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Sailing Around the World
  • Sailing Clam Shack
mar. 2022 – ene. 2023

Sailing Around the World

Kendra & Carson's sailing adventures from Florida through the Caribbean! Leer más
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  • Inicio del viaje
    18 de marzo de 2022
    Sailing Clam ShackSailing Around the WorldViajero

    Preparing for the send off!

    9 de febrero de 2022, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 59 °F

    I thank this rainy day today for finally getting me to write my first journal entry. This has been a task I have been wanting to accomplish for the past couple months. It would have been pretty cool to look back on the journals from the past couple months but I guess the more exciting stuff is to come anyways! So cheers to the beginning of the Clam Shack journal!

    It's been since mid-November now since we bought the Clam Shack and what a day that was! Biggest check we have ever wrote in our lives. Yesterday, while we were enjoying a glass of wine we took a moment to acknowledge all that we have accomplished in just a few short months. Keeping in mind, that in just a week or two we will be sailing away from Fort Lauderdale and taking our first sail trip to the Bahamas! From learning how to become a plumber, electrician, AC/fridge repairman, water maker installer and let's not forget the most important task, learning how to SAIL, its been quite the journey already. & let me tell you, we wouldn't trade it for anything! Carson has been so incredible with his ability to learn all of these new trades. I had no doubt that he wouldn't be able to figure it all out. I mean heck, why do you think i am marrying him!? Obviously, i am kidding... but it is an awesome bonus to have a handsome man, i mean handyman ;) I don't think there has been a day that goes by that we haven't smiled from ear to ear with excitement on the life we have chosen. Even with the ups and downs of getting the boat prepped for our travels we are the happiest we have ever been. We have never been more ready to get this new life started!

    This week has been one of the best! Our solar panel arch finally went up yesterday AND as i sit here now, Carson just came storming down into the cabin to give me awesome news, our lithium installation is 95% complete which means everything may be completed in just a couple days!! We weren't expecting them to be done until late next week! Fortunately, we got our new sail up today, I completed all the provisioning on board and Carson is finishing up small misc projects but we have already prepared ourselves to be ready to roll once they are complete! SO like i said before, this has been THE BEST week! We are just days away now from sailing off!!    Leer más

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    Update from Fort Lauderdale

    13 de febrero de 2022, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☁️ 66 °F

    Woke up this morning to a beautiful rain shower. The skies are a firey orange/pink. Even trapped between the canals of houses and high rise condo's you can still find beauty. Although, we are SO ready to get out of this town. It was the perfect location for us to be while we prep our boat. There is every possible boat store you could ever need here! West Marine and Amazon has been our go to places every week for supplies. It's going to be weird not having that when you need it out there. Ft Lauderdale is just so busy everywhere! Honking cars, traffic everywhere, beaches and sidewalks packed so much that it reminds me of a theme park. After living here for a few months its going to be quite the culture shock. Remote islands with limited roads, cars, supplies, produce... As weird as this may sound, that is the challenge I honestly cannot wait for. I feel like it brings you back to reality. People, including myself, get so caught up in the materialistic things that you forget as Carson would say... " We are all just spinning around on a rock in the middle of a universe." It's time to break out of our comfort zones and experience real life!

    So little update on what we have been up to the past few days. There has been a lot of electricians on the boat finalizing the lithium/solar project. They ran into some complications with our AC/DC connections and we have been warned that we will be without power for a couple days next week but they are still on track to complete the project mid next week! We figured we would take the opportunity to take one last visit over to Naples to see family and maybe some friends if we have time. We are also having Roxanne, an event planner and close friend I worked for at the age of 18 until I was through college, come over to my Dad's house to walk the property because we have decided to do our wedding there next year! A couple days ago, we briefly put a wedding list together and we were already at nearly 200 people!! It's going to be a party!

    Yesterday, Carson got stuck in a project that was supposed to be fairly simple which turned into an all day project for our freshwater outdoor shower. He is such a perfectionist that if it's not perfect he has redo the entire thing. He knows that this is where most showers will be taken out there so its worth it to make the best possible design. I put away the rest of the provisions in the port fwd cabin and organized what I call "Kendra's garage" (starboard side storage compartment). Carson's "garage's" are the two front hatches so I claimed this one as mine. 😁 While I was putting away the rest of the provisions, i found a compartment that we have never gone through before. In it, was a brand new sail and lines! We think it's a spinnaker sail but Carson still has to do more research to figure out what exactly it is. That was a nice big surprise! That storage compartment it was in has now just become our wine cellar. Today we are going to go stock up on more wines to put down there. I wrapped the bottles in our ski socks to keep them from breaking. If we wanted to we could fit like 6 cases of wine in there but that may be a little excessive. My Nana and Aunt Karen may think otherwise... 😉 We have been told to always have cases of canned beer on board as it makes for good trade off's with the Bahamians. Been in the Bahama's is ridiculously expensive!    Leer más

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    Shake Down Cruise before the Bahamas!

    22 de marzo de 2022, North Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌬 77 °F

    Our first big sail from Fort Lauderdale to the Florida Keys has exceeded our expectations in every way. We knew we would love this lifestyle but didn't realize how amazing it really is until you get to experience it. We woke up at sunrise on Friday to start our sail. It was such a beautiful morning with a full moon lighting up the entire sky. The coolest thing about sailing is if the conditions are nice you can live your life normally while cruising! We made breakfast, worked on some wedding stuff, did some yoga, & more. As we entered into Key Biscayne, where we planned to anchor for the night, our trolling rods started getting hit left and right with slammer mutton snapper! This really was icing on the cake for this first big sail trip! We got 4 in total, one being 25 inches! Yesterday we took advantage of an opportunity to go spear fishings since there was no winds to continue practicing our sailing. We anchored up right outside of Alligator Reef off Islamorada at a reef Carson had marked years ago when we spent a summer in the keys. We jumped in to check the anchor was holding before going to hunt for some fish and right there in front of the boat was a lobster trap. The line was cut and there was no buoy so we loaded up on 4 lobsters for dinner that night! Talk about luck.. Those are rare finds. Carson also shot the tail of a decent black grouper. We hunted him down from hole to hole for about a 1/2 hour before deciding it was time to clean the bottom of the boat and make poke mackerel bowls for lunch then kick it until we made it our next anchorage for the night. Last night's anchorage was our first testing night. A storm blew through with gusts up to 25 MPH in minutes. Our anchor alarm went off at 3 AM alerting us that we were moving outside the perimeter that we set incase our anchor slips. Fortunately, everything was fine but Carson didn't get much sleep last night. Woke up this morning to 30 MPH gusts. Going to be a gusty, stormy day. Perfect day to settle in and work on our trading! We are looking forward to seeing how it feels to work while at an anchorage. Living the life!!Leer más

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    Sporty conditions & still slammin’ fish

    23 de marzo de 2022, Estados Unidos ⋅ 🌬 77 °F

    Waking up Monday morning and getting back into the swing with working wasn't too bad when you have 360 views of beautiful turquoise oceans. I felt like my mind was clearer than ever and that showed in my work day. I had some killer trades! Carson was pretty delirious from the night but still pushed through the day. The winds were so gusty we stayed put where we were for the day and night. The next night ended up being the best nights sleep we boat have had on the boat. All the hatches were open, winds gusting through & slight rock of the boat put us right to sleep!

