June | 2016 | Sailing Clarity

Aaron, at the nav station in our new boat. We will get back here! So many things to do before we get back here…

A week from today, we will no longer have a physical address. It seems like a small thing, even typing it – words just don’t do it justice.

We are required to be out of our temporary residence midday on June 30th, as the owner found new renters, so it’s back to living in boxes for the moment as we make our final packing push. Also, we should fully close on the new boat on Monday. Nothing like bringing things down to the wire!

When Aaron and I put this plan in motion, we knew it would not be easy, and we knew there were a lot of moving parts that needed to fall into place. Truthfully, this has been so much harder than we thought. And not the emotional challenges of leaving our life here – we haven’t even had time for those to sink in yet. I mean the sheer amount of things that have to get done, decisions that have to be made, timelines that have to be met for all of the elements to line up accordingly.

In addition to caring for Claire, my work deadlines and Aaron’s last days at the office, here are just a few of the other things we’ve been tackling in our “spare time”:

Survey on the new boat
Final negotiations on the boat
Boat registration – both stateside and through the Coast Guard
Boat loan
Boat insurance – a herculean task, given that, unlike with Clarity, we now have to list ourselves as liveaboards and file additional paperwork that outlines our whereabouts and storm plan readiness for hurricane season
Boat storage until we arrive in Florida
Tentative plan for hurricane season
Address change for government purposes (taxes, healthcare)
Updating all continuing expenses and accounts to paperless
Figuring out health insurance, as we will no longer be on Aaron’s company plan
Selling both cars
Final push to donate or sell things and furniture we’re not storing or taking with us
Researching a cost-effective storage unit for our remaining items
Scheduling a truck for the move
Final packing for long-term storage
Final packing for things coming with us to the boat

Last trip to our yacht club! Before all of the “firsts” of this new chapter, we have all of the “lasts” of the old.

And there are about a million more. There’s seldom been a day in the last month that Aaron wasn’t on the phone by 7 a.m., keeping the boat deal moving forward, and we haven’t been at our computers until midnight or later, trying to make headway on the to-do list. We are beyond tired. We are zombies.

I’ll detail our next steps more once we’ve passed the huge hurdle that is this coming week, but generally, we move out on the 30th and spend roughly two weeks visiting family throughout the Midwest. Then we rent a van, load in our boxes for the boat, and start the journey to West Palm Beach, Fla., where our boat is currently luxuriating in a slip, waiting for us. We move aboard, settle in some, and then sail her up to South Carolina to wait out hurricane season. Then, we head back south and come December or January, we make the jump to the Caribbean.

Right now, as I sit at my desk that’s surrounded by boxes, with an inbox full of “urgent needs” for boat plans to keep moving forward, island time seems like a million years from now. Aaron put it best yesterday when he said the finish line is near, but for a long time now, we’ve been putting in all of the work with no payout.

The chorus of “The Final Countdown” keeps playing in my head. Seven more days. We can do this.