"All my life, I've eaten too much and slept too little..."

...commented Steve the other day. It's amazing how little you eat when you
prepare it yourself and you only eat what you're hungry for. We're both
charter members of the 'Clean Plate Club' and as such, when presented with a
plate of food tend to eat a plate of food.

On this trip though, the amounts on the plate have grown smaller and
smaller. For breakfast, we split a bagel. Lunch is half a sandwich each,
maybe with a bit of fruit. Dinner is usually a smallish piece of meat and
some veg or a pasta / rice meat veg combo (a curry, Jambalya, carbonnera,
etc.). If we go out to lunch and eat a WHOLE BURGER, we tend to have cheese
and crackers for dinner. This morning we each had A pancake with A slice of
bacon. We are probably eating a quarter of what we used to eat.

Steve has probably lost 50 pounds, none of his clothes fit him anymore.
Mine's coming off a bit more slowly, but I put on a pair of shorts that I
wore when I was 28 and managed to button them up so that's a definite
improvement. The big test will be when we get back home and put on the
motorbike leathers, that should be really interesting!

We're not good at deprivation and there certainly hasn't been any of that at
all. The food we've been eating has been great (see the recipes), we've
just been eating less and less of it.

We're also sleeping like ROCKS! And what a treat that is. It's been years
since I've had a complete and deep night's sleep. If the anchorage isn't
rolly, we sleep at least 8 and sometimes 10 hours - what a difference from
my 6 with a 'two hour middle of the night reading so I can get back to sleep
interval'.

As we get further along and the supplies dwindle, I'm experimenting with
different combinations based upon what foods I have left. This one came out
particularly yummy.

Spaghetti Carbonnera (on Steriods)

1/2 a tomato
a handful of black olives
1/2 a cup of chopped very salty ham
one stick of celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 heaping tblsp of cream cheese
2-3 heaping tblsp of sour cream
Enough angel hair pasta for two

Boil the water for pasta and cook pasta while doing the following:

Fry the onion and celery in a little olive oil, when softened and lightly
browned add in tomato, olives and ham. Cook through. Mix in cream cheese
until it is melted and coats all the ingredients. Mix in sour cream and do
the same. Pour in the cooked pasta and toss all together.

I'm sure it fails all health guidelines, but I'm also sure it's healthier
than what you get from a package and you certainly have a better idea of
what's in it than what you get from a restaurant. Besides it was absolutely
delicious - enjoy!

What a Difference a Little Experience Makes!

In early December, we were waiting out some very strong winds in Cayo Costa,
similar in strength to what we're experiencing right now. It's funny how a
little experience makes all the difference in what you experience!

At Cayo Costa, we were worried and at times a bit scared. We didn't have a
clue whether the anchor would hold and if the winds would be too strong for
us to deal with. The wind was howling in the rigging and that kept us awake
at night. It was blowing about 30 knots. We were confined below because it
was cold, cold, cold! We really didn't relax for a minute, but were
constantly tensed for 'something' to happen. We were happy to be on our
way, but overwhelmed by the reality of 'being out there'.

At West Bay, five months later. Steve's lounging around recouperating and
reading up a storm and I'm blogging. We have half an ear listening to the
wind and for the anchor, but other than Steve stepping out on deck
periodically to 'feel' the anchor (resting his foot on the anchor chain to
feel if it is moving along the ocean floor) we're not paying a whole lot of
attention to it. We're not confined below because the enclosure keeps the
wind out, even when it is blowing 30 knots for days. We're paying
attention, but there's no anxiety in the air. During the day, we read,
write, amuse ourselves. At night, we have dinner in the cockpit and when we
go to bed, we sleep deeply.

It's totally different. What a difference a bit of experience makes!

You Can't Play at This

Starting to think about the boat learnings and boat projects for next year,
and one thing that comes to mind is you can't play at this. If we were
sailing up the coast of America with all its easily accessible products and
services, we could afford to be less rigourous about some things, we could
play at it a bit, but not out here. If there was a problem in the US, we'd
simply call Tow Boat US and they would promptly come out and bring us in to
some place where we could fix it. West Marines are on every corner, stuffed
to the rafters with the things you need to fix virtually any problem. If
you need parts, go online and, poof!, they appear on your doorstep the next
day.

Things are very different once you venture off the shores of American and
into the Bahamian islands. Haven't seen a West Marine since we left the US.
Many of the islands have just one or no houses on them. You're lucky to
find a food store, water or a fuel dock. They don't have Fedex (at least
not for sending out, it may be available for sending in). So you have to be
a lot more prepared than you would be if you had immediate access to
resources.

