Soul of a sailor.

I cannot believe this day is here. This morning, we are weighing anchor to cross the Gulf Stream back to Florida. It kinda feels like we are crossing a finish line of sorts.

This has been a crazy, beautiful, sometimes difficult, but mostly awesome and totally fulfilling adventure for us.

I don’t think I’ve written enough about the magnitude of what we undertook on this sailing journey, mostly because we’ve been trying to live in the moment for the past year or so. But a few recent blog follower emails got me thinking about it all, and one in particular (thank you April!) really summed it up great. …Traveling by sailboat is so very different than any other means of travel. We have put so much thought, preparation, and actual work (blood, sweat, and tears even sometimes) into each and every leg of our journey. Every time we’ve reached a new destination, there has been such an intense sense of accomplishment. It’s hard to explain really. Other sailors get this of course, but I’m not sure if anyone else does. Or do they? Either way, it feels absolutely amazing to know we did it!

^^That water. I will miss you, Bahamas.^^

Now, we are almost home to start a new chapter of our lives. As much as I am trying to hype myself up for everything fabulous that (hopefully) lies ahead for us, let’s be real, I am mostly just trying to convince myself that we will be “okay” once we return to regular landlubber life. It’s nearly impossible to wrap my head around it all.

And since yesterday was our last full day in the Bahamas, we decided to make it last. As in, we’re bringing home as many pretty Bahamian conch shells as I could manage after going slightly overboard conch-picking the massive shell piles in Bimini. ;))

^^Check out our haul!^^

Okay, who am I kidding. We went crazy. We picked as many pretty pink conch shells as our bucket could hold. And scored a few rare ones in the mix! (No hate email please, we didn’t harvest these ourselves.)

^^That’s a small queen helmet conch. She will have a good home back in Naples.^^

^^The other different looking big shell is the king helmet conch. We “picked” two large king helmets and the one small queen.^^

Here’s to hoping that the crossing today is nothing but an easy breezy sail (preferably with no sea sickness for me) and that every time we look at one of these beauties in the future, we will be instantly transported back to “that time we lived on a boat and sailed around the Caribbean.”

>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.