Escape!
All We Have, What Can Fit in a Honda Element
This post has nothing to do with sailing, but how we got started. This is how we changed our lives:
We quit our corporate jobs, gave away most of our possessions and sold our house. We packed our Honda Element with only the essentials and headed east. Destination: Annapolis, Maryland. Why Annapolis? Our goal was to buy a sailboat, live on it and sail to whatever destination we desired.
Annapolis happens to be the sailing capitol of the USA. Whatever kind of boat you want, you are most likely to find it hear or nearby, and any fix-ups, modifications or accessories you may want can be found here. The boat experts and contractors are here. Even the Naval Academy.
We had seen a couple of boats we might be interested in but really had nothing definite. Our plan was to find a short term rental and keep looking for a boat for as long as it takes.
Our drive started about the third week of July. We headed across the midwest in the hottest weather of the year. Since neither of us can stand to drive more than about four hours a day, it took us quite a while to get to the coast. Here is what happened.
We drove across eastern Colorado and into Kansas. Colorado was surprisingly brown and desolate all the way to the Kansas border. Kansas was full of green cornfields and working farms. We stayed in Wakeeney the first night. It was windy and hot. The next morning we hiked around a nearby state park before driving to Kansas City. KC was hot. We visited the Steamboat Museum there, quite an interesting collection of pre-civil war artifacts.
We then drove to Herman, Missouri where we visited with our friend Jim Gallo. It was hot and humid. Next day, Martinsville, Indiana where we hiked in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest. It was, you guessed it, hot. The next night, Cambridge, OH, where we hiked Salt Fork State Park. Hot. The next day we had marathon car drive to Annapolis.
A few days later we were in the office of our boat broker, Forbes Horton. He was recommended as a broker who understood what a bluewater boat is, and he is highly knowledgable. We were looking at what was on the market and there it was, a Passport 43 in beautiful shape. “Passport” is the brand of the boat and it’s 43 feet long. Forbes was surprised to see that it was available, it had just been re-listed because the previous potential buyers could not close the deal.
The next day we went to look.
(to be continued…)
Posted in Sailing by Mark with 2 comments.
“The next day we took a look.” I love the suspense you have built. Hurry and write the next entry, please! – Melinda
Trying to build my audience! 😉