The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing.

~Elizabeth Bishop

Achieving a dream isn’t always easy. Just because you are doing something you love doesn’t mean that everything will fall into place. Sometimes it takes more than just hard work and elbow grease. In the past, whenever I have hit a bump in the road, I always try to find a positive outcome. If what I’m doing isn’t working, isn’t going to work, then it’s important to come up with a new solution that will.

Lately I’ve been using the saying, “Hindsight is 20/20.” It seems to sum up my feelings on the past few weeks pretty accurately. If we had only known this or spent more time on that, or worked a bit longer to save more, things might have been different, but it’s important to remember that, from the beginning, this sailing trip was a huge undertaking.

First of all, Brian bought an old boat, which needed more fixing up than anticipated. He’s poured so much money into fixing it up (albeit on a shoestring) that there is little left for the travel adventure we hoped for. Had we just waited a year, saved money first, and bought a slightly nicer boat for a little higher price, we might have been able to leave on time and with way less work. Of course might is the keyword in that sentence. Or we could have just bought a plane ticket and gone backpacking.

But the important thing to remember at this point is that the original goal was not just to go cruising or even just to travel to Central America, but it started with fixing up an old boat. Brian’s dream has been to own his own cruising-capable sailboat and travel with it to places off the beaten track. In addition, he has also contemplated attending boat building school in the past, learning how to build and design them. In this sense, our experience over the past few years has been a crash course for him in boat maintenance. He has been forced to review each system and learn all of the ins and outs of his boat. This is a good thing. He’s learned and is learning so much.

This past week has been difficult and tiring for both of us. I feel that the boat is so close to being in great shape and ready to take off, but there are still projects to be done. We’ve poured about 250 hours of labor into the boat over the past three weeks at the boat yard and countless hours over the past two years. I’ve put up with living on a project boat for almost a year now and recently put my art practice on hold to put in my share of the labor.

Boats are expensive to maintain and upkeep, but we planned for that. Still we’ve underestimated a few things, which has left us in a predicament. Our epic adventure seems to be shrinking into a smaller endeavor. At this point, I think we will both be happy if we can just make it down to the Bahamas, but we are researching more creative solutions to make this trip happen with all its intended glory. We’re both stubborn and determined to make it work, so it’s time to get creative. Any interesting work/travel opportunity suggestions are welcome at this point!