Circumnavigation Almost Complete
28 May 2015 | Less Than 60 Miles From Circumnavigation Complete
(this post was written while on the ocean - May 25 - but we weren't able to post it until now)
Tomorrow morning, we will arrive in the Abacos, Bahamas. This is the first place that we will actually cross old tracks made in 2009 after going around the world. We are calling this point "circumnavigation complete" even though we have already crossed our outgoing longitude line.
The Abacosiare where we unexpectedly landed on our first offshore passage. A weld had broken on our bow rigging which I very luckily discovered. Had I not found it before it progressed we most likely would have had a catastrophic failure on Gromit. We were very, very lucky!
We spent 6 weeks in the Abacos, the first 2 repairing the boat, the next 4 trying to figure out what to do, one of the options was selling the Gromit and going home (that thought came back 3 more times during our journey). The final decision was to go back to the US and delay for a year. In retrospect, this was the best thing that could have happened to us, as it allowed me to earn some more cruising funds and it allowed us to further improve Gromit, which was a very good move.
Now, after the Abacos, it's back to the US where we will put Gromit up for sale. This is going to be really hard. I know the boat inside out, I have spent thousands of hours improving, maintaining and always trying to make him safer. Up to this point, Gromit has not let us down to the point of no recovery, but it's not over until he's tied up to the final dock in the US.
We only have one long passage left; Bahamas to the mouth of the Chesapeake. I, more than we, have contemplated the option of keeping Gromit, but either way I look at it, it doesn't seem like the right decision.
Tomorrow, we plan to return to a spot that has stayed in our memories as one of the top snorkelling spots that we have been to on our entire trip. We are curious to see if we will still feel the same way. After that we plan to return to a simple little beach that we named Club Med. The only thing that was there was a sand beach, some old lawn chairs, a fire pit, and an unlocked WiFi signal coming from a house off in the distance. Back then when we landed on the beach the kids were armed with a vast assortment of sand toys, now when we land they will be coming with.....