We quit our jobs to sail the caribbean! And so the adventure begins…

We are letting our dreams set sail.  Both literally and figuratively.

We’re planning to cruise south to the Bahamas + Caribbean, island hopping along the way for the next year (or so).  Don’t worry, Oliver is coming too!

Jereme and I officially put in our notice at work earlier this week.  I suppose this whole thing is legit now.  😉

Let me just tell ya, it feels pretty.freaking.amazing.  We’ve decided to wake up and live.  While we’re young.

Awhile back, a spark ignited for us.  We decided to give up staring at computer screens for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week at our corporate jobs, and instead experience a little more while we can.  Why wait until we’re retired to live it up?

Basically, we’re simplifying. We’re moving onto our 37ft. sailboat with way less “stuff” than we’re accustomed to.  And traveling by boat from island to island in the (eastern) Caribbean — think St. Lucia, Anguilla, USVI’s, Martinique, etc. etc.  And there is not a morsel of my being that suspects we will ever regret this decision.

Live, love, travel, and don’t be sorry, right?  We are enjoying life NOW, since as they say, “this is not a rehearsal.”

In the past month or two, we’ve pretty much sold off nearly all of our worldy posessions. We’ve literally whittled down an entire 3-bedroom, 2-bath home into one small walk-in closet.  Don’t even ask me how that was possible, but we did it.  We’ve also rented out our house and have been living three blocks over at Jereme’s parents’ second home since November (give us a shout if you need our new addy).  And we’ve been working our little butts off to save as much $ as we can.

And for those of you who may think we’ve lost our minds (and you certainly could be right), this isn’t something we decided on a whim.  This dream is three-plus years in the making.

We’ve been researching, planning, saving, working, and doing everything in our being to make this a reality.  We weren’t ever sure our dream would come true, so we’ve stayed pretty tight-lipped about it until now. More than anything, we didn’t want our friends and family to worry or doubt us while we figured it all out.  And now that we’ve offiically let the cat out of the bag (where did that saying come from btw?), everyone has been amazingly supportive.

But believe me, there is a TON that has gone into making this a reality. And it’s certainly not as easy as just buying a boat and throwing up the sails. If it were, we would have set sail years ago. You wouldn’t even believe everything that has gone into making this dream come true…

• First we had to learn to sail. Jereme took the ASA courses, and I’m constantly learning from him. And then there’s anchoring and docking, and lots of other fun stuff. The basics really.  And sailing is the easy part of this whole adventure.
• Then we had to buy a boat. That only took two years of searching, learning the market, talking about buying a boat, calculating what it would cost, searching a ton more, talking about it lots more, and then we finally bit the bullet. Back in March, we found our perfect boat.
• Over the past year, Jereme has pretty much become a certified boat mechanic and electrician.  For you non-sailors, you can’t even begin to imagine the intricate systems he’s had to learn and maintain.
• He’s also a bonafide handyman. But we already knew that. Installing things like our custom water tank, replumbing the head from top to bottom, (soon to be) installing solar panels, and successfully completing an exhausting list of boat projects to get the boat in ship shape for our big “cruise.”
• Know anything about reading nautical charts?  Neither did we!  But we’re learning. Slowly.
• How about all the different islands/countries in the bahamas, caribbean, and south america (and beyond) and each of their rules and regulations on importing (i.e. traveling with) a pet. I’ve spent countless hours making sure we have our i’s dotted and t’s crossed when it comes to traveling with Oliver. There is no way in hell I will let anything happen to him in one of these places or have him quarantined (which is why we will be selectively skipping certain countries because they require pet quarantines of anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months – not happening).
• How about finances? How the heck can we just quit our jobs and sail off into the sunset without a steady paycheck coming in the door. Well, we’ve been working on that part too for awhile now. Luckily, we’re DINKS (dual income, no kids — thanks Aubri for the acronym). We have ZERO debt (other than the mortgage – and we’ve got that covered with renters) and have saved our little butts off so that we can comfortably cruise for at least a year, but hopefully longer.

And that’s just scratching the surface!

We know that we still have a ton to learn and figure out along the way. There is no finite plan carved in stone. But that’s the beauty of it.

We have no agenda, no schedule, no rules.  We’re ready to see new places, meet new faces, and learn a ton along the way, while soaking up every single second of our little adventure.

And we’d love for anyone to join us along the way. Wanna hop a flight to some exotic island in the Caribbean for a week or two?  Visitors are always welcome aboard s/v LAHO. Give us a shout anytime!

>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing.

…Learn more about us and our sailing adventures.