Sailing With Gratitude

(Written jointly this time) Karen: I know we said we’d next be giving you Part 2 of our Caribbean Catch Up posts. And we will! I’ve already started pulling all the photos together and editing them for blog-fitness. But we have a current update on our travels that we thought important to share. We’re leaving…

Hi friends! Below is an account I wrote of our week sailing in the British Virgin Islands, in early March of 2020. This was, of course, before the Coronavirus crisis had really changed much in this part of the world. The BVI has now closed its borders to all foreigners until at least September 1,…

Hi friends and family! We’ve been quiet here lately. It’s been hard to know what to say that would not just add to all the noise out there right now. But today I had an idea for a post that I hope will increase our general sense of connection with one another. So I present…

We finally – finally! – pulled out of Simpson Bay in St. Maarten in early February 2020, after over a month there making boat repairs and upgrades. What a joy it was to sail again! We had 15 knot winds on the beam (hitting our sail at a right angle, which propels the boat nicely)…

We have had some boat projects that have kept us in St. Maarten for several weeks. I haven’t really minded – I really like St. Maarten, and I would stop here again. But after almost a month at the marina, we were getting itchy sails. So we decided, since it would be another week before…

At Velociteach, we have a tradition where all the employees draw a name for a Secret Santa each Christmas. The only real rule is that you are not supposed to spend any more than $15 on the person whose name you draw. That keeps the playing field more or less level. This year, I was…

We transplanted our lives to live aboard Gratitude 365 days ago today. It’s hard to believe. We would not trade this year for anything. Having a catamaran is like having a condominium that you can take just about anywhere there is ocean. There is incredible freedom. Don’t like where you are? Pull up the anchor,…

I’m sitting in the forward cockpit of the boat tonight, in front of Lagoonies restaurant and bar in St. Maarten, listening to the clinking of forks on plates and ice in glasses, while a local on the dock delivers a fiery (and foul-mouthed) diatribe against Americans to some audience I cannot see. Ah, the Caribbean….

Our Thanksgiving visit home was full of the typical holiday errands and activities, but they were especially meaningful to us this year. Seeing family and friends when you’ve been away puts your life into a new perspective. We gave thanks with gusto. We returned the boat in Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe with a little trepidation. The flight…

The Monday before Halloween, we weighed anchor and headed north along the Caribbean coast of Grenada. We experienced a near-perfect day of sailing with beam winds and friendly seas. As Karen had detailed in our previous post, we had enjoyed “Camp Grenada”, but we were ready to be in a position to cross back into…