Alive And Kicking

Hi Everyone!

We still exist. We are still sailing, and we are having a great time. We are currently exploring Puerto Rico. In fact, as of February 28, we crossed the 7th anniversary of our cast off date.

Last year, we sailed across the South Atlantic from Namibia making stops in St. Helena, Brazil, and Grenada in the Caribbean. We took some time to visit family for the holidays and then returned to Sonrisa to sail to Puerto Rico. Next, the Dominican Republic. I keep intending to write and post about all of this, but it hasn’t worked out. I’ve been working a “real job,” instead.

Working full-time from Sonrisa while helping Andrew cross the South Atlantic Ocean is no joke. While any sensible person would know this, I can confirm trying to combine these two lives demands advanced-level schedule planning skills. It is something I have had to grow and stretch to meet. (See previous posts on the Namibia Internet Tour!) At times it has been stressful. Neither ocean passage-making or lawyering is something you can bail out of on a whim, lest you violate your ethics obligations or leave your handsome captain adrift at sea. I've had to prioritize away from the blog.

I’ve had a few people reach out to me by email, Facebook, or other modes of contact checking in: “how are you?” One friend actually wondered if we were dead. Everyone has questions about the state of the Oddgodfrey Ship! But, since I’m practicing law again, I can only offer that most unsatisfactory lawyer-approved response to every question ever asked: “It depends.” or if I’m feeling really confident: “maybe”.

Are We Off Course? It Depends.

The Type-A among us wonder: “Are the Oddgodfreys losing the plot? They had a goal to sail around the world, and every time I check the blog there is another reason to dilly-dally here or there. Wouldn’t it be easier to focus, get this sailing trip done, and get back to work on land like normal, sensible people?”

I wonder this myself every now and then. But, I take my morning paddle board around the anchorage, settle in for my workday hours until nightfall, then we head out to enjoy Tuesday evening at our favorite live music cafe in Natal, Brazil. There, I think “what an interesting, unexpected life this is.”

If you’ve been reading the blog from the beginning, you’ll remember the call of the question way back when was:

What will this trip make of us? And will it be worth it in the end?

I think there is consensus that building a family, a home, and a career is generally “worth it in the end.” Most people do it, and all reports say they find it extremely challenging and extremely rewarding. Apparently, we are Type-A Risk Seekers (a strange combination, I know.) We wanted to try something that might not be worth it in the end. Throw away two solid careers, sell our house with established garden, leave the piano behind and go to sea. What in the world happens next? The “unknown territory” has always been part of the fun.

So, while we tried to create backstops and rescue points for ourselves, we’ve always known this trip to be a grand experiment. When we left, we received going away presents from several “Old Salts” in the form of “advice to live by.” Included in that list of advice was:

Never sail on a schedule.

Follow the wind shifts.

The first piece of advice has kept us alive and uninjured. The second piece of advice has assured us “travel magic” experiences we would have missed if we had been “keeping to the plan.” If I am looking for how this trip has changed me, it relates to this. Andrew and I have always found value in driving toward a major goal; this trip has taught me that there is also value in straying off course. Now I know, some of the best opportunities present themselves while wandering the side-paths near and around the main freeway of a plan. If we were to navigate a strict course, we would be limited to the locations we chose in a less knowledgeable state.

So, the answer to the question “are we off course or on course” depends on our chosen objective. If you take our original, stated intent “sail around the world in five years, return to our prior lives, and pick up where we left off” we are sorely off course. However, if you drive deeper into the questions surrounding why we wanted to sail around the world, the answer is different.

• We are making a bigger piece of the world our own.

• We are challenging our assumptions about nearly everything.

• We are building a happy life filled with freedom and exploration.

When you frame it this way, it’s clear we are directly on course. And worse, returning to land may actually be “off course”. So, now what?

Are we ever going back to land? It Depends

When I gave my notice at my prior gig, my boss said “I’m afraid I’m never going to see you again!” Not because he thought we might die, but because he figured we would not want to return. Maybe he’d read all those seagoing tales of ship captains married to the sea.

Back then I said, “No! Surely, not. It’s a finite adventure, and then we will return.”

I meant it, too.

But, here we are.

There remains about a million opportunities yet to explore on the U.S. East Coast, Europe, and South/Central America that we long to see before hanging up our sailing gloves. And, we are currently well positioned to enjoy that exploration for years into the future. If we finish our circumnavigation now, we will have to sail through the Panama canal, essentially locking ourselves out of all the places we can go on this East Side of the canal. Why would we do that just to cross an imaginary, self-imposed finish line? But, it’s a lot of sailing to keep exploring over here. Europe means crossing the Atlantic at least twice more.

