QUESTIONS FROM MAREN

Maren: When are they going to launch for good?

Darn if that isn't a good question! I'm sure you're not the only one wondering that -- including us.  We thought we might be gone by now, but just this week, we took the dinghy motor to be repaired, and they said it would take TWO WEEKS. We're waiting for our new grill to arrive and still have to sell both of our cars before we can leave. In the meantime, we're trying to get other boat chores done.

For instance, we want to buy solar panels, so we can get our electricity from the sun (your mom will like this). You might have seen one solar panel on the back of Cara Mia:

Solar panel is just above and in front of the flag.

There are newer solar panels about the same size that will give us twice as much power in the same amount of space, so we want to replace it.

Maren: Where will they go first?

When we leave, we will go north to the Chesapeake Bay. Even though you could get there by car from the Outer Banks in a few hours, it will take us several days by boat. At its fastest, the boat only goes about 7 miles per hour. Ask your mom or dad to show you how fast (slow, actually) that is next time you're in the car. Make sure there's not anyone behind you, because they'll honk!

We'll stay in the Chesapeake until hurricane season is over this fall. In the Chesapeake, we can practice sailing in a huge body of water without being in the ocean. Our boat is new to us, so we want to get to know it and get it set up like we want it before we go in the ocean.

We'll be going back to school like you, sort of. There's an online class we'll be taking to get our captains' licenses. In the class we'll learn about safety and how to find our way around (called navigation).

Thanks for reading!

TIMING

2003
November
Bought Isabella, Downeast 32

2005
May
27th Opened wine shop

2008
February
4th Decided to accelerate our 5-year plan and sell everything in fall 2008

July18th Plodding to Paradise, this log of our adventures, begins

August
Started preparation in earnest to get house and business ready to sell

September
15th Lehmann Brothers files for bankruptcy
15th BankofAmerica buys Merrill Lynch
15th Dramatic drop in global stock markets
16th AIG suffers liquidity crisis
17th Chip and Tammy list business with broker
17th Markets continue dramatic decline, Dow drops 446.92
25th Federal regulators seize Washington Mutual, largest bank failure in U.S. history
26th Chip and Tammy put their house on market
29th House rejects bailout; Dow suffers greatest loss in history of index, -777.68
Car sales in September plummet 27%
284,000 jobs lost

October
1st Senate approves revised $700B bailout bill
2nd Dow drops 348.22
3rd House approves $700B bailout
6th Dow drops below 10,000 for first time in four years, global markets plummet
6th Iceland passes emergency legislation to seize and regulate their banks
8th Global markets experience huge drop
8th Federal Reserve loans AIG $37.8 billion
9th Dow hits 5-year low
10th Stock markets crash across Europe and Asia
10th Dow lost 697 points in first 5 minutes
10th Dow closes 40% down from its record high on October 9, 2007
13th Dow soars 936 points, largest one-day advance ever
15th Dow plunges 733 points
16th Dow falls 400 but rallies to close up 401
22nd Dow drops 514
24th Markets plummet after Alan Greenspan calls the crisis "a once-in-a-century credit tsunami."
28th Stocks rise dramatically in anticipated of rate cuts by central banks, Dow +889
240,000 jobs lost
Consumer confidence hits all-time low

November
GM sales drop 45%
4th Obama wins Presidential Election
6th Dow has biggest two-day percentage drop since 1987
7th Unemployment rises to 6.5% in October
13th Dow has erratic ups and downs ending with a 550 point gain
13th October numbers show foreclosures up 25%
18th CEOs of three automakers plead for assistance from Congress
18th National Assoc of Realtors report median home price down 9% from last year
19th We reduce the price of the house $10K
19th October housing starts a lowest level since 1959
20th Dow loses 445 points
533,000 jobs lost

December
1st Dow drops 680
2nd Automakers report huge declines from 31-47%
4th November retails numbers released showing drops of 12-15%
11th Number of people filing for unemployment hits 26-year high
11th Bernard Madoff arrested and charged with running $50B Ponzi scheme
681,000 jobs lost

2009
January
20th Obama inaugurated amid another Dow plunge on banking news
598,000 jobs lost

February
697,000 jobs lost

March
2nd Dow Jones Hit Lowest Point since 1997
Unemployment Hits 8.1%
742,000 jobs lost

April
3rd Unemployment reaches 8.5%
9th Chip and Tammy list the business on bizbuysell.com
15th Chip and Tammy reduce the price of the house

June
26th Chip and Tammy get the first offer on the house
29th Chip and Tammy sign contract on the house

July
2nd Unemployment reaches 9.5%
7th Chip and Tammy sign backup contract on the house
8th Contingency on original contract officially lifted! July 28th closing.
9th Showed Isabella for the first time
14th House appraised
16th Passed house inspection
25th Moved into our little apartment: Camp III
28th Scheduled house closing
31st Actual house closing and check in the bank!

