One year update – and a new blog.

It’s been a year since we decided to stop cruising, so I thought I’d give a quick update and let any interested readers know about a new blog I’ve started.

After thinking we might want to live in Beaufort, SC and discovering after many months that we were wrong, we realized that we need to give any place one full year before committing to it by buying a house. One year is enough to go through all four seasons, get through the honeymoon phase, and figure out if we still REALLY like a place. Well, we’ve spent a full year in Baltimore, and we still love it. So much so that we’ve decided to buy a row house next year.

Yep, we’re going to buy a land home, and that means Pegu Club is going on the market.  Our goal is to have her ready for sale by the middle of next month.  

We rented an Airbnb last winter (the marina turns the water off in the winter, so living on the boat was definitely a no-go), and we’ve already booked the same spot for one year beginning December 1st.  What happens if we sell Pegu Club before our rental starts?  We’ll stay somewhere else in the interim.  Where that might be is still to be determined, but the fact is we can go anywhere.  And why can we go anywhere?  Because I am now a flight attendant for a U.S. mainline carrier.  Yes, you read that right. 

Once we decided to stop cruising it was time to find a job.  I spent last summer driving a water taxi for Baltimore Water Taxi, and that was a lot of fun.  With a 51 passenger capacity it was the largest boat I had ever driven, and it had two engines which was new for me.  I enjoyed the challenge, but as fall approached I knew I needed to find a full-time job with benefits. 

I started an application to get admitted to the bar in Maryland, but the open tab sat there on my laptop for weeks.  I really didn’t want to go back to being a lawyer.  We went to house sit for three months in San Diego for my best friend and her husband, and the tab still sat there, open.

One day I was scrolling on Reddit when a “suggested” sub-Reddit came up: Cabin Crew Careers.  I tapped on it, and it was all about being a flight attendant.  Hmm.  Interesting.

When I dropped out of college many decades ago, my dad had suggested I try being a flight attendant.  I don’t know why I didn’t at the time, but here it was again.  I did some research, saw that the mainline carriers were hiring, applied on a whim, and much to my surprise I landed the job.

And now here we are.  So, if you’re interested, I’ve started a new blog.  It’s going to be like this one – basically a diary for myself.  It’s not about cruising or owning a boat, so certainly more limited in scope.  But if you want to check it out, you can find it at www.nothinggoestowindward.com.  

Because as the saying goes among sailors, nothing goes to windward like a 747.

8 thoughts on “One year update – and a new blog.”

  1. It always makes me a little sad to hear of another cruising couple leaving The Life. The crew of S/VSN-E Cetacea bids you farewell.

    I’m not sure if you’ve kept up with our adventures but we just completed an 18,000nm trip around the north Atlantic in our electric Baba 30 and are in Puerto Rico now waiting for the settled offshore southerlies to take us back to the Chesapeake Bay. We lived in Baltimore for a little over 3 years and have many dear friends in that crazy town. I’ve said this bit before but I honestly believe we are witnessing the last gasps of the dying oil industry is already in the throws of dying off one by one…but, that’s all I got in me for preaching, so good luck and I honestly hope that flying around on tons of petroleum treating people well suits you.

    We will be cruising the Chesapeake for at least a couple of months and we will definitely be anchored off the Boston, St. anchorage across from the Safeway when we’re there and you both are welcome aboard.

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  4. Hi Kimberly,

    I’ve followed your interesting blog on your sailing adventures on Pegu Club. We even had you at our yacht club in Centerport, NY as you passing down south on the LI Sound. We subsequently moved to St. Augustine, Florida. We never cared for Florida having been to the tourist spots on both coasts and visiting my mother-in-law in Clearwater. My recollection was concrete, asphalt, and high rises. Helping a friend transit his boat from The Hamptons on Long Island to Jupiter Florida had us stopping in St. Augustine, the oldest city in the USA and still preserving its historic town. No high rises, great beaches that you could drive on. So when the pandemic hit and our business was closed for six months and being 78 we decided to move. We both had mechanical issues that precluded continuing with our skiing and mountain biking. Taxes on Long Island were brutal. So off to St. Augustine we did go.

    I can’t say I love living in Florida. Too hot in the summer, too flat, nowhere to cruise with a sailboat unless you want to go to the Bahamas. Lots to do with a power boat on the ICW. But we don’t like power boats.

    Your blog and our experience in picking a place to live resonated with me. We had never really considered moving or even retiring. I loved my business and my clients became our friends.

    I have come to realize that there are many, many things to consider when choosing a final location to retire in. Taxes, housing costs, insurance costs, POLITICS, cultural, environment, traits of people in different locales, topography, etc.

    There are a number of places that I would choose, other than Florida based on all of the above with the exception of POLITICS! All of them are on the Eastern Coast of the USA. I love mountains and water. Georgia, South Carolina ( we do love Beaufort), North Carolina and Virginia are all candidates. I despise the nature of our politics both nationally and in Florida. New York is too far to the left and Florida is too far to the right. I actually never felt so strongly about the divisions in our country as they now exist.

    My wife has a total aversion to the cold so it seems like we’ll be here for the duration. If I had my druthers I think I would pick Virgina. The Blue Ridge mountains are almost spiritual. And Virgina also has the Chesapeake. And the politics are middle of the road. And I love Thomas Jefferson even though he had some issues on slavery.

    We do like Maryland, particularly the Annapolis area. We were just there for a week watching our 17 year old granddaughter take the oath at the Naval Academy. Quite an enterprise. But no mountains to speak of.

    I had to look of the definition of “rowhouses”. Lots of those in Baltimore. If you do it I will be interested in how you do considering a confined space like a row house and the open spaces of cruising the eastern coast and Bahamas. Happy that you found a fulfilling job. Hope you and Jeff have a great future. I’ll follow your blog. Norman Kellershon

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    1. Hi Norman – so great to hear from you! Of course we remember having dinner with you and Sylvia in Centerport. It was such a treat, and we had such an entertaining time with the two of you!

      Covid certainly upended many things. I’m not a fan of Florida either, but if I had to move there St. Augustine would be at the top of the list. It’s a beautiful town, and of course the beaches are top notch. I share Sylvia’s aversion to the cold, and while Beaufort was too far south for us and Connecticut too far north, Baltimore seemed to hit the sweet spot – last winter aside! I can definitely see snowbirding in our future.

      I think Maryland – outside of the Washington, D.C. area – is a state that is somewhat slept on. Mountains to the west, beaches on the east, plus the wonderful Chesapeake. We’re very content here, but it certainly wasn’t easy to finally settle on a location.

      Congratulations to your granddaughter for her entrance in the Naval Academy. That’s quite an accomplishment! We love Annapolis and go there frequently since it’s only about a 35 minute drive away. Please let me know when you are there again. We’d love to share a drink with you both.

      As for the rowhouse, it will certainly be more confining than the open spaces of cruising, but it will have SO much more space than our 30′ boat! LOL!

      Thanks for commenting, and I hope we get to see you and Sylvia again at some point in the future. Kimberly

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