Dreamz for Sale

Okay. We're selling the boat (and... exhale)
There. I said it. That makes it real, I think.

I've started this post a half dozen times before, but each and every time - I simply stare at the vast whiteness of the empty pages and keep waiting for my fingers to take over and do something to fill in the void.

They don't seem to know how - and I still don't have the words, but will do my best to try.

It's hard to describe the swirling blender of emotions right now.
Sadness admitting the end of a phase/era, thrilled that phase happened at all - and of course some excitement for the unknown of what lies ahead. It's all there, muddled up together and each amorphous feeling almost completely indivisible from the others. It's like multiple colors of play-doh getting pressed/mixed together - they all get lost and impossible to separate from one another.
For the record, kids... please never, NEVER do this, especially if your uncle Bryan is around to see it - I love you, but my OCD just can't take it.

We have known since pulling into French Polynesia almost 2 years ago that we would need to leave in April of 2025. Even with our long-stay visa, that was the "end of the line" in terms of how long we were allowed to stay here.
Technically, how long the boat could stay here... That, or we'd be forced to pay a hefty fee to "papeetize" (pay the taxes to import) the boat and stay.

At the time, we envisioned ourselves island hopping onward afterward, to the Cook Islands and Tonga and Fiji (and other islands we only know the names of from honeymoon destinations), eventually making our way to AUS/NZ.

When we first decided to cross the pacific, I joked that while most people planned to get to AUS/NZ in a year or two, that we always moved more slowly than others - and were likely on "an 8year plan". Obviously once arriving we started to get a better idea about the impacts of cyclone season and learned about how that's much harder to pull off than it sounded. Funny how research/knowledge can quickly explain why trends form as others make similar safe calls/plans.

For most of the last two years, I think we would tell you that we hadn't even begun to explore, and that chances were strong we would be staying right here.
French Polynesia has it's "difficulties"... it's pretty expensive to get even the most basic of food supplies (though from what I read, things are quickly catching up back home), the weather here is it's own beast of a complex guessing game and the remote islands that we love to explore the most also come with an ample set of work/complexity in anchoring/floating the chain, etc - but - we absolutely LOVE it here and started discussing staying almost as soon as we arrived to the Tuamotus.

But, as most of you know (and some of us try to ignore), reality is apparently still a factor in life. Our reality is and has always been - that we have been choosing to live well above our means (in most cases, we don't even have "means").
The stark reality of quitting the rat race in your 30s and leaving behind good paying/secure jobs long before you have something that even resembles a retirement plan - is that there will occasionally (at least) be moments of financial... shall we say... questions/hurdles.

This is a challenge we face head on and consider ourselves fairly successful at solving thus far (now 12 years into a 1 year trip)... but the days of living and traveling in a campervan for almost zero dollars is quite different than the realities of living and traveling by boat (there is after all, a reason that they say boat stands for Bust Out Another Thousand... or here far more).
At some point we have to face the reality of our expenses and how they differ from the dollars available (or unavailable).

Most of you probably recall that we had some VERY expensive boat repairs last year followed almost immediately by losing our business/livelihood/income stream to a narcissist business partner determined to burn it all to the ground (despite having given half our business away for free). Obviously we hadn't seen or planned on that combination of events and the result is that we are simply not in a position to import the boat to FP and still have the funds to live here for any extended period of time.

While Karma is aging beautifully and tackles each and every crossing like a champ - but she's also getting to an age where a refit is needed (aren't we all) in order to continue safely crossing oceans, and that refit would be an even bigger hit/depletion to the funds we have available than the import.

Apparently, as much as we actively choose to live our life ignoring dollars/money or pretending that they aren't important... it seems the rest of the world (including the people/shops we buy fuel and food and parts from here) still find it an important element in the transactions we desire/require.

We've run all the possible spreadsheets hoping more years could happen, but reality always settles in as we realize that the best we can truly do is prolong the inevitable, and not likely long enough to buy us enough time to change the ending/outcome. While we are the last people willing to live in and/or admit reality - our funds simply don't match the expenses required. Sometimes reality stings even if you choose to ignore it.

We are, of course, also conceiving of plans for how we might be able to change our financial situation moving forward. Our house back home has been listed for sale most of last year - a backup plan we thought would buy us some time/extend our journey, but the RE market has also been a bit of a mess and it's been hard for us to be willing to drop the price too far (on a home/investment that we already aren't thrilled to be parting with).

