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!