Stop Worrying About the Bucket

When I tell the stories of the travels of my life, it must sound to my friends like I’ve been working my way through a bucket list of planned adventures. This Northwest Passage is certainly on the list of a lot of boaters in my circle. If you have such a list, you wouldn’t be wrong to add a trip through the arctic and then do your best to check it off. But I don’t think you should – add it to a list, that is.

As I rode the dinghy to shore and watched Sarah-Sarah fade into the fog, I realized this trip was like so many of the list-worthy adventures I’ve had that so many dream about but never make. I had no idea it was coming, I’d never thought about it before, and it certainly wasn’t on a list anywhere in my mind.

To me, a bucket list implies a record of things wanting to be accomplished in your lifetime and the pursuit of achieving those things. But some of my best experiences are of those things I have done that I never even considered. Whether flying to the BVI as a 20-year-old with not enough money for a hotel and food but making it work, or an out of the blue invite for a 10-day white water rafting trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, or the countless nautical adventures I’ve had on Sarah-Sarah and her predecessor the Edwin S. Dawson. All largely unplanned. All totally unforgettable.

This Northwest Passage journey fits right into that never considered category. When the idea of coming back to Washington across the top was first suggested, I was equal parts intrigued and unsure. Flashing back to the first day and a half of the 5-day, 5-hour passage Scott and I made on Sarah-Sarah from Kodiak to Anacortes in 2022, I had sworn that I was cancelling my subscription to Passagemaker Magazine. Long offshore trips were not my thing.

I had spent most of my life on the protected waters of the east coast (Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay), long passages at sea weren’t ever an option. A multi-day boat trip entailed running for 3 or so hours a day from one port to the next spending the afternoon and evening there and then repeating the next day. Now that I live in Anacortes, Washington, at the gateway to the San Juan Islands, a short hop to Sucia or Orcas or one of the many other Islands in the chain is one of my favorite ways to spend a summer day. But long adventurous passages to the far reaches of the world, these have all been the happy accidents of being friends with my adventurous friend, Captain Scott. Under the unexpected guise of “helping him” move his boat around the world, I have been privileged to have been part of many otherworldly passage-making trips from Alaska to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. These aren’t trips that I planned or even wanted to happen. I wasn’t checking off a list. Like this trip, they were accidental adventures that I’ll never forget and never thought I would have had.

Joining this current adventure in Nuuk and hoping off in Barrow allowed me to experience exactly what I love: exploring new off the beaten path locales, spending time with great friends and making memories to last a lifetime. While some will claim that I did not complete the Northwest Passage since I only crossed the Arctic Circle once, I ask, “who cares?” Life is not, to me, a list of accomplishments and it isn’t measured in checking things off a list. It’s always been, to my mind, more about the taking the adventures as they arise and not asking too many questions about how they happened. Don’t think too much about it; why miss it while trying to figure out how you got there? For me, I don’t have a list. At my age I’ve figured out what makes me happy, and I spend as much time as I can doing that.

So, jump on the opportunities that arise when you can for the most lasting memories. That’s all I did to end up here, at the end of another worthwhile trip that fades into the fog but not from my memory. That is what this trip was. A “bucket list” trip? – No. Unforgettable Journey – most definitely.