The new year started out with a....weird sort of noise for the crew of Hetty Brace. The biggest thing was I QUIT MY JOB IN CORPORATE HELL! Not that I'm excited about that or anything.
Just after Christmas some friends of ours mentioned that they were selling their yacht detailing business (well, it's actually a van and a bunch of equipment). They are off to the southern Caribbean and are selling things off. Within a few minutes I decided that I wanted to buy it and go into business for myself. After 3 weeks of bureaucracy and thousands of errands, Crew Member Yacht Services is in business. My last day wasted in front of a computer in a small "workspace" was January 28th. As of now, I'm self-employed and well along in my downwardly mobile plans.
Most of the month has been spent finishing things up in the old job, and getting things ready for the new business. Everything from supplies to wholesale accounts, business cards and new lettering for the van. For those of you who've actually read all of these logs...the van doesn't have air conditioning. It should be alright, though, as my new business attire is shorts and a CMYS t-shirt.
Michelle has been incredibly supportive - it's amazing considering that I'm mucking about with her future too. She's helped out on a couple of jobs and has generally made things easy for me. We're still hoping to keep our cruise plans but this move may put us back a few months. No matter, though...we're going to be happier and life aboard Hetty in Florida is really hard to complain about.
Hetty is ready to rock and roll and we're trying to get things paid off. The Caribbean is calling louder all the time. Some friends who've been cruising for the past year are coming back for hurrican season and then taking off again - it would be hard to stay behind this time - hopefully God will want us to go out to see the world about the same time.
Until next month...
Please send us an e-mail - we'd love to hear from you. Do you have advice? Are you a wannabe? Are you related and feel compelled? Regardless....we've created a page just for the purpose... Send us some mail!