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Most of the “odd” things I do in life stem from my wish to live deliberately. I’ve always wanted this, but I couldn’t put it into words until I read Thoreau’s Walden.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I think Walden is at least as relevant today as when it was written in 1854. Not that I know much about daily life in 1854, but most of us are still chasing a collection of material possessions that don’t improve our happiness. It’s also summed up pretty well, if not a bit more to the point, by a quote from Fight Club. “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” I don’t hate my job, but I think the amount of time we spend working, in this country, has gotten out of control. I don’t think anyone chooses to spend so much time working; it happens without deliberation.

About two years ago, Heather and I decided we were going to attempt a break for it. Our son was one year old and we had the antithesis of a deliberate life. We were going from day to day working and buying and working and buying. I rarely saw my son, and I didn’t see that ever changing. I couldn’t allow myself to miss out on my own life, not to mention my son’s entire childhood, for the security of a safe life. Once again, my feelings are stated more eloquently by Thoreau, “…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

THE PLAN

We are planning on living on a sailboat, with our son, and sailing off to distant lands.

I should stop right here and answer all the same questions everyone has.

What kind of boat?
My thinking right now is to build a 34′ sailing catamaran. I wish I had been keeping a journal over the year that it took for me to arrive at this decision; it would be fun to look back to see what the hell I was thinking. I’ve spent countless hours reading books, reviews, and pouring over study plans from different designers. If we end up taking this route, it will be a huge undertaking probably taking 2-3 years. It’s the biggest question mark in THE PLAN right now.

How will you make money?
First of all, we plan to save A LOT before we go. In 2002 we set a date of 7 (plus or minus 1) years out. It was a somewhat of an arbitrary date, but we were refinancing our home and went with the lower rate 7-1 arm. After 7 years, our rate will go up, and we will sell the house and leave. (The date also had to do with our sons age. We wanted him to be old enough to handle himself a bit better.)

Secondly, you don’t need that much money to live on a sailboat. Imagine being able to travel the world and see some of the most beautiful places on the planet for a barely more than the cost of food. OK, there are boat expenses and other things that will come up, but we are going to travel as simply as possible to minimize them.

How long will you be gone for?
We don’t know. When we run out of money, we’ll either come home to look for jobs, or we’ll look for work wherever we end up.

Where will you go?
This list is being formulated now, but it will be hard to tell for sure until we get there. We’ll start by sailing from Duluth MN, in the spring, to the Atlantic by way of the Great Lakes. By the time we get to the ocean, fall will probably be approaching, so we’ll head South for the first winter; we’ll probably end up in the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands. After that… Europe? South America? the Pacific? We’re not sure, but anything is possible.

What about your son’s schooling?
We’ll be home schooling him. Imagine what he’ll be able to learn seeing people, places, and cultures first hand instead of only reading about them. We’re not the first people to do this; there are many books written on the subject of cruising with school age children.

What about storms on the ocean?
I’m currently learning all I can about weather patterns and world cruising routes. This will play a huge role in where we go and when. You won’t catch us in the Caribbean in the summer(hurricanes) or Northern Europe in the winter(cold cold cold). Even if we are very careful about where we go, I’m sure we’ll encounter some scary moments. I’ll still take those odds over driving to work every day on the freeway during rush hour.

What about pirates?
I’ll try not to be insulting here, but give me a break. Yes, yachties do get robbed on occasion, but so do people who live shore side. There is a well established community of cruisers that keep in touch via HAM/SSB nets. It’s pretty easy to tell where the trouble spots are in the world.

How can you stay on the boat that long?
We wont be on the boat all the time. Think of it like traveling in an RV. Would you drive to different areas of the country and never leave the inside of your rig? We don’t plan to either. The idea is to travel. We’re going to move from region to region, and spend large amounts of time visiting one area, before we move on to the next. Lets say we want to see Nova Scotia, and we do, it’ll take us a while to get there, but once we do, we’ll cruise the coast and visit the different cities and villages. We could easily spend and entire summer there and never sail more than 50 miles in a day. As fall approaches, we may do some long passages to head further south, but we’ll likely find a new spot to hang around for a while. I hear the chesapeake bay is a great place to visit in September!

That’s all on this for now. It’s been a long journey so far; we’re only at the beginning, so stay tuned to see where this goes.

Possible Destinations
North Channel and Georgian Bay
Trent Severn Waterway
Thousand Islands and St. Lawrence River
Nova scotia / bras d’or lakes
Maine
Chesapeake Bay
Bermuda
Bahamas
Virgin Islands
Central America
South Pacific
We’ll find out when we get there.

much more to come.

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North Channel
The first part of our trip will be focused on locations in the Great Lakes. While I am eager to see far away places and warm tropical water, there are many places closer to home that I want to visit first. We may not return, via boat, to the Great Lakes for a long time, if at all, and I want to be sure to see some of these great cruising destinations. There are lots of places in Lake Superior that I want to see, but I’m hoping that we will have seen them over the summers between now and our departure, so I’m going to start my list of destinations on the other side of the Soo Locks in Sault St. Marie.The North Channel and Georgian Bay of Lake Huron is at the very top of my list. I could see us planning on staying a couple weeks and getting trapped for a summer.

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Trent Severn Waterway
One option after we leave the Georgian Bay, is to take the Trent Severn Waterway and its 42 locks. This would lead us to the east side of Lake Ontario and near the start of the St. Lawrence River (scroll down on this page for a map). If we end up with a catamaran, we’ll see the first benefit of the shallow draft; the maximum available draft Trent Severn Waterway is 5 feet. While not exactly exciting sailing, the mast will be down for the entire length of the waterway, it’s supposed to be a beautiful way to travel(motor) through Ontario.

More info on Trent Severn:
http://www.trent-severn-waterway.com
http://www.cruising.ca/trent/index.html

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Thousand Islands Park

After we leave the Trent Severn Waterway, depending on the time, I’d love to spend some time in the Thousand Islands park at the base of the St. Lawrence River. It’s another of the “the best cruising grounds in the world”. After all the reading I’ve been doing about different cruising areas, I’ve noticed that they are all the “best in the world” or at least “_one_ of the best in the world.” If nothing else, it shows these people are truly passionate about their area. Maybe I should dub the Apostle Islands “The Best Cruising Grounds in the Galaxy.” :) Anyway, Thousand Islands park does sound like a great place to spend some time.

The Thousand Islands is one of those rare delights that nature occasionally offers up in a few special places around the world. In fact there are close to 1900 islands that litter the St. Lawrence River in a 45 mile international stretch from Brockville to Kingston, Ontario on the Canadian side and from Morristown to Cape Vincent, NY on the US side.

In the days of old, many of the islands remained unexplored as travelers kept to well marked routes along the shorelines, never venturing amongst the islands for fear of becoming forever lost in the labyrinth of land and water. In fact, one stretch is named “The Lost Channel” after a British naval boat strayed from the safe shore route into the maze. Neither it, nor its crew were ever seen again.
-1000islandsphotoart.com

I’m sure with up to date charts and GPS, we’ll be able to explore some of the hidden places without suffering the same fate as those Brits. Who knows, maybe they liked the place so much, they all picked their own island and decided to stay. Ok, I suppose it’s more likely that they sank on some rocky shoals in the area, but I can believe whatever I choose.

Here is a decent map that shows the Georgian Bay in the upper left and Trent Severn Waterway connecting to the east side of Lake Ontario; the Thousand Islands area starts near Kingston and goes north east on the St. Lawrence River.