Who, What, When, Where, and Why

WHO are we?
Hi, we are Keith and Deborah. I, Deborah, will be doing pretty much all the writing here. We met when I was 16 (Keith was 21. I know, scandalous). We were both living aboard boats at the time and met upon the marina docks. We fell in love, got married, and by the time I was 20 we had bought and moved aboard our first boat together. We have been through many boats since then. Seems we made quite a hobby out of buying old boats, fixing them up, sailing them and then selling them. Right now we are looking forward to doing more sailing than selling.

WHAT are our plans?
We have had a 5-year plan for the last 13 years of going cruising. Our plan has evolved over the years (and remains very fluid) but it has always been based around living a simpler and more self-sufficient lifestyle while sailing (or motoring) from place to place at a pace slow enough to enjoy the experience. We have chosen a smaller boat, an Oyster Mariner 35, as our vessel and we have outfit her,for the most part, simpler systems.

WHERE do we plan on going?
The simple answer is “where the water is clear and warm and we can catch dinner”. Unfourtunately that answer, however true, is usually not sufficiently satisfying. So… we plan on cruising the Bahamas for at least a year or two before exploring the Caribbean including the southern coast of Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Leeward and Windward Islands and then to the San Blas Islands of Panama and the rest of the Western Caribbean. We plan on traveling the slowest throught the areas with the best snorkling, fishing, and friendly people and traveling a bit faster through the areas that don’t. But, of course, all plans are subject to change.

WHEN do we plan on departing?
The adventure has already begun but departure day is sometime toward the end of hurricane season of 2013. October-Novemberish. I plan on having freshly caught fish for Turkey Day this year.

Why do we want to go cruising?—that, I don’t know how to put into a paragraph. Why have we chosen to write a blog about it? It was actually a hard decision. Neither of us are social media savy-we currently do not even have facebook or twitter accounts and are more private people. Eventually, two reasons tipped the decision scales for me. First, I have a horrible memory. I was looking for a way to better preserve/remember the people, activities, and every day life effectively. Basically our journal. Second, I have a pityful track-record at maintaining correspondance. I am hoping that this blog will be a tool in staying in contact with the friends and faimily we will be leaving behind and the new friends we will be meeting. Follow along with us!