per·se·ver·ance ˌpərsəˈvirəns/

To tell you the truth, we’d been thinking about this for a really long time. Wait ’till the kids are big enough to sit their watches, and then pack up and head out. Home school them out there where, as Captain Ron tells us, it’s gonna happen. So we’ve been learning the ropes (ahem) for a few years, working up from a 23′ Paceship to a 29′ Ericson out of Fair Haven, on Lake Ontario. Not sailing as much as we should, maybe, but maybe sailing enough when we shouldn’t. “You want to go out, Hon? It’s looking like 8-10 feet…” “Yeah. Let’s remember to reef up first this time.”

And then last winter, sleet slapping on the sashes of another dismal, grim original sin kind of upstate December, I asked Steph if it wasn’t about time. And she said yes. And the boat was there – amazingly – within a week, lying on the hard out in Rochester with a good survey. Even the name was right: “Perseverance.” Like a name on one of those Navy 44’s I used to help out on when I was working down at the Academy. We went up and took a look at her, and took a look at each other. The conversation went something like this:

“?”

“!”

She was ours by the end of January. Followed by a whole lot of other conversations along the theme of “Wow! Are we really going to do this?” and “Wow! How can we possibly do this?” and “This is going to be awesome!” and “Have we lost our minds?”

Lots of research on home schooling (pretty nerve wracking, actually) and boat repair and maintenance (we’ve already seen a lot of that) and how to get the family business on autopilot enough that we can leave for a couple three or four months or maybe longer (no manual out there on this one, but we’re feeling our way).

Lots of nervous time, but lots of family time, and we think we’re on the right track.