​We are back in Canada! Although we arrived in beautiful temperatures of around 17 degrees Celcius (62 degrees Fahrenheit), the weather quickly switched to being slightly below seasonal (-2 C / 28 F) and we have snow. Compared with Florida, it is cold! But we are happy and fully enjoying our time home.

Want to see what I mean? Click the buttons below!

Wild Horses was hauled out of the water about two weeks ago and we prepped her for a hot summer in Florida. She is now safely sitting on land at Green Cove Springs Marina in Northern Florida and, yes, she is hurricane-strapped to deal with the worst Florida wind events. Everything on the boat was removed and either put in our climate-controlled storage unit near Green Cove Springs Marina, or it was loaded into our car to be brought back to Canada. But the prep work didn’t stop there! All the walls, cabinets, floors and ceilings inside the boat were cleaned and sprayed with a mold control solution. We placed several moisture wicking containers throughout the boat to deal with condensation and lots of cockroach houses to kill any roaches that decide that Wild Horses might make a lovely place to stay for the summer. In order to further dissuade roaches and any other bugs, we closed our seacocks (water pipe outlets) and also stuffed them with steel wool. To also help with mold control, we have to make sure there is some ventilation within the boat. Since every hatch (our usual go-to for ventilation) has to be firmly closed to protect the interior from weather, we opted instead to just offset our cowl vents (also called dorades), with one facing forward and the other facing backward. Cowl vents are those odd-looking vents that sit on the boat deck. They are shaped to mitigate rain or seawater intrusion while still allowing fresh air to flow into the boat. And although they are effectively open tubes, one layer of screening at its base prevents any bugs or critters from entering the boat. These fabulous cowl vents have been our solution to allowing sufficient airflow to circulate within the boat while it is closed up tight during hot Florida summers. Awesome.
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All this prep work was what we did last year for our first Florida summer on land and it worked very well. There was no mold and almost zero bugs. We did have three roaches that tried to take up residence but they were quickly evicted. Then we immediately upped our roach prevention in both the boat and in the storage locker. Staring eyeball to eyeball with a cockroach while you are lying in bed is no fun!!

So, here we are, back in Canada with our boat back in Florida. Our plans are to return to the boat in October and then journey back to Grenada for the summer of 2026. But…
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There are lots of ifs, ands and buts with our plan!

​Unlike our first trip to Grenada, we now have a car that we have to store or sell. We will also need to figure out a good solution for health insurance. Last time, we were eligible for a two-year extension for our provincial healthcare. Coupled with travel insurance, we had low-cost health coverage for emergencies where ever we travelled, including the United States. But that option is only available every five years, leaving us ineligible for this next journey south. Likely, we will need some sort of “Expatriate health insurance” to cover us once we have exhausted our seven-month out-of-province health insurance.

And then there are new regulations, and a new political climate, around travel to the United States. We are unsure how this will play out but are watching carefully. Right now, our concern is low. Although we feel confident that we can navigate the environment today, we are working on back up plans, just in case travel to the United States becomes far less than welcoming. Still, our feeling is that all will work out just fine and we will be reunited with Wild Horses next fall.

For now, we still think of ourselves as liveaboards but with a temporary status of having land full time under our feet. It has been a fun two weeks of getting back to the conservation areas and trails we have missed, the climate-controlled living that make our days super comfy, and hugging our family and friends that we love dearly. Yay!

It was all very surreal. There we were, a mere two weeks ago, driving away from Wild Horses as we started our trek north in our rental car. We had only spent a handful of nights away from our boat, our home, in the last two years. Now we were embarking on a four-month trip back to Canada that would have us living fully on land. No more slight swaying of the hull as it rolls against the waves. No dinghy rides to shore. No more making our own water from the salty seas. Weather watching becomes more about staying dry than about staying safe.

A new, but familiar, adventure awaited us in Canada.
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The drive north was easy and, before we knew it, we were at the Canadian border at Kingston. It was a fun conversation with the border guard as we explained our South Carolina license plates and our two-year absence. He briefly eyed the very full car trunk, and our little Ocean in the back seat, surrounded by even more gear, and waved us through with a shake of his head. I am sure he was thinking “these two cannot be making this story up!”

