For many years we had the dream to sail off into the sunset.
We dreamed about visiting distant exotic places, and to step outside of our fast paced life style. In 2008 we finally had a boat and had sold most of our posessions to make it happen. After many years of planning and dreaming we were ready to head off on our adventure. We looked forward to beautiful beaches, romantic sunsets and lots of time to read, study and write. While we have been on breathtaking beaches, have enjoyed marvelous sunsets, and met many wonderful people, what we hadn't truly expected was the lack of time for reading, studying and writing... Sailing off into the sunset, as it turns out, is as much work as we had experienced back at home! Cruising, the saying goes, is fixing your boat in beautiful places. Well, isn't that the truth! But would I trade it in??? The sleepless nights at anchor when the wind is howling, the seasickness on passages, the heat, mosquitos, endless boat jobs, and the tiny space which we call home?? The answer is NO! In spite of appendicitis at sea, lightning hitting our boat and other "mis-adventures" I still feel this has been the most wonderful experience we could ever undertake. Yes, there are moments when I have thought "what on earth am I doing here??" - but I wouldn't trade places. The people we have met, the proximity to nature, the new cultures and foods, the animals and plants, the blue and ominous black skies we have seen, and the sense of freedom and self-reliance have made this experience SO grand.If you are reading this, and wish to read our adventures, please do! And should you too harbor a dream in your heart to do something more, or something different with your life, don't let fear hold you back. For as Mark Twain once said, it is the things that you did NOT do that will disappoint you at the end of your life! So cast off your lines, and raise up your sails! The one thing I have learnt on this adventure is that there is always a way forward, even when the things you fear the most arise to challenge you. There are so many ways to live a life. There are so many ways to make things work. It is up to us to make it happen.