Charleston, SC, May 2002 - The three of us were cracking up as I parallel parked my car outside of the Horse & Cart on King Street, cackling about some foolish thing I had done recently. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!?!?!” I dramatically and rhetorically scream-laughed to the sky as I got out of the driver’s side of my car. As my gaze shifted back to street-level, I realized I was suddenly facing a very startled but handsome, blonde stranger holding a milkshake on the other side of the street.

“Uh, I…I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he stammered apologetically, as if he really thought I expected an answer. Then he chuckled and followed up with, “but I think (?) I’d like to find out,” which made me laugh even harder. Ang, Aimee and I looked at each other and we invited him to join us at the bar.

His name was Charlie. He was a composer and professor and was in town to showcase a few of his pieces for the renowned Spoleto Festival. We hit it off like a house on fire. He had written some of his works to the words of e. e. cummings—my all-time favorite poet—and could quote my favorite poem (“since feeling is first”) by heart. He had a hilarious sense of humor and a warm personality. He was intelligent and loved to travel. He also lived in NYC.

For the next week, we talked on the phone every night. We made plans to meet a week later in DC. He would drive from NYC and I would drive from Charleston. I would stay with my best friend, Hannah.

We had a fabulous date. We went to dinner in Georgetown and then walked around town just enjoying each other’s company. But on the way back to his car, my gut told me it wasn’t going to work out. He was almost twice my age, divorced and lived in NYC. And he was only 6’1”. I couldn’t see a world where this made sense.

I spent the next three hours breaking up with him, part in person and part by phone. By 2AM, Hannah had gone from supportive “yeah, this is so hard” mode to exasperation, writing me notes I could read while I was still on the phone with him like “you’ve done enough.” “This is dumb.” “Just hang up.” It was gut-wrenching. I felt so bad. It was so good…why was I breaking up with him?

Because it didn’t make sense. The “cons” outweighed the “pros” even though the pros were really, really good. That made the decision extremely difficult. And…it was so sudden. We had JUST been having a great time an hour ago! Why the sudden break up? Why couldn’t we just see where it would go?

Because the cons would always outweigh the pros, or at least they always would in the way that I saw it. But the pain of the breakup was so strong because it was so quick and it had just been really good.

And that’s where we are folks. We just went to the Bahamas. It was wonderful…and really hard. We certainly lived it up and made the most of it.

*…and we saw a seven-foot-long reef shark.*

*sigh* It’s 11:50AM on Tuesday morning and we are heading back to the U.S., aiming for Port Canaveral, FL. We are still in the breathtaking turquoise Bahamian waters a bit west-northwest (27⁰11.6N; 78⁰38.2W) of an uninhabited island called Great Sale Cay, where we anchored last night.

Anchoring off of an uninhabited island offers quiet and extraordinary views of the stars. The super bright lights at the bottom are the anchor lights of neighboring boats. The rest of those white dots are stars.

We’re motoring but we have the headsail up to give us a bit more speed—I put the headsail up myself. The water is calm and beautiful and I am gently bobbing and swaying as I type this. Steve is on a zoom meeting in the cockpit. Addie is doing math at the kitchen table. Sid is playing with LEGOs in his room. I went all out this morning and made myself a cup of instant coffee in the only breakable dish we have—a mug I bought in Southport, NC. Addie just came up to tell me that she and Sid are going to “test” the brownies she made yesterday to make sure they’re still okay. Yes, test them, Addie. Be brave, my dear! 😊

Friends, I have something to tell you…are you ready? Ugh. I don’t know if I’m ready…

We decided to sell the boat.

Yes, you read that right. We decided to sell the boat.

*Moment to let that sink in*

*Big, big deep breath* We’ve been sitting with that thought for about four days now. We have only told a few people because it’s such a big, personal decision and we’re still very much wrestling with it. To some people it won’t make sense. Ever. How can we possibly leave all of this beauty and adventure behind? Especially with all of the work we put into it. We must be crazy.

