Thoughts and reflections from the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.

Progress on my goals

Boat life

We went on our shakedown sail, and it was awesome!

…well, sort of.

The mast insert broke and stopped us actually raising the sail, so I’ve had to fix that. Our anchor chain is borderline unusable due to rust that pre-dates us, but at least the anchor winch works (because the non-winch way to do it is to haul by hand).

And, well, we completely screwed up our return to the mooring. Imagine “oh bugger, I’m somehow on the dock and the boat is over there…” and that’s pretty much it. Had to do some Assassin’s Creed-style parkour to get back onto the boat and get her into the berth, with much swearing and physical labour.

Buuut we got out smoothly, our short-handed sailing plan worked, and we got to spend some time in this way cool anchorage. Photo of it is on the cover of this post.

Hey, learning never comes easy. It’s a painful process. Plus, on a shakedown sail, you’re going out with the deliberate aim of finding out what’s broken or needs work. Overall it was a roaring success!

We also enjoyed sea swimming in freezing waters to scrape the beard of seaweed that had grown on our hull. “Anti-foul paint” isn’t that effective and being anti-fouling, it turns out. It’s a weird hobby but we got in there and scrubbed her while the locals had a giggle.

Distractions and detours

Writing class

I’ve written a 3,000 word story for writing class. Did it by hand over a couple of days, then typed it all up within an hour and did a few cheeky edits to make it make sense.

On Tuesday I get to find out if it’s any good.

We stumbled upon a poster for a writing group at our local library that I might go to. It’s a pretty fun hobby, it’s fairly cheap to do (you might steal notepads and pens from work, even – perish the thought!) and it’s got potential for me to develop my other written skills that I could try to use for a remote job post-CoastFI. Well, if nothing else, could make some friends. I’m thinking about giving it a go.

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

Haven’t enjoyed the Satriani track much, but we persevere. My teacher took time out to teach me about minor scale shapes and pointed out that lots of the track is just running up and down in minor scales. Hadn’t realised that before, but it should make things easier. Have decided to put the minor scale into my warm-up drills.

Fitness

We had a public holiday here on Thursday, so I took time off on Friday and made a big effort to get to the gym.

The week hasn’t been physical-heavy, but I did do a two hour session and hit every group, then I’ve been pretty active on top of that. Not ideal for gains, but OK for evading heart issues that are a symptom of being a legal professional.

Final thoughts

So our first sail didn’t involve much sailing and we mostly found broken bits and learning points. So what? We still got a full day out and an awesome sun tan. I’m calling that a win.

Writing seems to go well and I might have a new (and low-commitment) way to pursue it after this course.

Guitar and fitness took a hit this week but I still found time to get those in and keep doing the things I love.

It’s progress!

My financial independence campaign continues!