    The next morning, we decided to put in some work hours before heading back up North to Key Biscayne. As we were getting ready to start our work morning the water pump decided not to work. Let's just say Carson was cussing like a sailor for about 20 mins until he figured it out which really took no time! He really doesn't give hisself enough credit on how quickly he can fix issues on this boat, it impresses me everyday. Around 11 AM, we took off in the gustiest winds we have sailed in yet clocking in 9 knots of speed at times with a 3-5 foot chop. It was sporty but so much fun! Once the waves calmed a bit off Biscayne national park we set the lines out to troll for some more fish. INSTANTLY, we were double slammed with fish! I turned off the wind while Carson worked on reeling in the first one. It was another 25 inch mutton snapper! We lost the other one because we weren't able to get it in time. We set the first line back and got underway again. Not even a minute goes by and we got hooked up again with a 17 inch mutton! We decided that we had more than enough fish to eat as we were still working on eating the fish from a couple days ago that we should let the others live.

    We anchored up outside the Key Biscayne light house last night. Something really cool about this area is the stilt houses that were built in the 1930s. They say drug dealers use to throw parties out there with lots of gambling and drugs. They soon shut them down and now they are just really cool landmarks on these flats. Tons of wind surfers were out there cruising in between them.

    ... not sure what the day will bring us today!    Leer más

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    Bimini here we come....so we thought

    7 de abril de 2022, Estados Unidos ⋅ ⛅ 82 °F

    The best part about this lifestyle is adapting to zero expectations and changing all of your plans when the unexpected happens!

    Tuesday morning we had great winds to cross over to Bimini so we woke up early and left Fort Lauderdale. In order to get to Bimini we had to head south before crossing. It was rougher than expected but no big deal as we were excited to leave Fort Lauderdale. About 3 hours into our crossing the boat unexpectedly turned which woke Kendra up from a nap due to her little garden exploding on the floor. I ran up to the helm and started to hand steer because our autopilot stopped holding course. After about an hour of trying to diagnose the problem (still heading towards Bimini) I found all of our hydraulic fluid for the autopilot spewing into the engine compartment. At this point we decided to sail into Key Biscayne to figure out our next step. All this went down after only 4-5 hours of sleep the night before so we both crashed once we set anchor.

    Once we woke up and started to put the boat back together, I was able to get ahold of the autopilot manufacturer and luckily they knew what the problem was and are sending us the last repair kit in the United States to get us back on the water! Right now it looks like we will be getting our kit on Saturday and making the crossing on Sunday (if all goes to plan)!

    For now we are at an anchorage just outside of Dinner Key in Coconut Grove with about 500 other sailboats which is pretty cool! Of course everything happens for a reason and we were able to go into town to get Kendra a new Yoga matt that I decided to donate to the ocean. A dinghy and a few one wheels make quite the mode of transportation...cant say that we miss old Sally, our 2 door Honda Accord that was our work truck the past 5 months!

    Stay tuned for the Bimini crossing!    Leer más

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    We made it!

    9 de abril de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ ⛅ 77 °F

    45 miles later and we are officially in the Bahamas!!!! 🇧🇸

    Started sailing around 8 am this morning. Thought the sailing conditions were going to be pretty good when we checked the night before but once we got out there the winds died down and it was a dead down wind which made it difficult to sail. We ended up having to motor the whole way which was a bummer but we weren't about to wait another day to get to the Bahamas! Plus, autopilot was working great again so we got to sit back, relax and sip on some drinks. We actually tried doing a work out at the bow of the boat but the 6 foot swells didn't line up with that idea, lol..

    As the winds picked up a bit we got to test our spinnaker sail for the first time. Truthfully, we had no idea what we were doing but with a tug and a pull on lines here and there it released this beautiful royal blue sail. We were beyond excited!

    Around 5 PM we anchored outside of immigration in Bimini and checked in. There is many reasons why we love the Bahamas but the smiling faces and welcoming Bahamian music really sets the island mood 😊 After that, we went to pick up a sim card in town at the Bahamas wifi store to get our wifi back and running on the boat. The lady at the front desk pointed us in the right direction to get some of their famous knock out rum punches and conch salad. Those knock outs go to your head quick! There were mountains of conchs stacked up on the shore line, we never seen so many in our life! It looked like they were using the conchs to build up more shoreline.

    We left the south end of Bimini and went to the North end to anchor up for the night. There wasn't one boat where we anchored and a gorgeous beach line with trees surrounding us.

    After 5 + months of moving and outfitting this boat we have finally made it to our new home 🥳 Tomorrow we will be sailing to the Berry Islands, our longest straight sail yet, 70 miles.    Leer más

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    80 mi sail to the Berry Islands

    11 de abril de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ ⛅ 75 °F

    Longest sail yet! Sailed 80 miles from 7 AM to 9 PM to make it to our home for the week, the Berry Islands!

    It was such a beautiful crossing, 3 ft or less waves with a nice 10-15 knots of wind. We even got to make some sourdough french toast underway, such a treat 😋 When we entered this reefy area called the Gingerbreads we decided to drop back some lines to see what kind of fish were out there. Few minutes later we were hooked up on more slammer mutton snappers. Pulled in 2 28 inchers and had to stop fishing because that is more than we will ever be able to eat in a week! Plus where we are going is suppose to have some epic diving so we are hoping to shoot some fish this weekend!

    Woke up this morning at sunrise to enjoy a nice yoga flow and started to settle into work for the week. We were lucky enough to have perfect service out here off this remote island! Makes sense though, this is where Royal Carribbean and Norwegian Cruise Lines have their own private islands, hoping to go check that out later. There is tons to explore here. We are hoping to explore the island on our one wheels, hike to a blue hole our friend Raf told us about and do some fishing/diving once the weather warms up a bit!

    Still can't believe this our new life. Not sure when we are going to stop feeling like we are dreaming. 💭    Leer más

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    Island Hopping!

    20 de abril de 2022, North Atlantic Ocean ⋅ ⛅ 73 °F

    From the Berry Islands to Nassau to Exumas

    Berry Islands - When we had to leave the Berry's I feel like I was being ripped away from something I had just fallen so in love with. On Easter weekend, we went for a hike up a little coral mountain to Hoffman's Cay Blue Hole where we jumped 20 feet off a cliff. The blue hold was breathtaking. There were 1000s of little jelly fish everywhere that don't sting you & were the size of a piece of dirt. The waters were crystal clear & 5-10 feet below the surface the water was shockingly warm! Under the cliff we jumped off was natural caves that would blow your mind! Continuing our hike through the mountain we found this tiny abandoned house with a big chimney made out of coral rock. Surrounding the house was a fence line made out of the coral rock as well. I couldn't imagine the amount of work that went into building this. Once we got back to boat, the biggest storm we have had yet hit us. Lighting, thunder and up to 40 MPH winds gusting at us for hours. We sat back to watch the show, played some chest and drank a lot of wine 😁

    The next day, we decided to finally do some spearfishing!! We were right off the shoreline in beautiful reefs with fish everywhere to shoot. It felt like we were in an aquarium. Carson missed a shot on a black grouper and I missed one on a yellowfin grouper. We were a little rusty 🤪 Not to make excuses or anything.. but we were having some mask issues that day. We bought new masks we were testing out and at times they were completely fogged trying to shoot at fish. Soon after I blindingly took a nice shot on a hogfish and school master snapper. That is more than enough fish to eat for the next several days so we called it a day. We decided at that point it was time to go check out Flo's Conch Shack where our friend Raf told us to go get some rum punches. This place was literally a guys house! You serve yourself rum punches out of his fridge in the back and hangout on his back porch. BEST conch fritters we have ever had! We met some really cool people there that have been going to these islands for 25+ years. Some of the came over that night to give us a nice bottle of rum to wish us luck on our journeys. People out here are unbelievably genuine.

