A year ago today, Eric and I posed on the dock beside SCOOTS, holding string and scissors, as our friend and dockmate, Lou, snapped a photo depicting our ceremonial "cutting of the docklines." A short while later, we backed out of our slip at the Brisbane (CA) marina for the last time, and officially became pelagic nomads.

A few days earlier, triggered by signing the papers selling our house of two decades, a deep sense of loss had settled over me: after months of selling, donating, and giving away almost everything we owned; finding new homes for our beloved pets; leaving the neighborhood, trees, wildlife, and hiking trails that I loved so much; and knowing that we wouldn't have the ability to see our family nearly as often as we'd like to, it was hard for me to feel that I would ever be able to gain as much from the life we were about to embark on, as I was giving up from the life we were leaving. I hadn't changed my mind about wanting a cruising life; but at that moment, it was hard to be excited about it.

Eric happened to notice me, sitting in SCOOTS' cockpit in our marina slip, with quiet tears running down my face. He came and sat beside me and asked me what was wrong. I told him how I was feeling, and then I said, "The only thing I can see that I have now, that I didn't have before, is the sunlight sparkling on the water."

He put his arms around me and said, "This is really hard now, I know. I can't promise you deer in the backyard, but I can promise you sunlight sparkling on the water."

Twelve months and more than 3800 miles later, our journey feels as if it's just begun, even though a lot has happened since that photo was taken. If I said that it was all smooth sailing, you'd know I was fibbing. Nobody's life is all good or all bad, whether they're living in a house, or living on a boat. I think that's part of what makes life interesting. There are times that I've thought, "Ugh, why am I doing this?" but there are even more times that I've thought, "Wow, I get to live like this!" I do know that this lifestyle is right for me, right now: just the other night, I woke up from a dream in which we had to sell SCOOTS and move back to land. I was so sad! That's a good indication that this is still the right place for me to be.

It's been a year of discovery, for us, and also one of adjustment: we've discovered many new things about ourselves and each other; about Mexico, her people, and her culture; about SCOOTS; about the wildlife that we share each place with. We've adjusted to living a self-reliant life afloat, making our own fresh water, procuring our energy from the sun and the wind and yes, sometimes from diesel, and relying on our provisions to carry us through times when we're nowhere near a grocery store; we've adjusted to spending most of our time together, usually within fifty feet of one another; we've adjusted to having limited contact with our loved ones most of the time, and this by text-only email over a shortwave radio.

It's been a year of exhilaration as well as frustration: sailing along in beautiful weather with a pod of leaping dolphins as an escort, or being treated to a dazzling midnight light show provided by the bioluminescent critters in the water...what's not exhilarating about that? Having to sponge out the bilge - again - or fix the same piece of equipment - again - or trying to find that spare part that you know you have, but you just can't find, all can be very frustrating.

I've acquired some new abilities in this past year, that I wouldn't have, had I been living on land: I can drive a dinghy, operate an outboard motor, tie sailing knots, and raise, trim, and lower sails. I can whip a piece of rope, and also whip up meals while SCOOTS is rocking like a funhouse ride. I can pack provisions into cupboards, dry bilge spaces, and a marine fridge like a 3-D Tetris master. I can speak Spanish better than I could a year ago, though both Eric and I wish we could speak it more fluently, or at least more comfortably.

Eric has also added some new skills to his quiver this year: he can now disassemble and rebuild a marine head before someone needs to use it; he can describe auto parts and plumbing parts - as well as what went wrong with them - in Spanish, with improvised hand gestures if needed; he is an expert at removing buggy alternators, diagnosing them, fixing them or improvising repairs, and reinstalling them; he is constantly perfecting his boat yoga, which is necessary as he is often required to squeeze, stretch, slide, crouch, kneel, bend over, hang upside-down, lie, crunch, pretzelate, or otherwise mold his body into unnatural positions in order to get into impossible spaces to fix something. Sometimes in rolly seas; usually in hot, sweaty weather. He is still working on getting his arm to bend in three different places, which would be a real asset.

Together, we've improved on some things in the past year: we can now fly a spinnaker and snuff it quickly, without breaking anything; we can execute the dinghy process (going from an empty, motorless dinghy inverted on the foredeck, to a fully-operational dinghy with wheels, anchor, motor-lock, harness and gas can) in about fifteen minutes; we can coordinate anchoring with (polite) hand signals, (usually) without bickering about where to drop the hook; we can deploy our sunshade in ten minutes or less (though we've been known to take it down in five, with a twenty knot wind as incentive); we keep a CLOSE eye on the fuel levels, carry ten spare gallons in jerry jugs, and top up when given the opportunity; we can breeze through routines for getting underway, buttoning up after anchoring, and many other procedures, without having to say a word. I guess you could say we've become a pretty good team.

