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Thursday February 22

Our friends Kim and Bob had learned to sail. They'd gotten licensed on Lake Michigan. Since then they had taken several sailing vacations with friends. Kim is my age, just past forty. She is serious and a bit reserved. Although she works professionally in an academic environment, her true love is cooking. Bob is my husband Ian’s age, mid-thirties. He is outgoing, almost bubbly. Like Ian, he is a “net geek”, or someone who lives and breathes the internet. Ian, Bob, and I all build software for a living, but I do not live and breath it like they do. When the four of us congregate, I will happily follow Kim into the kitchen when geek talk erupts. Although I don’t share Kim’s passion for cooking, we share other interests.

Initially the sailing trip sounded affordable. Sailboat rental would be $732 per person. Even when inexpensive flights were factored in, the cost was reasonable. However, our timing was off, and we did not have Kim and Bob's luck getting cheap flights. An overly indulgent purchase of snorkeling gear bloated the bill unexpectedly. Each time we shelled out more cash for the trip, I felt a shiver of anxiety. I felt like I was in over my head, but there was no turning back.

The four of us shared several meals in preparation for the trip. Pizza and wine at Kim and Bob’s house was a thinly veiled plot on Bob's part to teach us to tie knots. From a menu we also selected food with which to stock the boat. Drinks in a funky underground restaurant were an opportunity to talk about "expectations". We had never taken a trip like this. We expected to have fun. We discussed final arrangements over wine and pizza at our house. Bob shared his secret for traveling from a cold climate to a hot one. On his advice I bought camp pants, which can be turned into shorts by unzipping the pant legs.

We had never before packed for a sailing vacation. Space on the boat would be tight. Kim shared her friend Nano's packing list, which was neatly divided into “Guy” and “Gal” items. I merged the Guy and Gal items, leaving out Gal clothing I did not have, like Capri pants and a sarong. The weekend before the trip, I assembled everything into one place. Clothing went into a stuff sack, which compressed into a dense mass a little larger than a bowling ball. Because of this stuff sack, I could carry everything I needed onto the plane.

The trip never became quite real for either of us, despite months of preparation and anticipation. I was anxious about the cost. Ian was buried with work. But before we knew it, we would be leaving the next day!

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