I consider myself just a normal guy, who has spent his whole life working a 9-to-5 job. Commuting to work everyday, I was burnt out and ready for change. Each day I drove over the Golden Gate bridge and looked at all the sailboats. I thought to myself, “that is a much better place to be than here.”

So, in March of 2014 I took my first sailing class at Modern Sailing. I have been hooked every since. Very quickly, I decided I wanted to go on a long cruise, maybe circumnavigate. And that is where this story begins. In October of 2015 I become the owner of Eliana II.

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 I bought my sailboat, Eliana II, in October of 2015, just in time for a Halloween trip to Catalina Island. It is now December of 2016. I had hoped to have left on my Pacific tour by this past October. Now, I am hoping for October of next year. I can say for certain that I am making good progress; it is not as though I’m not working toward my dream. It is just that work on sailboats is slow going, and expensive.

I’ve completed a lot, most recently installing a Monitor Windvane steering system, an expensive autopilot system that allows a sailor to let go of the steering wheel for days at a time to attend to other matters on the boat. With that installed, Eliana is pretty close to ready. She could go now if push came to shove. My sailing kitty, however, has been all but spent on getting her where she is at now. And I have a house full of belongings that I need to deal with. I certainly don’t want to get rid of everything, nor do I want to pay for storage for all of it. The recommended practice is to get rid of anything that I won’t be taking with me.