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As we spend our last day on the boat I want to recognize how this trip was even possible. We were all sitting around at Christmas playing with our new gadgets, reading our new books when I started dreaming that we should buy a boat and go cruising. Within a couple of days my Dad had offered us the opportunity to use their boat. Other
than my childhood sailing experience, we had zero sailing experience – what was he thinking!?! But what I have come to realize after doing this trip is how excited he is to see us share their dream of cruising and how proud he is of us taking this trip. Loaning us their boat was a leap of faith for them, but this trip wouldn’t have happened without it. We spent our first month onboard with my parents in the Bahamas making sure we knew how to operate the boat andits systems. They always emphasized that we shouldn’t worry about breaking anything on the boat; all that mattered was staying safe. We learned a lot in that first month on board and throughout the rest of the months on the boat, they were always available by phone and email to answer the many questions we had. I know they worried at times about us, about our decisions or our safety and wondered if we would like cruising. But they trusted us and allowed us to have the amazing experience we did. Thank you Mom and Dad for giving us this opportunity; it will be one we cherish forever.
They arrived here in Freeport on Monday to help prepare the boat for hurricane season. But I think what they were really coming for was to see the Grandkids. The kids have been looking forward to them coming for weeks and we have had a great few days spending time together at the beach, the pool and some tourist activities. We have also started the process of preparing the boat to be left here for the next 4.5 months during hurricane season. It is hard to do a lot of those preparations while we are still living on the boat and with three little kids around, so the bulk of the work will get done once we leave on Saturday. So not only do they let us use their boat for 5 months, they do all the clean up afterwards – pretty sweet deal (that I feel bad about).
We have gotten really comfortable living on the boat and it is sad to move all our things off. Even though we didn’t have a lot of stuff on the boat, we had to really pare down for Nicaragua. Since we will be backpacking, we have very limited space. Luckily my parents can bring back a lot of what we are not taking on their flight back to Canada. Tonight is our last night on the boat and I know we all feel a bit emotional about that. While we are really excited (and a little nervous) about our next adventure, we will really miss the boat and cruising way of life.
