Settling In 
Its funny, I dont feel like we are 100% assimilated back into the hustle and bustle of normal land life, but then I realize that somehow almost four months have slipped away since my last post, and I know that to a certain degree, we are right back in the rat race. 

Its been a crazy summer full of the things we missed while we were away: time with our families and fun with our friends. The only thing missing was time for sailing, but we can’t complain about that…  you could say that the scales tipped towards sailing in the last few years, so we are making up for that imbalance now. We have already been to seven weddings this summer, and all of their accompanying bridal showers, bachelor parties, bridesmaid’s mani/pedi dates, and so on. Although my beach feet probably needed a some extra love, I think that three pedicures in three weeks was a little overkill, but how do I say no to a bride? Our wedding schedule has kept us zipping all over the state and has given us a great excuse to catch up with family members from afar and friends we haven’t seen in ages.

People keep asking us “how does it feel to be back?” and I wish I had a better answer, but all I can think of is “it’s weird”. After 18 months of keeping it simple, moving at our own pace, and spending 100% of our time together, it just feels weird to give our time to other people, hop in a car and drive across town for any old reason, and be expected to “keep up” with everything.

We are dragging our feet on a few things. We kept my 14 year old Subaru while we were gone, and have decided to be a one-car-family for as long as we can. We sold the Cabriolet – and good riddance! We can bike to most things in town, although I’m still working up the guts to ride to work in the morning. In addition to sharing a single car, we are sharing a single cell phone, which baffles and confuses people to the point of comedy. Its only been a decade or so since most people gave up their home phones for cell phones, but judging from the look people give you when you tell them that you don’t have a cell phone, it may as well have been a million years. After being totally unconnected to the outside world for weeks at a time, I have to say that I feel some resentment at being expected to be available by phone 24-7. Then again, I have always been terrible at returning phone calls, so maybe Im just happy to finally have a half-way decent excuse. I don’t know that we’ll be able to share cars and phones forever, but it feels good to keep things simple for as long as we can. I figure that we’ll probably never have less “stuff” than we do right now, so we are savoring the moment.

Home Sweet Boat
We plan to live on the boat for as long as we continue to like it. We originally thought we would sell it at the end of our cruise, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. We love sailing, we love this boat, and we weren’t ready to give it all up. Keeping the boat not only meant footing the expense to ship it home from Florida, but also meant not having that extra infusion of cash to get ourselves reestablished. We counted our pennies, crossed our fingers and decided that what we would save in rent by living on the boat for a year or so would counteract the cost of shipping it home. So here we are, back in Bellingham, and living on our boat. For now, we have everything we need and most of what we want. When we originally moved onto the boat 2+ years ago, one of the only things I was sad to give up was my garden and my houseplants, so now that we are sitting in one place most of the time, I converted our jerry can rack into a flower pot rack… now our home is complete!

Before our trip, I didn’t talk much about living aboard, for fear that people would think it was weird. Now, I talk about it to anyone who will listen, and get a total kick out of people’s reactions. Most people respond in one of two ways: “oh, how interesting” or “oh, so… you’re homeless”. Its been fun sharing about our non traditional lifestyle, especially at work with a bunch of accountants who are more prone to think inside the box. One co-worker in particular asks about once a week: “are you still living on that boat??” Its hard to convince some people that its NOT camping or being homeless and more like living in a small but cozy house.
Finding our Feet
Fortunately, right before we returned home, a friend of mine and previous boss, asked if I would be willing to pick up some of my old job responsibilities while I looked for a permanent position. I was stoked to help her with a few fun projects, earn some cash when we were in a pinch and have an easy, no-pressure, way to transition back into the working lifestyle. I wont lie, even though this was the easiest re-introduction to work I could have asked for, it was still a little rough. After having the luxury of spending 100% of my time selfishly, it took a while to wrap my brain around giving 40 hours of my life to something else every week. This same wonderful friend also put me in touch with a friend of hers who is a partner at an accounting firm that happened to need someone like me. I interviewed the very day after we splashed the boat in Bellingham, one thing led to the next and boom, I have been working full time since the beginning of July.  The tiniest part of me secretly hoped that I would be unemployed for just a little while so I’d have time to catch my breath, but in a job market like this one, I know I am blessed to have found a job I love so quickly.  Elan has had several good interviews so far, but is still looking for a position that will keep him interested long-term. With all of the boat work we have needed done, I don’t know how he would have time to work anyway.  

