So what happened in the second half of 2017? We had quite a bit to do and plan. The diary became a catch-all for whatever we needed to write at the time. Some of those highlights include a recipe for homemade flour tortillas, writing SV Last Call a dozen times in different color pens, a poem, doodles, a diagram of how we’d divide the basement and a list of all the thing to keep, sell, gift or trash. There was a dated entry in August of 2017 where I shared our excitement, trepidation, and steadfastness to our decision. We had a conference call with a boat broker on September 27, which was entirely too premature but you can bet we’ll go back to that broker just for the fact that he was informative and patient in answering our questions without making us feel ridiculous for wasting his time when we weren’t ready to pull the trigger. After the notes from this call, as well as a few of our own, the next entry was about Hurricanes Irma and Maria. While we were primarily concerned for the people who suffered the damage, we also inwardly cringed at how this might affect us in the future. The BVIs are a huge market for catamaran charters and many of the fleets were lost. Price and availability were to become huge challenges, but as I wrote at the end, “Daunted? NOPE!” In my mind, there was no viable life alternative.
By October 1, according to the entry, we had booked sailing school. Jason’s timeline had not yet been determined so the entry is a little more optimistic than the reality. I begin to talk about the downsizing and house stuff that will follow. In retrospect, looking at the entry from the end of October, we had no idea what we would do for a “residence”. We have some land and started looking at the cost of placing something on it. Anything that would have been minimal in capital outlay would exact its price in manual labor (cabin), and that we could not afford while still working eight hour days. The next thought was a mobile home plopped onto the land. The land idea was soon scrapped as we discovered the cost of mobile homes to be especially high (again thanks to hurricanes). Finally, there was the plan that Jason’s mom would move into our residence and “hold down the fort” for us. With the location of the land being somewhat isolated and about an hour away from where we currently live, the commute would not be feasible for us to do regularly while preparing the place, nor would we want Mom and Step Dad so far away from civilization. So we chose to go real estate shopping in our town instead.
October and November were mostly spent studying our books for sailing school and thinking about getting rid of crap, but actually doing very little of that. I wrote that I expected to have the house cleared of most accumulated junk by sailing school (Ha!). I mention checking into homeschool for the twins’ three remaining years of high school, and Jason getting his (early Christmas) drone. I also expressed some sort of anxiety of having to provide my resignation too soon, as my employer requires a letter of intent because we are contracted, employees. I did have to send my resignation in December, though I didn’t write about it or much of anything for that matter. Only that Jason crashed the drone and we were looking at a house nearby. No entry was made between December 10, 2017, and April 12, 2018, with the exception of the sailing school blog.