After 3 years, 40,000 miles, and 28 countries, our around the world sail has come to an end. Cisnecito is secured to her mooring in Newport Beach and we are busy reintegrating ourselves back in to society.

We are trading our sea anchor, baja filter, and charts for cell phones, cars, and baby stollers. It is a bittersweet transition. We will truly miss our adventurous life in the remote reaches of the ocean, but we have so much to look forward to and countless memories that we will treasure for a lifetime.

Some of you have asked what we have learned from this experience so we thought we would post our top ten learnings:

10. The world really is round.
09. Cameras and iPods do not like water (we have learned this several times over).
08. The surest way to catch a fish is to sit down for dinner.
07. God loves drunks and sailors.
06. If something is going to break (which it will), it will inevitably be at 2am.
05. On a 46' sailboat, an argument can never last more than a couple hours.
04. Anything cooked tastes darn good at sea (even "sandwich rice").
03. People are people - wherever you go, almost all are good and want to help.
02. We are lucky to live in one of the few truly democratic countries in the world.
01. You will never be ready. Just go!

We just posted photographs of our homecoming celebration on Cisnecito Around the World Pictures. Most of the photos were taken by our friend Steve Orloff who is also a professional photographer. Many thanks to Steve for the awesome photos!

We hope you have enjoyed our blog. We have really enjoyed contributing to it and have appreciated the comments and emails. We wish you the best with all of your adventures.

THE END

It seems a stowaway slipped aboard shortly after we crossed the Guatemala/Mexico border. It happened somewhere in the dreaded Gulf of Tehuantepec. Who would have known that this infamous gale-tossed gulf had a romantic side?

Initially, I knew something was awry as we sailed up the Mexican Riviera. Julie had been feeling sea sick in the mornings. I thought to myself, no one must get sea sick on this coastline as it is the most calm and wind-less as any we have witnessed. Especially not Julie, as she often cooks and bakes in seas and weather that would have even the saltiest of sailors coming on deck for a breath of fresh air or at least a yawn. Moreover her appetite which is normally selective in portions and nutrition had liberalized. It was not until Julie flew home from Puerto Vallarta in early December, when her dad got sick, that we were able to confirm our suspicions.

We are super excited as we had been hoping to arrive home pregnant. We went to the doctor again yesterday and we are due on 08-08-08...what a date. The picture above is our ultrasound from the appointment. Everything looks good so we will keep our fingers crossed.

We left Dana Point at about 2pm on Saturday, again expecting terrible weather, but instead got no wind and just a bit of rain. We had my sister and our friends Paul and Ulrik aboard, so we had a fun, but slow, motor up the coast.

As we had planned, we entered the Newport Beach breakwater at 5pm and were greeted by Keith, a friend of Chris' from UCSB, in his Duffy and our family friends Taylor and Steve who came out in Chris's little Avon to take photos and escort us in.

We had dressed the boat with the proper sequence of flags and arrived at the BYC where the dock was filled with our family and friends. Chris and I lit some flares and popped that bottle of South African bubbly that we've been saving for this very occasion.

After we got tied up, we all had a champagne toast on the dock followed by a casual party at the Yacht Club. Mexican food, of course, was on the menu. We showed pictures from our trip and had a wonderful time catching up with family and friends - many of whom we had not seen since we left three years ago.

It was a really emotional, exciting and all-around wonderful evening and I truly cannot think of a better way to end the trip. It is a day we have been anticipating for a long time and will certainly never forget.

We will we have a lot of great photos to post in our gallery soon (thanks so much to Steve Orloff)...so check back in a few days. We're not signing off just yet!