Most people will read this and consider my dream to be wildly juvenile and irrational. Some will read this and relate to my desire for freedom and adventure. But a small, privileged few of you will read this and come away with a renewed sense of energy to cast off your dock lines.
Dock lines are the only thing holding a sailor back from experiencing an ocean’s worth of freedom and adventure. Don’t get me wrong—they serve their purpose. They hold us securely to the dock while we’re in port, but they were never meant to hold us there permanently. That’s what salvage yards are for.
Unfortunately, I’ve walked the docks of many marinas, only to see the same sad fate besetting many of the boats in their slips. Some of the lines had been tied so long that they were brittle to the touch, and if you were to gently kick aside their flemish coils, you’d notice the wood underneath was a different color than the rest of the dock. These lines had no memory of being stowed in a locker as their boat departed, or being tossed to a dock to be used as a spring line. They might as well have been chains—welded to the boat at one end, and welded to the dock at the other.
Why is it that so many sailors and their boats find themselves tied to the dock for so long? Perhaps it is because their dock lines are a bit more complicated than pieces of rope. Maybe they’re afraid. Maybe life at the dock has become more appealing to them than life on the hook. Maybe, in their search for home, they found that the hustle and bustle of life at the marina was exactly what they were looking for. Or maybe life happened, similar to my experience in 2010.
I’d like to think that our dock lines are always of our own making—we’ve chosen to stay tied up for various reasons. But any sailor knows that’s not always the case. Sometimes the most stubborn, chaffing, and knotted dock lines are tied by those closest to us.
“You can’t do it.”
“You can’t raise your kids on a boat!”
“What are you going to do for money?”
“Have you really thought this all the way through?”
“So, you’re just going to throw it all away for some boat?”
My response to all of the critics as they stand by with dock lines in hand, ready to tie me up, has always been the same:
“There are enough people in this world to fill the seats of corporate office buildings, run for city council, honk their horns in traffic, apply for home loans, raise their kids conventionally, and paint their white picket fences. So, before you try and tie me up, why don’t you admit it—you just wish you had the stones to do this yourself.”
And if that’s a bit too salty and crass for your liking, you can always quote Mark Twain:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the dock lines! Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover!”
The End.
With all of that said, I just want to thank everyone who has kept up with all eighteen "blog posts" so far. In reality, these were the 18 chapters of the book I wrote titled, Dock Lines. The book is available at Amazon.com in both Kindle and Paperback format. I've thoroughly enjoyed compiling all of my salty memories and sailing adventures into one concise storyline, but its real reason for being written was to show that my dreams, ambitions, and forthcoming decisions are not at all sporadic or irrational. In fact, what's next has been a long time coming.
The book is my public announcement:
We're leaving.
At some point in 2022, we'll begin the process of putting our house on the market, paying cash for a sailboat in the range of 47-56 feet (likely a Vagabond or Formosa), putting the rest of the proceeds from the sale of the house in a savings account, continuing to work remote (mortgage-free), and enjoying the fleeting years we have left with our kids--doing something unforgettable.
Stay tuned for our upcoming adventures aboard SV Bully!
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