When we moved to San Diego from Emeryville, I was pretty sure we’d be here for a long time. I was, as it turns out, totally wrong.

Jason’s been doing this rigging thing for a few years now. Which sounds so flippant; I’d be willing to bet none of his managers or coworkers know the amount of time and effort he’s put into thinking about knotwork and splicing. I’d also be willing to bet none of them know he’s been doing construction since he was four, nor do any of them know about his adventures in retail management. But anyway, they like him, he likes them, and this is working out well. When word came up of a new rig shop in Kemah, Texas, and that there was a management position opening up, we talked about it, and Jason threw his hat in the ring.

As many of my loved ones know, I give good resume. I mean, I never ever lie, but I’m really good at converting someone’s honest experience into keyword-able, beautifully-formatted business-formal resumes. So I got to work on Jason’s, and if I do say so, it’s really lovely. He bundled it up, wrote a cover letter, and sent it off. I think we both thought that would be the end of it. We discussed, briefly, moving to Texas and what that might be like, and then we thought no more of it.

Then Jason got a message from his uberBoss, Mary. “Call me!” she said. So he did. He had been talking to her for almost ten minutes before he figured out what she was telling him. He finished up, and called me. “Babe…” he started out, sounding almost shocky, “Babe… were you serious about being OK with us going to Texas? Because I got the job.” Stunned silence followed, on both sides.

Now, I wasn’t stunned that he got it. My man’s amazing. I was stunned that, well, as a lifetime Californian, I was about to go get nestled down in Galveston Bay. And that meant sailing the length of Mexico, past Guatemala and Nicaragua, past Costa Rica, through Panama, up past Belize and the Yucatan, and onwards to a place where they have epic hurricanes, and cowboys, and Zydeco, and shrimp.

Woah.

So for the next five weeks, we are busting our proverbial butts to figure out the logistics of this move, working on the boat, dumping weight like mad things (yes, again, with the decluttering blogs! Oish!), and living with the salon totally covered with manuals, charts, and guidebooks.

Our last passage, down here, was our first. We sailed through a gale (40+ knot sustained winds and really, really big waves, one of which we surfed down at 21 knots…). Will that kind of thing happen again? What did we learn from our passage before? How can we make this one better? This kids are stoked. My mom is in apprehension mode, as usual, but she does that first so she can enjoy later. We have friends volunteering to crew left and right, and we’re logisticizing that. I’ve got lists of my lists, and that seems to be a good way to do it.

Away we go…

Related posts:

1. …and then the VHF blew
2. Go Now
3. Jonathan’s First Watch
4. The Big Nada
5. Routine Maintenance in Exotic Locations

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