“This doesn’t change anything!” Adam declared one Sunday as we folded laundry, referring to our unborn child. Jack Johnson tunes wafted through the house. His music had been a soundtrack to our sailing holidays with and without the kids in the BVI over the previous years. The kids were off playing Minecraft or basketball or baking cookies. “We’ve done the suburban parenting thing. And this baby can have a different kind of life. It can be part of our fantastical dream. We just bring it along.”
He was determined to not let a child derail our plan. Any plan that unplugged us from our static life, the one that let Adam quit the job he’d had for 24 years. In addition to wineries and water sports centers, there had been marinas and breweries. Everyone wants to drink beer at a brewery owned by a British dude! And floating writing retreats held on gulets. I wasn’t entirely convinced about Belize, anyway, so it was good to have other dreams to lean into. Sargassum was becoming a big problem. Large island of knotted seaweed would float in and smother the coastline. Resorts and public beaches alike struggled to manage the constant influx. In many cases, it was raked onto shore and became a giant, wretched, decomposing trash heap. Global warming would only exacerbate these floating islands, choking marine habitats and depriving these ecosystems of sunlight. But if not Belize, then what?