Vagabonds and gypsies

1º 42.404s 126º 29.286w

Wed May 01 2019

We bailed out of our full time working lives in 2014. Sold the house, sold the cars, sold the furniture and all the knick knack dust collectors. Craigslist is your friend! What didn’t sell we gave to friends or took to a shop in Scottsdale called White Dove. It’s a it like a Goodwill, except the proceeds support Hospice of the Valley. That’s where our close friend Doug Holton spent his last days dying of cancer. His sons were able to be at his side and cook for him, and we could visit anytime we wanted. It was compasionate and dignified and tragic all at once.

Now when we visit old friends in the Phoenix area, we get these odd deja vu feelings when we spot a familiar garden sculpture or sit on our old couch. If not enjoying the hospitality of old friends we get a hotel or Air B&B.

When we meet new people, they invariably ask “where is home”? It’s a confusing question to answer, but we tell them we live on a boat, and wherever she is moored, that’s home. Then they ask, “yes, but where’s your base”? We sigh, and explain that we have a mail forwarding service in Florida, but since leaving Phoenix almost five years ago, we have no base.

We’re travelers, wandering around mother Earth to experience all that this big watery world has to offer. The great thing about living on a little boat is that if you decide you don’t like the neighborhood you can just weigh anchor and leave. When we were dirt dwellers, if the neighbor was an asshole we simply had to put up with it. Not anymore.

When we need a break from living on this little boat we secure her in a marina or dry land storage and we explore on land. Mexico has some wonderful old colonial cities to visit as well as ancient ruins - pyramids and that sort of thing. We still want to take the train to copper canyon, and visit Morelia while the Monarch butterflies are there by the millions. Maybe someday.

Right now it’s time to explore French Polynesia, then move on to Fiji, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, New Zealand. Who knows? Friends ask us what our schedule is, where we might be on a certain date in case they can break loose for a visit and spring for an airplane ticket. We simply can’t tell them; the best we can do is forecast a region of the world where we might be bobbing around. It seems to confuse folks. Most people plan and execute to the plan. They’ve got a schedule.

Our plan is to go somewhere interesting and explore and experience the culture until it isn’t fun, or until we’d rather be somewhere else new and wonderful, or until we have to leave because of tourist visa limitations. Isabel has a UK passport and I’m her spouse, so we should be able to get long stay visas in French Polynesia and if we’re having fun, perhaps stay for a couple years or more.

But we don’t really know, and we’re OK with that.

Our lifestyle involves a level of insecurity and instability that is way outside the comfort zone of most humans. Sometimes we feel a little destabilized ourselves, but we take a deep breath and carry on.

Life is short, and you only get one shot to get it right. We’re not wasting any time.