This is Peter and Helen Hoyt, they are the proud new owners of Time and Tide.

As heartbroken as we were to have to sell our beautiful boat, we couldn't have wished for a nicer couple to hand her over to. As a cruising couple with over 20 years experience, they were very impressed with all the work we had put into T&T. When we asked Helen if she liked the boat, she said "if you're familiar with the film Jerry Mguire, there's a quote that goes "you had me at hello" which says it all really.

We are genuinely so pleased to have these guys as the new owners, we know they will love her as much as we do and hope they go on to take her to all the places we dreamt of going. After all that hard work she deserves to go cruising properly.

Once again we want to say a big thank you for all the kind words and support that we've had from friends and family both here and at home. People that know us and know how long and hard we worked to have the opportunity to go cruising know how difficult a decision this was for us. But there's another project out there for us, maybe another boat, but not until Richard has got his health back. So watch this space as they say.

P.S. sorry for 'photo-bombing' your picture Peter & Helen.

There’s no easy way to say this so let’s just rip off the bandaid, shall we?
We have had to call ‘time’ on Time & Tide. Our cruising life has come to an end, for various reasons but in the most part due to Richards on-going problem courtesy of his hernia op back in March 2018.

Without going into too much detail he has been left with a level of pain and discomfort which are making his life a misery and cruising this boat very difficult, if not unsafe. We have tried to ignore it hoping it would improve once we got to ‘relaxing’ on our beautiful boat but it seems that the physical side of cruising is causing just as many problems, if not more, than when he was doing hard labour in the boat yard. Having seen and spoken to his surgeon twice in the last couple of months, this could be a permanent condition that he will have to manage as best he can. It may be that he does improve over time but that could be many months or even years and whole array of treatments needed to solve the issues. We simply we do not have the luxury of time nor money to keep T&T in storage indefinitely. Now’s the time we probably wish we’d bought a motor boat instead of a sailing boat, not!

We are both totally devastated obviously, but it’s a decision that had to be made. It would upset us more knowing we had this boat but couldn’t sail it, better someone else enjoys the fruits of our labour.

We only made the final decision on Wednesday (hence no update on the blog since Tuesday), and after spending that day in tears we have gotten our head around it and are already planning new adventures and projects. Promise we will not stay down for long! She went up for sale a couple of days ago and already we have had lots of interest – first couple are arriving next Tuesday for a viewing. Hopefully we will be returning to the UK as planned in June possibly with a whole bunch of cash, till then we'll stay on the boat for as long as it takes to sell her, maybe leave her with a broker and go down to the Key's for a few weeks, who knows.

We certainly don’t regret having ever started this adventure, it may not have turned out how we planned or hoped, but we are both immensely proud of what we’ve achieved. I don’t think either of us had an inkling of how much we were undertaking or how long and sometimes arduous the task became. But now, especially now, we are glad we did what did and have no regrets. The rewards were not of sun kissed beaches and quiet remote bays to swim in but to us the sense of pride and pleasure we take every day in seeing the fruits of our labours and knowing for once in our life’s we really, really did our very best is reward enough.

There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears – not to mention hissy fits, tantrums and backed-up boatyard toilets – but despite the gruelling hard work we will always sit back and look at the pictures of our beautiful boat and feel very proud of what we achieved together. Yes we stood toe to toe shouting at each other and cursing the day we ever bought the bloody thing but in a few minutes we were back to it and never flinched from taking the tougher route.

We both learned so many new skills and found out the true depth of our resolve, hopefully this won’t be the last time we get to test our mettle on some daunting project. So for now we sit quietly at anchor on our finest achievement resting, reading, relaxing and waiting for the phone to ring. Probably the biggest challenge we have ahead is to eat all the food we provisioned, so if we don’t return home thin and lithe that is the reason.

So, for now this blog is at an end. I may add a few entries as and when anything interesting happens so give it a glance occasionally. I’ve put a few more pics in the gallery, having got together a whole bunch of images for potential buyers we came across including some of the original images of when we had it stripped to bare bones.

Some of our friends and family reading this will already know our situation, but once again we’d like to thank all the people who have given their help, support and friendship over the last 4 years. Our dream would have remained exactly that had it not been for you all. We will miss all the friends we have made over here, the boatyard community became a second family to us, but we will certainly stay in touch and be back from time to time (let’s face it, we know enough people with boats now that we can scab a holiday anytime!). Seriously, it breaks our hearts that we have to leave you all behind.

We will return richer in mind and spirit, with a decent profit from our labours, an address book full of fantastic new friends but most of all we will return knowing ourselves and each other better than ever.

Onwards and upwards. There’s another big project in us yet so watch this space!

Richard returning from a successful rescue mission. A vital piece of foam got blown overboard so we had to drop the dinghy and go after it!

Our first venture out to sea today for what seems like a lifetime. Not great conditions for a crossing but good practice for us considering we’ve been out of the game for a while. Decent winds but lumpy seas, both boat and crew did well. So nice to finally kill the engines and have the peace and quiet of being under sail. We did reach the giddy speeds of 7.5 and 8 knots, fastest we’ve been so far. Couple of tweaks needed but otherwise a successful outing, stomachs held so we may even treat ourselves to some proper food tonight!

Both feeling much better so a weekend crossing is looking possible, had a lot of sleep so feeling more rested. Weather has turned chilly again and tonight plummets back down into the 40's, woolly hats have been reinstated. Today is an important day for us Brits, the vote on Brexit is happening as I write. Result just in is a massive defeat for the government. Sadly this brings us to just turn another page in this direst of dirges. The whole shambolic affair is just an unholy mess.

