Ready or Not, Here Comes Ruby Vi [#19]

Recently, buried beneath the frustrations of organizing our upcoming departure from Charleston — amid pages of to-do lists and narrow weather windows — a friend reminded us of Boat Life’s would-be mantra:

A sailor’s plans are written in the sand at low tide.

ALL SAILORS EVERYWHERE

As someone who figured we’d be dodging storms while island hopping through The Bahamas by now, I can vouch for the veracity of those words.

With so many variables in play, I wonder on a daily basis how anyone leaves the dock to go anywhere. Ever.

September 6th was our first attempt at a departure goal, but Dorian had other plans for us. Since then, we’ve bounced violently between a state of total inertia and a mad-scramble.

Projects can wait until they can’t. Nothing is urgent until it is. And when one is, they all are.

Some are easy: clicking “purchase” on the Amazon shopping cart we’ve been sitting on; finally going back to the grocery store because three days without vegetables seems like too many, even for John; showering (the three-day rule (usually) applies here as well); drying sheets in the breeze…

But others are harder: marking the anchor chain (nope, still haven’t done it); servicing the life raft; buying a drone; taking Bear to the vet for her USDA clearance paperwork; grooming her; ordering paper charts; adjusting our boat insurance…

The Hard List seems to go on forever. And for every item we check off, five more we’d forgotten about take its place.

Once we leave the safe comforts of our marina, Prime shipping becomes almost impossibly irrelevant. Apparently, deliveries to Ruby Vi at anchor in obscure harbors is not a thing Amazon does. Lame.

Finally down to the wire, we’ve arrived at full-time mad-dash status — especially when it comes to buying stuff.

And let me tell you, we are buying all the things.

Why the rush?

November 13th, in Nassau, marks the beginning of Special Guest Season aboard the Ruby Vi.

It’s both wildly exciting and utterly terrifying to know we’re this close to the white sands and the sails up and the turquoise sea. And it’s staggeringly awesome that some of our favorite people are already lined up to experience the Boat Dream with us.

We’re trying to make the most of our final days of marina life: water on-demand, having a truck, time with friends, WiFi, easy outings, Amazon deliveries, the works.

Finding time to play, to work, to plan, to study, to teach while attempting to sprint toward the end of our checklists is more difficult than it should be.

But we’re doing it.

We’re probably not ready for what’s next.

Inevitably, we’ll leave Charleston with a list of 79 things we should’ve bought or learned or done first.

But we set off down this path under the premise of Someday-Things. Knowing someday-goals and someday-plans can’t happen unless someday gets a chance to be today. Trusting we don’t have to know or have everything, just enough. Enough to get started. Enough to say yes.

So here we are again, standing on the edge of another big leap — staring down another Now or Later moment.

It sure is lovely here in Charleston… It wouldn’t be hard to choose Later.

But shrimp ‘n’ grits and Costco — as ridiculously amazing as they are — aren’t quite the definition of Sailboat Magic we signed up for.

Predictably, we’re choosing Now.

With any luck, this time around, we’ll finish writing our plans before the tide rolls in.