    Next morning, we set sail for Nassau to provision. Nice easy 30 mile sail. We didn't have much time here to explore because we had to take off to the Exumas a couple days later to keep working our way down South. Provisioning there was quite the adventure. We had to drive our dinghy a couple miles to one of the nicest marinas we have ever seen. We were definitely a little out of place on our little dinghy around millions of dollars boats. We then had to one wheel a mile down a bumpy two lane road to the fresh market which ended up being like a really expensive whole foods! I was shocked by how nice it was. We had to pack all of our groceries in 4 backpacks and one wheel them down the sketchy road we came from to get back on the dinghy to then dinghy ride back to the boat. Honestly, we loved every minute of it.

    Yesterday, we had one of the best sails to the Exumas. Took us 5-6 hours and we sailed 50 miles. We kept working during the sail, did some wedding planning, read a book, fished (no luck this time) and made a bomb lasagna for dinner. We will be here for a few weeks as we have several visitors flying out!!!    Leer más

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    Vaca Mode with our 1st visitors!

    18 de mayo de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 81 °F

    Been awhile since I have caught up on here...

    Honestly, we have just been enjoying ourselves our so much & we have had a couple visitors come that has helped us go on full vacation mode for the first time since we have been out here. Most of our friends/fam think we don't work out here but the funny thing is we work A LOT but when fam/friends come out we take advantage.

    A few weeks ago, my Dad and Ana flew into Stainel Cay, Exumas. We did so much in 6 days with them.
    - Saw the world famous Thunderbolt Grotto from the original James Bond movie. Probably one of the coolest underwater caves we will ever see! Coolest experience of the trip I must say.
    - Rented a golf cart to explore the island and did some hiking
    - Had the best Pina Coladas any of us had at the Stainel Cay Yacht Club!
    - Went spearfishing and got some hogfish for dindin. Carson shot a massive black grouper that bend the shaft of his poles tip. It would have been the biggest black grouper he has ever shot. We saw a broom tail grouper that we tried to get out of a whole but after 30 mins we eventually had to let him go. One of the coolest looking groupers!
    - Went hiking to a cave with little pink shrimp that tickled your toes.
    - Off Little Farmer's Cay we drift dove for 7 conch's and a couple lobster. I made some amazzzzzing tropical conch salads and conch chowder under our whoel full sailing day. We had the hardest time figuring out how to open and clean a conch but now we have mastered the processed. Thanks to our friend Sascha for the conch spot :)
    - Had dinner one night at the Ocean Cabin on Farmer's Cay. Literally felt like you were in someone's home. We were one of their two customers that night and you had to call in on the radio to make reservations. Bahamaian Mac n Cheese was our favvvvv
    - Hiked up the Monument in Great Exuma Cay where you could see the whole island and all the sailboats

    We had the best time with Ana & my Dad. Missing them like crazy already! When they left we got back on our work grind for a week before our besties Jessica & Kaylor came out. During that time, I got severely ill for 5 days. No need to go into those details, I hope to wipe those memories away. Thankfully, nurse Jes and my Mom helped guide me through what to do being out here on our own but on day 5, I had to have Carson take me to the hospital to get some antibiotics in Great Exuma. There was not a soul in sight in this hospital, it felt like we were in a Zombie movie. When we went in for testing, the nurse didn't collect any ID's or insurance cards then gave me had written medications to take home and let us walk out without collecting any $ from us! Really bazar! But also a refreshing experience unlike hospitals in the US that need $ upfront and insurance before they even see you. A couple days later and I was feeling back to myself again & J&K arrived to the Bahamas!

    Another trip for the books! Recap on our trip with J&K:
    - Hungout at Chat n Chill the first night
    - Hiked all the trails around the Momument
    - Sailed over to Long Island and on our way we caught a 5 foot 53 lb WAHOO!!!! Still my fav experience of this trip
    - Spearfished the next day and got like 7 different species of fish
    - Went to came Santa Marie bar on the island for drinks and complimentary conch fritters. They were serving us free drinks and shots so you could just imagine how that night ended. Let's just say we thought we lost our bag with passports, wallets and phones in it but it ended up being on our new friends boat that we went to later that night.
    - The next day, we went spearfishing on some huge, beautiful coral heads where we speared a ton of more fish. We had more fish then we knew what to do with. We had so much Wahoo to still eat that instead of eating the fresh fish we made Wahoo sushi rolls that was the fav dinner of the trip.
    - Rented a car one rainy day to explore Long Island and go visit Dean's Blue Hole. BREATHTAKING BLUE HOLE! Another fav of this trip.
    - We had the best conch salad at Max's Conch Shack where Mad Max (Gary) the owner gave us a bag of sea salt he scooped up from the islands beaches. That night we went out for dinner at Tiny's bar where we got pizza and wine. The owner there gave us some fruits we have never tried before, Guanabana and mini sugar bananas. They were delicious!
    - We sailed back to Little Great Exuma island and had our best spearfishing day out here yet. Speared MONSTER hogfish, yellowfin grouper and nassau grouper. The boys got harrassed my sharks trying to get Kaylor's massive hogfish out of a hole. Jessica probably added 5 years onto to her life after watching that, let's jsut say she was ready for some tequila drinks when we got back to the boat lol but Kaylor & Carson loved every sec of it.
    - That night, the boys built a beautiful bonfire on the beach and grilled our fish on the fire. It was magical.
    - Next day, we had a beautiful sail back to the main Great Exuma island with epic sailing conditions. We got to sail with our spinnaker the whole time going around 5.5 knots. On the last night with J&K we toasted to a great trip with wine, lobster chowder and homemade french bread.

    TRIPS OF A LIFETIME!    Leer más

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    Made some new friends :)

    20 de mayo de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ ☁️ 79 °F

    The past couple days we have been anchored up off Man O War Cay. We have a lot of favorite anchorages already but this being one of the best. We are surrounded my crystal clear water, sandy bottom, a sandbar that looks like it goes on for a mile full of starfish and sand dollars, old wooden house on the hill that looks like its been through some crazy weather and coral reef in our backyard we can take midday breaks to snorkel around. Oh and the wifi here is great so its made working nice!

    ON our second day here we had another sailboat join us and they stopped by on their dinghy to say hi. They were such a nice couple, Oily & Will, that did films and photography for North Face, Red Bull, Airbnb and many other big brand names. They has traveled to 50 countries in their careers and decided they wanted something more stable so they started sailing to their destinations where they would pick up work from their clients along the way. They are making their way down to Guatemala for hurricane season and have kind of convinced that that may be the best place to go for the season! We have to seriously start thinking about where we are going to start sailing to in June for the start Hurricane season in July.

    Yesterday during our lunch break, we had another new friend arrive but this time it wasn't a human it was a dolphin! We jumped in right away and got to swim around with this beautiful animal for as long as we wanted. She loved the company. When we swam away from her she would follow us to the boat for more attn. We fed her some bait fish we had in the freezer which kept her around for another couple hours. The sweetest animal. Another dream come true out here!    Leer más

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    Bahama Mama came and Conch-quered

    27 de mayo de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ 🌙 61 °F

    On May 24th, mama Pat came for her 1st trip aboard the Salty Clam! We picked her up from the dinghy dock and took her out to where the catamaran was parked. Shortly after, we had some dolphin fiends arrive right by the boat, a mom and baby! I hopped in the water right away and they got within a foot from me! That afternoon, we had a great sail to Lee Stocking Island, Exumas. The anchorage we were at felt like we were in another country. Huge hilltops with coconut palms all over the beach line.