Enough doom and gloom, time for a cup of tea then some boat chores. As Richard is still smoking our boat is turning into a floating ashtray! It’s a constant battle to keep it clean.

Will start looking more seriously at the weather now but at this time of year the good days to cross are few and far between and the Gulf stream is an unpleasant place to be in contrary conditions

Another lovely sunset.....ain't much else to take a picture of yet. Taking a lot of black and white and sepia, find them more interesting.

Sadly we have missed our weather window to cross to the Bahamas. After waking up Friday with some kind of stomach upset, Saturday and Sunday only got worse then Richard joined in and the boat was in quarantine. We originally planned to leave Sunday but we were both still pretty poorly so we didn’t want to set off until we felt 100%. Today was also a good day but we haven’t been eating much and are still a little dehydrated so we're staying put until Friday which is our next good window.

Decided to move back up north to Fort Pierce where it’s a bit quieter. Lake Worth was a nice anchorage but it was party central of a night with a yacht going in and out of the channel blaring what I can only describe as something sounding like a salsa version of ‘the birdie song’? Our English readers will know what I mean, American readers will have to Google it and listen. Be warned, it’s unpleasant and will stick in your head for weeks! It then had a Beatles tribute band on board and that did it for me, we had to leave.

Back at our last anchorage, lovely and sunny and peaceful! There’s also a very nice marina opposite – Fort Pierce city marina – who, for the princely sum of $5 per person will let you tie up your dinghy, use their very plush showers and laundry facilities, and let us fill up our water containers. They also had 2 very nice restaurants so after a luxurious shower we sat and had a light lunch (cos that’s a our stomachs would allow) while the laundry was in the dryer. Simple pleasures. Can’t recommend this place enough to any other cruisers, very pleasant staff, great facilities.

So that has been our day, unexciting but restful. We’re both feeling better so tomorrow and Wednesday we hope to go out and do a few hours with it a sails up and make sure both boat and crew are up to the crossing on Friday. The boat will be fine, not so sure about the crew. Our sea legs need a little physiotherapy as they’ve gone to jelly over the last few days. We’re in no hurry, the Bahamas will still be there next week.

I’m sorry, Lake Worth. Too many ‘Lake’s and ‘Fort’s' on the ICW, I get confused. The houses are getting bigger, the lawns more manicured and the boats more luxurious. Am I jealous? Just a tad.

Early start again. Was a peaceful night, although it did seem to be raining pelicans at one point? Dozens of them kept dive-bombing around the boat, guess we must have been sitting on a school of fish. They’re pretty crap at fishing, didn’t see any of them catch anything.
Not so cold today but still cold enough for me to stay wrapped in a blanket. Only 44 miles today so should be in Lake Worth by 4pm, then we get a day off before making our crossing to Grand Bahama on Sunday. Good job really, as I have woken up feeling pretty unwell. May have been the curry.

It’s at times like these that you start to look at all these sleek, fast motor boats and luxury yachts and wish you had several hundred horse-power hanging out the back. This leg of the journey you want to be over as quickly as possible. Every morning we get up and noodle out to the channel, and every morning about an hour or two later the same sleek luxury yachts just fly past us and you know that you’ll arrive at the next anchorage several hours after they have had lunch, cocktails and then dinner! They look so warm and cosy in their enclosed cockpit. They’ve probably got heating, they're wearing shorts and a T-shirt, we're in 5 layers and wrapped in blankets! Keep getting overtaken by one launch in particular, ‘Thankful', a very nice looking boat that we are quite envious of, we’ve started up a bit of banter with them so every morning we have a chat as they go past. I’m sure they’ll be waiting for us in Lake Worth.

Have to say it's unusually cold right now, we don’t normally suffer this much. Tis the luck of the draw, sometimes you just have to grin and bare it in order to get to where you really want to be. It sounds awful so far and some of you must wonder why the hell we're doing this, well hopefully in a few days time you'll see why. “Watch this space” as they say.

Well we made North Lake Worth by 4.00pm and found the first anchorage we could. Sitting happily at anchor with the condo's of West Palm Beach and a bunch of super yachts as a backdrop. We're in the cheap seats with all the other poor people.

Day off tomorrow. Yippee!

Richie fashioned and impromptu tiller this morning so rather than freeze his butt off under the Bimini he could hand steer and sit in the sun. This is number two in his new series a thousand useful uses for a boat hook.


Yes 42 degrees is what we woke up to this morning! Why the hell did we not think to bring gloves? We are back to wearing 5 layers, plus a blanket, and I decided to wear the shower mitts in the absence of proper gloves. They were useless by the way.

Onwards and southward. Destination today is Fort Pierce, where the temperatures aren’t much better. Still, having spoken to our friend Monica back at the boatyard, it’s positively tropical compared to the 33 degrees they have today. Brrrrr!

Lots of miles travelled today without incident apart from running over a crab bouy in the middle of the bloody channel. Thankfully it passed between the hulls thus saving Richie a dip in the water to free it from the propeller. Think he would have declined and just dragged it's sorry arise somewhere warmer.
Found nice sheltered anchorage from the biting north wind just south of Fort Pierce Inlet.

Curry tonight for warmth and a peaceful night Sleep beckons. 50 miles left to Lake Worth or many hundred if Gill insists on going to Forth Worth. For those of you that don’t know Lake Worth is our launch point for the Bahamas in West Palm Beach and Fort Worth is in Texas!

Don’t want to tempt the weather God’s but our crossing of the Gulf Stream is imminent.