Upon our arrival in Mauritius in early July, I had no idea I’d be hopping on a plane two weeks later and headed back to North America to see my mom in Colorado, my first trip back in 18 months. She decided to list our family home in the mountains for sale in late June. She and my dad had built the house themselves when I was a kid and while I never lived there full-time, like she does now, it has been a constant in my life for 30-plus years. She thought the house would take up to a year to sell. Instead, it sold in two days, over-asking. I knew I had to go back and help her pack up and see the house one last time. Thankfully, our anchorage in Mauritius was a safe, comfortable place to leave Brian with the boys and the boat. 

The itinerary to get back to Colorado was probably one of the best I could have hoped for considering the distance I was traveling. A 12-hour direct flight from Mauritius to Paris, a 4.5-hour layover, then a 10-hour direct flight from Paris to Denver. From there, a two-hour drive up into the mountains to the cabin. All told, door-to-door, it was about 32 hours of travel time to cover about 10,800 miles. That’s almost exactly the number of miles we’ve traveled by boat in the last 12 months! 

My preference for sailing was driven home 24 hours after I landed back in Mauritius. With an encroaching spell of bad weather, including 15-foot waves, we had a short window to sail the 150 miles to the island of Reunion, but we would need to leave the morning after I got back. Our anchor was up at 6:30 am to head south to check out. By noon, we were cleared out and on our way. It was a whirlwind and I was sleep-deprived, but we were rewarded with champagne sailing conditions for the majority of the trip. 

For speed of travel, the plane obviously can’t be beat. I’ve always loved traveling and prior to this trip, the majority of it has been by plane. But I can’t say I prefer plane travel. It is something to be endured to get where you want to go quickly. The seats are more cramped than ever before, three of my four flights were packed. The lines at the airport started when you walked in the door, followed by waiting, waiting, waiting at every step, then flight delays, all while getting successively more exhausted. I ended my jaunt back to Mauritius more tired than I was after our 11-day Indian Ocean crossing. 

My jet lag worked in our favor—I slept most of the afternoon, into the evening (in our wonderfully comfortable bed, which I have a new appreciation for after sleeping in an airplane seat!). I took over the night watch at 8:30 pm, sending Brian off to bed and telling him I’d wake him when I was tired. I remained wide awake, though, and proceeded to enjoy a stellar night of stargazing and listening to music, while we sailed 8 knots in 12-14 knots of breeze across flat seas. It was like a magic carpet ride across the ocean. I easily stayed up through the night until I finally gave in at 5:30 am. 

At 9 am, I was roused by shouts of, “Whales, whales!!” I hurried up on deck to join my family in watching humpback whales welcome us to the island. By 10 am, we had docked and completed one of our easiest and fastest ever check-ins with the super friendly French authorities. As a fellow cruiser said of the check-in here, “I think I’ve waited at red lights longer.” I may have not gone as far in those 22 hours as I would have on a flight, but I sure enjoyed the beauty and peace of the trip more. Traveling this way certainly embodies the saying, “it’s about the journey, not the destination.”

On my overnight flight back to Mauritius, unable to sleep, I had stared out the window as we flew over the beautiful Croatian coastline, where we originally planned to be cruising this summer. Across Egypt, then down through the Red Sea, where the lights of Jeddah (below) spread over an area much larger than I had imagined when we talked about stopping there during our transit to the Med. All these interesting places I’d still like to visit—but definitely by boat. While it won’t be on this lap around, maybe sometime in the future. Even once our trip ends next year, I truly hope it won’t be the last time I live and travel slowly by boat.