14590452_10154636941886703_5047965465280659015_nYesterday marked the completion of many tasks required to make this transition to cruising full time.  After sorting through all possessions, marking them in one of three categories: Store, Bring, Adios, I had a garage sale at Chad’s house and sold a ton of stuff.  I reduced my clothes down by 80%.  I got rid of almost all my workout stuff, both jet skis are gone, and so is the golf cart.  I reduced my musical equipment down by half.

I’m taking three guitars with me on the boat, an Ibanez, a GS mini Taylor, and my Alvarez classical.  I’m also bringing the Roland AC-60 amp, a mic and a stand so that I can play gigs along the way to meet others and make some pub cash.

Preparations continue today and tomorrow.  The maid came today to deep clean the house and getting it ready for the renters tomorrow.  I’m packing up all the clothes that I’m bringing on the boat, and a handful of remaining items that will stay here.

I spoke with Tom Perry, the previous owner of the boat, about the bill of sale and coast guard documentation.  This is getting real, real quick.  I’ll be on the new boat in only 48 hours.  The excitement of creating and executing the plan, the adrenaline-fueled fire of ‘get a boat, get a boat, gotta get a boat’ has died down to embers and now the reality of the plan is settling in.

This is getting really real.  As in…the real-life kind of real.

I decided to take a break from the house and go eat at Sake Toro – possibly the last time I eat at a restaurant in Frisco while actually ‘residing’ here.

Oh yeah – and there was last night.  14947916_10154649871269603_6957146185551719536_nLast night Chad and I put together a last-minute sailing away party.  We had about 20 people show up and the night was perfect.  The weather was cool and crisp with no wind, the fire was spectacular, and the Roland amp and Cajon beat box along with Gooch’s saxaphone playing and Jarod playing reggae / blues on the Ibanez was the icing on a very delicious cake.

I felt loved.  In the company of so many friends I realized I had created this.  “Manifested” it, the new-agers would claim.  I believe it now.  That slice in time was mine, and everyone else’s, actually, to savor and enjoy.

I’ve had a few really encouraging words from friends and neighbors over the last few months.  One of them came from a neighbor who, after describing my plan to move onto an ocean-going boat said, “You know James, with any other person telling me that I’d either say sarcastically ‘yeah…sure you are’ or I’d think they were so crazy that I’d be honestly worried about their sanity.  When you say it though, I’m like, ‘yeah, of course he is!'”

Another huge compliment comes in the form of people not wanting to be excited for me on this trip, because they’ll miss me.  They won’t miss my house, my parties, my lakefront view, they’ll miss me.  This is, by the way, the hardest part of the plan.  Leaving what I know, those that love me, and embarking on something where no one knows me and I know no one.

The morning was filled with love from the neighbor-kids.  Izzy, Dillon, and Bradon and their friend JP came over to hang out with me on the deck.  At one point Izzy asks me about the boat, “What kinda boat are you getting?”  I pulled up the laptop and thought it would be too much work to find a good picture so I said, “well I have a video on my phone.”  To which she exclaims, “I didn’t know you had a phone!????”

May you be blessed by such a complement someday.

I’ll sign off this captain’s log entry by saying that of those that execute on this ‘let’s live on a boat and become full-time cruisers’ plan generally do it completely different from how I’m doing it.

Their plan looks something like this:

  1. Get the idea
  2. Begin saving money
  3. Plan on how much it’ll take to live on the boat and calculate how long it’ll be until they can do that and retire
  4. Look for a boat for years
  5. Buy a boat and put it in a port, then proceed to work on it for a few years to get ready to cruise
  6. Sell all assets, quit jobs, retire and move onto the boat
  7. Live for another year in port – then go cruising

My plan looks like this:

  1. Get the idea
  2. Research boats
  3. Buy a boat
  4. Rent my house out online as a vacation rental
  5. Move onto the boat and start cruising within 2 weeks

Yeah…maybe there’s something I don’t know yet?  Maybe they’re just more conservative?

Either way – this is Sunday, and on Tuesday I’ll be on my new boat.

I like this plan.  🙂

Captain James – signing off.