July 2, 2025
It’s 6:30 at night and I just finished cleaning both the upper and lower aft decks, and power washing the carpet for the upper deck. We’ve got a reporter coming onboard at 9:30 tomorrow morning to do a story about us leaving on the Great Siberian Sushi Run.
And I think it’s a pretty good story.
I sent out a media release about how I was diagnosed with PTSD after 20 years of policing, and how this trip is, well… a bit of a healing journey. Let’s say that. So, we’ll see what the reporter says. He’s coming to do a video interview, and he wants pictures—including Izzy. The challenge there is just getting her out of bed.
Now, let’s talk provisioning.
It takes a lot to get ready for a trip like this—especially when you’re leaving Canada. There are some favorite things here that we just won’t be able to get when we head north.
Things like my Red Rose tea, which I drink about three cups of a day.
Things like Blaine’s Level Ground Trading coffee.
And the dog’s food from Bosley’s.
Every morning lately has been about provisioning. Grabbing dry goods. Stashing stuff at the house. We haven’t loaded anything on the boat yet because, honestly, I have nowhere to put it right now. Everything’s a bit chaotic.
I don’t want to bring too much on board either—at least not yet—because we have our Bon Voyage party on the 5th. That means… I don’t know how many people are coming onboard the boat to see it, chat with us, and send us off on the 7th. So for now, we’re only bringing on what we need for the party.
Which includes:
- Two garbage bags full of chips
- A heck of a lot of soda
- And a couple of kegs from our favorite brewery—Category 12
We’re going to miss that brewery.
Okay, I’m not going to miss it—because I don’t drink beer. I drink Straight & Arrows. It’s a local… what do you call it? Gin drink. No, vodka? No… gin. Anyway, I’m going to miss that, but I’ll take a couple cases onboard when we head north.
Blaine, though—he’s really going to miss his Juicy Data. So having a keg for the party is perfect.
But I’m tired.
The big thing too is that we’re still making YouTube videos—because YouTube is basically our livelihood now. And I’ve got to get them out but to be honest - I like making them. Tomorrow morning at 10am, we’ve got a “Questions Answered” video going live on the refit channel. We recorded it, but I haven’t started editing yet.
Luckily, I’m getting faster at editing.
And of course, we’re still putting out our Wheelhouse Weekly episodes for our online crew.
Our online crew—they’re the folks who support us through our membership program. It’s odd to say I have an online crew, but honestly, it’s this amazing community. Just an hour ago, NautiGirl came by—Adam and Hai waved as they passed us. They’re heading into Tod Inlet to anchor for the Bon Voyage party.
We’ve also got my Uncle Chuck coming down on his sailboat, White Knight. He’s been living on that boat for something like 40 years. He’s sailing down from Squamish.
Our friends from Mariner’s Compass, Brian and Rosie, are coming in.
Another boat called Tonka is on the way—they’re subscribers, and I’m pretty excited to meet them.
And of course, my sister Krista and Dave are already here on Our Time.
So that’s—what?—four, five boats already coming in for the party.
And I have to say—it’s a little bit of pressure, putting on a party like this.
It’s not the organizing that stresses me out. It’s making sure everybody has a good time. That’s the part I worry about. My counselor says that’s my PTSD. I catastrophize everything. Like… it’s gonna suck, everyone’s gonna hate it, everyone’s gonna hate us.
I know it’s not true.
If I look at reality, I know it’s not true. But that’s the feeling.
Still, I’m excited.
There’s just a lot to do.
Blaine and I are not going to have this boat finished by the time we leave. So we’re bringing everything on board that we still need—wood, insulation, metal—on the 6th. And on the 7th, we leave.
Once we get away from here, once Blaine’s not trying to shut down his business and wrap up clients’ engines and side jobs, then maybe we’ll finally have time.
Time to work on the boat.
Time to make videos.
Time to just be together.
Until that day—
And I’m looking at the calendar magnet on the fridge right now—
We’ve got four days left.
Four days to finish what we can.
Four days until we drop the dock lines and go.
My knees ache. It actually feels like someone took a razor blade to both of them and cut them up, which is basically what happened.
We’re in the final preparations before we leave for the Great Siberian Sushi Run. As I sit here in the hammock early in the morning, looking out at the bay we’ve called home for five years, I’ve got a hot cup of tea in my hand and the hammock gently swinging. I look at my neighbors and all the boats around us.
A moorage is a funny place.
It’s like any street—except you can almost see into everybody’s home. You can hear them, see what they’re up to. It can be extremely nosy, to tell you the truth.
I’m listening to the gentleman over on our starboard side who must be having a bad morning, because the F-bomb is flying around.
A dinghy passes off our stern, putting along with a dog in it. It’s early, so the dog must have just gone to shore for a bathroom break.
I look behind me and realize that some folks aren’t even up yet. On the port side is what I call Tod Town—a collection of people living on their boats who, if they didn’t have their boats, would probably be on the street. They’re starting their morning work because these people take extreme pride in what they’ve built as their own little kingdoms.
That’s what I call them.
It’s kind of like when you see a homeless person walking down the street with a shopping cart full of their belongings. This is the same thing—except it’s a boat full of goods. It’s their home, their little place on earth they’ve carved out to live a quiet lifestyle. Sometimes not so quiet, because it’s also the place where the police probably spend the most time.
Then there are the paddle boarders.
The wind is just starting to pick up. Everything’s been glass calm, and you can hear them talking, having their morning conversations as they paddle around, enjoying this Canada Day.
And then there’s me.
Sitting here looking at my boat, realizing that in four days, we’re having our Bon Voyage open house.
Our boat was dirty. Izzy and I spent the whole afternoon yesterday scrubbing on our hands and knees up on the top deck, trying to remove the diesel soot from our winter heat. It looks pretty good right now, but I know after next winter, it’ll be all black and sooty again.
My hands are sore, my knees are sore, and I’ve got that sting from a little too much sun on my back. But that’s okay, because looking at the job this morning, as I swing here on my hammock, it looks pretty damn good.
Then I think about the Great Siberian Sushi Run.
Blaine is downstairs answering YouTube comments, which we get quite a lot of. Sometimes they’re bad. But you know what? We just delete those because they’re not needed. We don’t need to speak with people who believe they’re anonymous behind a keyboard. Instead, we answer the positive ones, the questions, the ones that remind us why we’re doing this. We try to be accessible to the people who watch our channel. Let’s just say that.
So in four days, we open up our boat for a Bon Voyage party. But there’s so much to do. I’ve broken up the cleaning because she’s 78 feet, and me being 53 years old, I’m just not capable of doing the whole boat in one day anymore. So again, Izzy and I did the top deck—Izzy, our 18-year-old daughter who just graduated Stelly’s High School. She’s coming with us, which is amazing.
This afternoon, we’ll tackle the bow back to the doors behind the breezeways. Tomorrow, we’ll do the aft decks—there are two of them.
Last night, Josh, our 22-year-old son, came onboard. He’s been living on shore for about three years now, in our house. I already had my cry about him about a week ago, because I’ve never left him. I consider him one of my best friends. That’s the relationship we have.
After dinner, I didn’t take him to shore. I gave him a huge hug, told him I loved him. He kissed me on the forehead, which is kind of his thing. He’s leaving early because he’s heading down to Los Angeles to see his online friends.
I could feel it, as they were driving off in the dinghy—Blaine and him in Punga—my throat starting to ache, starting to close up, the tears starting to come.
But after 20 years of policing, I’ve been taught to hide those emotions. So that’s what I did. I pushed them down. I took them and put them into my shoebox on the shelf. And I know, sometime in the future, that box is going to fall off, and I’m going to question whether leaving on Tangaroa was the right thing.
Kids are a funny thing. We raise them to live life on their own, but for us, we can’t imagine life without them.
It’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?
Anyway, Blaine came back after dropping him off, and he said he’d had a bit of a cry on the way back. And I think that’s what I love about Blaine—he can admit his emotions, admit that it was hard saying goodbye to his son.
So that’s what I’m doing this morning.
Sitting here, thinking that it’s Canada Day, but we’re choosing to head north and leave Canada—our home for, what, 53 years? And wondering, with the world the way it is right now, whether we’re making the right choice.
But for us, the sense of freedom and living life on our own terms—that’s what we’re searching for.
We are dropping our docklines on July 7 to start the Great Siberian Sushi Run. But first - a Bon Voyage Open House for everyone who has supported us. Hope to see you there.
Blaine and Janis
