Don’t get me wrong, I love living in our Lance 1685 travel trailer. I love the RV lifestyle.
But what happens when your dream was to sail off into the sunset. Then one morning you wake up and realize you did it? After years spent dreaming and planning, we sailed off into the sunset 15 winters. Now we’re trading the cruising lifestyle for an RV lifestyle … at least temporarily.
Winterlude in Savannah Bight, Guanaja in the Bay Islands of Honduras — anchored at Josh Cay to be exact.
We just sold our boat!
We’re both still in a bit of shock. We didn’t anticipate officially putting the boat on the market and having an offer the first day.
Good thing we already have dreams beyond sailing off into the sunset! We bought our Lance 1685 travel trailer more than a year ago anticipating traveling to the national parks in SW Utah (places our boat couldn’t take us). We’ve been spoiled taking our home with us wherever we travel, so a travel trailer seemed to provide some of the same advantages as the sailboat. Our plan was spend several months seeing some southwest national parks and then sell the trailer. But we loved it!
Adorable (and persistent) mola salesperson at Achutupu in the far Eastern San Blas Islands.
Originally our boating “dream” was to buy my own molas in the San Blas Islands, Panama. But at the time, I didn’t own a boat.
And didn’t even know how to sail. I just thought it would be amazing to sail off into the sunset. And we did.
Sunset sailing to Cuba
We cruised with the dolphins, eagle rays and sea turtles through the Western Caribbean, Belize, Bay Islands. We beat to windward against the prevailing easterlies to round the corner and sail south to Providencia & San Andres, Colombia.
1st Anniversary, Josh’s Cay, Guanaja, Bay Islands, Honduras
We danced barefoot on the sand.
We spent almost a year cruising through the San Blas Islands (bought a stack of molas more than 6″ high … one at a time), to Cartegena, Colombia. Discovered one of our favorite ever places in Sapzurro, Colombia (mainland coast border with Panama) Six years, six months at a time.
We sailed the Great Bahamas Banks the through the Exumas, spending as much time as we could in the Exumas Land & Sea Park – another of our favorite places.
For years I wanted to sail to Cuba …. and finally this year, that dream came true.
The dreams all came true – due to hard work and perseverance, alot of sweat mixed with fleeting moments of terror. And, of course, “fixing things in exotic locales”.
For the past several years, we’ve been wondering … what next? What’s the next dream? Beyond Cuba. And the answer?
We’re not entirely sure, but part of the answer is to spend more time traveling in our Lance 1685 travel trailer. Now that we’re not juggling the boat and exploring in our Lance 1685, we can concentrate this fall and winter on land travel.
And finding warm enough weather that David can wear his shorts all winter long. Anyone with suggestions is more than welcome to comment. So far our tentative plan is to go south and follow the US southern coastline west in search of sun, sand and warm weather!
See you out there!
Cheers! Jan & David
3 Comments
Wow, Jan, that’s a big step! Congrats on being brave enough to let go when the time is right.
As to wearing shorts all winter, I suspect you’ll find that in the southwest. I have other friends who live the RV lifestyle, and that’s where they winter. (They also sold their boat a couple of years ago after spending years dividing their time between ship and shore.)
It’s one of the saddest days of a sailors life. Change is never easy, but it opens the doors to new adventures and new possibilities. May you have many safe and exciting miles ahead:)
Change is NOT easy! But we’ve been everywhere we dreamed of sailing in the boat and so it’s onward to new adventures. In the meantime, I miss the boat, but I’m sure when the fall comes and we don’t transition back aboard as we have in years past, it will be more obvious. Need to get our trailer out of storage pointed west! 🙁 and :)! Cheers! Jan