Hoping everyone had good holidays! Wanted to just do a re-cap of this year. Mostly just as a reminder of how far we have come since last December.

I have failed you! I very much apologize. I don’t like letting down anyone who supports us.

Hi there! Since we last met, I have not only been to the boat once, but twice! Each visit was less than 2 hours but it’s a start.

Well, between training a new employee, fighting a cold, doing a seminar, rainy weather, working, setting up the holiday stuff, & trying to do the regular household tasks, we did not find the time to get down to the boat this last week.

It’s getting too cold to hang outside anymore. The temperatures are too low to do any hobbies we enjoy.

The name of our boat says it all: MerSea (Merci). We are thankful for so much this year! I try to be thankful about something every day.

Now that we’ve been back for 2 weeks, I think we have a good perspective on the whole experience of our trip.

This would be our longest voyage yet. I mean might as well get ready to cross the Pacific Ocean next year

Now that we got to mainland California, it was time to head up the coast.

Here we are in the next leg of the our sailing voyage! Still alive & bouncing back more each day.

Will there be more tragedy or are things lightening up?

Well, I don’t know if “fun” would be the adjective we’d use for our trip so far. It started out okay. Then went downhill pretty quickly.

That’s what we’re hoping to say to Santa Cruz Harbor tomorrow morning at 8 AM! (Writing this on Monday, September 26th.) The time has finally come for our trip down to the Channel Islands! Yes! There was a ton or work to be done on MerSea in this last week!

Owning a sailboat takes commitment. It’s like adopting a pet, child or getting married. If you’re not willing to put the work in then you are going to very much regret going down that road. -Or at least complain much more than those who love their boats & love sailing.

Short & sweet, mmm… maybe not sweet. Fun! I’d say fun would be the better word.

The thing is, is that it’s easy to spend money on our boat. It’s kind of like a fourth family member.

We’re about a month away from our trip to the Channel Islands! I’m excited & a little anxious.

This past week I was reminded of another of Aesop's Fables, The Tortoise & The Hare. And after thinking about it for a while my take-away from it has changed completely from what it was trying to convey.

I had a bunch of stuff that I was going to write about this week but…