The Hard Bean Cafe and Booksellers (& wifi)
Annapolis, MD
12:34 pm EDT Wednesday, July 6th, 2005

Man, when things change, they change fast.

Wind Song is about a quarter mile from here, on a mooring right off the downtown Annapolis waterfront. She is for sale, and we have engaged a professional broker whose office is right across Spa Creek from her -- actually physically closer to her than we are right now (we're all here at the cafe). We have plane tickets home on August 1. By the end of July, Wind Song will either have sold or she will be on the hard in a boatyard immediately in front of the broker's office.

Roxanne has been feverishly trying to get her college finances together, given that she wants (and has been accepted) to go to school at St Johns College here in Annapolis, which costs more than double what our family can afford -- which means Roxanne has a month to beg, borrow, earn, steal -- or formulate a plan involving all four -- the difference. Our deal with her has been that no more than half that difference can be borrowed. And since scholarships have not been forthcoming, what's left is "earn".

So. She just got back from an interview with the President/Founder of an intriguing company called Womanship, based about two blocks away here in Annapolis, that offers sail training programs for women 400 times a year in 16 countries around the world. This woman offered Roxanne a job on the spot as her assistant, and asked if she could start . . . today. Roxanne said no, but . . . how about tomorrow?

She starts at 10 am tomorrow. She'll work all this month, then go home with us to CA to pack for school, then be back here August 22nd. She chooses her own hours, will have the opportunity to sail occasionally on the training boats during the summers, maybe even overseas, will be up for an immediate raise when school starts if she does well in the coming month . . .

Is this cool or WHAT? The whole family feels like it's been shot out of a cannon, weightless in thin air, still not knowing where we'll all land.

 Meantime, Lane's been coming up here to the Hard Bean daily, his personal deal with himself being that he doesn't get to sip coffee on the Annapolis waterfront and watch the world go by if he doesn't work that day. He and NGST have been considering his job assignment options for when he gets back, and some of the possibilities are intriguing.

So we just paid for a month on the mooring. Gutch is growing on Wind Song's bottom that we, valuing our health, can't do much about in this not-so-clean harbor -- which bodes ill for any prospective buyer's test sail that may happen, but such is life. We can always have her hauled and pressure-washed, if it comes to that.

This feels a lot like how our cruising on Daybreak ended in 1994. All of a sudden it's OVER, and land life is taking over again with a vengeance. On the one hand there's this excruciating wistfulness, but on the other there's hope and plans for the future. Lane's already got three or four candidates for "The Next Boat" -- assuming Wind Song sells and we don't end up with her back in CA. Tania's got her senior year at ESHS all planned out and has begun shopping for colleges vowing that, in her case, colleges will pay her to attend rather than vice versa (works for us!) -- and is also planning how she'll go cruising in the Bahamas and Caribbean on her own boat the first chance she gets. She also met a British family (at the yacht broker's 4th of July party 2 days ago) who've invited her to come stay with them at their home outside Blackpool, England if she ever wants to come visit. Good grief! Things are on the move!

This is just a quick text-only update, in the hope that Lane can get it uploaded to our website himself right from here (there have been ongoing difficulties there). We wanted you to know. We'll try to put up some photos if we get the time -- though time is one commodity that seems to be going into short supply around here! Lynn and Roxanne just left to go get some stuff at West Marine, and then Roxanne has an interview for possible work as a novice fill-in finisher/varnisher at a local boatyard -- twice the salary of Womanship but much farther away, harder, and probably less fun & satisfying, so this is probably just a box-checking exercise.

That's all for now. More later when we can.