The First Thing I See
When searching for presents for Jeremy, I tend to think about items that will be practical on the boat.
This tradition started a while ago, long before we were even married. I can’t say I used to appreciate it; our first Christmas “together” Jeremy bought me a skillet as a present and could not understand why I was not thrilled.
I’d have a different reaction now.
This was my present in 2017. I was (and am) over the moon about it!
A couple of years ago, when we were starting to realize this dream of ours was approaching fast, my website of choice for presents was the Landfall Navigation site. Christmas morning, Jeremy unwrapped World Cruising Routes and a small-scale chart of the Pacific, presents designed to practically inform our cruising plans.
The book is consulted every-so-often, mostly when a question pops up while we’re watching our Saturday YouTube videos. The chart, though?
It’s hanging on the wall right next to the bed. It’s the last thing we see at night before going to bed, and the first thing (once I can focus) I see in the morning.
One guess as to where we want to cruise.
The idea for hanging this on the wall came from a post on Sailing Totem about their giant map of dreams. We don’t have a good size wall in the house to put something like what they did; inspiration is about taking an idea and making it work for you.
We look at this map when talking about geography (is Panama REALLY east of Florida?) and time zones. With our fingers, we trace the route we imagine we’ll take. We ground ourselves in understanding (on one level anyway) the challenges of distance - we can see the Caribbean on this chart and know how long it took us to cross that oh-so-small sea in our small-but-capable boat.
Sizes and distances.
We’re looking forward to having this on the boat, to folding it and marking it with pencil and divider marks as we tick off the miles towards our next destination.
For now, though, it’s the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning, an in-my-face reminder of what we are reaching for.
Sounds like the perfect gift to me.
*some links in here are to Amazon. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn through qualifying purchases.