So, priorities were to max out benefits with massages and chiro and sunglasses and orthotics and anything else I could get my hands on. Get my hair cut and have day after night after day of “going away” parties, gatherings, lunches, dinners and the occasional full-on binge.

Which meant up to approx 1 day prior to Mike leaving (remember, Mike was leaving one week before the girls and I) I polluted and pampered myself.

Yup, full on! Cause I didn’t have anything else to do….except pack up my entire house….but why would I do anything ahead of time.

If you were following Mike on Facebook LIVE, it would be noted that he began packing his bags (boxes) the NIGHT before leaving… we make a great team of getting sh*t done with seconds to spare.

Mike wanted to make sure my final week at home was stress-free…but my procrastination took over, as always.

So once Mike left, all the “just leave it for me, Mike” jobs that needed to get done – were my responsibility.

No problem, I got this.

I DON’T GOT THIS!

All of a sudden it hit me what that hell we were doing!

Then I looked around at my entire house full of everything (except for large pieces of furniture that we put in storage)….and when the kids went to bed, I would try to motivate myself to get to work…

Oops…I just got distracted, I’m on the airplane and my prosecco just spilled all over the table and onto my leg. My initial reaction to lick the table dry was quickly overcome when Arya asked me if I could pass her the colouring book…*mental note*..must set a good example for children and not lick table! So I let the prosecco absorb into my pant leg (ahh, topical prosecco…and fear not, I 100% ordered another one!).

Ok, back to the story – long story short. I cried. A lot!

Fear, panic, anxiety, overwhelmed, tired, sleep deprived (I’m a borderline narcoleptic but have developed some insomnia over the past few weeks…fun).

Worries about money…that’s a big one…Everything all just set in.

The only way to be talked off the ledge…was to be talked off the ledge – just an outside perspective can mean the world so once I came back from the ledge – I scribbled down my own words of encouragement and stuck it to the fridge.

“We still have a house, a job, family & friends.

It’s only money. You can make money. You can’t make time”.

Wow, right?! I wrote that. (In hindsight, the order should be different, but at that moment, money was the thorn in my side)

I took the girls for ice cream because I wanted to binge eat something to make me feel better – Puffy faced, swollen eyes (praise to Kate Spade for oversized sunglasses…worn at 6pm)… we went for ice cream, and while smashing some pumpkin spiced gelato, dripping down my face, staining the collar of my tank top….a lady and her son came up to us and started talking to me about how excited they were about our adventure – they read it in the local paper (there was a 3 page article written on our travel plans…so we were actually getting noticed in town – which is humbling…and crazy!)

Trying to keep my composure and ice cream in my mouth, I began answering her questions to which she responded about how she would love to do something like this but would never have the nerve. For most people, it would be a dream – but we are actually turning a dream into reality and are giving our kids (and ourselves) an opportunity, an adventure, a wanderlust that many would never, ever, ever have.

And just like that…there was hope again!

So the to-do lists began.

A lot of them. Handwritten. I’m old fashioned that way. Just like I’m old fashioned with telephoning my friends….you want to make someone you normally text uncomfortable? Call them!

Well. Everything got done. The house is empty (except for the spice drawer…TOTALLY forgot about that).

4 x 49lbs bags (weight limit is 50lbs) are packed, 5 carry-on bags are ready for the girls and I to carry which means I will obviously carry all of them at some point in time…and it’s time to say our good-byes.

I had friends drop by, call, text, call again, text again, stop by again.

It was also my birthday (obviously I was turning 25 for the 11th time) so I had even more love shed my way (ya, I cried majority of the day…I was so hormonal I thought I needed to take a pregnancy test)

We said our good-byes (or see you laters as we liked to put it ) to my family members and shed so many tears. SO MANY.

Cry, baby, cry!

With promises to Facetime, Skype, Slack, Insta DM, SnapChat, WhatsApp, email, text, snail mail postcards (did I miss any?)……away we went to the airport hotel for an overnighter in prep for our flight to Grenada leaving at 08:20 am the next morning…..The adventure has begun.

I was going to stop there….but here’s a hypothetical situation – Is there anything more invigorating and uplifting, making you feel like you own this, you got this, that you are ready, then preparing for a 5 hour flight with ipads charged, movies downloaded, music downloaded, headphones charged, 5 hours of snacks, drinks, journals, activity books so the kids (and I) will have the smoothest flight possible. You have packed and repacked the carry on bags for easy access to everything. That feeling that you are actually prepared. Strutting to your gate carrying (obviously) all 5 carry on bags – #momsouttherekillingit.

