Live while you’re alive

 I have reached the ripe old age of 45. Well I did last year anyway. I don’t know why this seemed like a bigger deal than 40 but I have been thinking more about what’s important in life than I have before. About bloody time! Maybe it’s because I am on the downhill to 50. Maybe it’s because – if I am lucky, I am half way through. Again, if I am lucky, knock on wood, turn around and spit three times, throw salt over my shoulder, etc.

Family of course is THE most important thing and I mean this in the broadest sense of the word. I am lucky to have a wonderful shipmate/co-skipper/wife of 20 years. Finding anyone who would put up with me is amazing enough. Finding one who loves sailing too is beyond luck.  I am also very lucky to have a son of whom I could not be prouder. I can write this without fear of embarrassing him as he would rather die than read my lame-ass boring sailing blog. I am also lucky to have a great group of friends spread too far around the world and family back in the UK who I genuinely enjoy being with.

Career has always been the other priority but that’s a dull subject for this blog.

Recently, sailing has become even more important to me. I find in my quiet moments, on long plane trips, sitting on the train or lying awake at night, my mind is full of sailing. Cruises on our boat this summer, places I want to sail, crossing the Atlantic, rounding Cape Horn, taking a year off to cruise the Caribbean, doing more racing, stuff I need to fix on Messing About, projects, the next boat, always the next boat.

In this months Cruising World, there was an article that stopped me in my tracks called What Counts More by Fatty Goodlander. I keep re-reading it. I can’t link to it as Cruising World hasn’t posted it on their site. Fatty Goodlander and his wife are long-term cruisers. They have spent decades at sea, living simply, with no more fixed costs than the $250 for an email service and no debt. He writes well and from the heart.

This gist of this recent article is that the economic crisis will make a lot of people like me put their dreams on hold. He writes about what’s important in life from his perspective. He tells of people he has met cruising who had wake-up calls and then spent the rest of their life enjoying it sailing. The subject of this post “Live life while you’re alive” was a motto one of his sailing friends lived by. This passage hit home:

“..So if you feel your dreams slipping away in the riptides and undercurrents of global-market turmoil – lunge after them, grab them, and hug them fiercely to your beating chest. They are you, and you are them. To allow them to slip away would be to accept diminishment.”

My wife and I have been talking about taking time off from careers to sail the Caribbean. We have been talking about it for years. We recently got some good advice: Pick a date and stick to it. There will be a million reasons to procrastinate. “Maybe next year” will become “Maybe never”. If you pick a date you are more likely to do it.

We picked date. 2014. The son and heir will be done with college and hopefull earning his way in life by then so it’s a feasible date. The plan is afoot.

I have now publicly declared that we will do it so I expect you as my family of sailing bloggers to keep me honest.

Now back to dreaming.