We will circumnavigate the world

“You need to shout it out loud, so as many people as possible hear you.” You have probably heard or even used this advice, whenever you decided something, that required you to stay committed and persistent. We will now use this advice:

We, June, Laura and I, will go cruising the oceans, maybe even a circumnavigation, in our sailboat Carpe Diem. We will leave on July 4^th 2020 at 12am, and are planning to spend 3 years to experience remote places of the world.

So now it is out there. “oh, you’re not surprised, you say…”. Well, everyone reading this blog could probably see where we have been heading since we bought Carpe Diem in Spain in 2016. And if you know us personally you would know as well – only when it comes to our jobs and colleges we have been quite vague, as we wanted the right people (our managers) to know first. This has been taken care of.

And we are going all in – as you might know from previous posts we have sold our house to move aboard our boat, which also meant getting rid of most of our belongings. But as the boat is still at the shipyard for a major refit, we currently live in a trailer at the yard to not waste time transporting ourselves to and from the boat, see Affected by adventures.

You will probably be working until you die

But why now? Why not wait until we retire? With improving longevity, we will be working more years. Currently, the age at which June and I are supposed to retire is around 70 years. I read an article on dr.dk stating, that we might have to work until we die. 

“But don’t worry, you will retire at some point. You will have to settle with retirement being small breaks you take during your work life. For example, you can take a break when having small children”.

dr.dk (click here for the article in Danish)

So maybe we are adapting to this quite different way of looking at our work life and senior life – they are not two consecutive phases, where one stops and the next takes over. We will be mixing them to pursue our dreams, both career wise and life wise – if they can be separated.

If you have a dream, pursue it

Furthermore, sailing to remote places is not just a walk in the park. You have to be mentally and physical fit, at least to a certain level. I know we would regret, having this dream, and looking back at the age of 70 without having pursued it and without being able to pursue it due to mental or physical issues. It would take a lot more courage for us to wait, than the courage required to sell our belongings and quit our good jobs.

So, if everything goes as planned we are throwing the mooring lines on July 4^th. Up until this summer, we have spent quite an effort rearranging our life to be less bound to mortgages, salaries, etc., even though we are still settling in. From now on, the focus will be preparing specifically to be able to sail out on the big adventure.

We have 272 days, and counting…