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Getting Started - The Cruising Dream
When Sara was a teenager, she lived in Italy with a foster family as an exchange student. When she came back to the US, she took all the Italian courses she could and learned the language. A few years later, she went back to Italy and took University-level classes in Italian!
I'm nowhere near as capable with languages, I could never wrap my head around French. I was born in the UK, grew up in Canada, and moved to California after finishing my Masters.
One of the reasons I think we get along so well is we're both explorers at heart. We're both curious about other places, other cultures. I'm more of a thrill-seeker than Sara, and she's a better planner than me. Together we're a pretty good team.
Sara and I have always had something of a wanderlust. We've always talked about how much we want to explore, to see new things and to have different experiences. So many people in the US don't travel, it's not hard to see where some of the closed-minded beliefs American's have come from. How can you understand what's going on in the world if you don't have a passport? Fox News is not "Fair and Balanced".
We talked about moving to Europe. We've talked about traveling around for a year on the Europass. I always wanted to go back to England, and Sara's always wanted to go back to Italy. What about traveling around Asia on a motorcycle?
Once we learned to sail and bought our first boat the dream really took hold.
What if we could stay a little longer at Ayala Cove at Angel Island? What if we didn't have to go back to work on Monday, didn't have to sail North as quick as we can to get back before dark?
What if we could combine our love of travel, of adventure, with our love for sailing? We bought sailing books, read stories and blogs from others "out there", researched what it would take, and made a plan.
When we started sailing we subscribed to a local magazine called Latitude 38, a reference to the 38-th degree of latitude San Francisco lies on. Latitude 38 covers bay-area sailing, but they are also a huge proponent of cruising Mexico. It's cheap, it's nearby, it's beautiful, and the people are so friendly.
After visiting Mexico ourselves, we agreed, and decided that our trip would include the Baja-haha, a Latitude 38-sponsored cruiser's rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas (at the bottom of the Baja peninsula).
From there we figured we would head south, and once we were engaged, it just made sense to sail down to our wedding. After the wedding, who knows? Maybe we'll explore Mexico, maybe we'll sail to Hawaii.