2023 - From the Canary Islands to Saturna Island

and a surprise ending....

New Years Eve aboard Möbius in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, the night before we departed on our Atlantic Crossing.

I have never been a fan of bucket lists. Most people who object to the term do so on the basis that it is morbid. After all, it is derived from the phrase “Kick the bucket," so it is a list of things to do before you die. But then what happens if you tick everything off the list by the time you are 55?

That’s not the reason why I’m not a fan. I dislike the idea because of the way it seems to value the Known and devalues the Unknown. Rather than live with a list of things I want to do or places I want to go, I prefer to live by serendipity. I’ve written about serendipity before; it is basically a happy accident.

Wayne calls this the No-Plan-Plan, but in fact, I am a bit of a planner. I enjoy making plans. To me, it’s okay to make plans, as long as you can adapt when they don’t work out. That’s something the sea has taught me. The deal is whether you can also enjoy watching life turn those plans to dust. That’s serendipity, and that is a train I am always willing to jump aboard.

So. we had a plan to build our dream boat, Möbius, and take her to the Arctic as well as to far off places that only a tank of a boat could go. It was a hell of a plan. We spent two years designing her, over three years living in Turkey while Wayne oversaw her build at Naval Yachts, and after living aboard and getting to sail her across the Med, the Atlantic and the Caribbean for almost three years, that all came to a hard stop in Portsmouth, Virginia.

Atlantic crossing downwind in the boisterous tradewinds.

The plan had been to spend the hurricane season cruising the Chesapeake Bay, but when we discovered that Wayne’s recurring bouts of vertigo were not going to get better, I said I couldn’t bear the anxiety of any more night watches with him. At that point, we knew our blue water cruising days were over. We had far too high an opinion of the boat we had created to turn her into a Marina Queen, and we had never like marina life either. It was time to sell the boat and figure out a new path.

Wayne’s son Skyler Hodgins flew in from Vancouver and helped with cleaning, removing items like the boat’s drill press, and all the pounds of scrap metal that we sold to the junk yard.

We spent most of the summer at the dock prepping to boat to put her on the market and learning all the ins and outs of selling a foreign-flagged boat in the USA. We rented a storage locker and moved lots of our gear off the boat (everything we owned in the world was on board that boat), and thanks to our two sons, we got all all the jobs done, including pressure washing the entire boat and engine room, as well as the major job of replacing our enormous battery bank with new Victron batteries.

My son, Tim Kling, at the sink, flew in and helped with the battery installation. We were very happy and fortunate to have young muscle to help.

Finally, in August, we were ready to put her up for sale. At this point, we had heard all sorts of folks, from brokers, to other yacht owners, to the online armchair experts, that Möbius was going to be a very difficult boat to sell. While this 2-cabin, 78-foot boat with a single Gardner engine might be the Goldilocks boat for us, we were the only ones in the world who would feel that way.

Most people who saw her on the dock were curious.

What happened next, just blew us away. Wayne wrote his blog about needing to sell the boat, and a short while later, before the listing on YachtWorld even went live, the emails started to arrive.

You see, first let me explain that everyplace we ever went, people were curious about the boat. Whether we were tied up to a dock, or anchored out, we always heard the voices calling out “Hello,” either from a dinghy alongside, or even over the VHF radio. They would ask if it was a converted Navy boat, or those in the know would ask if it was a Dashew boat. We enjoyed talking about our unique Turkish-built boat, inspired by Dashew, but definitely not a Dashew boat, and showing it to people. Most of the time, we invited them aboard for a tour.

Most of the emails started with, '“You might not remember us, but…” there were the people who saw the boat through binoculars out on the banks in the Exumas, the people who came aboard in Kalymnos, the ones who passed us on the ICW, the one who was a friend of our designer. This difficult-to-sell boat was suddenly very much in demand.

It all happened so fast, we barely had a chance to catch our breath. The next thing we knew there were 5 very serious buyers, and the first one who made an offer, ended up being our buyer (from the Netherlands). Three weeks later, we had moved what stuff we were keeping, off the boat and into our storage unit. We left behind all the household goods, dishes, cutlery and linens except for my nice set of Demeyere stainless cookware (once you’ve cooked on induction, you can’t go back). All my kitchen and household appliances were 240V so everything from the bread machine, toaster, hand blender to the hair dryer, vacuum, printer, everything stayed with the boat.

The last of the tools and crates to leave the boat.

I had rented us an Airbnb on Virginia Beach, and we took one last photo as we said good-bye to our dream boat, our home.

