{"id":1716,"date":"2022-04-28T20:46:46","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T20:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secondchances.sailingtranquilitybay.com\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2025-07-14T23:11:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T23:11:04","slug":"some-assembly-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/28\/some-assembly-required\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Assembly Required"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Eleven years ago Kim and I were swept over by a bold vision. We were tired and bored to death with trying to hustle some kind of existence out of the padded walls of a \u201ccubicle,\u201d so we decided to sell all our belongings, fix up an old sailboat and travel to exotic locations. Flooded with visionary feelings, we walked away from our jobs and dumped our 30 year mortgage. Our families were concerned, our peers puzzled. We were unstoppable.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It never occurred to us at the time that perhaps the idea was a bit clich\u00e9 and maybe a little na\u00efve. If I could travel back in time and visit myself in that stuffy office building, I’d ask myself a few questions: Do you have any idea what all this big dreaming might lead to? Can you really picture yourself coming back to this cubicle after your five years are up? Do you remember all the cynical things you said about that question that every employer wants an answer to? Where do you see\u00a0yourself<\/em>\u00a0in five years?
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who can really say what is going to happen in five years \u2013 or eleven, for that matter. No one can, and yet we all certainly have big ideas that move our lives in a certain direction.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s hard to identify any specific place where our plan first spawned, but there is a lovely beach scene that frequently runs through my mind. In it, Morgan Freeman strolls down an empty beach in suit and tie with luggage in hand. The Pacific is clearly as blue as he had hoped it would be. The bow of a beat up old boat slides into frame and a starry-eyed Tim Robins sands peacefully on the deck. His shirt sleeves are torn off and his smile is like medicine for your soul. The camera pans high over the gently washing surf as the two friends reunite outside of the prison walls. If the Shawshank Redemption soundtrack were playing, I’d probably need a tissue. Hope. Freedom. Hollywood.<\/h2>\n\n

A Real Dream Boat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

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\u00a0There was no shower, no pressure water, and no heater. To say the least, it was very campy. The spartan accommodations were nearly devoid of cabinetry. Regardless, our spirits were overflowing, gushing forth into an ocean of wonderful possibilities. Certainly we could clean up the damp metal stuff-holes where our things were to be stored and line them with something. We gathered up the pillows, cushions and old clothes that were covered with sticky sheets of mold and carried them to the dumpster. We could fix up a house. Why couldn’t we fix up a boat? We were positively unstoppable. For a while.<\/h2>\n\n

What’s Your Dream?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

\u00a0\u201cWhere ya gonna go?\u201d Every white-haired Ernest Hemmingway look-alike would ask us.<\/h2>\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe wanna go see icebergs,\u201d we’d tell them, despite the fact that the design of the boat we’d just purchased was a Reve d’Antilles. Translated in English this means The Dream of the Caribbean.<\/h2>\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhy would you want to do that?\u201d They asked us repeatedly. \u201cIt’s cold there.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 None of them, apparently, had any sense of humor when we told them we wanted to see icebergs and glaciers before they were all gone. The majority of our new neighbors were there on their yearly mecca to Georgetown in the Bahamas. It was a place that we understood retirees went to to play Mexican Train Dominoes and weave baskets. (it’s partly true, we found out)<\/h2>\n\n
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\u00a0After a year of slaving away at our dream \u2013 of toiling away our life inside a box \u2013 we asked each other, \u201cwhat the hell, why don’t we just go spend a year in the Caribbean? So we headed out through the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean, and then back westward through Latin America. It was a great time. Before we knew it, one year had turned into five.<\/h2>\n\n
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 It has been eleven years since we first set off to find the edge of the ice and now we’re working harder than ever to try once more to make it there.\u00a0 In the meantime, we’ve managed to pretty much flush our savings account down the toilet.\u00a0 In eleven years, however, it has become less of a funny joke anymore (for multiple reasons) to say that we’d like to see icebergs and glaciers before it’s too late.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In our decade of cruising, we’ve discovered that along with constantly seeking new sights, sounds, distractions and interactions, it is also very rewarding to maintain some kind of serious outlet for expressing your creativity.\u00a0 A tired old meme that we frequently hear out here is: “there are people who go cruising and then their are people that build boats.”\u00a0 Apparently, there isn’t supposed to be anybody in between.\u00a0 We most often hear it from folks that travel in boats that cost more than the average American McMansion.\u00a0 The truth is, we’ve also met plenty of people that dare to follow their own dreams, even when there is some assembly required.\u00a0 Building the dream can be part of living the dream – as long as it’s your dream.<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Eleven years ago Kim and I were swept over by a bold vision. We were tired and bored to death with trying to hustle some kind of existence out of the padded walls of a \u201ccubicle,\u201d so we decided to sell all our belongings, fix up an old sailboat and travel to exotic locations. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"enabled","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2425,"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions\/2425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailingtranquilitybay.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}