I hit a (relatively) low point in our sailing journey not long ago, and it made me thoughtful about what we share here on this blog, and how we share it. As a glass-half-full kind of gal, I can definitely err on the side of just presenting the fun and exciting aspects of our sailing…
The Pace Slows in Antigua
Recently the pace of our sailing life has slowed down. We’ve definitely turned a corner from discovering new places to digging deeper into our favorite spots, which means fewer long passages and longer stay overs. We returned home from St. Martin in late January for several big events. The first was a diving trip to…
Repeating The Thorny Path To Windward
We returned to Gratitude in the British Virgin Islands shortly after Christmas, and on December 28, we received our dear friends, the Ranks aboard. We wasted no time getting underway. In the BVIs, there are a few “must sees”, and we made that circuit, hopping from Willy T’s off Norman Island, snorkeling at The Caves,…
The Great Escape from Bonaire
First, Time with Friends October 31 means Halloween at home, but for Andy and Karen in 2022 it meant two things: The END of hurricane season and the BEGINNING of a looooonnnnng day of travel! We awoke at 3:45 a.m. to catch a 4:30 a.m. Uber to the airport for a 7 a.m. flight to…
Hurricane Season in Bonaire
(A joint post by Andy and Karen) (Karen) Greetings from Gratitude! We hope all of our sailing friends had an uneventful hurricane season, and that all of our land friends have enjoyed their summer and fall. Gratitude spent hurricane season in a new location: Bonaire, part of the ABCs (along with Aruba and Curacao) in…
Some Work, Some Play: Sint Maarten
Ok, it’s been a hot minute since we posted about our sailing adventures, and we’ve covered a lot of ocean since our last post! Time to catch up. We last left you in Sint Maarten, where we hung out for much of the spring. During this time, we hosted some more friends, did some work…
Island Hopping to Sint Maarten
As we beat our way east along the Thorny Path, we were reminded what a bad idea it can be to try and sail to a tight schedule. Ideally, you adapt to enjoy wherever you are and then wait for desirable winds and seas. Whenever those elusive conditions present, regardless of whatever else you have…
The Thorny Path We Swore We’d Never Sail Again
If you’ve been reading our blog since the early days, you’ll remember our chronicle of traversing the Thorny Path to Windward – where sailors fight the headwinds and seas to get from the Bahamas to the top of Eastern Caribbean, around Anguilla or St. Martin. The traditional path is Bahamas-Turks and Caicos-Dominican Republic-Puerto Rico-US Virgin…
Good Times in George Town
When we last posted, we had finished up a glorious experience of the Exumas and were headed down to George Town, in the southern Exumas. George Town is a cruisers’ Mecca, with a large beautiful harbor, easy anchoring, the perfect beach bar, and large grocery and auto parts stores for provisioning and repairs. There’s a…
Exuma Cays
When we were last in the Bahamas, in 2019, we sailed east to the Exumas from Nassau. This year we traveled west from Eleuthera, which allowed us to sail deep water in the Exuma Sound instead of nervously eyeballing our way through the coral heads of the Yellow Bank. Highbourne Cay was a day away…