*Sid driving our “car” (dinghy) with Layla in the background.*

*Addie checking the gauges on “her” night watch.*

This past February, when we were stuck in Southport, my good friend Kerry from AmeriCorps called me out of the blue. I hadn’t talked to her in years. Somehow, she stumbled across the blog. Back in our 20’s, Kerry dated a guy who wanted to sail around the world. He had a boat and Kerry spent a few months sailing with him down the East Coast. I remember hearing about this at the time thinking that it was one of the coolest things I had ever heard of and was envious and in awe of what I had assumed was her blissful, carefree, Jimmy Buffett lifestyle. When she told me she got off the boat because she didn’t like it, I thought she was nuts. But Kerry, you live on A BOAT! You see sunsets ALL THE TIME! You move from place to place—WHEREVER (!) you want—WHENEVER (!) you want ON THE OCEAN! How ON EARTH could you give that up?

She called me after reading the blog. We didn’t even say hello. I picked up the phone, laughing. “Are you calling me on purpose or is this a butt dial?” She laughed in her quintessential Kerry way. (Gosh, I miss hanging out with her…)

“Holl, I’m calling because I found your blog. And…I am the ONLY person who will really understand what you are going through and I just called to give you a space to vent it all out. Go!” Ha! I just started rambling. She just laughed and laughed and repeatedly responded encouragingly with “Yes! Yes! YES—that was so hard! I hated that!” When I got to the endless dishes she said “Holl, I would eat things with my hands (!) that you should NEVER eat with your hands just to avoid creating another dirty dish!!!!” It was the perfect phone call at the perfect time. Thanks, Kerry.

*sigh*

Did we not expect it to be hard? Of course we expected it to be hard.

Did we not expect it to be hot? Of course we expected it to be hot.

Oy. How do I begin to explain this? I’ll never do it justice, but I’ll try.

The “hard” is constant. We are endlessly thinking about power and water and food (you know, the base level on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs…). Do we have enough power? Is it sunny enough? What time of day is it? Is there a cloud covering our solar panels? What will the weather do in the next few days? When Sid and Addie have taken their showers (in the last few days we have started showering in our bathrooms with REAL shower faucets—luxury!), I vigilantly listen to the loud WHIRRRRRRRRRRR of the fresh water pump, wondering “when are they going to turn off the water?!?!??” (PS – Showering/washing hands = get body/hands wet and immediately turn off water. Soap up. Turn on faucet just long enough to rinse off soap. Turn off water immediately. Long gone are the days of singing into an endless stream of warm shower water.)

We (we = Steve) are constantly monitoring weather, wind, tides. When we are anchored, we (again, we = Steve) are frequently checking the anchor alarm to make sure we’re not dragging and unintentionally moving. We (we = all four of us) are always dirty and hot and sweaty and sticky. And we are wearing grubby clothes that are disgusting because, well, we’re just going to sweat in them again the next day. There is a thin, grimy film of human body funk that seems to have successfully permeated into the material of our clothes.

Inner Perseverance voice: “Well, Holly, can’t you do laundry? Don’t you have a water maker? These are very solvable problems for people who really want to solve them.”

Yes, you’re right. We can and we do. And we did do laundry in our bag/bucket the other day. And I’m wearing clean clothes today and that feels good. But my “clean” clothes now feel just as gross as the dirty clothes did because I am ever-disgusting. And our water maker? Truthfully, we haven’t tried it yet. Which sounds strange and a little “duh! Why haven’t you tried it yet, Captain Obvious?” but when you think about what has happened in the last few months, I guess it makes sense that we haven’t gotten to that yet. You don’t want to try out a water maker at a marina because the starting quality of that water is very unclean. And when we finally got moving, we were solely focused on getting to Ft. Pierce/the Bahamas and learning how to sail/navigate on multiple overnight passages.

Inner Perseverance voice: “Hmmm…sounds like maybe you don’t want to solve these problems. You just want to stop.”

*sigh* For the record, Inner Perseverance voice, I don’t like it when you’re so direct with me.

