Spring Break - Part Eight
By Dave and Jaja

We stayed in Gullvika for two more days. Sunshine. Occasional snow flurries. A calm anchorage. No other people. Paradise. We skied for miles, played on the snowy beach, and lounged-out.

It had taken all of us a few days to wind down. We hadn't realized how fast paced our life ashore had become. The kids were often off with their friends, sledding or skiing, and they came and went at their leisure. If they went home with a friend after school they called. Sometimes we didn't see them all day.

We now had to look at each other around the clock. At first, Chris, Holly, and Teiga bickered like old ladies. By day three they began to play together like proper boat kids. They still had squabbles, but the rifts were interspersed with long minutes of compatibility.

Jaja and I had a pile of work to do but we were feeling lazy and did nothing. After all, we were on vacation. Exactly one year and four months earlier we had signed a contract with the Dashews to write a book about our voyage on DRIVER. We were a few months behind schedule but the end was in sight. Writing a book is like a building a boat from scratch. You know it will take a long time but it's still surprising how long it actually takes. We had well over 2000 hours in the project so far and we still had hundreds more to put into it. Our objective was to have the manuscript done by June.

There were also web stories to write. We liked to stay a month or two ahead with the stories but here we were, down to the wire again. We needed to send in another half dozen. On average, the web stories take two and a half hours to write. I rough them out, Jaja adds her input, then we print them out and let them lay around for a few days. Writing is like distilling alcohol. The longer a piece ages, the more refined it has a chance to become.

Our book is about our travels to Iceland, Norway, and Svalbard, with related philosophies and insights on how to follow a dream - whatever that dream may be. Often the thing that gets in the way of success is the belief that we can't do it.

High adventure on a boat and raising a family are two radical endeavors to mix, but with patience and endurance the combination can yield an inspiring lifestyle.

If dreams were easy to follow we'd spend most of our time standing in line.