End of a Dream

 During the 14-hour flight from Sydney to San Francisco, we had lots of time to think about our last six years sailing Flying Cloud. Departing on Jan. 2, 2012, from Tampa, Fl, we sailed around Florida to Key West, then out to the Bahamas for a season, back to Cape Canaveral and up the US East Coast to Newport, RI, then back down to the Bahamas, Exumas, Windward and Leeward Islands, and on to Grenada for hurricane season, followed by a trip back up to the Virgin Islands and down to Grenada to complete one more season in the Caribbean.  

In November 2014 we departed Grenada to Bonaire, then sailed across the Caribbean Sea to Cartegena, Columbia for Christmas, and on to the San Blas Islands and through the Panama Canal in March 2015. We soon departed for the Galapagos Islands, then sailed our longest passage, 18-days to the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. We spent two seasons in French Polynesia, then departed for remote Palmerston Island, Fiji, Vanuatu, and finally crossing the Tasman Sea to Newport, Australia -- 17,000 miles of blue water.  Whew!

How was all this possible? I remembered that surprising day in North Bend in 2010 when Meryl mentioned to me that "maybe she'd be interested in doing some bluewater cruising." Wow! We then put a loose plan in place where we'd slowly start looking at sailboats to see what we liked, what was available, and at what price.  After two months of looking in the Seattle area, we happened upon a boat we really liked called a Taswell 44, a custom ocean cruiser built in Taiwan. The problem was there weren't very many of this type of boat for sale -- anywhere in the world. I worried that our search for a boat would drag on forever and Meryl would lose her interest in the whole idea.

We bought the boat in Ft. Lauderdale, put her on a flatbed trailer, and drove her across Florida to Tampa where a friend had a millworks with an enclosed security fence.

I recall the Saturday morning when our broker called and said "Quick, get on the Internet and look at this boat that was just listed on Yachtworld; it looks exactly like what you are looking for."  There was only one poor quality photo that didn't tell us much, but the price was certainly attractive. The broker said he'd have a buddy in Florida look at it. Later in the day our broker's partner showed up and recognized the boat immediately; it was a Seattle boat named Caroline that he had sold to a real estate developer in Telluride who had used it as "dock queen" (a boat that never leaves the dock) in Florida. I was already flying to Florida to help sail a boat from Boca Raton up to New York, so I got to take a quick look at the Taswell the day before we left. It was a perfect boat for us and we made an offer that very day. The only problem, we weren't remotely ready to do this. We hadn't sold our Catalina 36, our house in North Bend, or acquired any of the equipment needed to sail the boat offshore. Luckily a bunch of improbable things fell into place that allowed us to purchase the boat and move forward.

So began the mad summer of selling our Catalina 36, purchasing the Taswell in Ft. Lauderdale, moving it to a friend's factory in Largo, and Walter commuting every week to Tampa to work on the boat. We put in an incredible amount of time, sweat, and money into making the boat "bluewater ready." I remember a July day when the guys in the air-conditioned millworks were staring at me outside, drenched in sweat while working on the hull of the boat. That's when I learned why you don't do hard labor outside in Florida in the 100-degree heat and humidity. It did, however, serve to acclimatize me to the tropical heat over time.

About six months later, on Jan. 2, 2012, we departed Tampa Bay, sailing under the Bridge of Americas and south to Key West. While we had sailed our whole lives, what we were about to undertake was way beyond our experience and abilities. It was like going from sand-lot baseball to the big leagues in one fell swoop. And as Captain Ron said, "If it's going happen it's going to happen out there." After surviving three hurricanes during our first summer, we found that Captain Ron was right. The learning curve was steep and the consequences could be fatal. I remember thinking "Holy Moly, what have we gotten ourselves into?"

Waking from my reminiscence, our United Airlines 747 had begun its descent and I looked out the window to see the familiar coastline of San Francisco peeking through the clouds. We cleared customs at SFO and took the next flight up to Seattle. Talk about culture shock after living abroad for the last six years. Grid-locked traffic, stores on every corner, and a crazy orange-faced man "running" the country. It was so good to see our son, our grandchildren, and close friends after the long separation. We stayed for about two weeks with our close friends, Paul and Irene Ballew, and spent much of our time planning for the next phase of our life. It was cold in Seattle and I remember wearing socks to bed for the first time in years. Back to reality.

Our trusty moving crew helps unload hundreds of boxes at our new Bend home.

We did eventually get a car into this garage.

