A few years ago, I left my Seattle home of 15 years and flew to Recife, Brazil, to live on a 46-foot Polynesian-style catamaran with my husband, Michael; our children Enzo, 10, and Francesca, 8; and our dog, Molly. We would make Wakataitea our home for one year and sail her from South America to the Bahamas.

This was a dream Michael and I shared and worked toward. I鈥檇 seen another family living on a sailboat a long time ago, and they looked like the kind of family I wanted to have. At home, I missed travel, adventure, and hearing a language other than my own, and I wanted my children to experience these things, too.

In the children鈥檚 book聽Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan, the protagonist, Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton responds to a newspaper advertisement for a wife. She moves from an oceanside village in Maine to a place far from the sea, in the Midwest. She marries Jacob Witting and cares for his two motherless children. Sarah learns to love her new family and new life. But she misses the salty air, the seals, the gulls, her brother, William, and his gray and white boat, Kittiwake. Her neighbor and friend Maggie consoles her. 鈥淭here are always things to miss,鈥� she says. 鈥淣o matter where you are.鈥�

When you set off to chase a dream, you can鈥檛 know ahead of time what you鈥檒l miss. I missed friends and family and the comfort and stability of home, as I expected. But I also missed much more than I could ever have anticipated. And in the end, it was the steady companion of the dream itself that I missed the most.

When we moved onto Wakataitea, the boat was anchored in the Para铆ba do Norte river, a sleeve of protected water behind Brazil鈥檚 coastal city of Jo茫o Pessoa. There, I missed cool air鈥擨 craved the movement of any air. At the local Marina Jacar茅, I missed feeling clean and fresh after a shower, because my body never stopped sweating. I missed showering without flip-flops. I missed knowing how to live my life, yet I took the helm as if I did. I missed the friends who helped us pack up our Seattle home. I missed my sister, Vanessa, who was mourning our departure and the loss of her dog. And I already missed the life I had been so eager to leave.

After 1,700 miles of offshore sailing north, we reached Suriname鈥擲outh America鈥檚 smallest sovereign state, nestled between Brazil, Guyana, and French Guiana. There, I missed Portuguese; my ears never reconciled the sound of Dutch so far from the Netherlands. I missed the familiarity of Brazil, which initially had seemed so foreign. I had to let go of the possibility that we could still call the whole thing off. If I can get through this, I thought, I can get through anything. Vanessa and her husband, Simon, flew to the capital city of Paramaribo to sail the next leg with us. When I met them at Johan Adolf Pengel International Airport, dressed in crisp summer wear, I realized how much I missed clean clothes.

In Tobago, our first Caribbean island, 100 miles off the coast of Venezuela, I felt the absence of half my crew. Michael, Simon, and Enzo were sailing the boat from Suriname without Vanessa, Francesca, and me, because I needed a break; we flew to Tobago instead. In the village of Charlotteville, at the seaside cottage we rented while awaiting the boat, I missed feeling badass. I missed our anchorage in the muddy Suriname River. I missed getting to know a destination that most people couldn鈥檛 place on a map (including me, until we sailed there). I missed telling friends back home that there were piranhas and crocodiles in the water and monkeys and sloths in the trees; and that a synagogue and a mosque shared a parking lot; and that people from every period in Suriname鈥檚 history shared the streets: Caribs and Arawaks, colonial Dutch, Maroons (descendants of escaped African slaves), Suriname Creoles, and descendants of laborers from India, China, and Java. I missed Gaby, the Dutch friend we made in the riverside town of Domburg after our boat bumped into his one night. And I missed feeling like a sailor.

When Wakataitea sailed into Charlotteville鈥檚 Man o鈥� War Bay, I moved back onboard. The reprieve was over. I missed the cottage鈥檚 starched bedsheets, the cold fridge, faucets with running water, the toaster, and the wooden chairs surrounding the tiny table draped with a white muslin tablecloth. I missed the stillness of land. Then I missed Vanessa and Simon when they left in a taxi for Tobago鈥檚 international airport to fly home to British Columbia.