Until, UNTIL…you are ready to take off, at the runway (still #killingit) and there is an engine issue causing you to go back to the gate and sit on the airplane for two hours while they figure out the problem. #passtheprosecco #thisisgonnabealongday

Grenada, here we come xo

The post Cry, Baby! appeared first on Bayer Foot Travels.

That feeling of suddenly falling when everything seemed so stable?

Well, I’ll begin with the fact that this is a hard post to write especially as we have not even started our adventure yet!

With only 3 weeks to go before we leave this current life behind and catch our one-way ticket to Grenada, we get this email from the boatyard in Grenada.

Hi Mike.
We took the lower units of your saildrives apart today and found both to be in very poor condition. The port side has a tooth broken off the gear; both shafts are badly worn and all bearings and races are badly worn, please see attached photos. As you are probably aware, these drives are not easy to rebuild at all. Some parts are no longer available and those that are have become very expensive and Yanmar are actively encouraging their customers to upgrade to the much more reliable SD 60s.
I’m sorry if I am spoiling your weekend.

After some discussion with the Chief Mechanical Engineer, we get the estimate to replace the two drives…
…US$15,000

…F#*K!

The roller coaster of emotions that has gone between Andrea and I over the past few days has been pretty overwhelming.  We just felt like everything was finally coming together and coming to terms the financial challenges that lay ahead only to have a massive rock dropped into our calm pond.

So what do you do when you are backed into a corner with only 2 solutions. Either you pony up some serious cash that you don’t have or you quit? What did we do…? Well, we are still not sure of the answer to that.

So let me break down this problem for those that are not familiar with sailboat propulsion.

A sailing vessels primary means of propulsion is obviously the wind. I’ll save the physics of sailing propulsion for another day. As a secondary means of propulsion, the fast majority of sailboats have an engine to drive a propeller.

Most older sailboats have shaft drive engines where the drive shaft goes straight from the engine to the propeller.

More modern sailboats have an engine with a saildrive. This redirects the drive train down through the hull and then redirects again to the propeller.  A saildrive also allows the drive train to be much more compact, allowing the engine room to be smaller. This is great for boat designers but not so great for the owner.
The problems arise from the additional gearing and moving parts that create an additional component of the engine that requires routine maintenance and significant wear and tear.

In the case of a catamaran, there are typically 2 engines. One in each hull each with a saildrive attached… caught up…good.

For the machine heads out there, on our boat, we have 2x 54hp Yanmar 4JH4E engines with Yanmar SD50 saildrives. Now as a complete newbie with no knowledge of the laundry list of things to check, I didn’t even think about checking the condition of the oil for the trip down to Grenada for our delivery trip from the British Virgin Islands.

This was a massive oversight on my part as I am not sure when our damage occurred but maybe with a little bit more knowledge and attention to detail, this could have been avoided. When the mechanics in Grenada performed a full service and fluid changes that I requested during our layup they were pretty shocked to find significant damage to the bearings and gear teeth inside the drive.

The oil was jet black and full of metal particulate and the presence of a lot of water meaning the seals had gone as well.

See these pictures for the scope of the damage.

At first I really didn’t see much as I didn’t know what I was looking at but after some research and what these parts are supposed to look like I was pretty shocked.

This video shows what the parts are supposed to look like on an SD60 Saildrive.

Another factor is that I am not sure how many hours these saildrives have on them and typically saildrives will only last 2000-3000 hours before needing a full overhaul. The engines have approximately 3000 hours on them so I am fairly certain now that these drives were due to be replaced anyway.

So where do we go from here?

We could look at used parts or even reclaimed saildrives from hurricane-damaged boats. If you are in the Caribbean I have been told that Harbor Shoppers in St.Thomas, USVI is a great place for used and reclaimed hardware. Now I did find some saildrives on their site for only US$1800 but there is no way to know the condition of them without a significant expenditure in flying there and spending the time to take them apart for inspection before purchasing.

So that leaves us with new.

Yanmar no longer makes the SD50 so parts are a problem anyway. So the next plan is to upgrade to the SD60.

Thats where we stand. New Yanmar SD60 saildrives ordered from Miami, shipped to Grenada, installed by Grenada marine all for the back pocket price of US$15,000.

I guess we better get started with remortaging the house…but thats another story.