While in Seattle, we got a year’s worth of medical appointments done and had many enjoyable visits getting caught up with the grandkids and friends. We went out to our storage unit in North Bend, opened the roll-up door, and were met with a solid wall of stuff -- all our possessions that we hadn't seen for the last seven years. Why did we keep all this stuff? We then rented a big black Chevy Tahoe (think FBI Swat Team), stuffed it full of as much junk as the car would hold (including our eight bags from the boat), and drove seven hours to Bend, Oregon. The drive down through the wheat fields of eastern Washington was very cathartic for me; I love the wide-open spaces. I guess they remind me of the endless expanses of ocean we were used to after six years at sea. 

Choosing a new city to live in after spending almost all of our life in Seattle was a difficult decision. We loved living in Seattle and raising our kids there, but it had changed dramatically since we left. Traffic jams, the constant buzz of competitiveness from all the high tech companies, the sky-high housing costs, and the months-on-end of depressing clouds and rain made our decision easy.

Hiking along the Crooked River beneath Smith Rocks near Bend with our daughter and her family.

With our daughter relocating from Hong Kong, her family also had to choose a new city to live in. Ironically we chose Bend independently from her, but for all the same reasons. A ski and summer resort town nestled near the Cascade foothills, but surrounded by high desert. The smell of mountain air and fresh pine trees in the morning, the 25-minute drive to the ski area in the winter and the 5-minute ride to some of the best mountain biking in the US, all capped by the near-constant sunshine and dry climate made Bend a perfect city for us. I loved the local bumper sticker: "I live where you vacation."

The Deschutes River in front of our daughter's house is perfect for paddleboarding and inner tube rides in the summer.

We were very fortunate that our daughter Christa, and son-in-law Nash, had just bought a house in Bend (they were on a one-year sabbatical traveling around the world after living in Hong Kong for 15 years). We stayed with Christa and the grandkids for about two weeks, then they flew back to Spain to finish their sabbatical. We were so lucky to stay in their beautiful old house right on the Deschutes River near downtown Bend. Unfortunately, the house was quite old and difficult to remodel, so Christa planned to demolish it in August and build a new house on the site. Meryl and I now had one priority in life: to find a new house and move a huge amount of junk from our North Bend storage unit down to Bend.

        

The City of Bend commissioned a river hydraulic project that created a standing surfing wave on one channel of the river, with the right-hand fork used by inner tubers.

Kayaking on Sparks Lake with the Sisters mountain in the background is a special treat in early summer.

Tamolitch (Blue Pool) on the MacKenzie River trail is a highly popular hike.

With our new R-Pod travel trailer we enjoyed hiking and exploring around Crater Lake.

Literally minutes from our house is some of the best mountain biking in the US.

Our early days in Bend were idyllic, living in a beautiful cozy house, watching the industrious beavers in the river right outside our window, exploring the Bend environs, and skiing at Mt. Bachelor. Most of our days, however, we focused on finding a house to buy since we had to move out of Christa's by July. You'd think buying a house out in the middle of the high desert of Oregon would be a relatively simple task, but not in Bend we learned. 

Bend is one of the most popular cities in the US for relocation, and as such, houses lasted only a few days on the open market. We spent most days driving around with a realtor looking at the scant number of available houses. You'd think that being out in the middle of no-where the housing prices would be reasonable, but not in Bend. The prices seemed to go up every week, making our house search more urgent. 

We had made a full price offer on a house a year earlier when we were on the boat in Fiji (an interesting task as we were anchored in the outer islands with terrible Internet connectivity). We quickly learned that a full price cash offer wasn't enough. We finally found another house we liked and made another full price offer, but the owner wanted to delay the move-in date for about three months. We said two months and that scotched the deal. We were now getting to know Bend real estate fairly well, but getting increasingly frustrated with the very limited supply and high prices. Then one day we viewed a small house in a great master-planned development (Northwest Crossing). The house was basically a long galley kitchen (like a boat) with three bedrooms attached. The front and back yards were minuscule, but it had a great park nearby (for the grandkids) and a wonderful small restaurant/shopping area one block west.  The house had been on the market for about two hours. It wasn't perfect, but we had a very short time to make a decision. We made a full-price offer with no contingencies and sent a very nice letter to the owners that seemed to seal the deal (another offer $10,000 over ours had come in about four hours later). A few days later the realtor called to say our offer had been accepted and we could move in about three weeks.

Soon afterward we got notice that our 49 boxes from Australia had arrived in Seattle and needed to be picked up at the customs broker. We jumped in Christa's car and drove up to Seattle, rented a small U-Haul trailer, and prayed as the forklift carefully maneuvered the two plastic-wrapped pallets directly into the trailer. Then another beautiful drive down to Bend where we unloaded everything into Christa's small garage.  

