Two weeks later we were again back onboard our boat. Nancy had managed to get Friday off, so we drove to Summit North on Friday morning, intending to take the boat out for two nights and have a little cruise on this three-day weekend. But the weather did not cooperate. There was a vigorous front due to pass through the area on Friday night and strong winds, heavy rain and a small craft advisory were forecast for the upper part of the bay. So we stayed onboard in our slip through this stormy weekend, happy to be dry and snug and living on Summer School, while we talked non-stop about various plans and proposals that would enable us to live onboard permanently. One week later we were back onboard again, with almost the identical weather pattern that confined us to the boat in our slip, and we continued the dialog, becoming more excited and optimistic that we would be able to realize this seemingly extravagant dream.
First among the many problems to be solved was the financial one: how could we afford for Nancy to quit work and to live and travel on our boat? If this problem could not be solved none of the rest would matter. Of course, I had my pension, but it was relatively small due to my early retirement. We also had some money in the bank left over from the sale of our house in Pueblo. (It would have been considerably more had it not been for the expense of moving from Colorado.) But we had a mortgage on the boat that required payments to be made every month, though there would be no other housing costs. We had insurances that had to be maintained, we had car expenses, there would be medical expenses and there would be boat expenses such as fuel, oil, batteries, supplies, parts, and of course marina fees. We decided we could sell the TransAm and keep the older and much more economical Honda, thinking that if we were staying in one area for a significant time it would be very desirable to have a car. (We assumed we could find ways of doing this.) We could also sell all our furniture and appliances and realize some cash in this way. We calculated that, if we could stay at anchor as much as possible, say half the time, if we could keep our marina fees at or below $300 per month (considerably less than we were paying at Summit North), if we had no accidents or major repair costs, we could last for about two years before we would run out of funds. But should we do it? Would the experience be worth it?
The other major factor that entered the equation was the state of my health. Only two and a half years previously I had been in a hospital near death from a leukemia-related pneumonia. Although the leukemia had been in remission since then, we knew it could become aggressive at any time and I would then need chemotherapy and other treatments. There was no doubt that my immune system was weak and that I was very susceptible to other ailments as well. The kidney stone attack had demonstrated how suddenly I could be incapacitated, and there was now the additional threat that this could recur. In fact, since coming to Easton I had once again experienced stomach pains due to my ulcer condition and I was taking Zantac regularly. Although I believed that this condition had been aggravated by medication a local doctor had prescribed to help prevent the recurrence of kidney stones, I knew from past experience that it would be difficult to relieve this discomfort once the stomach had been irritated, even if the offending medication were stopped. I also knew that if this condition became worse I would need regular care from a physician.
It was just this problem of providing for medical care that was at the crux of our concerns. In Easton I now had a local doctor who seemed competent if not personable. And we were near enough to Philadelphia that I had decided to see Dr. Bernard Mason at Graduate Hospital to monitor and treat my leukemia. Not only was he a very highly regarded oncologist and hematologist, but he had treated me in the past when we were staying in Cape May during the summers, and it was a relief to know that such a skilled doctor was available to me. But how would I get competent and caring medical attention when we would be traveling all the time and staying in new places? And it was not only my own medical care that was at question. Once Nancy quit her job she would no longer have medical insurance and we certainly could not afford the very high cost of adding her to the insurance that I carried through my retirement association. How would she get medical care if it was needed and how would we be able to afford it? We talked and talked about these concerns, examining them at great length and from many points of view. Nancy had no reservations about living without medical insurance. Her health had been so good for so long that she was sure it would continue for at least another two years, especially if she would be living on the boat where she would be much happier. However, given the high cost of any hospitalization, caused perhaps by a simple accident, we both knew that this would be a big gamble. But it was one, we agreed, we would be willing to take.
For my part, as we continued to talk, a feeling grew in me that if we stayed in Easton solely because of fears over my health problems, I would be looking at a future that was bleak indeed. What did it mean if we stayed in our current situation, afraid to follow our dream, lest my health should fail? I began to feel that, if the only reason that prevented us from living our dream was the uncertainty of my health, then we really would be staying in Easton just waiting for that very event to occur, that this would never change, that I would not be truly living my life but rather just waiting to die. We both found this to be a compelling argument.
Although the questions associated with finances and health were the main ones in our deliberations, there were others that were certainly not insignificant. For example, I was anxious about what would happen to Nancy's professional career if she resigned her position at Lafayette at the end of only one year, and then took two years off to be a boat-bum. If it became impossible for her to continue in academia, how would she feel? She was 44 years old, at the apex of her career, with four degrees including her Ph.D. in industrial engineering. Would she not come to feel that she had wasted her chances? Would she not in the end regret a decision to live and cruise full time on the boat? She assured me she would not, that she had had enough of being a college professor, that she wanted something different in her life, and she reminded me how I told her she seemed much happier when she was on the boat. She was very persuasive, but I had lingering reservations.
And then there were all the doubts associated with the question of what we would do when we ran out of money, if indeed I lived long enough to see this happen. Would the state of my health at that time permit me to return to some kind of work and supplement our income in some way? What would Nancy do? She was adamant that she did not want to continue her academic career, but what other employment would be available to her? Maybe she could work in a bookstore or a library, she thought, but we both knew that the pay from this type of employment would not even come close to what she was making as a professor. Would we be forced to sell the boat? Where would we live if that became necessary? We could not provide answers to these questions and we gradually came to understand that there were many unknowns and many uncertainties that could never be adequately resolved beforehand. For example, it was not difficult to imagine how a bad storm or a moment of carelessness could abruptly end our boating experience with Summer School. And we knew, perhaps more than most others, how precarious was life itself. Eventually we determined that we needed to make a decision without forever being afraid of consequences, and in the end we developed the feeling that we must simply have faith that we would be able to handle, somehow, whatever situation arose, that we would find a way.
On the evening of November 14, slightly more than a month after the completion of that fantastic fall cruise to Chestertown, I was once again having dinner alone at Youell's while Nancy was at an engagement at the college. As before, I used the time to write in my journal. Now I see that I wrote, "We continue to talk about and plan our Great Escape – our two years of cruising and living on the boat." And I wrote, "We continue to come back to the conclusion that (a) we have the resources to do this, and therefore (b) we should because we do not know how much time we have left." Near the end of my journal entry I see this: "There will be so much to do to arrange our personal affairs. We also have many boat projects planned. Nancy is very excited. Both she and I have a lot of writing projects planned." It is apparent now that, by the time of this evening at Youell's, we had evidently made our decision, and our lives would never again be the same.
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