In the beginning....

Dreaming of the future

I have always wanted to run away to sea. Over the years the how and when has been refined into a retirement lifestyle of travelling the seven seas visiting beautiful parts of the world, although it wasn't always that simple.

The adventure with Isosceles all started with a side trip to look at a yacht brokers on the way to visit the boat show in Southampton, UK one September. We were not looking for a boat, I was just dreaming and showing my wife at the time what I believed could be realistic dreams when I retired in a few years’ time. Having been honest with the brokers about not buying yet they showed us round quite a few boats, and the second one we saw struck a chord. It was a little scruffy in it’s cabin, as in well used, but appeared to have little structurally wrong. A Moody 37 that had some history and was “in need of re-decorating inside” was how it was best described. The name Isosceles was to come up a few times over the next few weeks and months.

I had no intention of buying a boat at that time, charter holidays every year to somewhere hot had much MUCH more appeal, but in a year or too that would be just the kind of thing we would look for. After all mooring fees alone cost as much, if not more than the cost of a 2 week charter holiday in the Mediterranean each year, and a charter to the Caribbean was always a possibility.

Off we went to the New Forrest for the weekend, and a trip to the Southampton boat show for a day of dreaming. It quickly became apparent that Isosceles had become a bit of a benchmark. Every boat we went on and dreamed about was compared to that worn old boat, but as with many of the 1980’s designed Moody and Westerly boats, the older boats came out on top in so many practical ways.

We moved on with the thought of “well that’s the dream”, and a promise of “that’s what we’ll be looking too in a year or two”. And so we headed home.

And then there was a bombshell from work.

The world turns and everything changes ....

It had been a bit of a rough time, with several staff getting ill and unfortunately passing away, some much younger (and much fitter) than me. Then the granddad of work was suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer. We both knew the family, my wife having both worked alongside his wife in the past, now I worked with the man himself. This man was an inspiration to everyone at work; he gave everything while he was there, but always had a timely hint of sarcasm to lighten the mood. He lived life to the full when he was not at work and talked of the endless love for his family. Now he wasn’t going to see his hoped and planned for happy retirement.

This bought back so many memories of what happened with my father several years before, when he passed away so soon after retirement. Another life spent planning for a future that was not to be.

I got home and said OK, I’m going to do whatever I can to buy a boat, I can’t sit and wait for life to pass by.

And so the search was on ….