The best version of ourselves (in Princess Louisa, BC)

We are the best version of ourselves out here.

It hit me as we were sailing up the Queen’s Reach, sun shining on the towering cliffs beside us, sails pulling wing-on-wing, Kit nestled in the baby carrier on my chest, Jon making fourth coffees of the day, and Zephyr inside doing flips on the handrails.

We don’t know what the heck we’re doing with our lives — it’s been a year of transition as we moved back onto the boat, started homeschooling Z, I finished my executive coaching program on maternity leave, and we’re still toeing the line between Canadian and US-residency in Point Roberts — but out here, on the water, we feel like us. Like the best, outdoor-loving, freedom-seeking, slow-cooking, lazy-mornings-together, afternoon-hiking, intentional-life-living, simplest, purest, bestest versions of us.

There are a million ways to qualify this — it’s taken a year at the dock to get to this point. There’s an awful lot of Minecraft that goes on while we’re sailing long days. Kit is a Velcro baby who still doesn’t sleep through the night. Four coffees is probably too many. And somebody probably has to make money at some point… But I kinda just want to focus on the positive for now, you know?

Cuz what else do you do when you have a realization like this?

The shortest answer seems to be enjoy it.

So that’s what I’m trying to do.

Finally exploring our “backyard” (in the San Juan Islands, Washington)

Seems like it’s about time for a mid-year-ish check in…

We’re trying out life as a family of four on Brio II.

Given that I grew up sailing in BC, and Jon and I have spent a decent amount of time sailing my parents’ boat here, we surprisingly hadn’t sailed the San Juan’s… ever.

To be fair, we’ve only dipped a toe so far — a week anchored at beautiful Sucia Island — but it’s taken so long to get here that it feels maybe a little extra sweet?

Still not quite sure what the future holds for us, but we’re working on enjoying these days while they’re right here. We’re homeschooling Zephyr this year, and I have maternity leave until the late spring, so it’s a sabbatical year / winter-of-weekends for us 🙂

Honestly, there have been many moments where this all felt impossible. It’s a ridiculous thing to admit out loud — obviously we’ve done this before, in much more exotic and challenging locations — so what could be so hard about exploring our local islands as a family afloat again?!

But going from one kid to two kids is definitely more like going from one kid to three kids, and moving out of an apartment is infinitely harder than moving into one… and then those pesky boat projects continue to take about 7-10x more work than we ever think they will.

So. All of that to say, I am so so so thankful to be here, right now: anchored at Sucia with Kit asleep in the aft cabin and Zephyr doing flips on any horizontal bar he can find, Jon cooking something delicious for dinner, and none of us with a clue of where we’ll be next weekend 🙂

Happy New Year!

It’s wonderful to look back at the last year and reflect on how things evolve over time… January 2023 – Zephyr at outdoor preschool One year ago Brio II was in El Salvador, we were embracing a ski season in … Continue reading