When do you know that you have a dream?

Buena Vida moored at Two Harbors, Catalina. 

When do you know that you have a dream? 

We did not know this was our dream.  

One day on a whim we went to the Ventura Harbor to look at sailboats and that was the first step in the ruin of our lives, we were hooked.  A year of research and boat shopping later we finally purchased a Catalina 42 Centerline two cabin and aptly named her the Buena Vida.  We bought the boat with the intention of long weekends with our friends at the Channel Islands and surrounding marinas but quickly our eyes where opened to what the Buena Vida could do.  Without talking about it,  Jeff and I both started imagining that this boat could really take us places, we could cruise to the warm waters of Mexico and beyond if we wanted to.

I never thought that my very rational husband would consider doing such an irrational thing as quitting our jobs, leaving our family, our friends and our home but he was thinking the exact same thing!

Now, four years later we are preparing to embark on the dream we did not know that we had.  

We have quit our jobs, rented our home and will be leaving our family, friends and everything that we know to cruise south.  We plan to spend a month and a half floating around Southern California then we will cross the boarder to Mexico as hurricane season ends.  We have no defined plan except to continue to head south at what ever pace seems good to us.  In March we plan to turn around and head north to experience the Sea of Cortez at it’s finest in the Spring.  

We have a few weeks left to finish a year of intensive preparations.

We have added a new heavy weight bimini and solar panel array, a water maker, a freezer, a SSB radio, an extra fuel tank, an electric toilet (my 14 year anniversary present!) a new stereo, a TV for movies, two Kindles, an ipad and a macbook.  Almost every day a box arrives at our door with some extra filter or spare part that we will hopefully never need.  We are now reduced to shopping at Walmart for various and sundry items that we think of at two in the morning.  

Will they have our favorite candy in Mexico?