We also continue to discuss ways to share our passion/nomadic lifestyle with others... and hopefully find some ways that might be both fun for us, helpful to others and maybe also beneficial in helping continue our lifestyle than we've done/allowed in the past (more to come soon, subscribe here to get updates on future posts).

Obviously all of those thoughts/feelings weigh heavy. Even for us, change is a strong force that can move mountains physically and certainly stir things up emotionally. But it's also fair to say that within and tangled up with some of the negative (or not-yet-ready to face) emotions are also positive ones.

No change/leap in our history has lead us to a bad place, regardless of whether there was a plan for it - so we trust this will result in the same. We are also excited for new paths... and every fork in the road ahead comes with exciting new adventures and unknowns. Many of those possible paths we discussed in our last post and many of which we remain excited about (as long as we can also figure out how to keep a large amount of ocean/underwater in our days), so as sad as we are to see our floating home go - we are also excited for the future and what's yet to come.

We are so hopeful that we find the right buyers for svKarma, and that we can continue living vicariously through their adventures in the way that we've been able to do through so many people that we designed/built vans for over the years!
She has literally changed our lives in ways we couldn't imagine, and we expect that will be the same for whoever sails and lives on her next.

I remember early on when selling E, our VW bus (and our first rolling home)...
We listed the price low and were more focused on/concerned about finding someone who we loved the idea of them owning/driving E. The story took several turns after the buyer (and we no longer know where E is or who is behind the wheel), but we are still close friends with the person/family who bought E and are quite frankly moved and inspired by every single post/update we see from them.

Same with the ADUs/tiny homes we've helped design as people's dream homes and the vans we've helped design/build for other peoples' great adventuress. Somehow during the years of our adventures, the web of creativity and mutual inspiration has spread so wide that one could almost say we could sit back and simply live out all possible adventures by watching those we've met, worked with and helped over the years. Spoiler alert - we are NOT yet ready to do that... but it is easy to hope/imagine that whoever ends up living/traveling aboard svKarma after us also becomes a close friend that we are thrilled to follow along with over the years - and/or join for a future shared adventure. ;)

Anyway - as always, we will continue to share our paths, thoughts and emotions as they pass by/through us. This one feels BIG - but also somehow not scary, just largely impactful.

I guess the one thing that may have changed over the years (and through hundreds of posts here) is that change, in and of itself, is no longer terrifying. Just like fear, it is in no way a reason or even deterrent away from something... it is merely a part of the process.

I'm certain that it's Jen's hippy/mermaid influence, but I seem to have found comfort in the fact that while we still have no idea what exactly lies ahead - that it's still in our power to create/transform it as we go along. Right now it's impossible to know what paths lie ahead - but with each decision and step forward (especially one as big as this), we will be able to see and visualize more of that path and the options lying ahead of us. So... here we go!

Side note - In case it wasn't made abundantly clear above... but speaking of moving forward down unknown paths ahead. I/we could not have possibly imagined when we first decided to buy a boat (svKarma) that it would turn out so incredibly perfect for us. So completely transformational in our lives.

It felt just as big (and lots of scary), largely because we bought the boat sight unseen only 3 short days after first having a conversation about even the idea of buying a boat (and ironically, a campfire conversation with a grumpy sailor). We knew nothing about boats nor how to sail them. We had never really spent any time on or around boats and honestly bought based on some rough research over the years that we always thought was far more of a "pipe dream" than in any way preparing for something actually to come.

Yet... despite not knowing if we would move aboard, immediately learn that we got seasick or hated sailing (or if our sweet karma pup did) and had to sell the boat within a few months - it turned out to be the physical personification of our wildest dreams.

Each and every time a sadness starts to form now as I consider NOT living on Karma... those feeling are almost immediately replaced with overwhelming joy and gratitude for every single second we GOT to live on Karma.

That we made the terrifying choice to follow our wildest and most outlandish dream despite every possible obstacle standing in the way (and every voice telling us that "it can't be done")... and I am not only immensely proud of us for doing so - I am thrilled that we did so while we were still young enough to enjoy it fully and without reservation.

At the end of the day, all we each have is our story and the memories created along the way - and the chapter(s) we wrote over the last 6years could not possibly fit into a number of words or pages bound by a single cover. At best, the paradises we've explored, the depths we've found (in the ocean and in ourselves), the emotions and growth we've found - could truly only be captured in multiple volumes or (multiple shelves of them).

We may shed a tear... but you won't once catch us utter something even close to a regret about any single moment, experience or lesson we've had - because these chapters can only be described as us choosing LIFE, and spent living our wildest DREAMS.