Halloween 2014

The beginning of this latest nomadic chapter in our lives starts with our last day in Seattle. Douglas and I woke to heavy rain, but as we readied Tumbleweed to leave, the rain eased and the clouds began to work themselves apart. We said our goodbyes to our neighbors in the marina and they handed up our dock lines, we backed from our slip, motored around the Shilshole breakwater, and into Puget Sound. To the south the sun broke through the clouds over Seattle, to the north a faint rainbow arced from Shoreline to Port Madison. The wind died down to a few knots and we slowly made distance from an incredible chapter in our lives.

Ten years ago Douglas and I fetched up in Seattle fresh from a couple years of roaming through Asia and North America. Our decade in Seattle was exhilarating and moved by quickly. We made great friends, had immensely satisfying careers, indulged our passion for the Northwest and fell in love with sailing. For a few years we were content to sail Puget Sound, and spend a couple weeks at a time in the San Juan Islands. But soon our thoughts turned to taking a sailing sabbatical, to spend for a few years wandering under sail. We bought Tumbleweed with the thought of extended cruising and we’ve spent the past couple of years sailing as much as we could, preparing Tumbleweed and ourselves for an extended trip.

We’ve moved from our house, put a few things into storage, sold off or given away the rest. We’ve left our jobs, which still feels surreal. And we’ve said our awkward, not goodbyes because we’ll be back after a bit of sailing, but something more like “see you you in a bit”. A couple of months in and we are still in the the transition phase.

We are spending the winter in Port Townsend, we’ll take advantage of good weather when we can to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca , gunkholing in the San Juan Islands. In the Spring we will work our way through the islands north of here, along the British Columbia coast and into South East Alaska. At the end of the summer we are planning on returning for another winter to the San Juan and Gulf Islands. From there, it's an open sea.