Hello everyone! We left Terceira, Azores on June 12, 2019 and our next port will be Porto, Portugal.
By becoming a Patron you can follow our path in real-time and message us directly to the boat while we are cruising.
While we are crossing the Atlantic to the Mainland, we will be writing many blog posts so they will resume once we have internet access again and can upload them.
See you then!
Maddie has always painted a mural on our keel. Our first haul out of our voyage was in the first week, and that is when Maddie began this tradition. That first mural was done with topside paint and quickly grew many things! That was a valuable lesson to Maddie to paint in bottom paint.
The second mural was in Florida and we applied what we had learned! Seeing the mural while snorkeling was very awesome.
This, our third mural, was once again painted by Maddie the morning before we splashed in the Azores.
Birds!
3 years ago, Maddie and I started our lives together. Little did we know that three years would take us so far away.
Now we are thousands of miles from where we started and an entire ocean away! Shortly after the wedding, we told our families that we were going Cruising full time and spent the first year of our marriage preparing the boat for passage making.
From there we have been strengthening our relationship by spending every moment together as we voyaged down the East Coast and then across the Atlantic Ocean.
Now we sit in the Azores, preparing for another ocean passage to make our way to mainland Portugal, and we get to spend weeks at sea without any distractions from our relationship.
We are back in the boat and ready it finish the galley with all the finishing touches.
Maddie painted tiles with glazing that I will then mount with 3M 4200. The 4200 will adhere them to the bulkhead while also sealing out water from the gap in the galley.
We flew back to the states to visit family, our pets, and earn some cruising money! Last time we came back, I waited a full week before I started working so that I had plenty of time to be with our pets.
A full week just for the pets was awesome! They quickly forgave us for leaving and greatly enjoyed having us home again.
Then I went to work and only saw them after a hard days work. This was fine and after a few weeks of working, we returned to the boat.
We didn’t desperately need the money, so there wasn’t a desperate urge to go to work. The real desire was to be with our pets. This last time was different; we really needed a lot of money and had a very limited amount of time to earn it.
My first day back, I started working like a dog! I was pulling wisdom teeth on multiple patients per day, drilling crowns and fillings, and even doing cleanings. If I was at the office, I was working hard! This went on for a solid 4 weeks, until the day before we are to return to the boat. I have earned the money that we need to pay for our year on the hard at the marina, so the stress of working has been lifted.
I spent all day today with our pets and I realized that while I have been here for a full month, I haven’t really been “home”.
Everyday was work work work, then I would see the pets in the afternoon while I worked on the blog or YouTube vídeos. Then I went to sleep and began the process again.
After a full month of this, we have earned enough money to continue and are ready to leave, but we will greatly miss our pets, and friends & family. This month back home didn’t really feel like “home time” and instead “work time”.
Hopefully, the next time we come home, I won’t have such a chunk of money needing to be earned so I can be more relaxed about it and enjoy our time away from the boat.
Tomorrow we begin our journey to the boat and shortly thereafter we will shove off from the Azores and head to mainland Portugal!