The post Could the adventure be over before it even starts? appeared first on Bayer Foot Travels.

Am I in a state of panic?

I’m not sure, but there is definitely something unsettling inside.

The passage from BVI to Grenada (from where we bought the boat to where we are storing it) was a real eye-opener and during the entire passage, I told Mike that I am sooo glad we didn’t bring the kids with us. It was actually an option we discussed was to jump in with both feet and bring the kids to have a mini adventure before our big one in October.

I remember looking at Mike on day 2 of smashing through waves and telling him ‘this is ridiculous”.

Then our arrival in Grenada had our hopes high again and with the learning curve and labour intensive preparation for haul out….we began to feel a little defeated again.

By the time we were in the taxi en route to the airport to go home, I felt some relief to be leaving the boat and go back home. Then I felt guilty for having relief, then I felt a slight panic to think we have committed ourselves to move aboard, yet right now I just want to go home.

What a mixed bag of emotions.

I have to keep telling myself that things will be different when we go back because we will have the kids with us and will be a family. We will be traveling with the comforts of our floating home and in actual fact, the boat is very comfortable (to live on). We won’t be doing long passages making us uncomfortable.

The bonus of starting in the Caribbean is you don’t need to sail any longer than a day, or so, to get somewhere new.  

We will develop a routine.

We will get used to the heat and the humidity and the dampness and the constant wet that you get on a boat.

People ask if it has sunk in yet and I would say no but now, finally, now, it has.

I go between feeling scared and excited but I guess that’s exactly what drives an adventure. This is why we both took a leave of absence from our jobs and are renting our house out (instead of selling).

We are jumping in with both feet, but only into shallow water.

We jumped into the deep end by doing the passage ourselves from BVI to Grenada and I think if we hadn’t experienced that, we would have been in for a rude awakening.

Now, we can mentally prepare for what to expect and allow us to at least put one foot back into our comfort zone.

The post Don’t Panic, yet! appeared first on Bayer Foot Travels.

We found land. Ahoy!! What a great day!!!  

We grabbed a mooring ball at Prickly Bay Marina. This marina has customs and immigration on-site (So does Grenada Marine but only on Tuesdays & Thursdays) which makes it easy to clear into the country. What’s not easy, getting a mooring ball – like the technicalities of it – still learning but we are 2/2 with LOSING our boat hook and Mike having to dive into the water to retrieve it. I digress.

We check into customs and immigration ( two desks side by side) and decide to have breakfast at the marina – our first real meal in 3 days!!

Then it hits us while sitting at the restaurant…” Miiiiike……are we moving???” “Miiiiiike I’m dizzy”.

Typical with boat passages is how you gain your sea legs…even when you make it to land. You feel like you are constantly moving. Weird. But it went away. Anyways, lets get to the good stuff.

We are cleared into the country. We motored (with one engine – starboard engine still angry and overheating) to Grenada Marine, where we have a spot reserved on the dock….*almost*. Mike did his best to end the trip on a high note but with some problematic wind as we made our approach we might have kissed the dock as one would when docking for the second time ever (and by “we might have kissed the dock”  I mean we made out with the dock full on – oopsie daisy)… It’s not truly yours until you have dented it, right? BUT still, we have arrived and praise ourselves we have gotten over the hard part and have arrived at our destination!

Naturally, there is a beach bar on-site. That helps.

We have never owned a boat that needs to be stored. We have never owned a catamaran. We have been in possession of our boat for one week. So here’s where the fun begins.

We googled everything that needs to be done. Some obvious, some not. We made lists of daily tasks and daily rewards (beer). We were prepared or so we thought. There is A LOT that needs to happen for a haul out.

The purpose of taking the boat out of the water and storing it on land is to prepare the boat for long-term (outdoor, hot and humid) storage.

So the basics are to protect this beast inside and outside.

Main tasks were the obvious – clean water rinse everything that has been in contact with salt water. Soooo everything outdoors – sooooo the entire outside of boat / sails / cockpit enclosure, helm enclosure, lines (ropes) there must have been easily a dozen, cushions, etc. Then once they are cleaned, they need to be fully dried and put away inside the boat- its the wet season in Grenada so once you think you have everything washed and ready to be dried –  it torrential downpours and you start from scratch – sideways rain is a real thing here! You see blue skies and it’s raining…

Other things to do include remove mainsail and genoa (the mainsail weighs prob close to 250lbs..) and wash and pack them.