Could we continue doing this? Yes. We could. Steve and I talked about a week ago and we both agreed that we absolutely could keep doing this. We are strong enough and smart enough and tough enough and capable enough to keep going. We have learned a TON in the last month and some things that were once hard and intimidating have gotten easier and more routine and we expect that to continue to be the trend. Everyone we know who has cruised successfully says that the first year is the hardest, the second year is better and the third year is when you really find your groove. The question then becomes…..do we want to continue doing this?

Well….

When I was in St. Louis, I had a very valuable conversation with my good friends, Sara and Laurie. They are compassionate, brilliant women with excellent problem-solving skills. They did not give advice or push in any particular direction. They simply listened and offered some questions/thoughts to help us objectively think through our situation and assess whether or not to continue with boat life:

· What percentage of our time do we spend doing the things we love? What percentage of time do we spend doing things we hate? If we spend 5% of our waking hours doing dishes and 10% of our day fixing things that break and we see dolphins on the side of our boat twice a week for five minutes, is that worth it?

Steve had this hanging in our house (and now on our boat) for years. He initially brought it onboard to remind us that we are getting the most out of life (Go us!) by living on the boat. However, recently, it has had the opposite of its intended effect and has pushed us to consider moving back on land. It comes from a website called *waitbutwhy.com. An accompanying piece to this is called “The Tail End” and can be found* *here*.

· How many times do we need to see the stars and the moonrise and the dolphins and the gorgeous beaches to be satisfied?

· What factors can we control? Can we influence? What factors are out of our control? If the “can’t control/influence” list is really long (weather, boat issues, etc.) then our happiness is at the mercy of the “can’t control” list. Can we be at peace with that?

Additionally, for the last few years, our family of four has held regular “Swift Jedi Council meetings” (Yes, we are a weird and nerdy family and Sid and Addie named them that when they were five and six years old). A standing agenda item of these meetings is a wellness check where we talk about the various aspects of wellness (physical, social, spiritual, emotional, financial, occupational, intellectual) and reflect on how we are doing and how (ideally) we can adjust. Steve and I quickly ran through that wellness list the other day and it was eye-opening. Let’s just say we are not thriving. Oy.

And then there was the conversation that Steve and I had earlier today:

Steve: “I just feel like I’m not doing well at anything right now. Not being a good husband, not being a good dad, not being a good employee. I’m just putting all of my energy into the navigation, the safety, the weather monitoring...”

Me: “Yeah you are….and we truly appreciate that …that’s you being a good husband and a good dad, Steve. You’re keeping us safe. Thank you.” A few minutes passed. I could feel that the heaviness of his words had also passed and he was ready for me to interrupt the silence. “Just so you know, I don’t at all feel like you’ve been a bad husband. I know that you feel like you have and so my words probably won’t make you feel any better, but I want you to know that you haven’t.

(Pause)

“And now you have me wondering if I’ve been a good wife. Have I been a good wife?”

Steve: “Terrible.” He smiled. “I only said that I felt like I was a bad husband to get you to realize that you’ve been a terrible wife.”

Jerk. Well, his sense of humor is coming back. That’s good to see.

So, we made the decision to sell a few days ago. We have alerted our boat broker and plan to chat with him when we get to FL. We also called our friends, Claire and Jon, who we met in Southport, to see if the months-ago offer of their home in MA was still on the table as a place to pause and rest and sit with this decision before we make any big moves. It is. We will head to MA as soon as we figure out where to put Layla for a few weeks.

But I did cry when I told my brother. And I cried when I pulled up the anchor this morning. Gosh, I love that anchor… And I could still stare at the ocean for hours and hours and not be bored. And I have an intense sense of awe and wonder at this very moment marveling that there are 2,000 feet of water below me right now (currently 7:37PM on Tuesday).

Time will tell. More to come.

Signing off from 27⁰24.0N; 079⁰21.8W.

5/27/25 - The Pivot?

5/31/25 - Tightrope

5/25/25 - A Non-Post: Boat Life Extremes