This was posted earlier, but it was an aside buried deep in an unrelated discussion and with an inappropriate title. After considering it, I decided that some who might benefit from it may have let it go by unread. My apologies to those who read it the first time, but it's a true story and I would most likely never have gone cruising had it not occurred. If I can nudge even one of you who dream of cruising, closer to the reality of it, then my purpose will be served.

Like many of you, I was once someone who had long dreamed of going cruising. Then, one evening we attended a farewell party for some friends who were heading south in their boat. As we were heading home on the freeway afterwards, I said to mi wife, "Man, I wish we could do that!".

My wife then turned to me and asked "Why can't we?"

After a short pause, I responded with the brilliant reply, "''Because!"

"No really, why can't we?".

That started a discussion that lasted a couple of months. We were a typical family with 2 kids, pets, a mortgage, jobs, etc. We had all the usual reasons/excuses for not doiing it, but her seemingly simple question got us talking seriously about it for the first time. A couple of months later, after identifying the issues preventing us from doing something I had been dreaming about since I was a teenager, the conversation shifted to finding workarounds to all of the various problems. The following fall, we packed our kids (then 12 & 13) into our little Catalina 30 and headed down the California coast to San Diego where we linked up with all the other boats for the '99 HaHa, and the Sea of Cortez. That trip lasted 2 months and led directly to our acquiring our first real cruising boat and taking off for the S. Pacific a half dozen years later. That cruise lasted 2 years and got us as far as Tonga. We have since done another 2 year Pacific cruise, this time making it all the way to New Zealand before turning around and heading back to home. Further, we expect to do yet another multi-year cruise in a few years.

Like most of the other cruisers we've met, we are far from rich, in fact I like to refer to us as "poor white trash afloat". But, and this is an important "but", we get out there and do it. I know putting your life on hold is not easy, but I'm here to tell you, the payoff is even better than the dreams. The memories we have of the people we've met and the places we've been are priceless. In many ways, those memories define who I am as a person now.

In our cruises, we've visited Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador (Including the Galapagos), Peru, Polynesia, Cook Islands, American Samoa, Tonga, Beveridge Reef, New Zealand & Hawaii. Many of them multiple times.

You can too.

So now, I am asking all of you dreamers out there, "Why can't you?"