Greetings from George Town, Great Exuma, renowned cruisers’ playground! The last we wrote, we were slowly making our way south through the Exumas, stopping at small settlements and unpopulated cays to see wildlife and see how people live, island-style. Along the way we enjoyed a visit from Anne and meeting up with new friends Steve…
Author: Karen Crowe
We interrupt our usual posts…
This is going to be a different kind of post than the previous ones, a more personal one with spiritual content. Those of you who are more interested in Gratitude’s adventures themselves than the psycho-spiritual effects of them may want to skip ahead to the next post, which will feature pigs! And snorkeling! But this…
Swimming with Stingrays
Last week I was in a tough place, mentally and emotionally, after all the drama with our passage back to the Bahamas and our engine troubles and the approaching storm. So Andy suggested a mental-health field trip – something fun, to remind us why we wanted to take this sailing journey in the first place….
Everything takes longer than it does.
Hi everyone. We write you today from a dock in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We had hoped to be back in the Bahamas by now, but God just chuckled at our plans. Here’s an update on the last couple of weeks. Our sail back home to the US was uneventful, blessedly so. We did catch another…
Nassau to Spanish Wells
Well last week we finally left Nassau. It’s been an eventful two weeks so I thought we might fill you in. Nassau was not our favorite locale. It is a great place to grocery shop and eat out; but it is also crowded, touristy, and very expensive. One thing that frustrated us a little there…
Dinghy Drama (A Joint Post)
Andy: Karen and I have both been surprised as to the way we have had to problem solve together. For example, the other evening after shore excursion and a nice dinner out, we lowered the dinghy into the water and inadvertently spooled the line all of the way off of the winch. No big deal,…
Building Our Skills
Where to begin? It was only 10 days ago that we left our home in Atlanta and arrived to Ft. Lauderdale to move onto our boat. Honestly, it feels like 2 months. So much has happened, and we have been in constant motion, with very little time to reflect on our experiences. For this reason…
Elvis Has Left The Marina!
This week has been one big lesson in revising our plans. We flew to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday morning and hit the ground running – moving boxes and bins from our storage locker onto the boat, making runs to Target and Home Goods and Publix to start provisioning, and coordinating boat work with various contractors….
Almost Time
(By Andy) The past several weeks have resembled a swirling slurry of activity: researching, procurement, preparation, packing, communicating, meeting, and trying to coordinate tasks that were usually intricately intertwined. Timing. Negotiating. Purchasing. Asking. Monitoring. Learning. Explaining. Managing. Occasionally arguing. We made the decision to take a sailing sabbatical some time in September 2018, and from…
How To Upend Your Life So That You Can Go Sailing
This post is not going to be about how Andy and I got to the point in life where a sabbatical like this is possible. That one would pretty much require our life stories, and today is not that day. 🙂 Rather, this post is about all the practical stuff we’ve done in the last…