Welcome to our website.  We've designed this site to enable you to share in our journey from pre-conception to fruition and through.  We hope you enjoy it.

The decision to embark on a journey such as this was made 13 years ago, while we sailed our Edel 820, Moo View with our 3 sons and the dog.  Initially we intended to "sail around the world" and take 3 to 5 years to do it, so we set a date.  We decided that 2007 would work well as our kids would essentially be grown and hopefully independent, Cheryl's parents would still be young and hopefully healthy, and we would still be young and healthy and hopefully not grandparents yet.  We didn't know how we would make it happen and if we had to, we would take Moo View.
As the years went by our experience and knowledge grew and thankfully so did the kids and the boat.  We no longer planned to "sail around the world", after all, what if we ended up enjoying some exotic location so much that we decided to stay put?  It could happen.  So the plan was altered.  We would go as far as we wanted for as long as it was fun and the funds held out.
We purchased Gypsy Blues (then called Expresso1) in 2004, sold the big house in the city in 2005 and moved into our townhouse in Collingwood, Ontario.  As it turns out we moved up our departure date by one full year to 2006.   So we had to make quick work of selling the townhouse, unloading the cars and storing the furniture we wanted to keep.  In addition to making the boat ready we had to make sure that our sons and our parents were ready, plus our own affairs were in order.  There were visits with the lawyer, accountant, doctor, travel clinic, OHIP, dentist, orthodontist, ophthalmologist, bank managers, insurance agent, investment manager and of course, family and friends.  We left our home dock of Bay Port Marina in Midland on July 17th, and left Canada on September 20th.  We were on our way.

FAQ
Question:  How long will you be away?
Answer:  As long as it's fun and the funds hold out.

Question:  Where do you plan to go?
Answer:  We'll start with the Caribbean and go from there.

Question:  What kind of job did you have that you could just quit?
Answer:  That's the beauty of any job.  You can always quit.

Question:  What do you do about health care?
Answer:  Stay healthy.  Failing that, pay for what you get, it's less costly outside of North America, and if worst comes to worst we have critical illness insurance.

Question:  What will you do when you return?
Answer:  Don't you mean "if" we return?

The Bottom Line:
Plan "to" journey, not "the" journey.
 

Updates:

14 Jun 2010
 

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