LIFE CAN CHANGE...
- Janice Hayward
- Dec 19, 2025
- 3 min read
At the snap of your fingers.
In the blink of an eye.
Who am I, you ask?
I am a 55-year-old grieving wife.
I cannot tell you where I am going,
but I can tell you how I arrived at today.
I was born and raised in the Comox Valley; Royston, in fact. When I was a child, we had a view of the Comox Bay. I was awed at the ability of a boat with sails to be moved by wind. As a child or a teen, the thought never occurred to me to ask for sailing lessons.
I did what a lot of women of my era have done — settled before seeing the world.
My first marriage failed and I found myself a single mom of two children, aged one and two. It was just the three of us for 10 years. Those are 10 years that I will cherish forever.
In 1996, the man of my dreams entered my life.
He embraced me for who I am, my kids and our animals. Ron, a father of two, dared me to allow myself to dream again. One of the first questions he asked was, “What have you always wanted to do?”
That was easy. I wanted to live aboard a sailboat and learn to sail.
Ron, ironically, had the same dream. Eleven months after our first date, Ron and I married. We also hatched a plan to fulfil our shared desire to live aboard and sail.
Fast forward to 2001.
Ron and I, now living in Victoria, purchased our first sailboat, Derby Lass, a 30-foot Hunter. We spent every possible moment on our new-to-us boat and loved every minute.
Within the first 15 months, we realized that our dream was transforming into reality.
We found ourselves neglecting the house and the yard. Three of the four kids were on their own, with the youngest living with his mom. It was time to take the plunge. We sold everything, lock, stock and barrel, and moved aboard Figment Too, a 1999, 42-foot Hunter, in July 2003.
In 2009 we upgraded to a 2007, 45-foot Hunter centre cockpit sailboat. This was the boat of Ron’s dreams. She was so beautiful; how could I say no? Life could not get any better. We toasted the wind gods with champagne and christened her Ta Daa!
Ta Daa was outfitted for offshore sailing.
World, here we come! Nothing can stop us now. We are Ron and Janice. We can do anything.
To prepare for offshore sailing, as many do, we circumnavigated Vancouver Island in June and July 2010. That in itself was a dream fulfilled. We felt so ready to take on new adventures. Retirement was just around the corner. Once retired, we would only need to take care of a few bits and pieces for extended leave from Canada and we off we would go.
At the very thought of leaving, we were excited, anxious and scared. Not one of these emotions would stop us. This was something we just had to do. We needed to find out, for ourselves, if the offshore life was for us.
First stop, Mexico.
Life can change at the snap of your fingers, in the blink of an eye. It certainly did for us.
Ron was diagnosed with mesothelioma — asbestos-related cancer. Neither medication nor therapy would help.
We were delivered Ron’s death sentence on August 19, 2010. Stunned, we cried and held each other. We were in a state of disbelief, but we had to carry on. We, in our heart of hearts, believed that Ron had 12 to 18 months to fulfil his wish list. In fact, Ron left us in six months less six days.
It has been a mere few months since, with challenging weeks and emotional days. Oh, there are good times, and there are laughs and smiles. I am content to live aboard. The boat is not my challenge. I handle the boat myself: docking, undocking, sailing.
The reality is, in sailors’ words, I have no wind in my sails.
Without wind, I have no direction.
...In the following issues, Janice will share a candid account of her journey through grief and life aboard Ta Daa...
By Janice Hayward . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2011 . Volume 1 . Issue 3 .