Take our starter motor that blew, for example. If Steve hadn't had a spare,
that means the engine wouldn't start. Now in the US that wouldn't be a huge
problem, but it's a rather larger issue here. There is no place to get a
starter motor here so you would have to order one and have it shipped over
here, where someone would put it on a little puddle jumper plane and fly it
to an island which has an airport. But what if there's no airport at the
island that you're at? Well, you have to get to an island with an airport.
But, wait a minute, I don't have a starter motor! See the problem?

Now you could argue that we have a sailboat and we could simply sail
wherever we need to and there is some merit in that, provided that the winds
are right and that there is no tricky narrow passage around some big rocks
or coral. There would be some other things going on, however. Without a
starter motor, the engine cannot run. And the engine powers EVERYTHING
else. No engine - no freezer and no refridgeration so if we're waiting days
for a starter motor, there goes all of the frozen and fridge food (and we
have no ice for drinks). No water pressure for water for the showers and no
pump to empty the showers afterwards. No power for the laptops (oh,
nnnooooo!!!). With a huge supply of canned goods, we wouldn't starve and we
could probably work around some of the others, but this does fall into
slightly more than a minor inconvenience.

Even something as simple as heading back home is fairly serious. Now you
could think, heck, it's only three days so let's use up all the food and use
up all the water, right? I don't think so. There's an awful lot of ocean
between here and there, it makes a lot of sense to have a month's worth of
both food and water standing by. Knock on wood, it should only take 3 days
(after we finally get going again), but what if it doesn't?

This year was about getting used to the boat and seeing if we liked living
on it, and if we could live on it for an extended length of time. There
have been many discussions assessing whether this was the right boat for us
or would something different suit us better. After those discussions and
sitting down to make up an 'ideal boat' list, we've found that with some
modifications this boat suits us just fine. With that decision made, now
Steve's putting together a long list of things that he wants to do to bring
the boat further up to snuff. We want reliable systems and redundancy in
those systems, just in case!

Unlike sailing the coast of America, out here, you can't play at this.

No Playmate!

Steve's pinched a nerve in his back and has been out of commission for the
past three days - no playmate for me! (That hugely heavy starter motor
probably did it!) He's been limited to lying down, reading and sitting up
for just long enough to inhale his food before having to lie back down
again. Luckily we're in the perfect anchorage (beautiful, good holding,
shops, fairly calm and it has wifi!) which has makes the required stillness
much easier on both of us.

One thing that comes to light during times like this is what a team
operation this is, how much of a team we are, and that actually we haven't
adequately prepared for when one of the team is out of commission.

This boat takes two people to run it. You could run it with one, but some
things would need to be set up differently than they are currently. One
reason I haven't moved the boat by myself is that with Steve out, I cannot
get the dingy (actually the motor) back on the boat by myself. There are
some things that it takes two of us to do.

There are also some things that I do not know how to do as I've discovered.
I didn't know how to light the barbeque, I don't know how to bring in the
anchor, I didn't know how to do the morning engine check. In our team,
Steve barbeques and is master of the engine domain. By only one of us
knowing how to do something, we have no duplication in skills, so we're not
prepared for one of us (particularly Steve) to be out of commission. We
have plenty of redundancy in systems (parts, tools, etc.), but not
redundancy in skills. Not insurmountable, but something we have to work on.
I now know how to work the barbeque.

(Btw, while I was barbequing chicken wings the other night, there was a six
foot shark hovering right next to the boat. He hung around for the longest
time. Do you think sharks like buffalo wings? Well, he wasn't getting any
of mine!)

This whole sailing experience forces you to become stronger as a team. You
have to work together to get most of the day to day business done. To run
to the store, it takes two to get the 'car' in the water and put its engine
and other bits (life jackets, gas tank, anchor) on. To move to a new
location, takes two, one to drive the boat and one to pull up the anchor and
arrange the sails. Even dinner takes two, one to cook and one to wash up.
There is this constant interaction and intermingling as we work together
which we did to a certain extent on land, but not anywhere near as much as
we do now. It forces you to be very careful about how you treat the other
person, we're often in high stress situations and it would be easy to take
that stress out on each other, but that isn't really very teamlike, is it?
We've learned a great deal about how to speak to each other so that we end a
day with a hug and a "Well done!" rather than stressed and shrieking at each
other like some folks we've heard about. So if nothing else from all of
this, we've strengthened how we work together and are a much better team for
it!

(But I'll like it much better when Steve is back to his normal self, the
engine room is not for me - and I miss my playmate!)

Enoughness

(Pardon if any of this is repeat - no wifi, no peeking back to see what's already been written!)