Are we really up for all that sailing? It Depends.

The answer to this question truly is: I don’t know. I’m passage tired. Andrew might even be passage tired.

Since trying to layer on a money-making endeavor, the speed at which we can reasonably enjoy travel and exploration has slowed to a crawl. I cannot complete a passage, catch up work, prepare work for the next passage, and explore the place we just arrived in the span of a few weeks like we used to do. It’s not realistic. It exhausts me when I try. I know this, and so our path across the South Atlantic took us to fewer stops at which we stayed longer than usual.

In addition, there were aspects of the trip I agreed to tolerate believing that it would be “temporary” for the five years we were out sailing. Specifically, our schedule for family visits turned out to be about two months every year-and-a-half. If this life is a long-term plan, then we need adjust the frequency of time we visit home - further slowing our progress toward completion of a circumnavigation.

This necessary change in process constantly pushes the “are we doing this right?” or “are we doing enough?” or “are we falling behind?” buttons so prevalent in the American psyche.

Will I keep writing the Blog? It Depends.

Life feels a bit like a video game from my childhood. We knock down a “challenge” only to walk a few more feet down the path to find another, new challenge. Maybe the challenge is to pick up coins, maybe the challenge is to jump over a hurdle, battle a monster, or eat a mushroom and grow tall. You never really know what’s next unless you’ve played the game before. Each level is similar to the last, but always seems to have an added layer of complication.

During one of my sunset paddle board sessions in Carriacou, Grenada, I realized this is the first time I’ve tried to combine everything (lawyering, sailing, writing) at the furthest extension of my skillset for each. Previously, one of the three would take priority, with the other two being practiced in some lower priority or wholly (but temporarily) abandoned. This process chart came clear to me:

• Level 1: Law School / Sailing Dreamer / Writing Dreamer

• Level 2: Baby Lawyer / Learning to Sail / Brief Writer

• Level 3: Practicing Lawyer / Weekend Lake Sailor / Brief Writer

• Level 4: Law Firm Partner / Weekend Ocean Sailor / Brief Writer

• Level 5: Ocean Sailor / Blog Writer / Children’s’ Book Author / Dreaming Novelist

• Level 6: Ocean Sailor / Blog Writer / Business Legal Consultant

• Level 7: Ocean Sailor / Practicing Lawyer

• Level 8: Ocean Sailor / Practicing Lawyer / Law Firm Leadership

• Proposed Level 9: Ocean Sailor / Practicing Lawyer / Law Firm Leadership / Blog Writer

Everyone goes through these phases in their life. Often it’s balancing career with raising children; or career and artwork; career and athletic goals; career and dream chasing. When we focus on our practices and learn to do the things we care about most better, over time, it becomes possible to layer them atop one another. Just as we get into a comfort zone, life has this pesky way of throwing at you an “offer you cannot refuse.” And so, you stretch and grow, try a bit harder, work a bit smarter, and suddenly you are doing something you would have previously said to be impossible.

I’m well into this territory. I never thought I could practice law and sail oceans, too.

So, can LEvel 9 Be Achieved? Maybe.

This year, we’ve been experimenting how to manage time. We prioritize coverage of our safety and our responsibilities. We’ve prioritized some time with family next. We are experimenting with a reasonable and achievable balance. We’ve been analyzing what we are willing to give up, and what is non-negotiable. We’ve been designing better systems to live and work on an ocean going boat. Technology is helping, adding new or reviving old skills is also useful. We are identifying our limits, and we are opening our minds to doing things a different way. Instead of trying to sail everywhere we can, we are going fewer places and enjoying them for longer. The blog, if it survives, will need to be redesigned, too.

Writing in this narrative flow with photographs hand selected and individually uploaded to match the story takes between 10-15 hours per blog post. This is time and mental bandwidth I can’t continue forward with while trying to work and sail, too. So, Andrew and I have been brain storming new ideas. Maybe, we’ll give it a shot.

I really do enjoy telling the story of this circumnavigation. It makes the remote ocean feel less lonely when I think there is someone out there who might enjoy reading something about “this” - whatever “this” happens to be in the moment. You really do sail with me, I’m always writing stories for you inside my head even if I can’t manage to get it down on cyber-paper in a timely fashion.

Thanks for caring and coming along for the ride.