Happy Sailing Anniversary, Savannah!

On this day, four years ago, we quietly slipped off the police docks in San Diego, California at 6:00 a.m. and headed out for Isla Guadalupe, Mexico…no fanfare, no party…just a lot of clouds and fog. Savannah hasn't seen a US dock since. What better way to celebrate than with lobster and butter? And so we did.


It's been a fantastic four years. Ups and downs. Interesting places, scary people, beautiful people, dumps and pure postcard perfect beaches. We've swam with whale sharks, manta rays and lemon sharks. We can say hello (and cheers!) in over 6 different languages. We've been robbed. We've been shown generosity that blew our minds.

Tonight we sit at our last anchorage in the Philippines before hopping to Borneo tomorrow morning. It's beautiful, quiet, full of mangroves (and crocodiles), and in full Filipino style, people. It looks deserted, but at sundown, the canoes just emerge from the bushes. We traded our rice tonight for a big stalk of bananas…the first we've had in a long time. We bought a fish for a hundred pesos (they wanted rice, but despite our attempt to be prepared, we didn't buy enough). The last guy came with fish but Jake and I were on the transom cleaning the one we just bought (Andy didn't want to get 'dirty' tonight) so we just asked him what he needed. He wanted D cell batteries. Unfortunately, we only had one…we gave him some water and a big ' SOOOOO RRRYYYYY'. Ever since then, the canoes are going back and forth to the giant catamaran parked near us.

This was originally a five year cruise. Four years and we're half way around…geeesh…not as easy as we thought. But rest assured, we're on our way home. Our current plan (subject to change if we find a really cool place) is to make our way to Thailand by Christmas via Malaysia and Singapore ….haul the boat out, paint and check on some previous issues…then cross that next big ocean. Maldives? Chagos? Madagascar? Whatever the route, we'll head around S. Africa to cross our third big ocean to Brazil and then the Caribbean…. getting us back to the Eastern Time Zone in the next two years or so… While I can't guarantee it's going to happen that way or in that time frame, I can guarantee that we're still heading to the east coast and we're going to have a great time getting there. Tonight we're not only celebrating our anniversary of starting this adventure, we're also celebrating the next few years that we get to be together and explore this earth. On some level, I can't wait to get home and get reacquainted with our extended family (and get me a big ole dishwasher, shop at Target and eat at Chick-fil-a), there's a big part of me that just can't imagine what it'll be like to wake up every morning, watch Jake go to school, Andy go to work, and then God willing, go lay out by the pool with my cocktail get myself a job.



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