A Mother/Daughter Adventure to Beat All Adventures!

Tomorrow morning Carmen and I are venturing out.  On our own.  A mother/daughter team embarking on an adventure that will take us via plane, car, and sailboat to places we've been and also to places we've never been.  We are helping friends of ours aboard the Sailing Vessel Sweet Dreams sail across the Pacific Ocean (well, part of the Pacific Ocean) from San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico to the Marquesas and Tahiti in French Polynesia. 

Here is a link to a google map describing our general destinations and itinerary.

As we prepare for this, I am buzzing with excitement.  For the past seventeen years I have been lucky to share my life with Bruce, my soulmate, my partner in crime, the father of my children, my captain.  We met while living aboard sailboats in Jersey City, New Jersey, and have since logged many thousands of miles (over 15,000 I think) sailing together all over the west coast of the U.S., Alaska, and Canada.  While sailing, we go together like peas and carrots (as Forrest Gump would say).

Aside from about 19 years ago when I delivered my sailboat from New York City to Boston, this is the first time I've ventured onto the sea in a large sailboat for an extended amount of time without Bruce at my side.  And it is also the first time I've sailed across an ocean, where we will be traveling for 3-4 weeks without stepping foot on land (the longest I've done this in the past was about 3 days when crossing the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean heading to Acapulco).  Those times, Bruce was there with me. 

This journey, therefore, feels different.  It has been a long time since I've embarked on an adventure on my own into unknown territory.  Perhaps the last time was 14 years ago when I went through pregnancy and delivered my first baby.  What a mind-opening and mind-blowing experience THAT was!! 

I am hoping this will be another one of those. 

My husband loves that Carmen and I are doing this.  He sees it as an opportunity that may not come again, at a time in our lives (Carmen on the bring of puberty and me just beginning the menopausal journey) when we are beginning to change.  He said in an email recently, "look at the white boat as your red tent."