Bag everything interior that is susceptible to the humidity (clothes, towels, bedding, pillows) and then dry the inside of the boat as best you can, including the bilges where water collects, as well as the two fridges, freezer and ice maker.

Us Canadians would call it “winterizing” but this needs to happen to the 2 diesel engines, generator, toilets, washing machine, water maker, outboard engine for dinghy and batteries…the list goes on. But not only doing the actual work was a pain, but learning how all the systems work was a challenge too ie. how to “pickle” the water maker.

To add to the list,  fixing things that were working and then weren’t (air conditioner lost its prime, refrigerator froze, ice maker was making ice with odd particulate in it, one of the hatches was leaking) and doing jobs over and over again (bilges appear wet after being bone dry the day before, air conditioner produced water that leaked inside 2 other compartments that needed to be dried up…)

You also have to secure everything so it doesn’t disappear or get damaged by the weather (dinghy, outboard engine, kayak, SUP, coolers, bbq, other sh*t we have onboard that seemed awesome to have and now we have to figure out how to store it!)…it may not seem like a lot but by the day we left….we were DONE, like mentally and physically ca-put.

We worked our butts off for 8-10 hours a day getting all this prepped yet we never felt we were done or had done a good enough job.

It was also 7000 degrees outside, humid, intermittent rain and bugs that love to bite.

We have NEVER sweat so much ever. EVER. Like EVER.

I love the sun and I just wanted that sun to disappear behind the clouds all day! Wah wah wah. You have a boat, why are you complaining? – it was bloody hard labour intensive work and we had a very tight time frame (now that we know the process, we would have given ourselves an extra 2 days which would have reduced the stress and workload significantly).

This was not the dream. Why do people buy boats???? They are crazy!! (this was going through my head constantly)

Ok, reality check  – this isn’t something that happens every year. There will be maintenance that happens onboard but a haul out and storage is a very different level of labour intensive work. As we will be cruising, we *shouldn’t* have to haul out and store for a very long time!!

So it’s home time to Toronto now.

The boat is stored on the hard and it is as prepared as it can be. We also opted for the basic package to have marina staff check on it monthly just for our peace of mind….as well as tackle a few jobs that we aren’t capable of doing (solve the starboard engine coolant problem, inspect the sails, fix a soggy locker).

The plan is for Mike and someone to go down and prepare the boat to launch back in the water for mid October – I will follow with the kids a week or two later once everything has been put back together….If it’s anything like preparing the boat to come out of the water, I think Mike got the short end of this stick!

The post Sailing For The First Time Part 2 – Grenada Ahoy appeared first on Bayer Foot Travels.

We step foot on OUR boat.

OUR boat.

Our floating home.  

It is just perfect.

Absolute perfection.

Release those damn doves again!

We have high hopes for the next 2 weeks to go through the boat and discover all its nooks and crannies then take a leisurely sail down to Grenada – a three-night passage where we will become one with the sea and the wind.

We will make delicious meals onboard, maybe try and catch a fresh fish and make sushi! Sunbathe naked to rid these 20 year tan lines, sleep under the stars and the moon, practice video editing and do some boat maintenance along the way. HA! HAHAHA!

Now, going through the boat and discovering everything that it came with was actually bliss.

Scuba gear, linens galore – a lifetime supply of chapstick (yasss!), even spices in the cupboard. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

This was the RIGHT choice.

We put a lot on the line to accomplish buying a boat and making the decision to cruise. To the bar to celebrate (repeat 6 nights in a row…)

Now fast forward to the day of our departure to Grenada.

It’s a Tuesday. Taco Tuesday (at the bar) to be exact, which actually made me a bit sad to miss out on.

The plan – push off from the dock in the morning. Ahoy! (ever since owning a boat I just want to yell AHOY to everyone, I’m sure I will get over that, maybe).

We have done all our provisioning over the past few days, made some great friends, had one too many bottles of wine and fancy cheese with forever friends and are ready to go.

7 am up and at em. Ok, it was probably closer to 830am…we had another late night with our forever friends – why do wine and cheese pair so well…. So onto our final checks and AHOY – Mike, why aren’t our batteries fully charged? We have been plugged into shore power all week….Miiiike??

And so my friends, it begins.  

We have heard of this “fixing your boat in exotic places” or just generally “always fixing your boat” and if you are somewhere exotic, it just makes it more expensive!