    The next morning, we went on a hike to the top of the hilltops right in front of the anchorage. The hiking was some of the best we had. Saw huge blue crabs, wild rosemary and the abandoned airstrip. Apparently Lee Stocking Island was left abandoned. We wanted to go into the abandoned town to check it out because people say its like walking into the walking dead movie. They say it looks like the people had an hour to pack up their items and leave the island. Still don't know what really happened but when we tried to explore it there were workers fixing it up. I heard they are trying to make it a sustainable living area for workers. That afternoon, we went diving for conch at a spot our friend Sascha told us about. She said the conch were just everywhere in this cut and they were! Carson and pat hopped in the water and said right away they saw 20 but not of size to keep. It wasn't even an hour and we had already got 6 conch, one of them being the biggest one we got yet! That evening we moved closer to the North end of Great Exuma where we adventured into the town called Barretarre. We went to dinner at a place called the Same Ole Bar where there wasn't one tourist in sight. We got the true Bahamian experience and met some awesome locals that told us all about their town. We got fresh cracked conch, HUGE coconut shrimp and Carson and I got the best chicken sandwiches we had ever had. Like better than Chick-Fil-A...

    Day 3 of Mama Pat's trip, she was ready to get back in the water and watch Carson do some spearfishing! There was this cut that Carson and I had our eyes on when we were moving anchorages that we went to explore. At first there wasn't much there and they were ready to call it and move spots. As they were about to get into the boat, Carson yelled hand me my spear! He took off on a monster grouper that led him to a rock ledge that had the most beautiful life. Instead of coming back up with a grouper, he came up with the biggest lobster any of us had ever seen. The tail alone was a foot long!! He shot the grouper but he was so buried in a hole that it was the first time Carson had to leave a fish behind.. Luckily, it was dinner for a 12 foot nurse shark that was waiting patiently. For lunch we ate the legs off the lobster, they were the size of a king crab leg. To top off the end of the trip, we got to see some amazing blow holes on this beautiful beach and for dinner that night we made conch chowder and grilled lobster with Kendra's fresh french bread.

    We hope we showed mama Pat a good enough time to come back. We loved every second of having her out here. Until next time... :)    Leer más

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    Sail from Great Exuma to Long Island

    29 de mayo de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ ☁️ 79 °F

    We are now on full sailing mode after our last visitor left. Our boat insurance wants us to be in a certain area for hurricane season by July 1st and so do we. The last thing we want is to get trapped by a hurricane when everything we own is on this boat. The second we dropped mama Pat off at the airport we set sail for Lond Island. We had horrible winds but we made the best out of it with lots of reading and naps. Thankfully, weather conditions were perfect so we really enjoyed it. Right as we were coming into our anchorage for the night, there were like 30 birds diving hard in front of us. We circled around to them and caught a couple Bonita. We decided to try to pass by them one more time and we caught a TUNA! This was in the same area we caught the Wahoo a couple weeks back.

    The next morning we woke up early and started sailing for Clarence town which was on the other side of Lond Island and farther south. Right away we hooked a little mackerel which in our opinion is some of the best sushi. After 5 miles into our 30 mile sail the winds started to die again which was to be expected. We had to leave this day either way with storms pushing through the next couple days we may have not made it until later next week. So we motor sailed the rest of the way and followed the coastline where there were some major drop offs. We had both lines out, hoping to land some more fish to make the trip more thrilling. A little over half way there and our big rod gets slammed with a fish! Carson comes down to fight it while I lay off on the motors. All the sudden, we see a Blue Marlin jump several times out of the water!!! We couldn't believe it. He almost completely spooled the line before Carson was able to get him to swim towards the boat. After 15 minutes of fighting we got him to the boat where we had to try and revive him for a few minutes before releasing him. Carson was holding him by the bill swaying him around to get him back to normal again. You could tell he was exhausted. We were able to release him safely and he swam off.

    We landed a 200 lb Blue Marlin while sailing 2 miles off the coast of Long Island!! Still in total shock! Not even 30 minutes later, we hooked another one, a bigger one! Saw him jump a couple times then he came off. We were actually happy as we may have not won that fight lol.

    SAILING IS FULL OF SURPRISES!

    Ended the day, with homemade tuna and mackerel sushi rolls. NOM NOM    Leer más

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    Kindest Island, Long Island

    30 de mayo de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ 🌬 82 °F

    Arrived here a couple days ago. Dove in right away to find 30 beautiful sand dollars underneath the boat. They were dead so we were able to scoop them up and maybe do something cool with them one day. 😊

    Next morning we woke up to a nice calm anchorage. Only three sailboats surrounding us. We decided to hit the spearfishing spots our friend Steph gave us. Within an hour I got 2 hogfish and Carson got a nice tiger grouper! The ledges and ocean bottom floor here are incredible. We were within a 5 minute dinghy ride to the boat, the diving was in our backyard!

    Went into Clarence town that evening to walk around only to find the guy that we met a few weeks back that works on a sports fishing boat at Flying Fish Marina. He invited us to have some Kalik's. We got to meet the other fisherman on the dock that we’re around our age and hear what their stories were. These guys bosses pay them a nice income, benefits, food/drinks, stay, etc to stay on their boats while they are away and then when they come around they take them fishing for big game fish like blue/white marlin, yellowfin tuna, etc. They were telling us that catching a blue marlin the way we did the other day is unheard of. One guy gave us a couple lures to test out during our travels because they said what we were using is ok but not great. Obviously it’s been working for us though! Such generous guys!

    Baxter, the guy we met last time, let us use his mini van the next day to visit the Shrimp Hole, Max's conch bar and the grocery/liquor stores. The shrimp hole was breathtaking. Super pink/reddish shrimp everywhere, blind cave fish swimming around, bats flying across the caves roof and not a soul in sight but us. We had the whole place to ourselves. The cool part is to get to the cave you had to park in front of this old abandoned church. The walls on this place had to be over 2 ft wide. Max's Conch Bar did not disappoint either. Met some locals that insisted on buying us a round of shots and drinks. They were called the Rowdy crew and things did get Rowdy! Everyone on the island is SO excited about the sailing regatta happening this weekend. It'll be the 53rd regatta they have had on the island but the past few years they cancelled it due to Covid so they are thrilled for it to be back. Heck, their already starting the party! They said vendors and DJ's are coming in from Nassua to help throw on the party. Yes, we will be staying for this fun-ness and we cannot wait!

    Time to learn how to party like a Bahamian!    Leer más

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    Crooked Islands to Inaugua

    3 de junio de 2022, North Atlantic Ocean ⋅ ⛅ 82 °F

    Hard to say goodbye to Long Island but it was time to go.. we had been there for a week due to the tropical storms that were building up. We had such a great time there. The sailing regatta was something to see!! We thought there would be more sailors there but it was mostly local Bahamians which was really cool because we got to see their culture. Local music, food and races. We got the mutton meal which in Bahamian terms that means goat. It was bomb! Friday night we went out with our new sports fishing friends to the local bar where the regatta night life was happening. These people know how to party! & the women really knew how to shake their booties. Honestly it was a talent the way they could move their hips and butts. I was so intimated by their dancing that I didn’t dare step into that dance circle. One booty bump and I would have been tossed to the ground.

    Our sail from Long Island to the Crookeds was LONG but great. Seascape was calm but winds died out in the middle of our sail and we had to motor sail majority of our trip reaching the Crookeds at midnight. During our trip we landed a nice Sailfish! Another sports fish for the books. Really don’t know how we continue to slam these monsters but I hope we can keep it up! During the sail, we pulled our spinnaker sail since we have dead down winds. When we tried hoisting out the sail we realized the dial was mangled around itself in both directions in several areas. There was no fixing this underway. After an hour of trying to get it untangled we pulled it done and stuffed it into the forward hatch. That was a project for the next day.

