We have just experienced the best and worst of what this life has to offer. The best - a week of fantastic comraderie with cruising friends from the four corners of the globe all gathered at the Musket Cove Regatta Week. There were 91 boats registered for the Regatta and we caught up with a lot of friends and made a whole lot more new ones. You can read the previous entry from Debbie and can see how much fun we had from the events. But the real enjoyment comes,not just from the events, but from the people we have shared our lives with over the past 18 months. The worst of this life is that we now say goodbye to so many friends we have met. We will probably see many of them again but some, we shall never see again. It is impossible to describe the affinity that is built up amongst the crews of cruising yachts. Individuals and families from incredibly diverse backgrounds all sharing the one common love of the sea and the attendant challenges that entails.

We still have two major passages ahead of us and they will be the hardest, weather wise, but notwithstanding these passages we keep feeling our trip is almost over. There will be many more trips on the good ship Volare but it will be hard to match the experiences we have shared with so many people over the past 18 months.