Finale

And so we are back. What now? It's a question that we've asked ourselves for some time now. Actually, we really didn't think much about what we would do afterwards for most of the year. We were so immersed in the pleasure of the moment to give the question much real thought. In the back of our minds, we both thought that maybe we'd find someplace we liked better then Annapolis, perhaps staying there for awhile. In the end, we didn't. We now face the difficult task of re-entering the other world, the one where people get up and go to work each day; the one where people cut lawns and look forward to the weekends.

So why stop now? Why not keep going? I suppose we had crossed that bridge the day we headed north from George Town, Great Exuma. As you may know, the Atlantic hurricane season starts in June, so staying in the Bahamas for much longer was out of the question. One must either head south to get below the hurricane belt or north to safer hiding places. In a collision of circumstance and desire, we really were not prepared to take the thorny path to the Caribbean, nor did we have the yearning to travel back north to New England this summer. Thus, we find ourselves in Annapolis with plans to rejoin the dirt dwellers. In some sense, the trip could be considered a shake down cruise, a quick and easy way to find out if the cruising life suited us... and it did. Had we planned to stay out longer, we would have approached many things differently; boat and equipment taken, and the disposition of our possessions.

Because we did come back this is not to suggest in any way that we didn't enjoy ourselves and couldn't have stayed out longer. In fact, we may have enjoyed ourselves a little too much. We've met such fabulous people, many I am sure who will be friends for life. The boat performed beyond expectations, providing a great shallow draft platform for exploring the Bahamas and allowing many glorious days of sailing, especially with our cruising spinnaker. And we were terribly fortunate with the weather, suffering few periods of disagreeable weather. But I have this nagging worry that this is as good as it gets; that the next time, (if there ever is a next time), we may get set up with unrealistic expectations. Sort of like the feeling you get after seeing a highly acclaimed movie only to be disappointed. The definitive question here may be "Would we do it again?" to which we would without hesitation respond with a resounding "Yes!" Of course, there are things we would do differently, lessons learned if you will.

Like what you may ask? As far as a travel plan would go, we should have left the Chesapeake earlier to head north and get ourselves all the way to Maine instead of stopping in Rhode Island. Newport certainly has it's interest and there are many other quaint towns, but it's on the expensive side as places to cruise go. And then on the south side, we would have liked to have crossed to the Bahamas sooner, in early November instead of early December. We could then have gone straight through to Luperon in the Dominican Republic and then worked our way slowly back through the Bahamas. After the Exumas, Long, Rum and Conception Islands, we found Eleuthera and the Abacos a minor disappointment and we would have skipped those altogether had we known.

Among other things on the list to take next time would be a larger dinghy motor that would allow us to plane and bicycles if we could have found a place for them. There were a surprising number of places to bicycle and there were times when bikes would have been helpful to have. Walking is fine, but it's pretty limited by how far you can get.

We certainly learned a lot...you know, those important life lessons like how to clean a conch, how to haul water from a well, how to conserve water, how to open a coconut, how to wash the boat in the rain, and how to bathe in a bucket.

We ended up having great fun with this web site and we thank those who have been so supportive with such positive comments. It really helped us keep up the momentum and gave us an extra incentive to carry on.

We also want to thank our families and friends for all of their help without which our trip would not have been possible.

So what now? As a charter member of the French Hungarian Cooking Club, our axiom has always been that Either you're on an adventure or you're planning one.... stay tuned!

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Our Transition

For the short-term as we figure out our future plans we'll live on the boat, not to exceed the Fall season. Living on the boat for the sake of living on our boat has never appealed to us, but we'll give it a go as we have few alternatives. If we have to live somewhere at the dock, Annapolis is THE place to be. We're within walking distance of everything in Eastport and the downtown area.

But, in one day we went from cruisers to liveaboards which we're not exactly set up for. After 8 months we plugged in our shore power cord to the dock; and found it actually worked! While we don't have the luxuries of land-life such as a freezer (especially for ice cream), dishwasher, air conditioning, heating, in-home laundry, in-home shower, microwave, adequate closet space, etc., we do have things we haven't had for awhile which most take for granted. We don't have rely on the dinghy to get off the boat (especially in bad weather), plus we have the freedom to go whenever we want without coordinating it between us. We have our car and our travel range has greatly expanded from where we used to be able to walk to. We can take showers at the marina (as long as we want and with plenty of hot water). We can use as much power as we want as we're now plugged in to electric and can recharge the boat's batteries when needed and without having to run the engine. We can use as much water as we want and refill our tanks easily. We can wash the boat as often as we like. There's a laundromat conveniently a block away. We have access to a free ice machine, which is great benefit as we're not running our engine-driven refrigeration daily at the dock. And, weather no longer plays such an important role in planning our day to day activities.

But living on a boat has it challenges especially now that we'll have to deal with a wider variety of clothes for working (unfortunately our wardrobe has to expand beyond shorts and bathing suits). We have one small closet which we primarily used for foul weather gear. At anchor there is usually a tolerable breeze even on warm summer nights, but it's much more protected at the dock and therefore now much warmer. We will likely have to purchase an air conditioner for use on the boat.

And Atlas has decided he is enjoying the life of an outdoor cat, much to our dismay. He jumped off the boat immediately after docking and has been exploring since (Apollo is still too scared after his last swimming event). We tried to keep Atlas on the boat at first, but when he tried to jump over the barricade he missed and fell partially in the water. After much worrying and chasing him we found he can find his way back home fine (especially when he's hungry or thirsty). As we've worried about flea infestation we've gotten both of them flea prevention.

Although we're now connected to the dock by a few more cords than before, we have managed to escape and enjoy some day sailing to nowhere in particular in the last few weeks and plan to get out whenever we can. It's nice to be able to sail without a destination and go wherever we want. Our new Annapolis location now allows us to be out sailing in just a few minutes, much quicker than our previous marina before we left.

But, it's a very strange transition as we feel disconnected already from the cruising community to which we belonged to for the past year. We're not anchored out with the rest of our sailing comrades, nor do we listen regularly to the VHF for a "phone call" anymore. We will miss the wonderful cruising friends we have met along the way and hope that our paths cross again one day (Angel, Arawak, Blue Moon, Calypso Poet, Changing Channels, Cookin', Deliverance, Desiderata, Feng Shui, Killassa, La Vie Dansante, Morning Star, Oasis, Seaquel, Starlight, and Suzannah).

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Statistics of our Voyage

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We leave you with a last glimse of the Bahamas, a panaromic picture Joyce's brother Chuck took from the top of the lighthouse at Hope Town in Elbow Cay in the Abacos.

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