We left Australia on April 29, 2007 to start our 'cruising the world' adventure with an attitude that life's too short and waiting until retirement might mean the adventure never happens. Sam turned 15 this year and we hope these travels will stay with him for life...in a good way. [...]We enjoyed eight months living and travelling in the U.S. by RV and then through the Intracoastal Waterways on our catamaran 'Meander' which we bought in Fort Lauderdale. We crossed the Gulf stream to the Bahamas at Christmas 2007 where we spent four months, along with our two week visit to Cuba. We launched off from San Salvador in the Bahamas to Bermuda, the first leg of our trans-Atlantic crossing that took 8 days. From Bermuda we took 18 days to cross to the Portugese Islands, the Azores. The final leg of the crossing took 8 days with us arriving in Cascais, Portugal on 16 July 2008. We had an interesting winter in the Mediterranean and, while we wouldn't recommend wintering here, we wouldn't have missed the experience. We went as far east as Greece then turned and headed out to the Canaries via Morocco. We crossed back across the Atlantic in December 2009 and spent some time in the Caribbean. Sam needs to get back with his friends and be back in a school for his final years of high school so he and I flew home in March. Ray brought the boat back through the Pacific with his two crew Simon (Australia) and Michael (Northern Ireland) and arrived just in time for his Halloween welcome home party. We're now settled for a few years up in the Sunshine Coast hinterland to get our son through his last years of school and settled into something he wants to do. Then, who knows, maybe we'll head off again.

Also travelling with us is our Shih Tsu Milo, a seasoned boat dog all the way from Australia and an avid fisherman. He's always the most enthusiastic when we land a fish or when the bait net is cast. Actually, he's even enthusiastic when we haven't caught anything. He adores dolphins and runs like [...]

a crazy dude around the boat. He is entranced with crabs and landed the label - Milo, goatslayer - after an incident in the Bahamas. Life would be very dull without him.