Hey. We’re Seth and Jaime and this is our story…

We met in Calgary in 2003 and got to deciding on some things. First; we needed to take traveling to a new level and see even more of the world. Second; that despite our best attempts, adventure was never designed to fit into a weekend. Last; full time work is for people that don’t agree with the first two statements.

We decided to quit our jobs and drive the Pan American highway. We would take a VW Westy from Calgary to Costa Rica. Without any logical segue this plan morphed into a sailing trip to Costa Rica. Before we had really sorted out the consequences of that change, sailing to Costa Rica somehow turned into a world circumnavigation. Why stop in Costa Rica? Pretty soon we found ourselves boat shopping on-line and raiding the sailing section in every used book store just to keep up appearances while we waited for some reasonable person in our lives to show us the error in our ways and consolingly let us off the hook. Turns out that we don’t know anybody like that. It began to look like we may have to go through with the slapdash plan.

We had one last hope. Alberta is a land locked province, a good excuse to fall back on when describing to friends and family why we couldn’t have possibly gone through with the crazy sailing business. This satisfied our need for an exit strategy suitably enough, until a  job transfer brought us home to Vancouver, British Columbia. Arguably one of the most beautiful places in the world, BC claims 16,780 miles of Pacific coastline; which hosts, among other things, a thriving sailing community. The main thing we learned from this community was to totally lie about what we were planning.

Then in January 2007 Seth had the mother of an opportunity. The kind you work 10 years for, the kind you take. In this case it was the kind that called for a move back to Calgary, and quite likely the kind that would set our life off on a very different course. While creating a difficult decision, it really simplified things at the same time. Take the job, or take the plunge. Here we are.

Our path was set. We were doing this, and we were going to leave in exactly 7 months. A flurry of activity ensued. We had homes and the trappings that filled them to get rid of, exotic sounding diseases to immunize ourselves against, pennies to save, a website to publish, a boat to buy, a move to Florida to plan, and sanity to check.

That’s kind of where the story picks up so get comfortable, start at the beginning and let’s see if we can pull this thing off.

© 2012 The Slapdash. All Rights Reserved.