    The next day we went to do some diving with a couple Australian teenagers we met in Long Island. Super cool guys and decent divers too! We landed monster Nassau groupers, a couple conch and two yellow jacks in no more than 20 feet of water! The one boy that shot the monster grouper said it was the biggest fish he had ever shot. If it wasn’t for Carson sticking his body half way in the rock he was stuck under I don’t think the boys would have got it out. It was so worth seeing their excitement and taking them diving with us!

    Today we set sail for Inaugua, Bahamas. Our last crossing in the Bahamas before we take off to Jamaica then Guatemala for hurricane season. It’s going to be so hard to say goodbye to these amazing islands, waters and people. In just two months we have made more memories and new friends then we could have ever imagined! Just can’t wait to see what these other countries have in store for us!

    80 miles to go still.. wish is some good winds! First all nighter sail 👏    Leer más

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    Goodbye Bahamas, Hello Jamaica

    8 de junio de 2022, Bahamas ⋅ 🌧 86 °F

    Left Inaugua, Bahamas this morning at 6 am to make our way to Port Antonio, Jamaica.

    Inaugua was full of the happiest Bahamians we have met yet. Which we found surprising since it was really a nothing town. The only big operation there is a salt production factory, Morton Sea salt. We took our one wheels exploring around the island to check out of customs, go up the beautiful lighthouse and see if the grocery store had anything fresh. It was sad to see they had absolutely no produce left. They said their mail boat hasn’t come in a couple weeks and they weren’t sure when they would should up but that didn’t stop these people from smiling and waving every time we went by. When we were coming out of the grocery store there was a little Bahamian boy staring at the one wheel. He asked to ride it so Carson held his hands while we guided him through how to do it. I swear it made this little boys day, he couldn’t stop smiling and staring as we took off. The past couple days we did some quick dives about 50 yards behind the boat where there were drop offs that went from 30 ft to 1000s of ft. The reef there was so alive and beautiful! Monster fish everywhere of every kind but we struggled getting a good shot on any of them. They had reef and holes to hide in all over but we had fun with the challenge. Yesterday I finally got a shot on a nice size strawberry grouper and within seconds there were 3 8 ft reef shark circling around us. When we got the fish back to the boat and started swimming again I looked behind me and the sharks had surfaced and were within 10 ft from me. Carson guarded them off and we jumped into the boat. We weren’t ready to end our last Bahamas dive but after that we called it for the day. They were getting pretty aggressive.

    We met some amazing people in the anchorage during our stay. All of them were heading to rio dulce too so we decided to meet up at the lighthouse restaurant to talk over our plans. Some of the most amazing people. We loved hearing all of their stories. These people were from all over. We all took off this morning in our own little sailing regatta. There is 7 boats in total. We decided to compete to see who makes it there the fastest and can bring in the biggest fish in. We started in the back of the crowd and have blown past all of them to the point where we can’t even see them behind us anymore. It’s safe to say we have won one of the competitions. We knew our boat could sail but really didn’t think it could sail this great! Hopefully we can get the biggest fish 🎣 too!

    We are approaching Cuba now. We can barely see the huge mountainous tops. Wish we had time to stop by but we should get some good views from our pass by.

    Another 24+ hours to go!    Leer más

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    Adios Jamaica, Hola Guatamala

    13 de junio de 2022, Jamaica ⋅ ⛅ 84 °F

    Jamaica was everything we thought it would be and then some. All rasta hippies preaching their one love mon! We loved hearing what they said about their flag colors. Green is for the land, yellow for the sun, black for the people and red for the blood because we all bleed red making us all the same. Funny thing is there’s no red in their flag but that’s where the one love comes from.

    We got to visit three ports while we were there. Our first port was Port Antonio which was all locals and a few sailors. It was a small but busy town so it was easy to get turned around. The locals were all friendly and helpful. They made it a point to tell us they were looking out for us. Of course we thought the they just wanted our money but it wasn’t like that (only a couple people here and there). They really wanted us to feel comfortable so that more people would hear about their town and come back to visit. They had little grocery stores in town but where we got our produce was in this alley way where each farmer had their own small fruit/veggie stand. All grown from their own lands. I thought this was pretty special. Carson kept getting suckered into buying Jamaican weed at the market. Haha yes. It’s exactly what you would think, literally people all over on the streets are smoking joints and carrying their weed around. I didn’t think it was that open to smoke everywhere there but it definitely is! I thought it was neat that the school the kids went to was right on the water and all the kids dressed in a very formal dress code. The boys were in collard shorts and pants and the girls in collard shirt and skirts to their calves. For lunch, we went to a place called Piggy’s that all the locals recommended to get their Jamaican jerk chicken and festival bread. Apparently the most recent James Bond movie was filmed here and that’s where they would all get lunch. Piggy’s burned down at some point after the movie was filmed and the James Bond actor found out and started a fundraiser to rebuild it. Apparently him and the owner, Piggy, became very close. The food was delicious paired with a cold red strip! One night we grabbed dinner with our new friends on catamaran Waterlust. It’s a family of four sailing around the world. Everyone we meet becomes your sailing fam for life out here which makes all of this so special. It’s like an instant bond. We have been sailing with a family on a catamaran called Matilda Mia for a almost a couple weeks now which are making the crossing with us to Guatemala right now as I write this. They have the cutest little 2 1/2 year old girl that handles sailing no problem! I guess she really doesn’t know any better since she’s been on the boat since she was 6 months. I love seeing these kids we meet interact with all the kids in these different countries. Kids are so simple out here.

    The next port we stopped into was discovery bay. Much Smaller, richer town. Mansions all over the bay and mountain and a huge mining site for box-site which is found in aluminum. Our first morning here we went for a swim because the water was crystal clear. We missed seeing clear waters since we left the Bahamas. Right under the boat laid several conchs! I couldn’t believe it. Shortly after our finds the fish and wildlife preserve guys came up. Apparently it was a protected fishing zone and I wasn’t allowed to have the conchs. They didn’t look very official. I thought they just wanted some of my conch so I offered them one. They got a laugh out of that. They were nice enough to allow me to keep one. I was a little bummed but happy we didn’t get in major trouble! Should have checked the rules prior. Not everywhere is like the Bahamas. Although, later on we found out from a local that if you have to swim for the conchs you can keep them. You just can’t take the ones right on shore. Those guys probably went and took my finds when we left! Later we dove off the reefs behind the boat. The reefs were gorgeous but there wasn’t any fish to shoot. We were lucky enough to swim with two spotted eagle rays though! On the bay we’re these plywood beach bar shacks that we went with Matilda Mia to grab drinks, let Pia (their daughter) play on the beach with the Jamaican kids and eat dinner. There wasn’t one local in site. In fact, we were the only two boats in the Harbour. This was the true small town local feel. Apparently the people in the mansions on the bay (literally next door neighbors to the them) won’t go to this area. It’s a shame that some people think their too good for others. It’s not like this wasn’t a safe place to go. Some people just think their so entitled. It’s sad because the people I’m talking about are Americans. They were so shocked we came to visit their beach bars and treated us like family the entire time. Part of the reason we wanted to leave our own country was to experience REAL life and REAL people. Not just this fantasy we all seem to live in. Anyways…. enough with my rant. We ended up having drinks and dinner at this place called Highrie where they offered to smoke us out for free before dinner started. Ivone, the owner, set up the hookah and everything. Lol. She crafted us some nice cocktails, her husband prepared us Jamaican jerk chicken platters, put on a movie for Pia and fed us homemade ice cream at the end. They had rum raisin ice cream that was out of this world! It felt like we were in someone’s home! Ivone wants to host our wedding there whenever we decide to have one again 🤣

    Next and last stop in Jamaica was Montego Bay. This is where allll the tourist go. It felt like we were back in America. We felt quite culture shocked with all the busy traffic and resorts everywhere. Thankfully we were only there for a day.

