Bee-ing a Sailor

Cambio at the boat yard in Annapolis

When Spencer and I first started to sail, we were 21 and 22 years old and we had just graduated college. College is this wonderful place that makes you feel like the world is your oyster. "Take an Anthropolgy course if you have a passion for it, go for it! We'll even count it towards your degree! Drawing 101? Perfect!" They tell you prospective jobs love a well rounded student. You end up with a degree in International Studies and blissfully excited about joining the workforce. But as the giant wooden doors of University life close behind you, you're quick to realize that this degree that includes a wide range of knowledge, from Anthropology to Spanish to Drawing, really doesn't guarantee you a job. In fact, while you were in school you were supposed to, simultaneously, be getting job experience in the field you would now like to work in and you were supposed to be taking classes that directly relate to the career you had expected to jump right into. It's a harsh reality and even worse is the realization that despite the four years you had to think about it, you still don't know what you want to be when you grow up!!

Young Breena and Spencer on their first sailing trip with SV/Lorax (Oh the things I would love to tell them!)

Our answer to this early-life-crisis was to travel. We bought Lorax and sailed for two years. Then, still not knowing what we wanted to do, we rebuilt a '76 Toyota Land Cruiser and attempted to drive it to South America. All the while working seasonally in Alaska. Throughout all of this travel we were anticipating that careers and our life's path would unfold and reveal itself to us. We thought we would just happen upon a job that we loved, in a city we adored. That was truly and honestly our expectation.

Then we sailed Cambio. We put over 2,500 miles under her keel, I conquered my fear of multiple day crossings and we discovered one very big thing about our life. We discovered that these trips that were supposed to be a fun way to escape adulthood and buy time before we needed
to get jobs and buy a house, have turned into the life path we were searching for. It was an "Ah ha" moment for us when we realized; we are sailors and we love to be on sailboats. Sounds like an adolescent comment, but it was a life changing moment for us when we decided to stop planning for this imaginary life which included careers and a house, a prospect neither of us were incredibly keen on,  and start planning how to get this venture we love to be our life forever. 

Cambio being hauled out in Annapolis

I'm not saying that we are becoming sailors full time, or even that that is possible, because it isn't. We have to work and make money to live, but our perspective has been adjusted dramatically from focusing on finding our perfect careers, to focusing on sailing and how we can keep it at the forefront of our life. We've figured out that our life is not complete without sailing. So in a move that seems contradictory to everything I have just said, we are selling Cambio! But in doing so, we can put into motion a plan that allows us to keep cruising for a long time to come. So here goes the next phase of our life!!

The home we had for the past 2 years