Came across a couple of really interesting quotes:

"In the context of losing wealth and job security, more people are choosing to seek the experience of being alive." (Attribute to follow)
"Real Wealth – What are you worth when you don't have any money?" (Anonymous)

These quotes remind me of two things – the Mexican Fisherman story and Steve's Concept of Enoughness

The Mexican Fisherman story comes from a book called The Four Hour Workweek and goes 'something' like this:

There once was a Mexican fisherman mending his nets on a dock A Harvard businessman walked up and and started talking with the fisherman and asked him what he did all day. The fisherman replied that he does a little fishing, spends time with his family, plays guitar with his friends in the evening.

The Harvard businessman rubbed his hands together and said, "I can really help you, have you never thought of expanding, getting a couple of boats and catching more fish?" The fisherman replied, "Then what would I do, Senor?"

The businessman said, "Well, if you got even more boats, you would catch even more fish and you could set up your own canning plant and really make some money!" "Yes, but then what would I do, Senor?" asked the fisherman.

The Harvard businessman was really rolling now, "Then you could expand even further! You could open a chain of fish restaurants and go public and make a fortune!" The fisherman thought about this for a moment and then asked, "But then what would I do, Senor?"

To which the Harvard businessman replied, "Well, then you could retire to a little village in Mexico, do a little fishing, spend time with your wife, play guitar with your friends…"

The key thing that strikes me in this story is that a critical step is missed when one pursues financial wealth without knowing specifically what you want it for. "I want to be rich." But what are you going to do when you have more money? Is it the same thing you do today? Well, then you don't need to work for years and years to be rich, because you don't need that much money. This is a missed step in the constant push for people to keep going until they are rich. If you are going to do the same thing or something that requires a similar (or lower) income, why waste your precious years working rather than living?

And this is exactly where Steve's Concept of Enoughness comes in. When he said he wanted to 'give up serious work' (i.e., retire), I was concerned about two things – what would we do all day when we didn't fill the time with work (we've managed to fill the time) and how could we do it, we weren't rich. That is when Steve introduced the Concept of Enoughness, he said, "Well, what would we do?" And we talked through and came up with a list of all the things we would love to do if we weren't working – walking trips, learn to dance, sailing, motorbiking, spend time with family, spend time with each other, etc., etc. As we went through the list, I realised that none of the things we were talking about required a fortune to be able to do them. They did require some money though and we had to do some work to get there. Essentially enoughness is understanding what it is you want to do and then working to get to the point where you have enough to do it, and working no longer.

I think there is a critical step that needs to take place before one works for years to become rich. This is not taught at school, the consumer culture doesn't share this little insight, and without it you will never know when to get off the treadmill. That first step is critical, defining - what is it that you want to do and how much is enough to do it?

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Are You..Retired?

This a very interesting question and one that we get asked a lot. Depending
on who asks the question the answer can range from:

"On sabbatical" - recruiters (always want to leave the door open!)
"Taking some time out" - business associates
"Retired" - the easy answer to the question when we don't want to be
bothered with a detailed explanation

But retirement isn't a word that covers what we're doing. The word
retirement covers an ending, a slow down, sleeping - to retire. That's not
this.

This is taking a period of time during one's peak and seeking out /
experiencing a specific lifestyle. Using the prime of your life to explore
a peak experience. This may last a set period of time or extend out
indefinitely. The word retirement as it is used today doesn't cover that.
Other language that is commonly used revolves around work, non-working,
implying that work is the center and the rest of life is what's left. In
many instances that is the case, but should it be? The focal point here is
not about not working, it is about living.

We figure that since we are in our prime (and that's defined by the
individual not the age!), we'll start out by calling this period Prime Time.
There's probably a better word out there, but we like this right now because
it's not about retiring and it has no relationship to work. Prime Timing -
using the prime of your life to explore a peak experience - that covers the
concept a bit better for me (it's still not a short answer though!).

Daily Dose of Depression

This is a rant. I glanced at a newspaper the other day and was reminded why
I don't read or watch the news - what a Daily Dose of Depression! No wonder
the US / UK economies are in a rut, everybody has been scared / depressed /
frightened into doing anything but sit around and commiserating about how
terrible it all is. It IS terrible, it sucks, it's a rotten place to be in,
we've all done daft things to get us in this place and it's going to take a
while before things get better (economically). There are many people who
have been seriously affected by the economy and the shenanagins that have
gone on in the marketplace. But I wonder how much worse it is because of a
constant, never-ending verbal and visual barrage of HOW BAD IT IS.

If I am around people who constantly talk about depressing things, how
terrible this is, woe is me, moan moan moan, I find myself getting depressed
and start focusing, looking for everything around me that is wrong. And
boy, if I look for things that are wrong, can I ever find them! The media
which we let (or even pay) to come into our homes is worse than the most
dreadfully depressing person we know - you know, the one that when you see
him walking down the street, you cross to avoid talking to him; the one who
sucks the life out of a room. If the media were a person, would you spend
time with him or would you cross the road to get away from him?