    Now we are off to our hurricane hole, Rio Dulce, Guatemala! The things we have heard about this place are incredible. Not to mention our $1 is worth $7 in their country! Time to brush up on our Spanish on this 5 day crossing. Our longest voyage yet ✌️ Is it good luck if we were greeted first thing this morning with a pod of 20-30 dolphins surfing the front of our boat?? I don’t know but I sure hope so!    Leer más

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    WE HAVE ARRIVED! Rio Dulce, Guatemala

    2 de julio de 2022, Estados Unidos ⋅ ⛅ 59 °F

    113 Hours, 730nm, 50+kts of wind, multiple thunderstorms, 5 pods of dolphin, 1 Blackfin tuna, 1 Mahi Mahi, 1 Yellowfin Tuna & 1 blown out spinnaker!

    The experience of a lifetime! All I can say is what an epic adventure. Day 1 & 2 went by like a week, days 3, 4, 5.....like hours. From magical nights to desert heat days. By magical nights I mean a night sky filled with more stars imaginable and then looking into and ocean filled with bioluminescence as the boat wakes it up to a spectacular light show....and if that's not enough add in a pod of dolphins playing off the bows creating what I honestly don't know how to describe but magical! Dolphins zooming left, right, up (out of the water), down leaving nothing but a trail of sparkling light in the pitch black ocean water. Nature is more spectacular than anythings humans could create. There was never a night without Mother Nature showing her true beauty and power. Her power came in the form of intense lightning storms that turned purple & blue lightning strikes into a orange & red sparks as they met the water (yes the strikes got that close to the boat) . Her power also came in the form of intense wind gusts that showed no mercy on us! One gust hit us at about 3 am that turned a beautiful 10-12kt breeze into a 50kt nightmare in a matter of seconds showing us just how quick a sail can explode & turn an epic night sail into an unforgettable experience & lesson. RESPECT the ocean & Mother Nature at all costs because her fun comes with a cost! But hey, there's no excitement to life if you can't push it to the absolute limits!

    As we quickly close in on Guatemala, its hard not to fill up with emotions thinking we left Fort Lauderdale less than 3 months ago with zero plans or expecations except to sail wherever life (and the wind) took us. And here we are finishing our final sail for who knows how long to explore a jungle filled country with a native language that neither of us can speak...isn't life something?    Leer más

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    Rio Dulce Pro's & Con's

    2 de agosto de 2022, Guatemala ⋅ 🌧 73 °F

    Been a little MIA on here as we settled into Rio Dulce after sailing our butts off for a couple months.

    The ride through the Rio Dulce gorge was something neither of us have ever seen before. Absolutely break taking. Huge mountainous cliffs and walls surrounds us on either side. It reminded me of when I went rafting in the Grand Canyons but instead of Canyons is what all jungle. You could hear exotic birds whistling from the tree tops, monkeys hollering and the vegetation looked like live wall art. The Guatemalans past us on their pangas with the most welcoming waves and smiles. The fisherman were throwing huge cast nets into the gorge and hand lining for fish. The houses on the river were all tiki hut cabana's with not much to them but they were so unique and beautiful. It was humbling seeing how these people lived but that didn't stop them from giving us the warmest welcome smiles as we cruised by. The people here are the happiest and most hard-working people we have seen yet.

    As we approached the Rio Dulce town you could see the hundreds of sailboats surrounding the shorelines. Most are tied up at these bungalow looking marinas since its so affordable. We have been anchored up the entire time since we constructed our boat to be self-sufficient.

    This town was created for sailors. Locals come to our boat every week trying to sell us local produce, cheese, jumbo shrimp, snook, lobster and more. The town is hectic and takes some getting used to. There is a 1 lane road that runs through the main town with huge truckers that plow through with no sidewalks so you have to be extremely careful to not get ran over. There are vendors everywhere alongside. Little dollar store looking shops, hardware stores, agricultural stores, plenty of produce shacks and local street food everywhere. Everywhere you look there are women making fresh tortillas on the side of the road & everything is SO cheap compared to the states! You can go out to eat for drinks and food for $15-20 US for two people and labor is $4/hour US!!

    So now getting to the not-so-great part. After being here for a week, we learned quickly we were in a third world country. We both caught the case of what the sailors call the Rio runs... basically what felt like a week long stomach flu. We didn't know that you are supposed to soak your produce in a vinegar solution prior to eating it since they don't spray their produce with pesticides here so that is what got us sick. In the magoes and cauliflower we could see little worksm crawling around! We were afraid we had parasites but fortunately testing came back negative for that. It must have been a bacterial thing. We both had to get on antibiotics to fight it off. Within the same time frame, Kendra bit into a frozen banana breaking one of her front teeth off so that has been a fun process trying to get that fixed in a country that doesn't have the best dental practices but thankfully there is nice place in town that could help put together a temporary fix until we go back home.

    All of that craziness set aside, we have been enjoying our time here. We have been able to settle down and focus on our work. One of our Gautemalan friends let us borrow his motorcyle one Sunday to go see the hot spring waterfall about 15 minutes outside of Rio Dulce. The waterfall poured scolding hot water down into a pool of cool water. The cruise on the motorcycle was beautiful. We got to see all the little towns in surrounding valleys and mountains. We have done a couple amazing hikes during our stay as well.

    As much as we are happy we have been able to experience Rio Dulce, we are anxious to set sail in October for the Bay Islands of Honduras to see crystal clear waters and reef life again. Thats where our love and passion lys and why we set sail in the first place. From there we will travel to Belize, Mexico and then do the big crossing over to the Florida Keys, up the east coast for Florida and cross over to the Abacos, Bahamas for another long season in the Bahamas and make our way down to the BVI's. Going to be a fun year ahead!    Leer más

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    Recap on our time in Rio Dulce

    29 de septiembre de 2022, Guatemala ⋅ 🌙 55 °F

    Today we get to part ways with a place that taught us more than we could have ever imagined.

    Rio Dulce became our home for the past three months as we moved through this years Hurricane season. We made some of the best friends in our little sailing community. Some that we hope to meet up with again in the Bahamas this next sailing season and some that we hope to cross sailing paths again. I will always love the part about meeting other sailors doing what we do and how quickly we become family friends. Our favorite part is hearing everyones stories about where they come from. We now have friends from Russia, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Canada and list goes on and on...

    The locals of Guatemala and culture was unbelievable. These people have very little yet they are always happy and helpful. Our favorite weekend in Guatemala was when we traveled out to Antigua to hike and camp on Volcano Acatenango with views of the active Volcano Fuego. Hands down, hardest hike we have ever done. We hiked over 10,500 feet up a straight vertical volcano. Once we got to the top, it was absolutely breathtaking. Fuego was erupting every 20 minutes. We could barely sleep through the night it was so loud and not to mention how chilly it was too! Fortunately, we had a campfire with hot chocolate and roasted marshmallows. The next day we hiked down the volcano and got to spend time exploring Antigua which Carson and I both decided is our favorite town we have visited so far. The town is completely surrounded by volcanoes, cobblestone roads, historic sites on every corner and the people and food are incredible. We fell in love with this town.

    The past month our boat was pulled out on the hard. The laborers were incredible and the work was affordable and they did a fantastic job. We discovered several nice cracks on the sides of the boat that they have to cut out and re-fiberglass. During that time we stayed in a little jungle cabana that literally was floating over the river water. It was nice to live in a house for a little bit but after a couple weeks we really missed out boat. Not to mention we really missed exploring in the open ocean. We have been itching to get out!

