June 05, 2014 - BIG NEWS: our upcoming boat trip to Mexico (and beyond?)

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. ”

Christopher Reeve - actor, producer, director, and writer.

As all of our friends and family already know, we are planning a family boating adventure to Mexico, leaving this August.  We will be gone for about a year and a half, perhaps more.  This trip has taken more than 6 years of planning, 6 years of tough decisions, and definitely 6 years of hard work!  But it is all about to pay off and become reality.  In just over two months we shove off from our nice cozy Shelter Bay Marina slip and head to sea for many new and exciting destinations.  We will be living on the boat full-time, and cruising full-time.  It will be a completely different lifestyle than we are used to.

You can watch the countdown until our departure (August 25) at the right side of this page.

Our initial trip plans.  After December 2014 the trip becomes quite unstructured.
We will play it by ear with no fixed schedule, other than avoiding the
bad weather seasons/locations.   

We will "harbor hop" our way down the coast stopping at all the little bays and harbors along the way.  We will explore all the great waterfront towns along our way.  We hope to spend some time in San Francisco sightseeing, and probably boating in the Delta, where we actually bought Adagio back in 2011 (Stockton CA to be exact).  We need to be in San Diego near Halloween so we can depart in early November.  That is the best time to head into Mexico as their hurricane season will have just ended and weather conditions are usually quite favorable.

Once into the Sea of Cortez, probably close to Thanksgiving, we will just play it by ear.  There is a lot of exploring to do there.  Jacques Cousteau called the Sea of Cortez "the worlds aquarium" because it is teaming with a wide diversity of sea life.  We will see dolphins, sea turtles, whales, Pelicans, and lots more.  The water is warm and inviting.  We all love to play in the water, and it is going to be a welcome treat to swim in 80+ degree water compared to our 55-60 degree water here at home.

The scenery is beautiful, but very different from what we have here at home.  Instead of fir trees, moss, ferns, and slugs, we will experience cactus, palm trees (in the resort towns), white sand beaches, and geckos.  The water is crystal clear unlike our quite murky home waters.

We look forward to exploring the warm clear waters in Mexico.

Someday in the not too distant future, we will have a picture like this with our
 boat anchored in the middle.  Isla San Francisco, Mexico

We are going to be home schooling our children and have selected Calvert School for their home school curriculum.  Homeschooling takes much less time per day because it is so focused on the individual child.  A typical home-school day on a boat starts at around 8:00AM and is done by noon.  Without recesses, lunch break, and the distraction of 20+ other kids in class, it takes a lot less time to cover the same material.  We should have every afternoon to go out and explore, swim, hike, swim, relax, spend time together, and then swim some more.

As I eluded to in the title of this blog entry, we may go beyond Mexico in our boating adventure.  Everything will have to be be going quite well for us to push on further south however.  We will put that decision up to a family vote when we need to decide if we are going to stay longer in the Sea of Cortez, or head back to La Conner, or head further south.  It will be a family decision.

If we head further south we will cruise the mainland coast of Mexico stopping at all of the interesting villages and towns along the way.  We would then continue on to El Salvador and Costa Rica in Central America, followed by Panama and a trip through the Panama canal to the Caribbean Sea where we would then spend a season or two exploring the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, perhaps Florida, Belize, and a host of other countries and US States.  Maybe Cuba will be open to Americans by then?  I hope so!

Where we could go if we decide to continue south and leave the Sea of Cortez.
I'm not quite sure how likely this part of the trip really is, but every great adventure
starts with a dream, right?

We will post more details as we get closer to departure.  And, of course, we will be blogging along the way.  We hope you will follow our adventure, or perhaps we will even meet you out there somewhere enjoying the cruising life!

Steve, Kathy, Cindy and Kevin aboard "Adagio"....