Catch Up

During 2001-2004 Jeff and I bought a house in Fort Lauderdale (a great place to outfit a cruising boat!) on a canal where we could tie the boat up. With the amount of re-fit work we did on No News, it was an ideal situation. Our 'shakedown' cruise was in July of 2002 to the Bahamas.


We arrived home in August with a full notebook page of things to do before we set off permanently. Jeff is amazing with tools, a sewing machine, and basically everything marine, and he managed to make our boat a home.

In March of 2004 Jeff and I tied the knot.

On the Schooner America, in Key West. Fitting, no?

On July 1, 2004 we moved aboard our 35' Wauquiez Pretorien, No News. We sold and gave away all of our possessions which was incredibly liberating, I cried when one lady bought all of my shoes, but I truly felt lighter afterwards.

(Cute huh? We're having cocktail hour on our front lawn because we had no furniture inside the house!)

In November when hurricane season was over (and we voted in Broward County, Florida) we set sail. The PLAN was to sail to New Zealand and apply for residency. We truly were not thrilled with they way the political situation in the US was headed and felt that residency in a neutral country couldn't hurt....

In the beginning....

I guess to catch you all up, I'll have to start at the very beginning.


(Yes, this is Jeff circa 1999, shortly after we met!)

Jeff and I met in Harbor Springs at the LTYC Regatta way back in 1999, I was at the tender age of 20! We both have slightly different stories of what exactly happened that weekend, but we both distinctly remember sitting outside Irish's by the pay phone. We were chatting (Jeff's attempt at flirting?) and I was trying to act 'cool'. I remember saying that I was going to sail around the world someday (I think I was reading 'Maiden Voyage' by Tania Aebi for the 3rd or 4th time) Jeff said "me too, I just haven't found the interested party yet" I raised my hand and said 'here I am'....

The next full year was filled with road trips, me helping him with his business in Chicago and various other places, and the quest for 'the boat'. We also did quite a bit of practice cruising around the Florida Keys on Jeff's Dad's Compac 19, now thats close quarters!

Finding the right boat for distance cruising is a bit like finding the perfect mate. Its a long journey filled with a lot of duds, but when you find it you know... (funny I should say that, Jeff and I are on our second perfect boat now! but that's another story for another post).

Jeff and I drove to Nova Scotia to look at a boat. We flew to California. We looked at, picked apart, and denied boats all over the US and Canada on the Internet. And finally in September of 2001 we found a 35' Wauquiez Pretorien for sale in Hollywood, FL. Jeff had spent a fair amount of time on a 33' Wauquiez Gladiator in his youth sailing with family friends, so he knew the construction, seaworthiness and sail performance fairly well. Another positive for the Pretorien, Hal Roth who was one of the world's leading authorities on sailing and adventure writing, owned one as his final yacht! You don't get much better than that.


So now its 2001, we own 'the boat'... whats next?