Sailing Trip Excerpt

NEW CALEDONIA, SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN:

“Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.”
-JOHN F. KENNEDY

Some people remain convinced that just a bit more money will make
things right. Their goals are arbitrary moving targets: $300,000 in the
bank, $1,000,000 in their portfolio, $100,000 a year instead of
$50,000, etc. Julie's goal made intrinsic sense: come back with the
same number of children she had left with. She reclined in her seat and
glanced across the aisle past her sleeping husband, Marc, counting as
she had done thousands of times—one, two, three. So far so good. In
twelve hours they would all be back in Paris, safe and sound. That was
assuming that the plane from New Caledonia held together, of course.
New Caledonia?
Nestled in the tropics of the Coral Sea, New Caledonia was a French
territory and where Julie and Marc had just sold their sailboat that
took them 15,000 miles around the world. Of course, recouping their
initial investment had been part of the plan. All said and done, their
15-month exploration of the globe, from the gondola-rich water-ways of
Venice to the tribal shores of Polynesia, had cost between $18,000 and
$19,000. Less than rent and baguettes in Paris.
Most people would consider this impossible. Then again, most people
don't know that more than 300 families set sail from France each year
to do the same. The trip had been a dream for almost two decades,
relegated to the back of the line by an ever-growing list of
responsibilities. Each passing moment brought a new list of reasons for
putting it off.
One day, Julie realised that if she didn't do it now that she would
never do it. The rationalisations, legitimate or not, would just
continue to add up and make it harder to convince herself that escape
was possible. One year of preparation and one 30-day-trial run with her
husband later, they set sail on a trip of a lifetime. Julie realised
almost as soon as the anchor lifted that, far from being a reason not
to travel and seek adventure, children are perhaps the best reason of
all to do both.
Pre-trip, her three little boys had fought like banshees at the drop of
a hat. In the process of learning to coexist in a floating bedroom,
they learned patience, as much for themselves as for the sanity of
their parents. Pre-trip, books were about as appealing as eating sand.
Given the alternative of staring at a wall on the open sea, all three
learned to love books. Pulling them out of school for one academic year
and exposing them to new environments had proven to be the best
investment in their education to date.
Now sitting in the plane, Julie looked out at the clouds as the wing
cut past them, already thinking of their next plans: to find a place in
the mountains and ski all year long, using income form a sail-rigging
workshop to fund the slopes and more travel.
Now that she had done it once, she had the itch. ****