Bucket List

Hello again,

I have just finished my watch which was from 6-9pm after a nice meal prepared by Jim, who claims not to be a chef but actually has a knack for it. After dinner Marcel, Roland, and I once again overcame boredom by naming musicians and bands in a word snake fashion. Which means taking the last letter of the previous name to create the new name. Yes it is now day 16 and we've completely gone nuts, but don't get me wrong it's very funny when Roland begins to make things up, and try to pass them off
as true. But this isn't really the reason I'm writing.

After my watch I filled in the trip's log book, read the blog post from Jim, shut down the computer and decided to go to bed. Then I started to think about what Jim said in his blog and it really started to make me ponder exactly what it is we are doing on this trip. Five different guys from five different backgrounds, cities, ages, professions all stuck on a boat for 3 weeks. Sounds like a bad reality show, but it is truly great reality. Jim mentioned that he has sacrificed work and being away
from home to check off something on his "Bucket List." For those of you who don't know what that is it's a list of things to do before you kick the bucket. Now again this really got me thinking. All five of us have stopped working, left family and friends to sail across the Pacific Ocean. You'd think this would be a difficult decision but for each one of us it was the polar opposite. From what I've gathered from the others on board is that there was no decision to be made at all. Roland heard
about the opportunity on the 16th of September and was in Hawaii on the 18th without a second thought. Jim made the decision a few days before that. Marcel a month or so before that and for me, well, two years ago I made this decision. Cress said he was buying a boat and I said I was coming, I was there hands down, without a doubt, whenever he got it. He bought the boat, and I bought my plane ticket.

Why was this such an easy decision for all of us? Well, I don't really know the exact answer myself. But what I do know is that we've all taken the chance to do something different.. To step out of our comfort zones and, speaking for myself, do something that was scary as hell. So I extend this message to all of you, and hope that it will inspire you to do something that you've wanted to do, something on your "bucket list," a dream, a goal or whatever it is and DO IT!!! There's no better feeling
than breaking the mold and doing what you want to do, doing what you enjoy most, or doing something that scares you to death (in a good way). Whether it's sailing, traveling, climbing a mountain, backpacking or cycling thru Europe or Asia, or something as simple as trying that Indian Restaurant down the street for the first time. Whether we're 65 or 25, we all have goals and we all have dreams. Age is not an excuse, a job is not an excuse, a girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife is not an excuse.
There are no excuses. Don't let anyone or anything hold you back or let anyone tell you what to do. Just do it, it's worth it. What if we all said no? What would we have missed? What have we said no to? What have we missed?

Lots of love, Matt.