First let's deal with the elephant in the room - the number of days remaining changed. This is due to an alteration on the (assumed!) day that the race will start in 2021. I'm still not sure what day it will start, so I might need to adjust it again at some point. I promise only one more adjustment, which will happen when I know the actual date. Right now I'm assuming the first Sunday in September, which is the day that this (2019) year's race will start.
I received the contract from Clipper Ventures, the people running the round the world race. I had thought it was "real" the day I sent in my application, and I've been waiting, eagerly for this day, the day that everything gets nailed down. Now I find myself curiously hesitant. I'm excited, yes. I'm also a bit frightened by the enormity of the adventure. And, of course, the financial commitment is somewhat staggering.
The war rages back and forth in my head. On the one hand, this is an adventure and a challenge, something I can look back on and say, "ok, THAT was a test of who I am!" On the other hand, there's the worries. What if something happens? Not only to me, but what if, for example, Anne or my father or my brother, or someone in Anne's family takes seriously sick and I'm out in the middle of the ocean.
Being retired means we're now living on our investments and savings. Our cash savings will be rather dented by this. It's about 2 year's worth of our projected cost of living, in addition to our normal cost of living. I will need to do something to help defray that cost, but that cuts into other things that I need to do as well.
I do have questions for the Clipper people about parts of the contract, and I've sent those off to them today. In addition, we've scheduled a conference with our investment managers to talk about ways of funding the race, so I won't be signing the contract until Thursday at the earliest. Still, it's in my hands now. It's becoming "realer and realer". Am I ready for this?
Also the trip down the West Coast of the U.S. is fast approaching. I've already made my return flight reservations from San Diego and started looking into the reservation to go back to San Diego for the second part. I'm deep into the planning of what to bring as I'm limited not only by what I can fit onto the boat, but also by what I can bring down to Seattle with me. I'll be traveling from Canada to Seattle by Bus and then either taxi or Uber and that means I have to manhandle the stuff around between those conveyances. It's not like I'll have my car with me and can just shuttle stuff between the car and the boat.
So decisions have to be made, trade-offs. Of course I'll want my electronic navigation, but I can probably leave my dividers and plotter and sextant behind - if there will be a sextant and tables aboard. There's the usual stuff such as PFD. I left a sleeping bag and a few other items aboard the boat from the last training cruise, so I don't need to bring those down, but how many pairs of pants? how many underwear? How much warm clothing? A bathing suit? A towel, of course, and toiletries, how many shirts and undershirts? A pot of honey. Some medical equipment. My fids? Cell phone and charger, second external GPS and iPad just in case? What about a journal in case I can't recharge the iPad (it needs to be charged every day, sometimes twice per day, if I'm using it heavily).
Oh, and my laptop to do video editing when we're in port - and to post things online.
Can't forget the Teddy Bear!
American credit card too!
Medical gear and medical records of the crew (just in case). Fortunately the boat has pretty good MFA gear, but there are a couple of things I'd like to have like a good pair of shears and a set of forceps. We can use butterflies to substitute for sutures, so don't need a suture kit.
What about whipping line in case we need to splice lines together?
AAAARGH, Pack and repack, in my head so far. Sometime in August I'll start actually physically packing to see how much space it all takes up.
Add new comment