Totally not panicking.

At some point in the late summer, 2014, we looked around out boat and said out loud to ourselves, “If we had to, we could leave tomorrow. Sure, there are things we would like to be nicer, and it would be great to get the freshwater systems done before we go, but really, this boat is pretty great for living aboard.”

That’s hard to keep in mind these days.

Our lists have lists. There are so many projects to be done, we can’t even keep the big ideas of the tasks in our heads, never mind the minutia of all the steps.

One school of thought when it comes to buying a cruising boat is to buy it at the last minute, work really hard for a month or two to get it into shape, and head out–without having incurred the costs of storage, insurance, etc of years of ownership. We’d planned to be that kind of boat purchaser; but it turns out that hoarding every last penny without having anything to show for it gets really depressing after a few years; as soon as we had the money for the initial purchase, we pretty much spent it. The benefits to our impatience are many–we’ve gotten to know our boat, the kids are more comfortable aboard, we’ve been able to suss out some great deals on gear we need, and Michu’s had the time to do almost all our boat work himself; but it’s also led us down a path of twisted perfection. Maybe we DO need the best possible autohelm money can buy! What about our communications–maybe we need a WiFi booster AND Iridium GO, plus a new VHF with DSC and AIS and a house WiFi adaptor to broadcast all that info to our iPad… It’s a never-ending pit of potential, and it’s difficult to protect the cruising kitty in the face of sweet new refrigeration systems.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and the money is rushing out the door. We only have a limited number of months of income before we become People Living Off Of Savings.

So: Restraint. Organization. Clarity. That’s what we’re working on over here this week.