We approached the southern tip of Grenada on a starboard tack at dawn and congratulated ourselves on completing our first overnight sail without vomiting. When we saw 200 masts at anchor in the popular Prickly Bay, I missed everything that had come before. I missed the remoteness of the places less traveled by cruising sailboats. I missed morning visits to the Charlotteville Public Library鈥攁n unexpected facility in such a rural location鈥攖o homeschool Enzo and Francesca in a place where the desks didn鈥檛 sway and our pages didn鈥檛 flap in the trade-wind breeze.

We continued north, making our way up the Windward Islands. When we reached St. Anne in Martinique, I thought I鈥檇 miss nothing, because France supplied so much. We found Camembert, Comt茅, Cantal, freshly baked pain au chocolats and croissants. But I missed the joy of the Grenadians and the buses that throbbed with soca music and too many passengers because they could always fit one more. I missed the humor, the , and the local produce: soursop, cashew apples, governor鈥檚 plums, rambutans, rock figs, and water lemons.

One year became two. We lived on the cheap, stretching our savings and the rent from our house. And as time went on, I missed less and less of home.

In Dominica, I reminisced about the first time I鈥檇 sailed here, 20 years earlier, when my husband was still just a friend and ours was the only boat in Prince Rupert Bay. I missed the blanket of tropical foliage that Hurricane Maria had stripped off the island. But when we sailed three miles offshore to deep water and watched female sperm whales and their calves, I missed nothing.

In the British Virgin Islands, I missed the volcanic topography and the affordability of the other islands. I missed the sailing families we鈥檇 left behind, and their boats: Cocolo, Serena, and Pontea. After six weeks of hosting visitors from home, I missed it just being the four of us. Yet when our friends and family left, I missed sharing our boat life with those in our Seattle life. In Trellis Bay, off Beef Island, I missed my daughter; she鈥檇 found a new hero, M眉n, a 26-year-old Guatemalan surfer and artist, who was awesome and wasn鈥檛 me.

Two years became three, and we set a deadline to go home. Each day in each place became the last day in that place. I missed them all already.

In the Turks and Caicos, I missed my dad, who, with his heavy Italian accent, used to call them the Tarts and Crooks. When he died, three years earlier, my life cleaved in two: the before-my-dad-died life and the after-my-dad-died life. Now, thankfully, I would have a before-Wakataitea life and an after-Wakataitea life.

In the Exuma Cays of the Bahamas, I missed every day as it moved from the present to the past. We鈥檇 sailed over 5,000 miles in a direction toward home but thousands more from the versions of ourselves we鈥檇 left behind. I missed the life we would soon leave.

In The Long Way, French sailor Bernard Moitessier wrote, 鈥淚 have set course for the Pacific again 鈥� last night was too hard to take, I really felt sick at the thought of getting back to Europe. Does it make sense to head for a place knowing you will have to leave your peace behind?鈥� Moitessier became a legend in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the first nonstop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht event. After rounding South America鈥檚 Cape Horn, the race鈥檚 last major challenge, Moitessier鈥攚ho was poised to win鈥攁bandoned the competition. Instead of steering north, back to Plymouth, England, he eased the sails and let the westerlies of the Southern Ocean take him once more around South Africa鈥檚 Cape of Good Hope and Australia鈥檚 Cape Leeuwin and into the Pacific; there, after ten months and 37,455 miles alone at sea, he finally stopped and settled in Tahiti.

Now we鈥檙e home in Seattle, and I sometimes forget why we came back. I miss living outside. I miss the limits that a boat imposes on resources鈥攆resh water, power, space. I miss spending every day with my family, and I miss our work being relevant to each other. I miss the exigencies that come with living on the water and the connection that happens among fellow sailors because you need them and they need you. I miss the rhythm of dawn to dusk. I miss Enzo and Francesca鈥檚 bronzed, capable bodies. I miss the sense of purpose that comes with making bread regularly. I miss feeling excited about a glass of ice water.

