But really, where are we?

OK, OK, enough pretty pictures… But really, where are we? Well, all the pictures are just trying to catch us up. Chris and I were in Berkeley until May this year when we headed to Moab for a private river trip on the Dolores River with Chris’ dad. From there, Chris went to McCall, Idaho to his Canyons family and Shawn to Jensen, Utah for a summer as an Outward Bound Instructor. We spent three months solid on lots of rivers and cut the river season short to get back to the Bay and start this sailing adventure. We’ve been back a month and are just now getting close to sailing…

It started with us planning a post river season Selway River trip. Hey, you should be proud of us, we decided against it mostly because we’d cut our season short to get on with the sailing dream- not to take more private river trips (though, maybe that’s not such a bad idea for future seasons…) Anyway, we headed back to Berkeley in mid-August and found our lease was up on the storage unit. So, since our return we’ve implemented the "storage unit liquidation" that has been on our “to do” list for years. Wow, it was traumatic but at the same time, it was a great lesson in nonattachment. And a month later, we’ve got it down to a pile of media mail and approximately one Pepe car load. That is except a 33-foot sailboat filled to the gunnels!

Now we can focus on the boat. Only a few more projects (how many times will we say that?) and trips to the east coast, LA, Phoenix and Corvallis for weddings, last minute visits and gear stowage- then we are sailing. Seriously, we’ve been a bit hesitant to set a date, but October 15th is it, we’re sailing. We won’t know what that means exactly until then, but what we have realized is that we’ve actually been “doing” this sailing adventure for a long time now. This preparation period is part of it, it’s just taking a bit (okay a lot) longer than we initially expected. A month from now, the three of us (don’t forget Grizzly) will be here in the Berkeley Marina with no storage unit, no car, no further responsibilities, and a fully-loaded-cruise-ready sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?

We hope that this blog will serve as a general update for all of you that care about where in the world we are and what adventures we’ve been having. You can partake too- by checking the blog, e-mailing, writing letters, hamming with us or even showing up in whatever exotic port Tao is near. We’d love to share the adventures.