October
14th Dow closes above 10,000 for the first time in a year

December

15th Made an offer on an Island Packet 380 -- and it was accepted!

2010
January
1st Tammy turns 50
21st Sea trial on GOOD COMPANY
28th Close on Good Company!

March 2010
1st Contract on Isabella
8th Isabella sold!

April 2010
11th Moved our first belongings into Good Company
19th Tammy moved permanently onto Good Company
29th Left Rock Hall to take Good Company to the Outer Banks

May 2010
4th Arrived in Manteo on Good Company

June 2010
14th Sold wine shop!

July 2010
18th Christened Cara Mia

October 2010
23rd Untied the lines and left Manteo
24th Moved to: http://ploddinginparadise.blogspot.com/
With our first entry: http://ploddinginparadise.blogspot.com/2010/10/our-new-world.html

We hope you'll join us on our new adventure. Thanks for reading!

STIR IT UP

The Dow Jones continued its plummet today, 508 points. Britain is trying to prop up their banks. The financial world is in a tailspin.

And yet, things are agitating in a good way in our world. Just today, somebody actually looked at our house, we got an email about our boat, and we sold our futon couch, sewing machine and kunga. Our business broker dropped by to tell us he's had a lot of inquiries, even though there have been no offers.

We talked to a kindred spirit today, a friend who is a little bit ahead of us on the road. He has already dispatched all of his belongings and plans to leave for his new life in Hawaii on Sunday. He's the first person we've talked to in months that truly understands exactly what we're doing, the paring, the piling, the gifting, the sacrifices, the joys.

Bon voyage, Shane. lead the way, we're not far behind!

TODAY:
--we clicked through a third of the vendors that will be at the boat show
--finalized plans to see 7 boats in Maryland next Monday
--unloaded more stuff in Wilmington
--moved a dresser out of the house and to a new home

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

This journal of our plod to the water is meant to remind us of all the trials and foibles along the way, some more memorable than others. When we look back we want to remember not just the bright colors but all the shades in between. We want to remember how hot it was the day of our first garage sale, how ridiculously hard it was to box up that office chair we sold on Ebay, the days and days of labor to varnish the toe rails on Isabella, how long it took to put those CDs on the iPod.

Someday we'll look back and say, "Remember the week we put our business and house on the market, and the entire economy went to hell? Ha ha ha."

"House Rejects Bailout; Markets Plunge"
"Dow Suffers a Historic Drop, Falling 778 Points in Single Day""He [Paulson] warned that inaction would lead to a seizure of credit markets and a virtual halt to the lending that allows Americans to acquire mortgages and other types of loans."

If timing is everything, what does this mean?

We could fret, but we're not. We've done the hard work, the part we can control. The rest will be delivered when the time is right. All we have to do is wait and laugh.

We asked for a sign, and it says FOR SALE.

TODAY:
--put generator back together after repair
--the economy survived another day
--took final pictures of the house for the listing
--got a lot of beer festival stuff done. oh, yeah. in addition to everything else, we're planning a beer festival.

SOME DAYS

"Were you waiting for me to clean the grill?" Chip asked.

"I thought you were cleaning it. I cooked."

"I cleaned it the last three times I cooked."

I rolled my eyes. He hates it when I roll my eyes. I hate it when he keeps track of who did what. It got ugly.

We unearthed the whole thing again later until it escalated into cheap shots and door slamming.

My friend Dan thinks our sailing blog should be titled, "Who will survive?" He's not only convinced that two people on a small boat will resort to murder, but he thinks it would hold the attention of the reader to know someone will die at the end.

But surely life at sea won't be this stressful. (Remind me later that I said this.) When I think about all we're trying to accomplish, I wonder that we don't resort to more than door slamming.

Any one of the things on our list would probably make me edgy. Chip says it's like having four jobs.

Job one: fix up the house to sell.
Job two: fix up the boat to sell
Job three: run a thriving business with five employees
Job four: find a boat and prepare to live aboard

I would add job five: plan a beer festival

One of the stressful things about those jobs is which one will we get fired from first? For instance, if the house sells before anything else, what the heck do we do then? That would mean getting rid of the last household belongings that were kept only to sell the house, find a place to live, move, find a place to keep Isabella, all while running the business. Technically we could live on the boat and still keep the land life operating, but that's difficult, especially since isabella has no heating or cooling. Definitely, the house selling first would be the hardest scenario, but one we could manage -- somehow.

What if the business sells first? Do we pay off the mortgage? Do we rent the house and leave? Getting on the water as soon as possible will be the most economic option. Land ties are expensive: cars, gas, car insurance, house payments, mortgage insurance, taxes, utilities, etc.

Another insightful friend told me those are high class problems. Yeah, and I'm a high class whiner.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah!

TODAY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
--whining
--fighting