignore the fact we were dealing with mixed emotions and indecision. We weren’t clear on what to do next to move our sailing dreams forward. Our thoughts and conversations felt like being on a merry-go-round. Normally, we are able to problem-solve easier than this time.

There were definite feelings of loss. We’re no strangers to grieving after fairly recently losing our dads, yet this was a different type of loss. We felt a lack of direction and were having trouble envisioning our plan B for sailing, for the short-term or long-term. We wanted to re-plot our course, but we didn’t know in what direction!

If we buy a boat now, what type of boat and price of boat and location for cruising questions were all up in the air. If we don’t buy a boat now, what other type of winter adventure would we pursue, how much should we budget for it, and how will that impact our ability to buy a boat when we find the right one? We felt discouraged. Our indecision was difficult to live with day to day.

We felt a bit of boredom knowing if our boat had not been totaled, we’d be sailing in the Bahamas vs. sitting in our tiny condo in MN. Don’t get me wrong, we love our tiny condo, but we purchased it with the intent of being gone in the winter months. Of course, we knew we could get involved in things in MN for the winter, but we kept wondering if we’d find our perfect boat the next day and be back sailing in a few weeks.

It’s hard to live in limbo.

Around and around and around we went on our merry-go-round of various scenarios, variables, ideas, pros, and cons; buy a boat now or later, what size/price/style of boat, where to sail (south in winter or north in summer), charter a boat, take a sailing class, go on a non-sailing related vacation…

We lacked clarity on what to do now that we were “boatless”.

How can we “live our adventure” and “dance in the rain”?

“Live Your Adventure”

Throughout our married life, we’ve tried to “live our adventure” in the present tense and also plan for the future. Not all of our adventures require or involve a sailboat. We value and find meaning in all types of adventures; near and far, big dreams, and simple pleasures. We know that being an adventurer is often more about a mindset than the actual activity.

How can we ignite our adventurous spirit and not slide into a slump?

Or another way to say it: we got knocked down and we needed to get back up.

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”

It may not be clear to us how this is all going to pan out, but we are trying to do more “dancing in the rain”. We do that by looking for the positive and enjoying each day in our journey.

Looking for the Positive

Looking for the positive, we are thankful for many aspects of being in MN at this time.

It was wonderful to be able to spend Christmas with family!

And we were able to snap a picture of all 21 of us! Here we are Tony & I with our six kids, four in-loves, and 9 grandchildren at that time. In Feb, our 10th grandchild was born!

It’s been a few years since I made Pannekoeken for Christmas brunch. Everyone seemed to enjoy our traditional holiday spread this year.

We love hanging out with our family. Over the winter months, we went on some special outings like the zoo, Red Wing Holidazzle, and school events.

We appreciated the beauty of the fresh snow clinging to the tree’s branches.

(That wore off over time, MN winters can be long)

I was very thankful to be in town during the time my sister received the news she had breast cancer. She’s handling her surgeries and treatment like a champ! Ladies, get your screening mammograms!

Brainstorming What Now?

As we brainstorm on what to do next, we welcome ideas from family & friends.

On one brainstorming phone call with our son Tyler, I said “let’s think outside the box”. He didn’t miss a beat with his response. “Mom, let’s get one thing clear”, “you are already outside the box!” I took his comment as a compliment!

I put my research hat on and sought to find an affordable option for us to get back on the water this winter. We felt that even a short time of sailing this winter would help lift our spirits and keep our cruising dream afloat.

I checked into chartering, group sailing trips, and sailing schools. I assumed the location would be the Caribbean or Mexico and was taken aback by the costs involved. We kept struggling with how much to spend on a sailing trip because of the unknown of when we’ll buy a boat and might need the money for our purchase.

On a whim, I thought what about Europe? What do you know, the sailing schools there seemed more reasonably priced.

Trip Planning

We found an RYA school in Tenerife, CanarySail, that offered a cruise week that appealed to us. Many students use the cruise weeks to build miles toward their certification. An instructor is onboard to help refresh or teach skills during the cruise.

We’d be stretched out of our comfort zone in more than one way:

• We’ve never traveled to Europe
• We’ll be sailing in a new area
• We’ll be sailing with people we don’t know
• We’ll experience different cultures
• We’ll refresh some of our sailing skills
• We’ll learn new sailing skills

Sounds like a plan, Let’s Go!

Our trip was a success on all accounts! We had a wonderful time in the Canary Islands and learned a lot. And after our sailing courses, we took a week to explore Lisbon, Portugal. We returned with a little more bounce in our step.

We still don’t have the answers for how our sailing will look in the future. We’re still plotting our course.

But for now, we’re thrilled and thankful for the time spent with family and more than one opportunity to travel and sail while we are boatless. Being open to different opportunities for sailing this winter has brought exciting new adventures for us. We’re surprised and blessed to have a couple more sailing trips scheduled in the coming months.

Our big-picture retirement dream was to combine our passion for the cruising lifestyle with spending time in MN with family.

And that is how this winter is working out!

We are living our adventure!

Thanks for your interest!

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