There are toxic people in this world, people who make you feel bad, who skew
your perspective, damage your confidence, spread rumors and inuendos, and
lie to you. If the media were a person, would any of these apply to him?

It would be fine if news stories were accurate, well-researched and
fact-based, but they are often just that - stories. Bits and pieces of
unverified data spun with someone's personal opinion and then
sensationalised even further for ratings purposes.

There are plenty of sources available now via the Internet which give you a
more accurate, unspun view of what is happening. The data that the media
picks and chooses bits of is available in its complete form on the web,
usually providing a very different 'story' than the one that is presented on
the screen or the page.

Does the focus have to always be on the negative? There are just as many
positive things that happen on a daily basis, but unfortunately those don't
improve ratings or sell papers so we don't see them. I need a more objective view which
looks at the positives which are happening along with the negatives. One
study I looked at found that the average amount of positive news on American
TV stations ABC, CBS and NBC was 25.1 per cent. This is not to say that the
rest is negative. Almost half, 46.8 per cent, was found to be negative. The
other 28.1 per cent they called "indeterminable." How much press is given
to the positive impact of the drop in interest rates and the resulting drop
in mortgage payments (tens to hundreds of pounds per month)? How much focus
is there on people who are getting ahead in this economy or using this time
to discover other things of value besides the economy? How many stories are
there about people who are reconnecting with family or friends, discovering
talents that they never had time for, or activities / interests that they
never explored?

Like I said, I don't read the paper / watch the news and generally I'm
pretty positive about things. A question I do get is, "How do you stay
informed, what if something happens?" I can catch up on all the news in a
two month period usually by reading one day's paper or having a quick skim
of the news sites, but I miss out on two months of repititious gloom and
doom. And if something really big happens, somebody will always tell you or
it will be posted on one of the blogs I read. One site that offers a more
positive view is http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

Not being Pollyanna-ish or putting my head in the sand, but I think I'll
pass on the Daily Dose of Depression...

The Good Consumer

A pseudo government propaganda video on being a 'good consumer'. Does any of this sound familiar?

The Good Consumer

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oK_7ju0W8HA

From Zen Habits:

"What’s consumerism? Basically, equating happiness with material goods. Buying in order to bring happiness and solve problems. Spending more and more — and earning more and more to support the spending — in order to realize the dreams given to us by advertising and a consumerist society.
It’s good for the economy but bad for the individual. We end up in an endless cycle of spending and debt and working more and more, and end up with lives filled with goods but empty of meaning and happiness."

Jim, From the Boat Next Door

Our neighbor at the marina is Jim who lives on a boat he has been fixing up during all the time we have been at the marina. He's very quiet, but nice and always asks about our plans and offers to catch or hold a rope as we pull in or out of the slip.

When we saw Jim this trip, we both thought he looked different. It turns out he has lung cancer which has spread and now he also has a brain tumour. Although he was up and about when we first got there, he was taken to the hospital a few days ago. Jim won't be finishing his boat or going sailing.

He and Steve had a chat one afternoon while Steve was working on our boat. He asked about our plans and what Steve was doing. His message, 'Forget all that stuff and get out there.' I think we'll pay attention...

Major Life Change (Again)

In thinking and talking about this change we are about to embark on, I've
realised that this isn't the first for us. Although folks who know us know
we tend to operate in a constant state of change, both at work and at home.
At work, well, we do major change programmes and when the change is gone, we
move on. At home, different hotels during the week and different places on
the weekends. Holidays almost always in different places. The saying that
change is a constant rings true for us.

Comfort with different levels of change varies by individual. For me the
above is what I would consider constant, but low level change. In Six Sigma
terms it would be called common cause variation, a certain level of constant
variation which occurs within the system (of our lives). What we are about
to experience, I would call special cause variation or a significant,
unusual level of variation caused by a significant occurrance within the
system - we're about to toss our consistent, fairly predictable (albeit
constantly changing) lives up into the air. We've finished jobs, rented out
property and are moving to a sailboat - if that's not a major life change, I
don't know what is!

But, in thinking about this, it isn't the first time either one of us has
done this. In 1993, I started a home business, sold the house in Maine and
moved to Clearwater - all worldly goods in a U-Haul and no home lined up.
Left the States in 2002, with Jess (it was her idea, by the way) and moved
to England, not knowing a soul and all worldly goods in 18 2x2 cardboard
boxes - it was the best thing I ever did. Steve has had similar
experiences.

Changing my life (or lifestyle) in a major way has been incredibly positive
and that's why when people ask, "Are you excited?" and, "Are you nervous?" I
can answer both with a big YES! The nerves are mostly from worrying about
forgetting things (like my vitamins sitting on the counter up North (sigh)).
And it is exciting, because I know how great it can be.



And in this economy - bonkers!