After Moitessier committed to leaving his life in Europe, he wrote in his journal: 鈥淭here are two terrible things for a man: not to have fulfilled his dream, and to have fulfilled it.鈥�

Now that we have fulfilled our dream, I miss our dream.

The post What Do You Do Once You鈥檝e Fulfilled Your Life鈥檚 Dream? appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

He still watches from the house. The west side is a wall of picture windows, with a deck that runs its length; a railing leans toward the water with anticipation. Yet what hangs in the damp Northwest聽air is dread. Instead of counting who is there, he鈥檚 looking for who is missing. The Southern Resident killer whales still come by, and聽sure, people get excited about one here and a couple there, and every so often they all come together, but it鈥檚 not like it used to be. There are 74 individuals left, mostly males and non-reproducing females. There are a handful of babies, but most of them won鈥檛 make it.

Ken Balcomb, 80 but still rugged, is wearing a brown plaid shirt open like a jacket, an 鈥淥rca Freedom Concert鈥� T-shirt, and jeans with a chunky brass-buckled belt sporting a Native killer whale motif. He resembles a gentle bear, all back and shoulders and a face covered in a thick beard. It鈥檚 the face of someone who has spent most of his life on the water. Like the warmth of a log fire, the stories he鈥檚 collected take some encouragement and are slow to get going, but if you stay awhile, there鈥檚 nothing like them. It鈥檚 the summer of 2020, and we鈥檙e at the Center for Whale Research, which is also Ken鈥檚 house. The 1960s cedar-shingled bungalow sits on a grassy clearing just up from the high-tide line of Haro Strait on the northwestern edge of San Juan Island in Washington State.聽

Not one for small talk, Ken starts clicking on computer files displaying killer whale fins. 鈥淪o here we have J26, right side and left side. Well, it鈥檚 J26, but it鈥檚 not a catalog-quality picture, so we鈥檒l just use this to confirm that he was here today.鈥� This is called proof of presence.

Proof of presence is slim these days. When I was a researcher here 21 years ago, these whales spent almost every day from May through September around the San Juan Islands. Since then sightings have become fewer and fewer. the Southern Residents didn鈥檛 appear until July; they stayed 24 days, then left for the whole of August, coming back for only a few days in September.聽

鈥淚鈥檓 going to sell the house. Or rent it out,鈥� Ken tells me. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to be here. It鈥檚 unlike the past.鈥�

He points to a poster behind me. Covering two walls are large-format versions of the ID catalog, family trees for all the individuals in the Southern Resident killer whale population. There are two kinds of boxes on the poster鈥攐nes with photos of fins and ones without. The ones with fins show whales that are still alive. The ones without show a name, date of birth, and date of death.

聽鈥淟ook at all the frickin鈥� tombstones,鈥� he says.聽

Every year researchers prune the catalog of who is missing and who is dead. On the poster Ken鈥檚 pointing to, I see five fins and 22 empty boxes. 鈥淭here is zero possibility of reproduction in here,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey are all males and a post-reproductive female. That鈥檚 nothing. That鈥檚 not going to grow.鈥�

He points to another poster and another fin, a 46-year-old female. 鈥淪he had her last calf ten years ago, and before that鈥攖here, see?鈥攁 whole bunch of them in a row died.鈥� There are three photos of living offspring, then four tombstones: born in 2000 and last seen in 2001, born in December 2002 and missing one month later, born in June 2005 and missing later that summer, born in August 2008 and missing later that month. The two living daughters have had only one surviving calf each, and both are male.

鈥淲e can go through this whole thing,鈥� he says, waving his arms at all the posters, 鈥渁nd there鈥檚 only a few potentially reproductive females for the future. I鈥檝e told the government folks that for the next 20 to 30 years you have no chance of an increased population鈥擨 mean a seriously viable population.鈥�

This is a jarring beginning to my conversation with Ken, at odds with my nostalgia for being back at the Center for Whale Research and my optimism for a population of killer whales that I sometimes watch from the park at the top of my street in Seattle.

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