I realized yesterday that I hadn’t written a blog post in 3 years. I surprised that I just stopped writing the blogs. I’m also surprised I stopped exercising. Both of those were something I enjoyed and did consistently. Both of those stopped because they became too much for me to handle as my bandwidth became constrained due to other demands. I still feel that way right now, in the middle of the closing on the sale of our beloved St Francis 50, but I’m disappointed that I haven’t kept up with the blog (and exercising). I have so many thoughts right now I felt it was time to write something down.

For months and months now (it’s Nov. 14, 2025 as I sit down and write this) I’ve been having Big Feelings and thoughts. The overarching emotion though is pride, quickly followed by gratitude. I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished. It was tough! It took an enormous amount of effort and resources to do it. It’s a little bit crazy to grenade a career at 45 and start spending gobs of cash. But I am SO grateful we’ve done it. My god what a thing we’ve done! We sailed most of the way around the world. We’ve visited some of the most remote islands in the entire world. We’ve done it together as a family. Wow!

I’m struggling with a number of things right now but what I’m most struggling with is the unsatisfied desire to do a debrief with people. I want to reminisce! I want to talk about Reunion and Madagascar and Mozambique and Namibia and St Helena and Fiji with others who have done it. I want to talk about crossing the Indian Ocean and getting beaten up in the North Brazil Current off Guyana with people. I want to talk about how great our boat is, the build quality, the great sailing characteristics and how important these traits are on ocean passages but most people don’t care about this. Why do I want to talk about this? I have no idea! I just do. I can’t explain it. I long for the chats we would have with Rod and Jane from Magic Dragon about boats, gear, tactics for passages, anchoring in remote areas, cooking, etc. I guess I miss the brotherhood of those of us who have done it. I want to talk to someone who’s done it before and compare notes. These people know how tough and rewarding it is. The effortless, quiet confidence of all those sailors we hung out with in Africa was such a cool experience. We had done it! We had crossed the Indian Ocean and braved the Mozambique Channel. We had survived the Wild Coast. No bragging, no sea stories, we all knew. That was cool.

I also want to talk about the amazing things we’ve done. We fucking sailed to Namibia! How cool is that?! But I don’t think people really want to hear too much about that. It’s why we’ve also stopped posting as much to social media. It just left us feeling a bit self concious. It became impossible for us to convey just how cool the experiences were without feeling like assholes. It was strange to keep throwing up pictures of us *having a great time!* and watching the “likes” roll in. It just didn’t feel real, but it was! It was also impossible on social media to capture the hard stuff and even just the fact that in general, we were living our day-to-day lives—albeit on a boat, in generally cool places. There were lots of tough times and the making things happen that weren’t easy.

I keep coming back to being grateful we’ve done this. I am so grateful we took the leap and, then, doubled down by buying this amazing boat in New Zealand. It turbocharged our adventure and set us up for having to do a lot of miles. Despite the rough start, this boat—after a lot of work to make us trust it—has been amazing. Angelo Lavranos designed a winner. St Francis built one hell of a boat. It has been comfortable, safe and luxurious. It has been fast and sturdy. It has been a welcoming home to come back to day after day. I would buy it again in a heartbeat. I truly struggle to come up with a different boat that I’d prefer without adding a few million to the cost. It’s been that good. It is how I would like to be: quiet, confident, accomplished. That is the St Francis 50. I will be forever grateful that we discovered it (thank you, Noonsun) and that we bought it.

As I sit here, in Brunswick, Georgia, two days before we leave this boat for good, I am also overwhelmed by how grateful I am to have done this with my family. I continue to feel overwhelmed by what we’ve seen and done. Our life, for the past 4.5 years, has been month after month of adventure and accomplishment. It has been challenging but so rewarding (and exhausting!). But we’ve done it together. We are such a well-oiled machine at this point. The boys have become so good at boat life. So helpful with the sailing and day to day rigors of keeping a boat sailing around the world. Anchoring, sailing, dinghy stuff, dishes, beach adventures, exploring, sailing the Tiwal dinghy, meeting new families, bonfires, hikes, swimming, snorkeling, school. While I know that it’s time for us to go back to a regular life I fear that we may be a bit bored. I think, perhaps, this is why I want to share our adventures with others who have done it before. I want to hang on to that sense of adventure.

Each time I think about what we’ve done, how excited it makes me and the sorrow I feel for it being over, I just keep coming back to gratitude. I am so glad we took the risk. I am so glad we stuck it out when it was tough. I’m so glad we pushed hard to go further. I am just so satisfied and proud that we did it.