So after troubleshooting these batteries, and honestly, I’m not mechanically inclined in ANY way, so it was Mike doing all the troubleshooting, we opted to find ” a guy” to come to look at it. We requested this guy to come by the boat around 10am…. Island time took over and he was over and he found his way to us for around 130pm.

So after some discussion, a button pushed and so forth – we are apparently fixed.

We now can’t leave the dock until 4-5pm as we don’t want to arrive in Grenada in the middle of the night as per our (Mike’s) calculations so we hurried up and waited.

4pm – BAM – we are outta here!

Out for our adventure of sailing, sunbathing, fishing and relaxing.

Well. I wrote this post after arriving in Grenada so we are alive. Not that we felt in danger….but it was Rough. Two rules – stay on the boat and still like (ideally love) each other once we arrive. Success with both of those. Barely.

One hour after departure it looked like our batteries weren’t charging. Thought we fixed this…..so a bit of a panic at the thought of turning back as well as missing our weather window. We HAD to be in Grenada by Saturday. As of now, we would arrive Friday, sometime. Then batteries slowly started charging. Ok. Still good. Onwards. Ahoy!

We put up the sails and we were flying. Well, sailing,  really fast.

Smashing through waves like a beast.

Wow, this is amazing, we are sailing and soon won’t be able to see land. Sunset is approaching. How magical. 3 hours later I begin to wonder when we won’t be smashing through waves and when it will be calm.

Here’s the answer…

…GRENADA! 

We had winds gusting up to 29 knots . We reefed in all our sails and were still flying at 10 knots.

On a plus, I thought we would get there in 24 hours at that rate of speed. Nope. Still 3 nights. Ok, Mike, time to make you a nice meal – cause that’s part of the plan.

I went into the galley (kitchen) to concoct something – after smashing my hips off the edges of the counters while trying to maintain balance and then becoming nauseous….the dinner decision was made.

Mental note for next time – have everything pre-made because dinner that night ended up being a bag of Doritos.

Similar to the next day’s breakfast and dinner – some pre-cut cheese and salami.

Also, hard to sunbathe when a) you are holding on for dear life and therefore need to have a lifejacket on and you are harnessed and tethered to the boat at all times and b) I wouldn’t leave the helm station because it was so choppy I would have for sure broken Rule 1 (stay on the boat) by attempting going to the bow of the boat on the trampoline.

So sunbathing out of the question.

Don’t get me started about trying to catch a fish.

Mike and I laughed out loud – like a true laugh out loud when I said, “Imagine we caught a fish”. We did not get out the fishing rods.

“Mike, batteries still aren’t charging great….OH, Mike some kind of alarm is going off….oh found it, it’s the starboard engine overheating – hmmmm….that doesn’t seem good” “Miiiiiike”

Mental note for repair list…..engine overheating – I’m sure it’s an inexpensive fix……………..BOAT = Bring On Another Thousand…. Catamaran = Bring On Another Two Thousand?

Sidenote: We have two engines – the other one got us to Grenada safely.

We set up our bed in the saloon so that we were close to each other because we love each other – haha – really in case s**t got real and we needed all hands on deck. All 2 pairs of hands.

Sleeping – that was a novelty too – similar, actually, no the same as being on a water bed (remember those from the 90’s…) and somebody jumping up and down on it – plus creaking, lots of odd noises and unfamiliarities we weren’t used to while sleeping tied at the dock.

Another unfamiliarity, no air con – I know,  but just adding salt to the wound.

So no sushi, no meals actually, rough sleep, a tad of nausea and seasickness, sore ass from that helm station that we had to brace ourselves on while sitting. Just crushing our trip plan!

Was there anything great about this trip, sorry not trip, adventure. Yes.

I found myself sitting on my sore ass, at the helm station (steering wheel – but who am I kidding, autopilot did it all. Thank you autopilot for not breaking, THANK YOU) and just looking around. I mean, not a great deal to look at, it was all water. But it was SOOOO COOOL to be in the Caribbean Sea, surrounded by water, and occasional flying fish, it was surreal really. My brain shut off (during daylight hours and when Mike was awake only haha – on my night shift I was on like donkey kong),

When my brain turned back on I would think about how I really left my comfort zone. I mean, I thought I wasn’t leaving my comfort zone and just living the dream but discovered pretty quick that my comfort zone was left in the BVI. It’s a crazy feeling and also being able to think – about something or nothing at all, by nothing at all I think I fell asleep with my eyes open once or thrice.

