what's worth most

These photos are from a couple months ago. In Boston Harbor Islands. Not this warm here any longer..

So came the winter season in New England, the first snow has fallen though melted for now, and it's been interesting to observe ourselves in this unpleasant second transition from summer to fall to now early winter. A very uncomfortable feeling has again begun tinting our minds. You know the sense of quiet desperation, or frustration if you will. The knowledge of something very uneasy that is about to go down, and the involuntary, almost enforced agreement that we will just have to go through it. Yet again. 

We notice life slowly slipping out of people around us here in the marina. Their faces, expressions and body language have shifted from summery optimistic with strong straight backs and loud laughter, to a bitter hunched discontent and a vocabulary and sound level dramatically scaled down. Nobody likes the cold, yet they all live through it. Put life on pause for half a year. They say it's just the way it is and begrudgingly accept the pain. We know how it is, we were just about to do the same, for the second year in a row. But seriously. Is this what we call life? What are we doing here? Are the work opportunities and the money made here really that much worth? Do we really want to miss out on six months of a year? Ridiculous is only one way to put it.

One day, out of the blue, not so long ago, an email dropped into my account. An email from an old friend that reminded us that we do in fact have similar, if not better opportunities in places where the sun is a norm and not a rarity. Have we just been so busy learning to accept the fact that we will have to go through this again, that we have totally forgotten to look further? We have not yet stabilized our savings accounts so work is still an important part of our lives. As for most people. But are we really okay with checking out from the pleasure of life, just in order to save a few bucks? Because let's face it, it's really not that cheap living in the US so how much do we really get to save? And how many years would we have to do this shit, to feel we have enough money?

Nah, this is not for us. I don't know how we could have mislead ourselves to believe it could be worth it. We love life, and we don't need to suffer more than necessary, right?

We will be leaving South. Boat is being prepared. And we are simultaneously studying routes and weighting opportunities in our next new home base. It's not an uncomplicated task to sail South from these high latitudes this late in the year, and rough storms happen more often than they do not.

We're thinking to set sail sometimes right after thanksgiving, out into Buzzards Bay to start, through the Long Island Sound, and hit ICW before Cape Hatteras. Anyone of you done this trip late November, early December? Don't say it is not a good time of the year to do it, because we know and we will, no matter what.