Hunkering Down

One of the lessons that can take awhile for us humans to learn is that we can't have it all - despite what that perfume commercial from the 70's tried to tell us. Oh come on, you remember "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan..." Hated that commercial.

Well, we've been trying to do it all. Things have been cranking up with the website - new third party apps, increased interest from marinas and other marine companies, new promotional programs being put in place, and a user population that is growing at an increasing rate. We're receiving more requests to speak, write articles, and answer questions. On the personal side, we've been having great fun meeting up with cruising buddies, and unfortunately, have had some family crises. Of course, we have to give the crew the time they deserve including playtime and cuddles. All this while planning and executing our cruise south.

Don't get me wrong, there are no complaints here. Everything on that list involves something we love. But we realized there just are not enough hours in the day to do it all. At least not do it all well. Something had to give.

After four years of hard work the ActiveCaptain website is poised to become everything we had envisioned. To ensure that happens we need to keep at it. So we made the hard decision to shorten our cruise. We decided the best thing to do was to find a place where we could settle in for a few months, focusing on getting some work done, and spend some time with family.

Being the obsessive types we are we wrote a requirements list.

1. A place that's good for the dogs.
2. A place where the dogs can run and play everyday.
3. A place the dogs will like.
4. Oh, and a place that has enough draft, has space available, groceries, blah, blah, blah.


We made another list of potential spots and yet another list of questions to ask, "Is there a place where our dogs can run?" And finally settled on Bald Head Island, a small community on an island off North Carolina that jets out into the ocean. We have a reservation for a month starting on Tuesday.

After that we may stay another month or go someplace else. We eventually hope to make it to Charleston, maybe Cumberland Island (did I mention the dogs love Cumberland Island?) but it's not likely we'll make it much beyond that.

Will we miss the beautiful destinations south? Sure. Mainly we'll miss the people, but in this strange community of cruisers we know we'll see them again - most likely sooner than we think. For now we're on our boat heading to a beautiful island and the kids are with us. What more do I need?