This photo was taken October 12. What you are looking at here is two people who are homeless, have absolutely no idea what is coming next, and are headed to their 2006 Honda Pilot with a couple of suitcases and a bag of kibble.

After spending a few nights on Virginia Beach in a beach condo, talking and trying to figure out what comes next, I decided we should take advantage of the leaf season and head to the mountains of North Carolina.

The drive into the mountains was magical.

I booked us into another Airbnb, a little cabin. We were trying out different living spaces, whether we were aware of it or not.

We arrived at this cabin at dusk with the temperature close to freezing, and when we went inside, it was beautifully lit, cozy and warm. Upstairs was a sleeping loft.

When we first got off the boat, Wayne insisted he was not ready to settle down and buy a house. We talked about just living in long-term rentals, buying an RV, becoming full-time house/pet sitters. Anything and everything was on the table. We can certainly pivot and adjust.

We spent a bit more than a week in that cabin, talking and imagining what our future could look like. Wayne, who is always a man in search of a project, had started watching these YouTube videos of people who had built their own RVs by converting ambulances. All ambulances are built to survive a 360-degree roll over and the so-called “medium duty” ambulances are often built on Freightliner or International truck chassis have bigger boxes and can carry the weight of more water and gear. We started to talk about building the land version of Möbius.

This is an example of a converted medium duty ambulance RV that was done by the couple who have the YouTube channel Driven to Adventure.

However, I pointed out that it would be quite expensive to rent a house with a garage for a year (minimum) for the build. I wanted to write during that time, and I needed to have access to my books and materials and tech for writing. I’m writing a historical novel and lots of the materials I am using are not available online. I can’t work very well with all my materials stuck away in totes in a storage unit in Portsmouth. I suggested we buy cheap land somewhere, put a travel trailer and a shed on it, and we could live there while building out the ambo, aka L/Y Möbius (Land Yacht). Later on, when we tired of traveling, we could build ourselves a tiny home. We’re boat people, after all, and we don’t need more space than that.

Then it became a question of where, and we both agreed that the whole time we’d been building Möbius, we’d been dreaming of the west coast of Canada, the Gulf Islands, and the San Juan Islands.

Boundary Pass and the Haro Strait form the border. Islands to the right are the San Juans, and they belong to the US. On the upper left are the Canadian Gulf Islands.

An island would allow us to live surrounded by the ocean we love and to be more isolated, just the way we like it. Since ours is a mixed marriage, Canadian/American, we didn’t really care which side of the border we’d be on. We decided to spend one week looking around on the Canadian side, then another week on the American side just to acquaint ourselves with the area. Eventually, we’d let the property be the deciding factor. So, we left that NC cabin with a plan, which was, as sailors often say, written in the sand at low tide.

We carried on in our little old Honda Pilot down to Florida to visit friends and family, decided said Pilot was not up for a cross country trek, and we caught a plane out to Seattle November 1st.

When we had been in Fiji in 2016, just after that major refit on our sailboat, Learnativity, a Canadian catamaran docked next to us at Vuda Point Marina. We chatted with the couple aboard, and learned they were from Victoria. We shared our plans to go off to Turkey to build an aluminum power yacht with them. Thanks to Facebook and blogs, we had kept up with each other. They had sold their catamaran in Australia, and returned to the world of work in Victoria. We had met up with them on a previous trip, and learned that Mark was in the real estate business. He had written a kind note when Wayne had revealed his medical condition on the blog, so Wayne contacted him to see if he could help us in our search for land. As luck would have it, he and his wife Dee now lived on Pender Island, and he graciously agreed to help us in our search.

Riding the BC ferry to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island to stay with friends during our search.

We set it up so that we would go to spend one day on Pender with Mark, spend the night on the island, and then go the next day to Saturna Island. We had emails out for appointments with other realtors in both the Gulf Islands and the San Juans for the following week.

The weather was gorgeous and that first day on Pender Island when we met Mark at the cute bakery and checked out the little shopping center and grocery store. The store was like a mini Whole Foods with the basics and gourmet items. The island had a population of about 2,250 full time residents, so they had a full-time doctor, a pharmacy, restaurants, cafes, resorts, community center with an arts program, and all sorts of community groups. Yet, there was still lots of rough and rural land. Wayne fell in love with several lots high on a cliff with gorgeous ocean views.

In our cozy room at the WOODS on Pender that night, we discussed what we had learned. The land we liked would need a well, power, a septic system, a road, and a flattened site for the trailer. That was a lot of building before we got started on our ambulance. And Mark had explained about the difficulties in the future for building any permanent home. I’d be happy with a tiny home on a trailer, so I wasn’t too worried about that, but the services concerned me.

