Friday, July 15, 2016

1000 days, a thousand ways

Today is the 1000th day since we left to go cruising. A few weeks ago I told Tim this landmark was coming up and that he should come up with a post about it. His "OK" was unenthusiastic, but I'm giving him some slack in the writing department these days since it's taking all his energy to deal with the intensity of that star around which we'll circle most of the way while here at Snead Island Boat Works. I told him I'd let him slide and I would do the post.

Leaving Oak Harbor October 19, 2013
I've been thinking a lot about those 1000 days in the past week. A landmark, certainly, but I felt no epiphany to mark it. The reality of it is that I can tell you in a thousand ways why going cruising has been the best thing that's happened to us because every one of those 1000 days has been a gift. We've had challenging days that taught us much, peaceful days on brilliant turquoise waters in the Abacos, days of gatherings with new cruising friends, days of weather that humbled us, stunningly perfect days of sailing, days filled with laughter and, recently, too many days filled with grief. But even the recent span of grief from our loss of three family members in nine months has left us realizing how glad we are that we did this. While we still had the time. Because none of us is promised a thousand days, and we cherish every one we've had.




Oriental, NC sunset while waiting for engine parts Nov 2013












The moon rising on our first overnight offshore run

West End Bahamas on our first trip there Feb 2014

Working with the grandsons on the Floating Bear disaster June 2014
Return trip to the Bahamas March 2015
Watching an eclipse from the comfort of our V-berth September 2015

Road trip for Tim's dad's funeral October 2015
Sunset on the day my brother died February 2016
Storms that humbled us
Beaches that amazed us
Skies that took our breath away
Anchorages that were perfect

We've had friends to accompany us
We've seen odd things...
Funny things...
Sad things...

Scary things...
Beautiful things...
We've had things break...


Written  a book...








And wouldn't trade it for anything.

5 comments:

Carl said...

Great post. We're about half that now and look forward to the next 500. I hope your next 500 are interesting and peaceful.
Carl

Phil Gee said...

Thanks for the retrospective. I've read your blog through from the beginning since starting following you a year or two ago, and never miss an update. I'm very appreciative of the work you put into it and the complete picture you two provide of cruising life. Wishing you a great remainder of 2016 with lots of joy!

mike mercer said...

Sorry for ALL your loses this year. Been following sense first post(well two months in). I always like how life hits you and the strong fight back, love that you two are always strong.Twenty-four months(finally) and counting, maybe we will meet,somewhere in your next thousand days.I sure hope so. Thanks for always being real( good,bad). Looking forward to the next Sailing year. P.s. You sure are lucky my wife diagnosing a fuel system(oooh yucky stinky) Sorry for that Tj.

Back Amongst The Oaks said...

Deb, I'm worried about you. No new post in over a week and I haven't seen you on Women Who Sail either. Is everything okay? Do you need someone to rant to? Email me anytime; believe me, I'll understand.
Laura Fortune
fortunesafloat@gmail.com
www.fortunesafloat.blogspot.com

Deb said...

@ Laura - No new posts for over a week because I've had three of my nine grandchildren here to visit and I've been too busy with messy toddler hugs to think about posting to the blog :) AS far as Women Who Sail, I decided to quit Facebook except for posting links to our blog posts. I didn't like the person it was making me become and decided to eliminate its influence. Been a couple weeks now and I'm infinitely glad I did it. Thanks for noticing though!