    During our time here, we learned something new about ourselves. We have realized how much traveling completes who we are. There's nothing we enjoy more than completely immersing ourselves into culture. Before we would talk about how we needed to make money to buy the next best performance catamaran but now all we talk about is where we can travel to see more culture. We now know thats just how the American culture is. We always want the next best thing in life and Americans will work their entire lives to get there. You meet other sailors out here and they don't have the nicest sailboats or nicest clothes. They have what they have and that allows them to see the world and meet new people. That resonated deep with us. We feel we have everything we need in life right now. We feel so fortunate.

    We have set sail to Belize in the midst of Hurricane season. WIth only being 30 miles away from Rio Dulce still we felt comfortable leaving knowing we can always go back to our safe little hurricane hole. We are so excited to be in the islands again and get back in the water to do some spearfishing!

    Honestly, it has been hard not feeling a sense of guilt living our lives out here while we watch family and friends suffer through what hurricane Ian did to our hometown. We will be back in a couple months and its going to be even more heartbreaking to see how things have changed.    Leer más

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    Do You Belize in Magic??

    11 de noviembre de 2022, Belice ⋅ ☀️ 75 °F

    It's been awhile since I have recapped on our travels but honestly its been the last thing on my mind with how much fun we have been having. Plus we had a big secret to keep... The past several months we knew Jes, Carson's sister, was going to Tulum, Mexico for her 30th Birthday at the end of October. We always planned to surprise her there but knew we were pushing our luck with it being the middle of hurricane season. When we arrived to Belize our travels got delayed a week or two due to a hurricane that was heading our way. We thought we were going to have to turn around and head back to Guatemala. I was NOT happy about this but it is the safest hurricane hole in the Caribbean. Turned out the hurricane turned and started heading towards Rio Dulce! We still got some pretty narly gusts from the bands but nothing we couldn't handle and wait out in Belize. We were still on track to surprise Jes so I had to turn my Find Penguins tracker off that way she would believe the BS we were telling her when we would catch up on the phone. Fortunately, the trustworthy sister believed everything we told her and her trustworthy husband kept the secret safe until the surprise weekend came. I will write about this in my Mexico recap next. :)

    So back to Belize. Once we left Guatemala and entered Belizean waters we were sailing almost every other day, exploring new anchorages a couple times a week, seeing new island towns and saying hi to our fish friends on the reefs. We were able to visit Placencia, South Water Caye, Caye Caulker, Turneff Atoll and San Pedro. It felt so good to go spearfishing again!!!

    The towns in Belize were by far the coolest island towns we have ever been to. They are TRUE island towns and people. We loved how there wasn't any high rises (except for in San Pedro) or huge resorts. Everything was wooden shacks with bright tropical colors and the roads were just sand. The people had a lazy, laid-back mentality. When we would ask them if they were excited for their towns season to begin, they would respond with an absolutely not. Haha. All they wanted to do was chill, hangout and drink some Belikin beers. It's nice to be somewhere where time isn't always a priority. Us Americans are always in a rush trying to do the next best thing or make more money. We are so guilty of this. These people are just plain simple. Happy with what they have.

    We were so impressed with the clarity of the water in Belize. We dove a few reefs, one that was just absolutely beautiful. The coolest part was being surrounded by huge tarpon and permit and everywhere you looked there seemed to be eagle rays sweeping the ocean floors. They were so curious and would stick around during our whole dive.

    Turneff Atoll was the only place we slayed the spearfishing! When we started our dive there was nothing. It was pretty and clear but there wasn't much reef. Then all the sudden we start seeing conchs. Not just a few, there were hundreds!! We scooped up 12 to stock up our freezer then we took off to the ledge to see if we could find some fish. RIght away, Carson nailed a hogfish and within 5 mintues i shot two huge black grouper! Carson shot one too but the spear tip went in and out of the fish. Bummer but really we had plenty of fish to eat...

    We were in heaven. Only an hour or two dive and we loaded up the freezer with fresh seafood! It took us hours to clean all the conch and fish but we weren't bothered by it. Sunset was beautiful, we were the only boat in the anchorage and life couldn't get much better. While we were cleaning and cooking fish, a boat came up behind our boat. We couldn't see who it was because it was pitch black. It was the park rangers informing us that there is a daily per person fee to be there and that the whole area is a protected park. Oops... we had no idea. There is absolutely no information online about rules and regulations in Belize waters. You don't even need a fishing permit there! We had all of our dive equipment laying out to dry, Carson was at the fish cleaning station. We were caught red handed. Fortunately, they never asked if we caught anything but we knew they knew. They saw all our stuff laying out on the boat. We got lucky!! They were coming back the next morning to collect the park fees so at the crack of dawn Carson jumped in the water to scatter the conchs away from under the boat that way they couldn't see the shells. No wonder why we had the best day diving. Those fish are never hunted!

    Belize was amazing and we will definitely be back to have more time there. A few weeks was definitely not long enough.    Leer más

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    We Mexi-CAN! Surprise visit :)

    13 de noviembre de 2022, Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

    Our sailing trip from Belize to Mexico was the fastest, roughest sail we have experienced yet. Wind against current don't go hand and hand but we were having fun cruising at 10 knots like it was nothing! We arrived to Cozmeul, Mexico to check in. Worst check in experience we have had throughout all our journey's. We got hussled out of $ and they searched the entire inside of the boat. Was it really necessary to have 7 officials on our boat?! Craziness. We gave them $ and told them it was time for them to go. They sent the check in paperwork via text and we were on our way to Adventuras Marina where we docked the boat for the week.

    This was the big week! We left our little hurricane hole in Guatemala early to make here to celebrate Jes' 30th Birthday! At this point in our trip we haven't seen family in over 6 months so we were so excited to make this trip happen. We would catch up with Jes & Mike over the phone every other week or so. We made her believe we were still in southern Belize waiting it out until the end of Hurricane season. So did she know ;) We rented a little yellow bug like stick shift car from the marina to take us over to Tulum where we would surprise her. Mike arranged to us meet them at a resort where they planned to have happy hour and watch sunset. We arrived a little beforehand and waited until we got the text that they were there. We hid behind some bushes while they went up to the bar to grab drinks. We snuck up behind them and acted like a server asking if they would like to order some drinks. The look on Jes' face when she turned around and saw us there was worth a million dollars. An unforgettable moment and fortunately Rob caught it all in pictures. Somehow someway we pulled off the best surprise ever! Our few days with them in Tulum were amazing. We ate amazing food, took the crew out on the boat sailing and snorkeling and made memories worth a lifetime!

    After Tulum, we sailed South to Isla Mujeres where we staged for about a moth before we made our big crossing back to Naples. Huge sailing community here but also a HUGE tourist location too. We didn't seem to mind the business that the tourism brought after being cooped up in Ro Dulce for 5 months. There was great restaurants and happy hours everyday. Some of the most amazing margaritas for el cheapo too! The diving was the most beautiful we have seen yet. There was a super neat underwater art museum that we dove with sculptures of people playing music, kids playing, pregnant women, animals, etc. It was so neat to see the reef structures growing on the sculptures. We did try to spearfish one day but there was absolutely no fish to shoot! That was kind of bummer. The anchorage we were in was known as the bowling alley. We soon found out what that really meant on a stormy windy evening. There were boats dragging all over the place. 1 that was heading straight for us. Sailors were out there on their dinghy's trying to hold dragging boats off their boats. We were prepared to drop ours in the water if need be but fortunately the one boat that was coming for us was able to move his boat and get it anchored in front of us (still not very reassuring having him in front of us though). It was quite the experience!