The next morning we got up early and took the ferry to Saturna Island where we met Michael, a realtor who had agreed to show us property there. Wayne had emailed him and told him about our history of being boat people who suddenly had to “swallow the anchor” and how we were homeless and starting over. He explained to us that Saturna was much less populated than Pender, with a full time population just under 400. There is one store, the General Store and Freight, one lodge and a pub. Already we loved the feel of the island. We had been seeking out the isolated anchorages while on Möbius, and we were prepared for the risk factors of living farther away from health services.

He had several properties that conformed to our requests, but first, he told us about a couple who were sort of like us in that they, too, quit cruising/boating, bought bare land, Put in the well, power, septic system and hand built a tiny home cabin like a shipwright, as well as a fantastic workshop. He told us that he understood it was not what we were looking for and way more than our budget. In fact, it was currently off the market, but if we wanted to see what was possible, he would call them and ask if we could stop by. It turned out they were out on errands, but we could make a quick stop for 15-20 minutes before they returned.

Our first view of the cabin and the long driveway up the hill.

That was it. Twenty minutes. We walked through the cabin and around the 4.2 acres at a trot. It was beautiful, filled with amazing artwork and all nautical themed, but we were looking for bare land. Right? Then we walked down the hill and entered the workshop. And saw all the lumber. And the tools. And Michael told us that the funny thing was that while we had left everything behind on our boat, these folks already owned a condo in Victoria, and they were selling everything with the property.

Michael showed us several very interesting places after that, but he had to go to his second job (working for the BC ferries) at 1:00, and our ferry wasn’t leaving until 4:50, so we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Saturna Island … and talking.

Winter Cove Park, a part of the Gulf Islands National Park that accounts for a good part of the land on Saturna Island.

I remember it was Wayne who was the first one to bring it up. He thinks it was me. “What if we were to do this differently and start at the end. Start with the home and the workshop already built.”

“We’re not getting any younger, and time is the one thing we don’t have an abundance of at our age.”

“Did you see that workshop? The two drill presses? The thickness planer? The band saw? The great lighting and air filtration?”

I’m sure you see where this is going.

We spent two days shopping for bare land, found a place with an amazing cabin on day 2, fell in love with it and bought it.

Meet the Raven.

The living room area complete with wood stove. Note on the right in the photo the carving of an indigenous-styled raven.

So, somehow, after leaving Möbius in mid-October and following the No-Plan-Plan, we found ourselves first on the ferry on December 21st in our new white pick-up with our first-ever live Christmas tree on the back, headed for the island of Saturna in the mist. Owning a cabin on a Canadian island was never on bucket wish list of mine, a California girl who has only ever lived in Hawaii, The USVI, Florida, and Turkey. I’ve sailed the South Pacific Islands, the Caribbean and the Bahamas and I’ve known lots of tropical heat. But you know how there are all those people who live in Wisconsin and dream of sailing the seas? I’ve spent most of my adult life living in the heat and on the water. I am sooo ready to play in the dirt, try my hand at things I have never ever done before, and not have to sweat in my bunk all night.

Our Honda Ridgeline filled with Christmas goodies.

Wayne's son Skyler rides up the funicular with all the gifts left by St. Amazon, and I am stunned by the beautiful Raven sculpture gift from a dear friend.

Here are a few more photos of the property.

There are numerous buildings around the 4 acres. The main cabin with inside bathroom, an outhouse, the workshop with pool table and totem on the outside.

Our place doesn’t overlook the water, but it is a short walk or drive to Winter Cove where there is a launch ramp. The property came with a 10 ft. Bullfrog boat on a trailer (think an aluminum bottom RIB but with hard plastic tubes) and a 20HP Tohatsu OB. Our “boat” is now this little island, and we have a dinghy as well.

We had some sunshine to visit Boat Pass and East Point, but so far since Skyler left, Wayne and I have been settling in to our new spaces, me in my office and Wayne in his shop.

But wait, there’s more.

Just in case you think I forgot about the joys of serendipity, three days after Christmas, Wayne’s offer was accepted on this baby.

2016 Kenworth medium duty ambulance

So, we will soon be taking off on a cross country trip to bring our possessions from Portsmouth, VA to somewhere in Illinois, where we will transfer our possessions into this truck and drive it in January back to Saturna Island to start the build of L/Y Möbius.

Another serendipitous adventure.

Fair winds!

Christine