It's been a year since we took off from Port Townsend and we've covered a lot of miles since we left. Out Juan de Fuca and down the west coast of the USA and Baja. Up into the Sea of Cortez and then the trip home to Colorado.

First the intermittent fog as we made our way out Juan de Fuca and then our first sighting of a whale right beside the boat(I could have jumped on his back). Heading south along the coast watching for crab pots and freighters and enjoying the sail. Into Newport, OR and meeting up with friends and fixing things that went wrong during our first passage--transmission cooler and a broken propane hose. The transmission cooler wasn't broken, the transmission was(later repaired in Los Angeles) and the broken hose leaked propane all over the inside of the cabin. We're lucky we didn't go boom on the trip. We put big fans blowing lots of air down into the bilge to make sure all of it was out. The hose had been replaced earlier as the original wasn't up to current code. I put the original back on and it has served us well ever since.

Off for parts farther south--Fort Bragg, Crescent City and on to San Francisco where we met up with our son for a few days. Off again for Santa Barbara and The islands off the coast of California where we spent several weeks.

At Catalina Island, we blew the oil cooler for the engine and I luckily had a replacement after listening to sound advise from another boater(Jay Wiggins on Moon Angel) to always have spares on board as you never know when they will break. Ours developed a hole and allowed sea water to get into the engine oil(really bad for the engine). We had the transmission taken out and repaired for the third time while in Los Angeles. It's been fine ever since(YEA!)

On to San Diego where we installed our short wave radio so me could make contact with the outside world as our cell phones wouldn't work in Mexico.

There were lots of stops along the coast as we made our way south. We even got a shoreside view of Pebble Beach golf course.

In November, we crossed over into Mexico and made our way to Ensenada for checking in and getting used to the ways of Mexico. On down the coast as we made our way toward Cabo San Lucas. Along the way, our hydraulic steering blew and we had to limp into Cabo where we spent the better part of a week getting the parts and fixing it.

Around the horn of Baja California Sur and up into the Sea of Cortez. Trapped for 6 days in Los Frailes by strong winds from the north and then on to La Paz. Our son joined us for a nice Christmas holiday where I got stupid and poured water into the diesel tanks. That slowed down the festivities but we got it cleaned out and took off for the islands just north of La Paz. Back to La Paz to let our son off so he could go home and then slowly up the Baja coast toward Escondido and on Bahia Conseptcion. Back to La Paz and over to Mazatlan.

Up the mainland coast to Topolabampo and on the Guaymas and San Carlos for our haul out and our trip home in Mid June.

It's been a great year of exploration and adventure and a tremendous amount of learning. We had a lot of great times(seeing our son and exploring the many towns and villages we stopped at) along with a few bad times(things broke). We are lucky to have a great boat to sail(and motor) on as we have covered well over 4,800 miles in the last year and over 7,000 if you throw in our trip to Juneau in April of last year. Not bad for some novices who knew so little about the realities of really sailing the big bad ocean. Having been lake sailers for so many years(since 1981), let me tell you, there is a big difference between the two. Yeah, the sails pull the same but moving up from a 26 foot boat with systems that can be counted on one hand to a 46 footer that I'd have to take my shoes off to count all the systems on her has a real learning curve. It's been a steep hill but we've made it so far and have no intension of turning back. We'll be in Colorado till the hurricane season ends and then return to San Carlos and do a few more jobs and repairs and then head back out for more places south.

It's not all been fun and games and relaxing as everyone imagines, but the good has far out weighted the bad with the bad being a distant memory and the good still being what is remembered so well. We hope that what comes next will be as good as what came before.

Oh, the picture at the top is my hat. I bought it a couple of years ago at one of the boat shows and it finally started coming apart when it got washed(boy was it dirty) when we got home. I guess only the salt residue from sailing was holding it all together.