It makes me feel accomplished like we have done something that not many have, like saying you’ve climbed Kilimanjaro (haha, ya we have done that too)….

Mike and I look back on our first passage and ask each other if we miss it.

Depends on the day – when we are cozy in bed, air con on, bellies full on a meal and probably slightly drunk, yes I missed being out in the middle of the sea. As for now, we found land, AHOY! Time to check into Grenada and get this boat ready to come out of the water and stored on land for the next 3 months. We figured the hard part was over.

The post Sailing For The First Time Part 1 – on the dock appeared first on Bayer Foot Travels.

It’s May 9, 2018 and we bought a boat!

Everything is amazing and we feel like a million bucks. A dream 10 years in the making is finally coming true.

Release the doves!

Fast forward to June 18, 2018 – I have worked a night shift and haven’t slept more than 3 hours in 36 hours…ah, shift work.

I’m a combination of caffeine and sass and trying to function as a mother, wife and human being – Oh, and that boat we bought  – we don’t own it yet – in fact we are past our closing date (buying a boat – or at least the kind of mothership we bought, is similar to buying a house and requires steps to be filled out similar to a mortgage BUT, in Ontario we were very, very, very limited with the financing options and finding a boat mortgage, for a boat that will never be brought into the Country, left us with really only one option – more on that later)

So, we are past the closing date of finalizing our “mortgage”. In our minds, this means we have broken our contract and the Sellers could pull out of our agreement and that boat we “bought” would no longer be ours….

This is disastrous!

10 years of a dream down the toilet and back to square one. F**K.

So back in May 2018, we made a very concrete plan – buy the boat – own the boat – have a crew sail our boat from the BVI where it currently is docked to St Lucia. Mike and I would then fly to St Lucia and sail our boat a short passage, ourselves, from St Lucia to Grenada (approx 1-2 days) where we would haul the boat out of the water onto the hard and have it stored there for hurricane season.

A perfect plan to get our feet wet without getting in over our heads.

Our adventure would start sometime in late October. We like to plan. The plan was perfect.

WELL, I’m sitting on an airplane on June 20 – but Hark! we aren’t going to St Lucia as per our perfect plan. We are heading to the British Virgin Islands. Why you ask? Well, that’s where our boat is!

A bit of a background on our financing company.

To get a mortgage on a house can be difficult – to get a mortgage on a depreciating “asset” is even harder and then when you tell them you aren’t buying the boat in Canada they flat out say No. But our broker had a contact in Quebec that would be able to get us financing. Sweet!!

The perfect plan is coming together.

Now, a combination of miscommunication or should I say poor communication (did you know there are people in Quebec that speak zero English….makes me wish I paid more, if any, attention in French class) lead us to believe that financing was approved (it was) and we would take possession of the boat on June 11 – We thought this was the official closing date (for the record, June 11 was actually only a mutually agreed upon closing date if we could push the paperwork fast enough)  and we would own a boat and our plan was still perfect.

We booked the crew to do the sail from BVI to St Lucia for a departure around June 15 and timing couldn’t be more perfect.

Well, hello June 11 – the day the s**t hit the fan.

The boat won’t be closing on June 11 – more paperwork needs to be signed and a notary needs to be involved to close the sale. Pardon?

A notary to close the sale. The sale was supposed to close today.

Ok, don’t panic.

Recheck paperwork and we find that our actual closing date is June 17. So we have time. No problem we are promised this will be sorted FOR SURE before June 17.

Like within 2 days.

Ok, perfect plan is still a plan and conceivable.

Welcome June 17  – it is going to be a great day! We are going to own a boat! No.

Nope. No, we aren’t. S**t hits the fan again ( I feel like it’s caked on the fan now…)

Today is the official closing date – Money to pay the sellers is in “the cloud”.

Oh and can take 48 hours to float back to earth.

So now we are looking at taking ownership June 19!

WELL, that isn’t going to work because the guys that are going to sail our boat to St Lucia needed to leave at the very latest June 18 due to scheduling conflicts. They also needed us to own the boat to depart. They can’t do the boat delivery now.

This is where the caffeine and sass realllly kicked in – and not to mention Mike, poor Mike – he is the middleman in all this – phone calls, emails written in English and google translated into French, talking to the Notary, the financing company, our broker, the guys that were going to do the boat delivery and feeling defeated and that the sale of the boat wasn’t going to go through. He actually told me that, ‘this has broken me,’ and I could hear it in his voice. He was at rock bottom…where the shit has buried him.

