Hello and welcome to our new blog! Having never written (or even read) a blog before, this blog will be one of many new experiences for us in the coming months - so please bear with us and our technological limitations. Our hope is to be able to keep everyone up to date on where we are and what we've been doing as we experience our first Big Adventure (more to come on that later!).
This blog is meant to be a joint venture for us, but I have a feeling I will be the primary blogger (as Mark is generally a man of few words - and that's an understatement LOL). Mark is now retired from the US Navy, where he served for a couple decades plus in the Submarine Service. He still enjoys being on the water, which he greatly prefers to being under the water. Since retiring, Mark started his own general contracting business "Mark of Quality" (clever, huh?), and he has been loving (pretty much) every minute of it since then. In his new line of work, there has not been a shortage of problems to solve or things to cross off his "To Do List" - which, if you know Mark, are things more essential to him than food. He has also been spending a lot of time and energy getting our boat ready for our Big Adventure (will talk more about his efforts in future blogs) - pretty sure he's excited about our upcoming trip!
I am Mark's wife, Sheryl, and we've been married for over 27 years now (wow - that went fast!). We met in college (Go Bucks!) and married just after he started his Navy career. There were a lot of deployments, moves, and challenges over the years, but we truly enjoyed being a military family. That being said, we are both very happy that the Navy life is behind us now, and we have been working to start our "real life" together as both civilians and empty nesters. Although I was an engineer in my previous life (prior to becoming a Navy wife/mother), I've taken on many roles since then. I decided to go back to school and became a counselor/therapist, and I earned my license (LPC) in 2009. It's been an extremely rewarding career for me, and I am grateful for all of the opportunities I've had to try to help make life better for a lot of people. After much deliberation about whether or not we should go on our first Big Adventure, I decided to take an extended leave of absence from my job as an outpatient mental health therapist. It's been difficult saying goodbye to my clients, but I did everything I could to make sure they were in excellent hands. Mark has stopped taking on any new jobs as well, so we will now be able to focus our attentions on preparing for our trip.
Mark has had a lifelong love of sailing (the faster and tippier the better); however, I unfortunately did not share that love. Needless to say, this was one of the bigger challenges to our marriage, but we've somehow always been able to work things out. Although I'm not generally an anxious person, I would have panic attacks when sailing, which made it almost unbearable for me (I don't handle anxiety well when it does happen!). Luckily, we found the perfect boat for us (power boat instead of sail boat), which has made all the difference for me in being able to enjoy it. Our boat is a 34-foot 1983 Marine Trader trawler (named, of course, Quality Time). The previous owners did wonders in renovating her, and we are certainly reaping the benefits of all of their hard work. Not the most spacious, comfortable, or luxurious boat in the world, but we are hoping that we will find it spacious and comfortable "enough" for our Big Adventure.
So what are the plans for our first Big Adventure? Mark and I will be leaving in mid-October on a boating odyssey down the intracoastal waterway for an undetermined amount of time. If you know Mark and I at all, you are probably aware that we tend to be "planners", so having basically no schedule on our trip will be an entire challenge in and of itself. We will learn to be both capricious and patient, as our travels will depend on our whims and on fair weather. The only "set point" in our entire trip will be Key West for two weeks around Christmas. Other than that, we can't say specifically where we'll be (therefore, the blog!).
While trawlers are known as fairly comfortable and cost-efficient boats, these qualities come at the expense of speed. Quality Time's top speed is a whopping 7 knots - also the speed of most casual runners. We will meander down the intracoastal, anchoring for the nights or pulling into marinas when we need supplies (or a break from being onboard). We plan to stay within the intracoastal waterway for the entire trip, which is generally fairly protected water. I will be sure to take lots of pictures along the way and will post many of them on this blog. Although we will likely have cell phone service most of the time, access to the internet will definitely be more sporadic (so I'll post blog updates whenever I can).
Thanks for joining me on this blog adventure - more to come soon!
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