June 16, 2010 - Enroute to Newport

As soon as we cleared the Gulf Stream everything changed. We exchanged the heat, humidity and cobalt blue waters of the tropics for the cool, crisp, air of New England and the marine blue of the North Atlantic. I traded in my bikini for long pants, three layers of fleece, a heavy offshore jacket, and a hat with earflaps, prompting Sten to comment "I don't think I like this new look."

With the Stream behind us our thoughts and hearts turned towards home. We've spent the past two days talking about all the things we want to do when we get home. On the top of our to do list is spending some quality time harassing Lenore, our chronically seasick kitty cat who jumped ship back in Aruba.

And of course there are those local foods we can't wait to dig into: an Awful Awful, a Blue Cow from West Main Pizza, and two big bowls of chowder from the Moorings. We can't wait for Saturday morning to roll around so that hit the Aquidneck Island Growers Market and fill a market bag with all those tasty local fruits, veggies, cheeses, and baked goods. After three and half years in the tropics I've had my fill of mangoes, papayas, and bananas. What I really crave are those high latitude fruits - strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. A trip over to Sweet Berry Farm is definitely on our itinerary.

But first, while lobster pots are still sliding past Mata'irea's hull and the lights of the Newport Bridge are twinkling in the distance, first I need to take a moment to say thank you.

This blog started out as a way for us to keep our friends and family back home informed of our whereabouts and to provide them with an idea of how we were spending our days in this new lifestyle. When I published the first posts a few months into our trip I realized that we weren't taking all that many pictures. So we started to take more photos. And better photos. And now we have a hard drive full of incredible images from around the world.

As the blog's audience grew, I began to feel a responsibility to keeping you all entertained. Posts became more frequent and I stretched myself to try different things with my writing.

You all helped me find my funny bone. Turning bad situations into humorous stories helped us get through some trying times. Sitting on deck during night watch as we battled yet another squall I would look for the humor in the situation in anticipation of writing about it. I would start cracking jokes and Sten would respond with some goofy one-liner. And suddenly we'd be smiling at each other. Because we knew you all were going to be reading about it, we were able to keep our spirits up in some atrocious situations.

There have been times these past few years where we would find ourselves taking risks and trying new things with the reassurance that if nothing else, they would at the very least make good fodder for the blog. And now we have this wonderful collection of tales from our travels. And for that I thank you.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for writing to us. Thank you for being on board for this adventure.