Tomorrow is the Day: Goodbye Puerto Rico, Hello Adventure

Tomorrow is the day we’ve been counting down to all hurricane season. Tomorrow we’ll wake up with the sun, set sail, and start Part 2 of our sailing adventure. To say that we’re excited is an understatement. We’ve been busting our butts and knocking out boat project after boat project the last two weeks to prepare us for this moment. We’re exhausted, but we know how rejuvenating the seas can be and tomorrow all our hard work will pay off.

But like most changes in life, this one is bittersweet. We can’t wait to explore the Leeward and Windward Islands, but it’s not easy saying goodbye to the place we’ve called home for the last four months. Our experience in mainland Puerto Rico has been nothing short of incredible. We hiked through a rainforest, spent countless hours on the beach with the pups, and soaked up the beauty of magnificent waterfalls throughout the entire island. We discovered Puerto Rico’s history in charming Old San Juan, expanded our pallets at farmer’s markets, and danced to live salsa music in the streets. We now love drinking Medallas and playing Dominos, usually at the same time. We filled our bellies with empanadillas, pinchos, and arepas from food stands while we admired amazing street art. And we even got the chance to share this beautiful island with my family one week, where we made memories that will last a life time. Puerto Rico will always have a special place in my heart.

However, it is not the beautiful scenery or fiery culture that we will miss most when we say goodbye to mainland Puerto Rico tomorrow. During our time here, we’ve made some incredible friends. Meet Sergio!

From our first night on land when he drove us to the grocery store to our last weekend on the island when he celebrated with us late into the night, Sergio has made our Puerto Rico experience truly special. He’s introduced us to new friends, taken us to music festivals, shown us around San Juan, and once acted as our translator when we took a CPR class in Spanish. His contagious laugh and big personality has made everything from sipping beers on the beach to watching movies a blast. One fabulous weekend he even let us bring our pups aboard his sailboat (s/v 26) for a trip to Isla Piñero with our sailing buds from s/v Wanderlust. Our Puerto Rico experience would not have been the same without him. And while we know our paths will cross again, we’ll miss seeing this big smile each week.

But the time has come for us to continue our adventure. We moved on board Thursday and have been readjusting to living on a boat. For the most part we all fell right back into our boat life routines. I was quickly reminded that simple tasks on land are not as simple on the boat. Making coffee and toast is now a 20-minute task instead of a push of a button as it once was. But time is something we have plenty of and it feels great to be back home. Watching the sunset over the water from the cockpit is still my favorite moment of each day.

Tomorrow we start our second cruising season and we can’t wait to see what it has in store for us. Since we spent a month in the BVI last season, we’ll be zipping by the Virgin Islands this year and heading to St. Martin where we’ll meet up with a couple of my friends from college. Then we’ll continue south through the Leeward and Windward Islands, wherever the wind takes us. We’re looking forward to stuffing our faces with French food, hiking volcanoes, scuba diving gorgeous reefs, lobstering and fishing, and of course discovering beautiful beaches for our pups to run on.  It’s impossible to beat the feel of sailing to someplace unknown and we have a lot of new places to discover this season. Kairos has been dusted off, polished, and refilled. We are ready to go!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Mark Twain