Zen and the Art of Boat Maintenance
For once in her life, Silver Lining cooperated with our pleas. During the last few months of our trip, we had a few key pieces of equipment that were threatening to give up their ghosts, but we begged them to ‘just hold out until we could make it home’… We should have been more careful what we wished for, because as soon as we made it home, it seemed like everything broke. Although we are used to roughing it, (and I know sailors who chose to live without refrigeration), two months without a refrigerator and a temperamental water pump is pretty sucky.

Its going to take us a while to de-cuise the boat: to complete the deferred maintenance and re-do our quickie bubble-gum-ducktape-fix-it-with-whatever-supplies-we-happen-to-have fixes that we did along the way. It feels pretty good to be able to fix things on our own time, wait until we can find the proper parts/supplies and not be working in ‘survival mode’ anymore. We did manage to off-load a couple of big space-hogging items that we’d kept for our cruise: the spare transmission, the wind vane, and the 50 gallon flexible water tank. Maybe, just maybe, we will actually remove enough cruising gear that we can sleep in the stateroom again someday. Big dreams! 🙂

Now that we aren’t putting such hard miles on the boat, we have decided to fix up a few cosmetic things as well. We re-did the silver pinstripe and I broke my absolutely-no-varnish-outside rule, and have started varnishing our few token pieces of teak on the exterior of the boat. After all of her hard work, Silver Lining deserves a little love too!

SUMMER IN THE BEAUTIFUL PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Here are a few photos from our summer in our old stomping grounds.

Camping at Deception Pass:

Buddy Boating with Mom and Dad on their new Grand Banks
Out for a Day Sail with Old Friends:

A Visit to Western Washington University:

Time with Family:


A Front Row Seat to the Best Sunsets in Bellingham


Well… there goes Summer, happy first day of fall everyone! I hope a whole ‘nother season doesn’t slip by before my next post!
Hope you are all happy and well,
Ashley & Elan

Whoever said boats were money pits that constantly need fixing never owned a Volkswagen.

The good news is that we made it the 2,900 miles to Bellingham, WA in one piece… I wish I could say the same for our little Cabriolet. Over the seven day trip, the car let us down in nearly every state, had to be hotwired more often than not, needed to be towed three times (yes, THREE!), and cost us more in repairs than we paid for it. Despite all of our car issues, we had an amazing trip through some incredible countryside, and we don’t regret deciding to drive a bit.

We  set out of Pensacola on Saturday, and drove straight across Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana surrounded by the lovely odor of gasoline. The car trouble began just after dark that night as we stopped for gas in Texas. It refused to start, so after we fiddled for a while Élan hotwired it just to get us back on the road.

We spent the night with Elan’s sister Deja in Austin, then hit the road again the next day hot wiring after every stop. Central Texas is beautiful, with wildflowers blooming everywhere, and we loved having the top down in the scorching heat. We were proud owners of our very first seat belt tans.


If you have ever driven through West Texas, you know that there are lots of long stretches of emptiness, which is precisely where the car decided to sputter to a stop on the freeway that night just before sunset. Élan suspected the fuel filter, so we cashed in on our AAA membership and called for a tow. Several friendly locals stopped to chat us up while we waited for the truck. If you must break down, Texas is a great place to do it. Anytime anyone saw us under the hood, they would stop to make sure we were ok. On two different occasions, passersby insisted that we come home and stay with them until we could get the car running again. We heart Texas!

We thought that being towed would be the easiest and safest way to get to Midland, the closest town, 99 miles away, but boy were we wrong. We waited 3 hours for the tow truck to come, and once he did, he drove us 40 miles in the wrong direction while he argued with someone on the phone about who would drive us the rest of the way. He lost the argument, turned around and drove back towards Midland. It was about 2am by this point and I was dozing off until loud bells and whistles woke me up. The chain-smoking driver mumbled something about a check engine light and pulled off to the side of the road in a cloud of smoke. We discovered 5 gallons of motor oil puddled under the truck. Excellent.