​We were dizzy with excitement in reuniting with Mike’s parents that same day, Sunday June 9th, and then with my parents the very next day. All the extra work, costs, sweating (38 degrees Celsius in Florida!!!), worry and travel to get to this point was worth it. We knew immediately it was the right decision for us to point our boat’s hull north for hurricane season and not back south to Grenada. We needed to come home.

It is now two weeks after we crossed back into Canada and we are very much settled into our temporary land life. We are staying at my brother’s beautiful country home just north of Belleville. It is a Smart-enabled home so lights turn on as we walk into a room, and off again when we leave. Same thing for door locks. The temperature is custom-regulated and we make demands to Google for everything that we need.
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It is a bit of a culture shock for our little crew!

We even have wheels to get around to visit family and friends. My mom offered her car to us for as long as we need it. Amazing! We are visiting my parents quite often and getting to Kingston once a week to visit Mike’s parents. Every moment is a joy and it is just going to increase throughout the summer.

After so much time in third world countries, we had a long list of things to buy, most of which either wasn’t available in the Caribbean or was astronomically priced. Back in Canada, and a purchasing system we are familiar with, we have found great deals on cell phones and a new laptop (which has been limping along since Grenada), boat spares and new clothes. We have also taken care of most of our “necessary” appointments (covid shots, new health cards, dentist cleanings).

Soon, we will be extra flush with time and will start to arrange visits with more family and also with our friends. 

This blog will take a short hiatus while we have our summer in Canada, but when it starts back up in October, we will be taking you along as we go aboard Wild Horses after her first long, hot summer in Florida. Did our mould prevention efforts do the trick? Despite our efforts to seal off the boat’s thruhulls, have any pests made Wild Horses their home? Did any of the heavy rains or lightening strikes cause any damage? And then there is our poor, disabled engine. Our mechanic will be hard at work to get it back into shape and ready for another winter in the Bahamas, an effort he estimates may take up to six weeks.

We are unsure how all of this will unfold, but we will take on that part of our adventure as we have all the others. We are now well-versed in finding workable solutions for puzzling problems, diving into tasks or journeys that seem a bit daunting, and taking real time to share stories and the beauty of life with those around us that really matter. We have learned the art of standing still to appreciate the good moments. Like these days 😊.
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See you in October!

Want to see where we have been over the last two years? Click on the button below!

Having the dream of setting off into the sunset on your sailboat isn’t very original.  My gosh, almost every retirement commercial finishes with that view!  A nugget of easiness on calm waters in paradise – very inspiring.  It is an easy dream to have but putting it to action requires a plan and, to be truthful, that plan will look very different for each sailor.  We have friends who have kept their homes in Canada, renting them in their absence and returning home every summer.  Others have sold their homes but maintain a storage unit in case they decide to return back to Canada.  For us, we want to untether completely from land life.  Our plan involves, and has involved, selling it all and moving onto the sailboat full-time for the foreseeable future.
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Five years ago we sold our home and moved into the city (Ottawa, Ontario) and we have been renting ever since.  We are currently in the midst of selling whatever furniture, winter gear and other stuff that we can, and donating the rest.  Family will take ownership of our cars.  And we will both retire from our government jobs by early April.  One might say we are taking one big step off a giant cliff by selling it all.  We see it as walking into a world of freedom and choice.

​This year, in 2020, Mike and I, along with our pup Ocean, will begin our life afloat.  We will move onto our boat (Wild Horses) in May, leaving behind our rental home and our full time careers, and embark on a journey that is 10 years in the making.

It is a great dream – living on your sailboat in the Caribbean – so when we get questions from people it is not why we have chosen to take off sailing.  No, the question we most often get from friends, family and work mates is “why now?”.  We both have great careers, amazing people in our lives and we enjoy all that Canada has to offer – the culture, the skiing, great hiking and pretty awesome sailing too.  So, why now?

The short answer is “because it is time”.  We have put aside enough rainy day money and readied our boat.  T’s have been crossed and I’s dotted.  We are ready.  With big changes like this, of course it can be a little scary.  It is easy to trick yourself into thinking of reasons NOT to go right now (we could go further with our careers, earn more money, spend more time with family).  Of course, all of that is important, especially family.  But life is short.  So, we want to live our fullest life, spending time exploring new cultures, challenging ourselves, embracing the world.  We want to live simply in terms of stuff but fully in terms of experiences. 

So, why now?  Because it is time.  It is time to make the leap.  It is time to feed the soul.