Four Seasons of Fun (Mostly)

Today has been a beautiful, warm, and relaxing day on the boat in Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten, which is a far cry of how we spent the day exactly one year ago. On that cold, rainy February morning, we departed Portofino Marina in Kemah, TX with butterflies in our stomachs and began this wonderful, crazy adventure.

Then:

Now:

We left with very little sailing experience under our belts and never had even anchored. Now, after sailing an estimated 2,500 miles, we feel very comfortable handling the boat and feel like we can deal with just about anything that is thrown our way.

Along the way, we have visited six countries and thirty-five islands, made lots of new friends, and became immersed in different cultures. We have also destroyed a lot of our electronics – two phones, one computer, one Kindle, one camera, and one hair trimmer. Just the other day David made the comment that we need to hurry back before everything else on this boat breaks!

So our year is up, and you might be asking, “Now what?” We decided to extend our trip a few more months so we will probably be back in the States in May. We plan on staying in St. Maarten/St. Martin another week to watch the Heineken Regatta, go back to St. Thomas just long enough to stock up on groceries, sail to the Turks and Caicos for a pit stop, go back through the Exumas in the Bahamas, and then head for Marathon in the Florida Keys. Of course, as we have learned on many occasions during the trip, things never go quite as planned!