Since we owned virtually no furniture, our next weeks were spent scouring Bend's wonderful consignment shops where we found two recliner chairs, a kitchen table, and a wonderful leather couch. We learned that many equity-wealthy (i.e. California) families have second homes in the Bend area and like to keep their furniture updated every few years, meaning you can find great deals at the consignment stores. In our past life, we bought most of our furniture new from local stores. Being retired and on a fixed income, however, we learned that we could get near-identical furniture at a fraction of the cost by visiting the consignment shops and Craig's List.

After living six years in a cramped sailboat, I figured Meryl deserved a great kitchen.

We took possession of our house on May 16th, and on the 20th flew up to Seattle, rented the largest truck UHaul offered, and hired two guys to help us move everything from our packed-to-the-brim storage unit. They weren't the most careful movers but we managed to fill the truck all the way to the top and squeezed the remainder into a rental car. The next morning we began the drive over Snoqualmie Pass and down the backside of Eastern Washington through the open scrublands to Bend. We were lucky to have a great crew help us unload in Bend and quickly filled our garage to the brim with all the boxes.

Moving from the 400 sq. ft. living space on the boat to a house was quite a transition. First, we knew the house would be in the same location when we awoke every morning (since the anchor wouldn't drag in heavy wind). The house wouldn't sway as heavy gusts of wind hit it. We didn't have to check the weather each night to see if we needed to put an extra anchor out. We could take long, uninterrupted showers without depleting our water supply.  We could leave the lights on without the batteries running down. We could drive our car to the grocery store rather than walking three miles with backpacks. We could speak the same language as our neighbors. And finally, we could waste inestimable amounts of time watching mindless shows on our first high-definition wide-screen TV (when we left nine years ago these we still fairly rare items).

We soon learned that you need to shovel the snow off your walks before it turns to blue ice.

Downtown Bend is a magical place in the winter. The local movie theatre, The Tower, is a five-minute drive from our house with easy parking.

Again, pre-Covid, Bend is famous for its almost daily events and music festivals both summer and winter.

We skied Mt. Bachelor while in college and still find it challenging to this day.

About 15 minutes from our house is the Virginia Meissner Sno Park, with miles of groomed XC ski trails and two wonderful shelters, both with warm pot-bellied stoves.

The grandchildren are both in the Mount Bachelor Ski Education Foundation ski racing program and they are fast skiiers. We can barely keep up with them anymore.

So nice to have both our kid's families visit during Thanksgiving and other holidays (pre-COVID).

The annual "luminaire" event at Virginia Meisner Sno Park features a 40-foot-long snow dragon.

To date, we have thoroughly enjoyed living in Bend and remind ourselves daily how fortunate we are. As always, it's been slow making new friends, but through our neighborhood socials and our daughter's friends we now have a nice group to share our lives with. Winters are spent skiing at Mt. Bachelor, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing at Virginia Meisner SnoPark, and ice skating at the Pavilion.  During the summers we hike in the Cascades with a local group, the Broken Top Ramblers, ride our mountain bikes at the nearby Phil's Trail complex, golf at one of the 30 local golf courses, kayak on the Deschutes River and the Cascade high mountain lakes, and take daily walks in our neighborhood (although a lot of this is now tempered by COVID). We especially like being able to leave the house 10 minutes before a concert or show downtown, and having a maximum drive of 15 minutes to reach anywhere in Bend. Small town life is wonderful and we could never go back to a major metropolitan area to live.

We certainly miss the social times and international friendships we made. Here are Katherine and Wolfgang from Austria (on left) and Maria and Maurice from France.

The finish of the famous Hawaiki Nue Va'a canoe race from Tahiti to Bora Bora. The Tahitians know how to throw a party!

We truly miss the highly social lifestyle of bluewater cruising and the hundreds of interesting people, some of whom will be lifelong friends. While some have quit cruising, many are still out there exploring exotic ports of call (although most are now quarantined because of COVID-19). We follow many of our friends who are still cruising through their blogs and miss the cruising lifestyle, but realize it was time for us to "swallow the anchor" and move back to land. Now our focus is on maintaining our health, spending time with our kids and grandkids, and hopefully getting back to doing a little more international travel as soon as COVID-19 runs its course. We will never, however, forget the incredible people and experiences we shared in our six-year voyage halfway around the world.

Sunset over Lake Paulina near Bend, OR.