Reflections

It’s been quite a while since there’s been an update on this blog. Rest assured it’s not for lack of adventure, on the contrary, we’ve had too much!

I’ve written quite a few blog posts, and they are long, very long and also quite unfinished. Since they are unfinished and not ready to publish I’ve decided to write something new.

Right now I’m sitting in the Kawau boating club, waiting for the New Year’s eve celebrations to start. I’m looking out over the water at Taleisin and thinking back to the year that’s has been.

Here’s a quick summary of the adventures we’ve had since I last published anything on this blog:

• I broke a finger while sailing in 25 knots and 2 meter seas, naturally while doing something stupid.

• We saved 2 power boats in the marina on a Sunday afternoon, our neighbors on either side of us. The second one quite possibly involved me saving a life, I have the scar to prove it too.

• We had a near death in the family, then the adventures really kicked into high gear.

• Our ship’s cat was finally overcome by his failing kidneys after an episode of arrhythmic right ventricular tachycardia.

• Annie’s 93 year-old grandmother passed away shortly after, she left Annie with the gift of getting to know her family.

• At this point we were ready to run away and we had a trip to the USA planned for 6 weeks.

• We spent 4 weeks in Alaska, driving adventures, and another epic sailing adventure with the usual things that can go wrong. We’re still laughing about it, so life is good.

• After Alaska we spent a week in Port Townsend and enjoyed another wooden boat festival. At this point we changed our plans to extend our adventures in the USA. This allowed us to spend 2 weeks in Port Townsend with the wonderful new and old friends we made.

• Leaving Seattle we spent 21 days driving down to Santa Barabara - CA, across to Roswell - NM, up through Colarado, then Wyoming and eventually ended up spending 3 weeks with Annie’s sister in Des Moines - IA. This made for a 12 weeek adventure that was never planned. Naturally, as always, we had a fantastic time doing it.

• After we left the USA we spent 2 weeks in Sydney, being sick and catching up with both our brothers. When we returned home to Taleisin in November we were more than ready to be back home.

• Returning to Taleisin, we were faced with the work required to fix the wood rot on the rub rail before we could move. This lead to adventures in woodworking. To add more variables to the mix Annie decided to strip the bad varnish off the bumpkin and redo it. This was naturally not a job compatible with wood working…

We eventually managed to get on top of all the work required and we sailed into North Cove a few days ago. It’s almost like we’re finally ready to take it easy after a huge ‘adventure load’.

Reflecting back on 2017, it was an intersting year. We both stopped working fulltime and tried to do no work. While we’ve been successful in this aspect, we’ve been presented with challenges that would have been impossible to overcome if we were still working. We’ve also been able to have adventure on a scale that we’ve never been able to have before, due to work commitments. While we’ve had some sad times with the loss of a family member and our beloved ship’s cat, we’ve also had fantastic opportunities to get to know some family that we’ve never really known. We might not have been able to connect with all our family this year, but at least we’ve managed to spend quality time with some family.

While I still have to write about a lot of adventures (breaking my finger is certainly a story worth telling), I will get around to it eventually. Hopefully this quick short summary will give you some insight into the level of adventure Taleisin has brought to our lives. While not all adventure was aboard Taleisin, it was all because of Taleisin. Taleisin was the reason we got invited to Alaska, the rest unfurled from there. The only caviat was acepting new adventures as they presented themselves.

I hope that all our readers have had a fantastic 2017, but may 2018 bring you better and bigger adventures!

Happy new year!