Mahia in Polynesian can be translated as “Do it”
At the beginning of the year we listened to a podcast by David and Karina Anderson called the The Ten Steps to Becoming Full-Time Cruisers, and number ten on the list was: “just do it”. The Andersons ‘Sailing Podcast’ and numerous other similar podcasts have filled the car on drives to and from work, and pieces of advice from their guests have trickled into our brain and set. Our modified list is below :
- Brainwash your partners – INCOMPLETE
- Learn how to sail – INCOMPLETE
- Buy a boat – it doesn’t have to be your forever boat – DONE
- Share your plan with the family, then your friends, so you can’t back down – DONE
- Tell work that you are leaving at a critical time and expect to be fired – DONE
- Figure out the money side of things – INCOMPLETE
- Get rid of Everything – INCOMPLETE
- Prepare, but realise that you can never fully prepare – INCOMPLETE
- Figure out how you are going to work and play as a cruising family – INCOMPLETE
- and then of course – just hurry up and do it !
As you can see, we have not fully checked off our list. Item one requires us to brainwash the crew into wanting to come – Max (11) Ben (9) and Tom (7) are still in various stages of denial. Their main concern is loss of Wifi, then loss of TV, followed by missing next years school trips, and lastly, being cooped up on a small boat with two angry old people.
Here are photos of the boys response to us breaking the news to them during a private moment. Mixed. In retrospect some people might define this trip as a kidnapping.
In the next 6 weeks, we’ll be Getting Rid of Stuff more aggressively. So far we’ve gumtree’d the trampoline, catamaran, car, dog, bark collar, and a very lazy robot vacuum cleaner. We still have one car and a house full of junk to go. A garage sale is contemplated but might be too emotional for this family of hoarders. The Pokemon cards will have to come with us.
Mahia 