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1/10/2008 12:00:00 PM
Austria
THE END of Project Marquesas

THE END of Project Marquesas

There is a saying under boaters that the best days for a boat owner are

There is a saying under boaters that the best days for a boat owner are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells his boat ... let me tell you, I disagree. Yes, it is true, Lawur has sold but this day was definitely NOT one of our best days, as it was bitter sweet and as we had many much better days during the course of what we termed very early 'Project Marquesas'.

A quick refresher, when we thought of going out sailing the oceans and traveling foreign lands on a boat, this was only one of our 'crazy' ideas. Like any analytical person, Niki and I compared our 'crazy' ideas on a spreadsheet, together and independently. A spreadsheet for such a decision sounds out there ... well our experience is, this was a great way to organize the many emotions going thru our minds and showed us that despite the different approach Niki and I take to coming to an answer, we were much closer than we thought. Getting back to why we named the cruising idea 'Project Marquesas', I am a project manager somewhere deep down and rather than calling it column A, B and C in my spreadsheet, it sounded much better to code name the different ideas/projects. As the survivor TV show was just being aired in the Marquesas, we found out that this island group would be our first landfall after crossing into the South Pacific ... voila, in summer of 2002 we termed the cruising idea 'Project Marquesas' and embarked on a journey which we knew little about but agreed that it was the right thing to do for TheSchmids family.

I am not going to take too long to look back at the last 5 ½ years, but introduce you to another good old family tradition, beside spreadsheet decision making ... J ...

I will give you 1 high and 1 low for each year over the course of 'Project Marquesas':

2002 HIGH - Coming up with the idea of 'Project Marquesas' and googling the words 'cruising', 'cruising with kids', 'women cruising', ... yes I sent Niki regular links from my Google search 'women cruising' to eventually turn Niki around.

2002 LOW - Telling Niki that in order to make 'Project Marquesas' happen, we better sell our loghome / house, we built on 15 acres of land with our own hands.

2003 HIGH - Casting off in Santa Cruz and sailing into our first sunset of 'Project Marquesas' near Pebble Beach in Stillwater Cove.

2003 LOW - Casting off in Santa Cruz and leaving 8 years of friends and history behind.

2004 HIGH - Finishing the Newport to Ensenada race and winning a trophy on Lawur.

2004 LOW - Breaking our mast in October in the middle of our deck repairs and realizing that we won't make it out of San Diego that year either.

2005 HIGH - Sailing into sunset out of San Diego in November, again with Frank like we did out of Santa Cruz, our friend, sailing instructor, mentor and adopted sailing grandpa

2005 LOW - Turning around in Mexico 3 days later due to engine problems and fearing a similar faith might strike us as it did last year with the mast

2006 HIGH - Spending 6 weeks in the Tuamotus with an amazing French Polynesian family though arriving in and seeing the magnificent Marquesas after 20 days at sea comes in as a close second on our long list of highs for 2006. I am not even sure where to put this HIGH, an unexpected one too, but the cruising community is something very special and I believe we made many friends not just for cruising but for life.

2006 LOW - Losing touch with our best cruising buddies for a few months (yes we did meet again later).

2007 HIGH - Spending more time with family and old/new friends than we have in over 12 years.

2007 LOW - Saying good bye to Lawur from far far away hoping she is in good hands (it seems so from what we have heard) and wishing her all the best on her next journey around the South of Australia through the Indian Ocean to the Reunion Islands, a French Island between Madagascar and Mauritius.

Let me mention this list was a joint effort between Niki and I. For some, the high/low list might be a fond memory as we did the same during our daily journal for the 20 day crossing from Mexico to the Marquesas, also to be found in the logbook section of our website. TheSchmids family for sure enjoys taking occasional timeouts to recognize how lucky we are to have each other, to have had the opportunity to embark on 'Project Marquesas' and now to call it 'THE END' ... for now. Yes we didn't get quite to Australia as we intended, yes it was shorter than we hoped, yes we might want to go back to cruising eventually again, but for now we are happy we have had the time together and on Lawur and now it is time to say one last time ... Okana Hai, Okana Hai, Okana Hai, Lawur calling ... J ... THANKS LAWUR FOR TAKING US SAVELY HALF WAY AROUND THE WORLD.

Robert, Niki and the boys

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