Rasmus is Empty, My Heart is Heavy

September 28th, 2010.  The day Scott and I left Chicago on this journey.

Rasmus is now devoid of all our personal items.  Scott has been in Trinidad the past week working himself to the bone to get her cleared out.  All our clothes, our little trinkets, our personal touches and good luck charms are gone.  Everything that made her "ours" has been removed.  As many of you know, she is for sale and we have bought a new boat to continue our journey on.  This purging of our things needed to happen sooner or later, as hard and emotional as it was.

It felt so odd for me to be up here, while Scott took on the monstrous task of removing three years of our stuff from her.  If felt strange to be skyping with him about items that we should take with us, and items we should leave for her next owner.  I felt bad knowing that he was working to the bone from dawn till dusk to ready her*, with time working against him.  Worst of all, it felt so wrong that I was not there to say 'good bye' to our old girl.  I honestly don't know if I'll ever see her again, and the thought of this brings tears to my eyes.  I feel...guilty.  I feel like we've abandoned her.  Like we've got this great family dog who has been so wonderful and loyal, and we're moving into a new home that doesn't allow pets and so we're giving her away.  It's like that.

"I'm not going to lie" Scott told me the other day, "I had a good, long cry on board her today".  Scott is not prone to emotional outbursts, so this tells you a little something about the intense love we have for that boat.  I've even written about my uncertainty over whether we'll ever love another boat as much.  I honestly don't know.  What I do know is that she will forever be etched into our hearts as the most important boat of our lives.  She was the one that we took a leap of faith in, she was the one we put countless hours of work into and she was the one that we trusted, implicitly, with our lives.  She forgave us for our mistakes, was strong when we were not, and gave us the confidence to keep moving forward.  Not once did she disappoint us.  That's a pretty good track record for a boat.   She treated us well, taught us a lot and gave us memories that Scott and I will cherish forever.

She is now ready for her next owner, whomever that may be.  My one wish is that she goes to someone who deserves and appreciates such a fine boat, someone who will continue to take as good care of her as we did, who will sail her and, most importantly, love her just as we have.  The thought of someone neglecting such a thoroughbred after all we've done to her is heart-breaking to me.  We know the right person will come along when the time is right.  We know that Rasmus's journey, like our own, is far from over.

Love,
Brittany, Scott & Isla

* HUGE thank you's to our cruising family in Trinidad who helped Scott this week.  He could not have done it with out you:  Jason, Karly and sweet baby Lucy, John and Kathy of s/v Oceana, Ian of s/v Leila and the ever amazing and accommodating folks at Peake Yacht Services.  THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts!