Vivo O Sonho

I started this blog on April 16, 2018 with the intention of using it as a platform for sharing our preparation of Sonho to embark on our cruising lifestyle after retirement (which we had planned for April 2019 before a series of complicated circumstances delayed us until 2022). I also posted short fiction stories, memoirs and recipes for several years. It gave me so much joy as my readership grew and I became a confident writer.

Life got in the way of writing as I became heavily involved in the La Paz community as soon as my feet hit the Marina de La Paz dock in December of 2022. I found myself coordinating events for our local yacht club, Club Cruceros, and before I knew it, I was back to having meetings and being on a schedule.

I finally published “Sonho’s Journey to La Paz” on April 1, 2023, detailing the timeline, hours and nautical miles of travel from Alameda, California to La Paz, Mexico between October-December 2022. Two weeks later I published the first of what I intended to be eight blogs describing the experiences of each leg down the coast, “Cruising Down the Coast: Alameda to Monterey.”

In May 2023, I felt compelled to write about our first harrowing experience of dragging anchor. And then I stopped blogging entirely. I’m not the kind of blogger to just throw words and a pic or two up on the website and hit “publish.” That’s what Facebook was for. I posted daily on FB, but they were “garbage” words in my mind, not the thoughtful, curated blogs that I was proud of. Now and then someone would randomly discover my blog and leave a comment or a “like.” It made me sad and ashamed because I let it go and it felt too overwhelming to try to catch up.

The remainder of 2023 flew by with Club and local activities and short visits to the nearby islands of Espiritu Santo and Caleta Partida, being elected as Vice Commodore and spending the summer in the Bay Area. We spent a ton of time with our Grands, raced Slice and took an extensive two-week road trip in the Pacific North West to visit friends and our son and future daughter-in-law, then drove our truck back to Mexico. We enjoyed traversing through breath-taking deserts, over majestic mountains and along the stunningly different waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez. Shortly after our return to La Paz, we hopped on a plane to San Diego to crew on our friend Patsy’s boat, Talion, on the Baja Ha-Ha, and sail back to La Paz.

The beginning of 2024 was happily consumed with helping to plan Harley and Jenna’s wedding in March in Hawaii, in addition to my increasing event duties and being an active member of the Club’s Charity Committee.

I was elected Commodore in April 2024 and, after the cruising season came to a close, we embarked on seven weeks in the Sea of Cortez where we wiled away our days on white sandy beaches and swam in turquoise waters filled with tropical fish. It was an amazing experience and a chance to reconnect away from marina life, but not totally relaxing as I was working remotely.

John Arndt, owner of Latitude 38 magazine, hired me as the Summer Sailstice Coodinator (a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging people to sail on the longest day of the year, summer solstice), and I was tasked with writing the newsletter and website articles, managing the social media posts, coordinating the contests and awarding prizes, and communicating with participants and sponsors. On top of that, I continued to coordinate the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center annual grant distribution that I had began doing in 2019 when the Jewish Federation of the East Bay closed and I officially retired from full-time work.

I spent a short time in California during the summer then returned to La Paz to house-sit for friends in town. Hubby had to stay behind for an additional five weeks to undergo two minor operations to remove a cancerous melonoma. It was hellishly hot, I missed him and was terribly worried, and found myself dealing with multiple challenges alone in a foreign country. There were plumbing issues at the house (water isn’t as readily accessible in Mexico as it is in the states), personality clashes at the Club (adults acting like children is a worldwide problem), driving for the first time in Mexico (stop signs are merely suggestions), and preparing Sonho for a possible hurricane (that thankfully didn’t materialize).

I was deliriously happy upon Aaron’s return, which coincided with my 60th birthday. And then we both came down with a bad flu (which was probably Covid although we tested negative) that took us down hard for several weeks. Finally, we spent the month of December back in the states celebrating the holidays in California and Oregon with the kids.

Now we’re in the first quarter of 2025. I hosted the To Live and Write group for the inaugural International Writer’s Retreat at the end of January. We had seven women fly in from the Bay Area, one came all the way from Scotland, and four of us were from La Paz. I put the Club and life on Sonho aside for three days to focus on my writing. Our amazing coach, Bronwyn Emery, challenged me to think hard about what my writing meant to me and where I wanted to go with it. I wrote fiction about a mermaid, I wrote non-fiction about becoming Commodore, I wrote in my journal about feeling overwhelmed with my responsibilities and grief over the death of my blog. So here I am.

I’m promising myself to prioritize regular blogging again to record this incredible life I am so blessed to lead, simply because it brings me joy (both life and blogging). I’m not bogging myself down with self-imposed deadlines or lists of topics written in stone. I might revisit the 2022 journey to La Paz and some of our 2023 and 2024 trips in the Sea of Cortez and life in general in Mexico. Or I might just post our current experiences as they happen. Who knows what words my fingers will tap into stories now that I’m getting back into the flow?

Thank you, dear readers, for encouraging me to get “Back to the Blog” and believing in my storytelling. Every kind word has meant the world to me.

I have responsibilities to wrap up in the next few months, but I’m seeing some opportunities for closure that will free up more time to write and spend time enjoying Sonho with Aaron and Tiki. My grant coordination duty is ending this year, and I will turn over leadership of the Club in May to a new Commodore. I’ll still do Summer Sailstice, because I enjoy it immensely and it’s a flexible schedule, but I’m promising myself not to take on anything else. It’s time to focus on Heidi’s life-long dreams of being a Cruising Writer. And the only way to do that is by actually Cruising and Writing.

Vivo O Sonho … Living the Dream … one word and one sunset at a time.