March 10, 2022

Two months in the boatyard combined with all that life continued to throw at us had taken its toll. It was the first days of August and our mast was finally going back in. We had less than two days left of our four weeks of vacation with the kids and mentally, neither Charles nor I could spend another minute in the boatyard. As soon as our mast was installed and secure, we headed sail-less for Clipper Cove on Treasure Island to give the kids one final fun boat day on the bay since it would be their last.

We anchored close to the beach and Charles and Isaac got the rope swing set up. We spent the next day and a half playing in the water, climbing the mast, kayaking, reading in hammocks, exploring and digging at the beach. Some of us did most of these activities, while others spent their time focused primarily on one,… whilst in a hammock, 😉. I feel it necessary to mention that, without a mast, we have had no hammocks, for two months, no hammocks, nada, none. So, my hammock and I had a lot of catching up to do.

It was bittersweet dropping the kids at Jack London Square in Oakland. We would be seeing them much less frequently but we would finally be living the lives we (us and the kids!) wanted. It has been Charles’ dream for over 30 years to take his family sailing and show them the world. The year that trip was scheduled to happen, 2014, was the year that I met Charles. At that point he had been divorced for over two years and his dream was now a vague hazy notion in a very distant future.

For seven more years his dream (which was now our dream), was put on hold as we tried to find a path forward that would include some aspect of the future we wanted for the kids and for ourselves. In the mean time, we worked on getting the boat ready to cross oceans, gradually checking off the big things: A haul-out to get our hull checked and painted, and to have our compromised rudder rebuilt; a re-designed and custom-built auto-pilot arm to replace the woefully weak one that broke years prior but took a long time to get to the top of the “Fix List” because we could sail without it; a new anchor chain to replace the loops of rust that, although they often got caught in the windlass or on each other, had somehow managed to hold us in place and kept our anchor attached. The last thing left to do was the mast.

As we continued to make forward progress towards cruising, Charles was getting frustrated by the lack of agreement about the kids’ futures. There were many, many discussions with their mom that all took a lot of time, and sometimes money, but all conversations ended exactly where they had begun. Charles’ hopes were getting buried in the grind of everyday life, and never-ending battles over minutia. His days involved a lengthy commute to a job he no longer found inspiring or fulfilling, and a relentless and controlling ex who consumed far too much of his time. Adding to that, the cost of living in the Bay Area was increasing at a much faster pace than our incomes, and the pandemic was about to strike.

Prior to the pandemic, Charles and I had been commuting hours each way daily. The pandemic made us realize the insanity of this and helped us to see that we needed to make a dramatic change. We needed to start living for now, not for a future that we hoped would someday come. With the loss of my income due to pandemic layoffs, we could no longer afford to live at a dock in the Bay Area. All signs kept pointing to leaving.

The biggest thing that helped psychologically, was knowing that the kids were as excited as we were. They were bummed that they would see us less frequently (we were struggling much more with this than they were) but, at 11 and 13 years old they were so ready to stretch their stifled wings and start travelling to new places and experiencing new things. Actually living the cruising life rather than just hearing us talk about it all the time.

We knew how important it was for the kids to see us succeed, to see us stand up and push past any barriers that got in our way. They have witnessed and shared in our struggle and in doing so, have begun to find their own voices and have begun standing up for themselves. Giving up now would have sent them a terrible message.

As we headed out, sans kids, under the Bay Bridge (this time for the ACTUAL last time) our melancholy mood was interrupted by a flock of confused pelicans that kept getting goosed by our rigging. As you can tell by the video, our gloomy mood was broken. Thanks silly pelicans for reminding us to look around, even when the going gets tough, there is always some kind of joy to be found.

We spent another night anchored in Clipper Cove before heading back to the boatyard…wait, what? Nooooooooo, you said we were out of the boatyard! Well, it was time to turn our powerboat back into a sailboat by getting at least one of our three sails back on, and it turns out, this is easier to do when you are tied to a dock and not rocking. But Charles assured me that I would not begin another day by waking up in a boatyard.

As usual, Charles did not disappoint. Thankfully he is an early riser and by the time I awoke the next morning we were coming out of the Richmond Channel and were headed across the bay towards Sausalito. We had one of three sails on, and that one was missing its battens, but it was on and that is what mattered. With our batten-less mainsail in place we did one last sail along the Sausalito waterfront, to the dock where we stayed with Mom, Suzanne and Chico that time. We filled up on water and fuel, emptied our holding tank, and with a wistful wave and a call of ‘fair winds and following seas!’ from the fuel dock attendant, we were off!

We were mentally and physically drained but we were finally on our way. Rather than euphoria and excitement, we felt battered and bruised, running on sheer determination and momentum. In a cloud of desperation we were fleeing, leaving behind a bevy of unpleasantness and (between the boatyard and the divorce-that-never-ends) a mountain of unanticipated debt. But, by literally having nothing left to stay for, it made it easier for us to leave, and so leave we did.

We pointed our bow towards the Golden Gate Bridge and at 10:40am on August 3, 2021 we passed under her iconic red span and headed out to sea. It felt more “Thelma and Louise” than Mary Tyler Moore, with our foot on the ‘gas pedal’ making a desperate (6.5-7 knot) escape from a life we no longer wanted. It was surreal, it felt like every other time we had gone out under this bridge, except this time, we weren’t coming back. It almost wasn’t believable. An old, restrictive skin was finally cracking and shedding, exposing tender and uncertain new growth. We were ready to shed it and leave it behind.

Once out of the gate, we quickly picked up an escort of 2-3 dolphins to get us underway, followed by a large, dispersed flock of shrieking diving birds that sounded like people in distress. Thankfully, in our exhausted and shell-shocked state, looking in the direction of shrieking and verifying it came from a water bird, would be the most stressful part of our day. As we finally made our much-dreamed-about left-hand-turn, our mainsail filled and we were on our way, headed south for Half Moon Bay.

Looking back now, much of this time is a hazy blur of uncertainty and darkness. We made it through by having faith in ourselves that we were capable of doing this, as well as faith in each other. We put our blinders on, kept our heads down and just kept putting one foot in front of the other, step-by-step. We had to, we had come too far and fought too hard to give up now. Onwards!