Unexpectedly, we are back in Hawai’i, and I have to say it feels really good. Arthur got a call on a Wednesday from his former business partners, saying that due to a family emergency, they could really use a little help for a few weeks. When Arthur first asked me if I wanted to take a trip back to Hawai’i, I told him absolutely not; he should go, but I would find something else to do while he was gone. I had already said my goodbyes and cried my eyes out last November, and I didn’t want to repeat all of that just yet. I had pushed Hawai’i to the back of my mind and hidden it deep in my soul, where I could occasionally look back and say “Damn, that was an awesome chapter in my life. I’ll get back one day to see everyone again, but until then I need to focus on where we’re going next.” I also said that about Australia when I left, fully believing I would be back within the year of my leaving. That was 5 years ago.

But after discussing the trip with Arthur for about 20 minutes, the idea of returning to Hawai’i for a quick visit sounded like an exciting break from our boat routine (I’m a sucker for dry land!). We booked our tickets that day and flew out a day and half later. After about 20 hours of travel we were back in Hilo. Back in the place we had worked so hard to get away from. When we de-planed and the wall of cool, humid air I’ve only felt in Hawai’i hit us and we heard the coqui frogs chirping, we looked at each other and smiled. It was a strange feeling. It felt like we were home. It was a relief to be back in Hilo after our 4 months of travel and adventure. It was a relief that we could go to our favorite grocery store and knew exactly where to get the best jalapeño martini in town. It felt this way until we remembered that we don’t actually have a home here anymore. We don’t have a car in the parking lot we can hop into and drive to our comfy house on Kulana street with our mismatched furniture and ocean view. We are just visitors this time and that also feels weird. I was so ready to leave this place, to be closer to family in South Carolina, to be closer to everything. But here I am, so freaking happy to be back. 

I lived in Hilo for just over three years, and Arthur about six and a half. I can’t say that I was ever completely in love with our life in Hilo, but we were comfortable. Anyone that was able to visit us can attest to that. We had our favorite restaurants where they knew our names, we knew when to go to the beaches to avoid the crowds, and we knew where to find adventure if we wanted it. We had an awesome rental 5 minutes from the best surf spot in East Hawai’i, a waterfall within walking distance, and a dinning table that looked out over Hilo Bay. I was 25 years old and had an ocean view in Hawai’i! I knew how lucky we were to have found such a gem of a rental, so I spent entirely too much time sitting at that table staring out over the bay. The same table I would sit at for hours at night and wake up early, just before the sun was up, to watch the lava glow when Kilauea was erupting. The craziness of our “year off” is finally sinking in (4 months into it) and I’ve realized how much we gave up for this big sailboat adventure. The sailboat adventure that really hasn’t amounted to the fun we thought it would.

One of our goals for our year off was to see people we haven’t seen in years because we lived so far away, but to also be there for our friends and family if they needed us. We missed a lot living on the other side of the world from these people. We weren’t able to celebrate my brother’s graduation, hold the hand of a sick relative, or watch a college roommate walk down the aisle. We made many scarifies to live in Hawai’i. Some of them totally worth it, some of them we still struggle with. And ironically, this sentiment has brought us right back to where we started. This is part of our year off! To be there for our people! These people in Hawai’i, they’re our people now too. You can’t live somewhere for years and not end up with “people”. We had to go! So here we are. Back again, sooner than expected, but thats OK! It feels really good to be able to help out when you’re needed. It also feels really good to have a schedule that allows us to do this!

We have a lot of goals for this year. We’re a goal-setting couple, that’s how we managed to save our money and take a year off in our 20’s (or 30’s, in Arthur’s case). One of our goals is to figure out how to continue our adventurous lifestyle permanently, to maintain financial security without ‘settling down’ into a mortgage and a job that ties you to one place 50 weeks out of the year. It seems unrealistic, but I read about people who do it. I know it can be done. Taking a year off to travel seemed like a fantasy 2 years ago, but we figured that one out.

We haven’t been updating our blog often enough, and it’s partly because we’ve been trying to keep it positive. Well, we haven’t had a ton of positive things to report on the past few months. It’s been really fucking hard to be honest, and I don’t know how to put a ‘positive’ spin on that (a learning experience? Character building?). To be sure, we’ve made some beautiful memories with a lot of great people, but day-to-day life on the boat has been a bit of a shit sandwich shoved sideways into our mouths.

Oddly enough, we’re learning that many of you are actually interested in hearing this reality: the good, the bad, and the ugly. So we’ve decided to add another goal for this year. We’re going to try harder to update this section of the blog more often, good or bad. We also have plenty of time to turn our year around, and we will, because that’s what we do. We figure shit out and keep moving.

I’ve realized that I needed this trip. I needed to come back to Hawai’i. Boat life has been a steep, jagged mountain of a learning curve, so coming back to a place where we have things figured out is such a relief. I remember when Hawai’i was hard. Not as hard as the boat, but I was miserable here for a long time. It took months for me to just halfway like it here. If it wasn’t for Arthur I would have left pretty quickly. Same goes for this boat. I’ve wanted to ditch the boat so many times but Arthur always says, ‘We’ll figure it out’. Dude you sound like a broken record! When do we actually figure it out!?! But, just like Hawai’i, he’s right, we’ll figure it out. With time and a lot of patience, we will figure it out.

As always, thanks for following along and continuously encouraging us and reminding us that we’re not completely insane.

Hilary