    Our final week here was Thanksgiving week. We offered to host a group of 15 people. Some people we knew from Rio Dulce and some that we had met in the anchorage during our time there. Everyone including us were feeling a bit homesick not being with family for the holiday but when everyone came together it almost felt like we were all family! We did a pot luck style. We took on making the turkey, stuffing and gravy in our little easy bake oven. Our first time ever making a turkey and it turned out amazing! Thanks to my Mom for picking up our dozen phone calls with questions on how to make everything. Our guest were raving about how good it was and i must say it was one of the best we have had too. The coolest thing about this day was seeing our sailing community come together to make a beautiful Thanksgiving happen. Everyone went out of their way to bring something to the table. Even Sailor Bob brought over a rusty salt corded can of cranberry. Everyone was so appreciative for putting on the dinner. Sailors are the most thankful and caring I have ever met. I feel so fortunate to be meeting people like this all over the world!    Leer más

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    The End of our 1st Sailing Trip

    27 de noviembre de 2022, Estados Unidos ⋅ ⛅ 82 °F

    Wow. Our first sailing adventure has come to end. We are currently sailing across the Gulf of Mexico. It's pitch black out. The stars are so bright, it looks like freight trains coming at me. Endless amounts of shooting stars tonight. Seascape is calm & winds are settle. Maintaining a little over 5 knots which isn't great but I'm not complaining its so unbelievably peaceful. I'm just sitting here at the helm station sipping on my matcha taking the first shirt of the night.

    Today has felt so surreal. We left home 8 months ago to embark on our 1st sailing journey. We crossed 3 oceans and visited 5 countries. Made so many new friends, learned a lot about sailing, new cultures and got to see some of the most beautiful remote places most people will never get to see. I can't tell you what has been my favorite experience. I have enjoyed it all. Even the bad and ugly has a beauty to it because it's an experience I will never forget. I truly never want this adventure to end. It's a weird kind of addiction that probably only makes sense if you live the life of a sailor. There are so many ups and downs to this lifestyle but when I look back I remember more of the good times then the bad. I feel like my life before tended to relish more on the bad than the good. Why is that? Why do people back home always talk about the negative incidents that happen to them more than the positive ones. Maybe because back home all the good incidents are so relatable and the bad incidents are the ones that stand out the most. I guess that's the stuff people are more curious to learn about. Now, my life isn't relatable at all. My experiences are unique and authentic.

    This life has given me the confidence I have been needing. I no longer care so much about my appearance or if I am fitting in with the crowd. Materialistic things don't matter as much now. My life is simplified.

    Gosh, I remember back in February when we were taking shack down cruises to the Keys. I can't even begin to describe what that feeling was like, taking Iwa sailing in the open waters for the first time. We were sailing our new home! So much freedom and excitement. The feeling is so different now from then. It's become a "norm" for us now but there's still no contentment, which I love. The second your content is when you need to change things up and continue to evolve. We are always being challenged out here. There's not a day that goes by that I take this life for granted or feel any regret. I will do whatever it takes to sustain this life forever. Everyday on this boat gives me more motivation to keep chugging along with my career in trading. Hopefully we can inspire others to do the same one day. That's the next goal.

    The curiosity never stops, the new adventures are always beginning and meaningful relationships mean more now than ever. I feel changed. Changed in a good way.

    ...

    January 2023 begins the next sailing adventure...the eastern Caribbean.    Leer más

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  • Sailing Clam ShackSailing Around the WorldViajero

    Homebound for Christmas

    10 de diciembre de 2022, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 75 °F

    After a month in Isla Mujeres our weather window finally appeared to cross the Gulf of Mexico and head to Naples for the month. We had a fantastic sail across the Gulf considering we had to cross the Gulf Stream twice! We caught two mahi and jumped one sailfish, fresh mahi for two days, sign me up! The final stretch into Naples was something out of a spooky movie, thick fog and glass calm waters made for quite an interesting final approach. 400 miles later we anchored off of our favorite beach in Naples at 3 am and got some much needed sleep before heading into Naples Bay the next morning. After 3500 miles of sailing and 5 countries Naples was our most challenging place to anchor! After skimming bottom twice and striking out on our 3 options we found a bay in Port Royal that finally worked.

    Our time in FL was filled with much needed family time and seeing friends. We did a big lap around the state to see all of our fam. Thank you Dr. Caputo for helping Kendra with her beautiful smile in such a small period of time! We also had to pick up a new dinghy due to our old one slowly sinking, no bueno! The new dinghy also got a new name, called Sea Wally, after being crushed on a seawall being tossed in the water. Long story..

    Christmas was the highlight of our trip home. being able to have Christmas with Kendra & my family was truly a treat!

    Shortly after Christmas day we prepared our floating home for our next year of adventures. We had a 600 mile sail ahead of us and 2 crew willing to get a feel for what sailing was truly about. Kendra, Ken, Ana & I pulled anchor on Dec 29th from Marco Island and set sail for a month in Hopetown, Bahamas!    Leer más

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  • Sailing Clam ShackSailing Around the WorldViajero

    Hopetown Hometown

    4 de enero de 2023, Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

    Our hearts are in Hopetown. We have sailed to so many beautiful places this past year and Hopetown still remains our favorite place to visit. Not only because one of the best days of my life was at the top of the lighthouse there but also because it just feels like home. It’s all in one package there. Happy people, killer spearfishing, unlimited amounts of lobster and conch, the best restaurants in The Bahamas, fun bars and the list jsut goes on and on. We were lucky enough to spend 2 months there with family visiting. It was quite a treat to be able to have our boat on the dock in front of the rental house for a month too. Family dinners and hot showers at the Point House every evening was one of my favorite things about being right there. Oh and we could also do our workouts on stable land! Ha!

    We had the best time with my Dad and Ana bring there for the month. Some days a little too much fun that we couldn’t even focus on fishing! So we ended up at the famous Firefly bar. Say no more, if you know, you know.. When Pat came out the weather was awful unfortunately but we made some of the best memories. We biked the entire island, bar hopping along the way. Dad & Pat took some nice slow falls. Icing on the cake was when Pat drove the bike right into the bushes at Firefly. I was laughing so hard I about pee’d my pants! We’ll give her some credit though… That was the last bar we went to and it was getting dark so our vision wasn’t the best.

    When Kyle showed up it was another nasty chilly weekend but that didn’t stop this crew from getting all the spearfishing time we could! One day, Carson and Kyle were in the water for 1 hour and it was jsut fish after fish. They were pulling up hogfish, grouper, mackerel! Quite the variety. It’s jsut so east in the Abaco’s that it makes it that much more fun. Last year Kyle made good friends with the lighthouse keeper and his family. He was able to give us a private tour of how the light the kerosene lighthouse. It was so neat! Pretty remarkable that the wick is as tiny as a candle light that lights that entire lighthouse. The next day they all came over and taught us how to prepare a traditional Bahamian Sunday dinner. This was such treat and a night I will never forget. I was in the kitchen making lobster, cracked conch, fried fish, coleslaw, Mac n cheese, potato salad and let’s not forget the banana pancakes for dessert! This family were some of the most down to earth beautiful people. I felt so fortunate to get to know all of them!

    Once all of our family left it was just Carson and I on anchor again. It took a few weeks before we had a weather window to sail south. The plan is to make to Grenada for hurricane season this year. In the meantime, we met some really cool new sailing friends and hangout with some old friends we met in Guatemala that had sailed there too! We also got to check out some of the songwriters music festival while we were there. It was hard to say goodbye to Hopetown but we were ready to be on the move again. We have to be in the BVI’s by April. We have some very special guests coming to visit!

    Until next time Hopetown <3 We will see you for our wedding in December :)    Leer más

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    Fin del viaje
    4 de enero de 2023