And then it hit us. Not the shit from the fan or the grave. The plan.

This is supposed to happen this way. Not to get sappy or anything but we are firm believers (me, more so) that things happen for a reason.

Here is the reason.

1) We are going to live on a boat. We are starting a new way of life, a new way of thinking and need to become a little less uptight and go with the flow….”island time”

2) We like to plan. Sailing is dependent on weather, something we have no control over. So we can plan to our hearts content, but we HAVE to be able to adapt to our situation. And by adapt, I mean, accept. We can’t lose our sh*t everytime something doesn’t work out.

3) The big one here is that we are meant to do this passage from BVI to Grenada. Just Mike and I, like back in the days of our pre-kids travel adventures. A time to learn the boat inside and out, have fun, problem solve, enjoy each others company as two parents sans kids because starting October it will be 365 days with the kids. Starting October – we will be all hands on deck!

Now, the thought of us not taking possession of the boat was a true fear – and we do blame this on the company that I will not disclose (if you want to feel like your dreams will be crushed, send me a message and I can give you details on the company)

But everything has worked out in the end.

In hindsight (isn’t hindsight great….) We worried and cursed and stressed to the max for a week. BUT….it worked out.  

It’s hard to say that if this hadn’t worked out and we lost the sale then it was “meant to be”…..so, for now, we are looking on the positive side.

We took official possession of the boat on….actually, I’m not even sure if that paperwork has gone through…but as of June 19, the Sellers received their money. To the Sellers that have been VERY considerate throughout this process, we thank you! Did I mention that the Sellers were Canadian… Canadians are a great breed of humans.

I told Mike I wouldn’t do blog posts cause I don’t like to write. But I had sooooo much on my mind – and lots of caffeine ( and now Jack Daniels) flowing through the veins I thought what else can I do on this flight from Miami to St Thomas, USVI (We take a cool ferry from St Thomas into Tortola, BVI). So this is my first and possibly my last blog post hahaha

Well, that’s it – so far a happy ending to the beginning of an amazing journey. Some life lessons and compromises learned along the way…..we just need our 250lbs of luggage to arrive at our destination and we are gravy!

We are Mike, Andrea, Arya and Isla of BayerFoot Travels – and we own a boat!

The post Experiencing “Island Time” in Canada appeared first on Bayer Foot Travels.

It was such an amazing thing to dream.

To wonder what we will see or experience that might have seemed out of our reach back then.

Some people are natural dreamers, floating off to distant places in a mind’s eye, where others struggle to let go of reality and the limitations they place on themselves.

I searched around for a good definition of a dreamer and liked this one best.

dream•er (ˈdri mər) n.

1. a person who dreams.
2. an impractical or unrealistic person.
3. a person who has bold or highly speculative ideas or plans; visionary.

Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thefreedictionary.com/dreamer

What I like most about this definition is that you can be impractical and unrealistic but at the same time ‘be visionary’. It all depends on the person and what happens next.

Now I am not going to get all ‘Freud’ on you but what I am trying to say, without being too cliché, is that you can own your dreams and allow them to happen if you turn the dream into a plan and turn the plan into action.

Let’s look at my own dream!

I want to circumnavigate the globe, under sail, with my family, on a comfortable boat and have many adventures, experiences and allow my kids to experience the world for themselves.

Some of you will automatically place limitations on a dream like this.

• A circumnavigation is no place for kids!
• I couldn’t afford to do that!
• My wife/husband would never go for something like that!
• I don’t know how to sail!
• I get seasick!

Others will immediately drift away in their minds to warm breezes, the smell of salt on the air, deserted pristine beaches with campfires at sunset, catching your own food, a family at peace, a husband and wife truly in love.

There is always a balance between dreams and reality but if you want it badly enough and come up with a great plan to make it happen. All that is left is to follow it through.

So that’s it! That is what this website is all about. I’ve had the dream for some time and I want to share with you where we are going next.

Over the next few years, we will show you how we did it.

How my family and I broke away from the conventional life and cast off into the wild blue yonder to experience amazing things together, make new and interesting friends and turn our dreams into reality.

What are you dreaming of now!

I really hope you enjoyed my first ever blog post. It was fun to resurrect this to be one of the first posts on our new family site where we are actually following through with our dream.

Please share your sailing dream below. You never know, someone might read your comment who can make a difference and help you achieve it.

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