Our bodies have changed, over the past year, too. We're both stronger, and a bit leaner, than we were before. Living a life of almost constant motion is beneficial for our cores and for our balance; hauling our dinghy out of the water on a halyard, ourselves out of the water on the swimstep, and sheets and furling lines on the sails, make our arms stronger; walking almost everywhere we need to go on shore, and swimming almost daily, along with some stretching and calisthenics, keep our leg muscles happy. All of this in spite of the less-than-healthful things that we sometimes eat and drink (hello, bacon-wrapped salchichas). Our hair is lighter and our skin is darker, as a result of spending as much time as we do outside (yes, we wear sunscreen and hats).

We've greatly increased our circle of knowledge, and our circle of friends. Every day presents us with opportunities to try new things or to figure something out. My comfort zone has been stretched and breached so often that I can't even find the edges anymore. Real-life situations that require real-time solutions happen quite frequently. I can only imagine that this must be keeping our brains well-exercised. This is good, because it's usually impossible for us to access internet based brain-building programs like Luminosity. We've both learned a lot over the past year. I've learned a lot about myself, a lot about Eric, a lot about sailing; a lot about SCOOTS. I've learned that whatever situation is making me uncomfortable will eventually pass, and everything will be all right. I've learned that time spent in a kayak, drifting slowly over clear, turquoise water, and spying on the creatures living below, can improve even the most sullen mood. I've learned that I'm capable of doing a lot more than I might have thought; certainly more than my grandmothers would have done, when they were my age. (I can't, for instance, imagine either of my grandmas climbing a mast on a rolling boat, with waves splashing the deck and wind blowing twenty-five knots, to pull down a recalcitrant mainsail.)

As for our circle of friends, it is an honor and a pleasure to be included in the community of cruisers. This far-flung and eclectic group of nautical nomads is a shining example of camaraderie and cooperation. Need a special tool for a repair? Someone will lend you his. Want some help coming into a particularly dicey anchorage at night? Someone will don a headlamp, grab a flashlight, and show up beside your boat in her dinghy to guide you in. Cruisers exchange books, movies, music, and navigational charts; they share drinks, food, conversation, and knowledge. Unlike most people who live on land, they grok this lifestyle and why someone would want to live it; they don't think you're crazy for selling your house to move onto a boat: many of them have done the same. Of course, just like with any group, there are grumps and grouches and those-who-want-to-be-left-alone. But as a whole, the cruising community looks out for each other and has fun together.

Before closing, I'd like to address concerns posed by some of our friends before we left:

For those of you who wondered whether Eric would be bored with this lifestyle, his answer is a resounding, "Hell no!" (My answer is a snort and a hearty guffaw.) As the ship's engineer, he's kept quite busy taking care of SCOOTS' needs. He does a great job of keeping this boat running smoothly and efficiently.

For those of you who worried because we would be living in "dangerous" Mexico, we are happy to report that you really don't have to worry. We've found the people here to be genuinely friendly, respectful, family-oriented, and honorable. We have always felt safe here, even walking around big cities like Mazatlan at midnight. Sure, there's crime here. There's crime everywhere. But we haven't had it visited upon us while in Mexico, or ever felt threatened by anyone.

For those of you who worried about us being bothered by pirates or hurricanes, well, there aren't any pirates in this part of the world, but there are hurricanes, and we're doing our best to stay away from them. So far, so good.

For those of you who wondered whether I would miss walking in the woods, or seeing deer in my backyard, my answer is "Yes, some, but I'm surrounded by life now in a way that I never was before." Every morning, I come up on deck and have a look around, to see who might be nearby. Any day, I may encounter pelicans diving, dolphins arcing, turtles snuffing, sea lions orking, rays jumping, fish splashing, cormorants swimming, coyotes howling...There is so much life around us here, and we are floating in the midst of it all! I have added many new birds to my life list, and snorkeled among types of marine life that I never knew existed. So yes, while I do miss walking in my familiar woods, I am enjoying the thrill of discovery and interaction with the animals I'm encountering here.

And for those of you who wondered whether our relationship would suffer, from our being together all the time, on a fifty-foot boat, the answer is, "It's better than it's been in years."

So here we are, a year after Lou took our picture. I'm sitting aboard SCOOTS, anchored in beautiful Ensenada el Quemado, in the northern Sea of Cortez, enjoying the first rain we've had in six months, courtesy of Hurricane Linda, who is churning out in the ocean on the other side of the Baja Peninsula. Our jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers were replaced long ago by shorts, tank tops, and sandals, or, if no one else is around, just our undies, because hey, it's really hot here.

And I have to say, Eric has made good on his promise of delivering me sunlight sparkling on the water, every single day.