The trucker had no tools or supplies, so Élan dug his out of the car and spent an hour helping the driver troubleshoot. With that much oil leaking, the tow truck wasn’t going anywhere, so he called an even bigger tow truck to come tow the tow truck towing us. The driver who didn’t want to come in the first place, eventually showed up 3 hours later. Again, Élan and his tools had to help them disconnect the drive line so the tow truck could be towed. Finally, we were back on the road with two chain-smoking truckers, one of which was most definitely high as a kite. As we were perched on the edge of the nasty sleeper bed in the back of the semi, Elan leaned over and whispered, “it’s my birthday.” Sure enough. I felt even worse for him when I realized that on his last birthday, we were stranded without a boat engine in Mexico.  Geez, getting old is rough!

The tow trucks dropped us off in a Napa parking lot where we reclined our seats and slept for an hour before the store opened. After Elan replaced the fuel filter, spark plugs, ground strap and bought a spare fuel pump, we were on the road again by noon.

We made it to the New Mexico State line before the gas fumes were intense enough to pull off at a rest stop and replace the fuel pump too. That night around midnight we stopped at a scenic lookout and passed out in the car. We intended to pitch the tent in campgrounds and stay in hotels throughout the trip, but were too exhausted to mess with either for the entire trip.
I’d heard that Volkswagen makes good campers. I don’t think the Cabriolet is what people mean by that, but we managed to do alright. The drivers seat didn’t lean back, so I folded it forward and curled up on the back of it with my legs dangling over the trunk, and Élan reclined in the passenger seat. One benefit of our sailing trip is that we can now sleep anywhere, anytime, in just about any conditions. We woke up to a spectacular view of a rocky canyon the next morning.


We oohed and ahhed our way through stunning northern New Mexico (with its mini dust tornados) Colorado (lush green pastures bordered by snow capped mountains) and Utah (crazy rock formations) all the while trying to convince ourselves that the road, not the car, was causing us to swerve left and right over every bump.

Eventually, the swerving car started to become a safety issue, so we pulled over and jacked up each tire to make sure nothing was loose. Finding no clear problem, we continued on to Snowville, a truck-stop town in northern Utah. After checking air pressure in all tires, the car was still just too swervy to continue on. Tow truck number three was driven by an incredibly nice guy, who drove us 196 miles in the direction we wanted to go, so we got the most out of the 200 mile AAA towing maximum. Thank you Bluejay for insisting that we buy AAA before attempting a cross-country run in a Volkswagen. You saved us $1500 bucks in towing this week!
After the tow, we once again slept off the last two hours of dark in the car, this time in a Les Schwab parking lot. The next day we spent 8.5 hours and $550 in two different Les Schwabs buying new struts, strut mounts and two new tires (to go with the other two new that we bought in FL before leaving) and still had an awful bumping noise for the remaining 315 miles to my parent’s house in E Washington that night. 

Finally, we made it to Washington! Fed up with working on the car ourselves, we dropped it off with a mechanic, and spent an extra day with my family, who surprised Elan with a belated birthday celebration. Had we not stayed that extra day, we would have been driving up I-5 around the time the Skagit River Bridge collapsed. Everything happens for a reason, so I guess I should feel grateful that our car was such a (cute) piece of junk, right? We had to order some car parts, so thankfully we were able to borrow my parents car for the last couple hundred miles of the trip.
After rushing across the entire country, the boat also got held up in the bridge traffic, so we missed our Friday afternoon appointment to splash the boat in Bellingham. That meant we had to stay out in the boat yard until after the holiday weekend. After all the chaos of the last week’s driving adventure, we were just grateful to be reunited with the boat, and see that it arrived in one piece. Bo Smith, from Smith Boat Salvage, did a great job taking care of Silver Lining during her journey.

When we finally splashed the boat on Tuesday afternoon, we weren’t surprised that it wouldn’t start due to air in our fuel lines. Sailboats have no internal suspension, typically the cushion is usually provided by water, so when you put it on a trailer and haul it cross-country, things get a little rattled. Rather than go through the rigmarole of bleeding the fuel system and spending the night under the crane, we just towed the boat with the dinghy the mile to our new slip. What’s one more shenanigan after a year and a half of them?

We are thrilled to be back in Bellingham once again and are excited to see how the next few months unfold. We will continue to blog about sailing, living on a boat, and the adventures of life, so stay tuned!

‘Til next time!
A & E