Just My Perspective-My Sailing Solution
Photo Credit: Eric GevaertWow, I went a whole day without checking on the stock market every hour or so. Have you been able to do this yet? It is certainly harder to do right now, but I think it is therapeutic in a way, as I don't plan on selling anything in the near future so it is all paper losses right now.
Right about now is the time I begin missing sailing quite a bit. It is usually right around now, mid-November, that I start to really crave it again and want to get out there. The craving is something that I have grown accustomed to, and every year it comes back and I want to get out for a couple hours to clear my head. Does anyone else feel like this? Maybe it has to do with the realization that it's going to be cold soon and will be a few months before I can get out there again. Then, you get a few teaser weather days where it is not too cold, with plenty of south wind, and you begin to think how to possibly get out there, sailing, for part of the afternoon.
One solution that a lot of people I know have done is to spend a vacation by heading down somewhere warm like the BVI's to rent a charter sailboat. That would be a great way to get a winter sailing fix without having to deal with 40 degree water and frost-bitten fingers. Moorings, and some of the smaller fleets, have a lot of different Beneteau models in their fleet, so as a Beneteau owner, it wouldn't be like any of us was 'cheating' on our brand or anything.
I think of taking a trip like this more and more each winter. Like most of us, by mid-January I get pretty tired of the cold, snowy weather routine and would love to get a week away somewhere warm and on a sailboat. For me, that would be a near-perfect way to spend a vacation because the sailing part would calm me even more than just a regular vacation does. And then at the end of January, Strictly Sail comes and we're on new boats again and after that weekend I want to take a trip even more
My rationale is that the kids are starting to get old enough to where we could either bring them with us, or have them stay with family for a few days. Either way, they would think they were on a vacation. Maybe this is something that the whole Chicago sailing community could think about and do collectively one year, get a couple hundred Chicagoans to head down and take over the BVI's for a week. Promise me you'll at least consider the idea. I may even put up a picture of the palm tree on the desert island in my office, or maybe I'll just select that beach photo for the background of my Blackberry. Feed the appetite, so to speak.
If I do go, I promise I will write about it without gloating when I get back.
