Homecoming

The wind was down right howling for days while we were anchored off Isla Mujeres. The guide books will tell you that there are only a few months out of the year when the weather is somewhat favorable to make the crossing from Mexico to Key West andvise versa. These are March, April, May and November. In November the windows can be few and far between due to strong winds that begin to blow from the north and continue all winter. We know that if we don't get favorable winds in the next week or so, it may be our last chance to make a comfortably safe crossing before spring! After diligently checking in at the internet cafe for weather updates we were fortunate enough to find two days where satellites show that the winds and waves should be down to a minimum. This is almost perfect as the crossing generally takes 2 1/2 to 3 days. The weather is forecast to lie down early Thanksgiving morning. We pull anchor late Wednesday afternoon deciding that it is not so bad to rough it at the begining and the end of the crossing if it is going to be nice in the middle. Wednesday night is quite choppy, but the sun rose on Thanksgiving morning over a flat, tranquil sea. I went to bed at dawn after my watch and had not been down for a few hours when I heard the engine throttle way down. I ran up to the cockpit just in time to see a large mahi mahi jump bodily out of the sea, Jeremy on the fishing platform reeling her in. Fifteen minutes later Jeremy was holding the 25 pound fish up and saying "Happy Thanksgiving Baby!". Dinner was delicious, but I must admit that that night we dreamt of turkey.

The following day began with a large pod of tiny spinner dolphins playing at the bow. I was sleeping after a long night watch, but Jeremy had the pleasure of their company and was especially liked by one dolphin in particular. As he stood on the bow watching them play one of the smaller dolphins in the pod would repeatedly jump into the air right next to him (about ten feet out of the water), peaking at eye level before playfully belly flopping back into the water with a big splash!
The weather remained favorable all day and around 4am on Saturday morning (November 24th) we began to see the familiar lights of Key West glittering on the watery horizon. To make our arrival even more perfect, we even had a full moon to help guide us the two hours up the channel and to our home,the mooring field. We easily found the mooring ball that Larry had put lines onfor us as it had a plastic jug with a bright green glow stick inside tied to the end of the line- a nice surprise after a long few days (he thinks of everything!). After we tied up to the ball we warmed up with an anchedram of a nice double pour of scotch, toasting to a safe return from our greatest adventure...so far!

As we fell asleep we could hear a dolphin breaching as she made wide circles in the mooring field. Another nice welcome home.

The first faces we see are Scott's and his two children Courtney and Jacob as they dinghy up right after we made the arrival phone call. It is sooo good to see them! We should stay aboard and do the usual tedious post crossing clean up, but this is easily forgotten as we make plans to spend the day with Scott and the kids. On our way into town we stopped at Larry's boat Valhalla for a huge welcome home hug. At his house Scott sets us up with washer and dryer and (wait, sit down because you are not going to believe this!) a long, HOT shower!!! Later Larry joins us for happy hour and Scott cooks up the dinner of our choice, hamburgers! It was an early night as we were still exhausted from the trip.

For us this adventure didn't officially come to a close until Sunday when, thanks to our very good friends Landon, Jo Elle, Brandon, Rick, and Jack, we had a huge traditional Thanksgiving dinner even though we had arrived late. This was a better homecoming than we could have hoped for!

And so,
we sailed in and out of weeks and almost over a year
to come home and find Thanksgiving dinner waiting for us...

and it was still hot.

Many Thanks

Jeremy and I would like to thank everyone for keeping up with us along the way. Our experiences were made even better by knowing that so many of you were sharing them with us.

Also a special thanks to:

*Landon and Jo Elle in Key West for setting us up with this web site as a very special going away gift. Thank you for giving us a way to stay in touch with our friends and family even though we were so far away.

*Our friends and family in Albuquerque for the Satellite phone. It really, really came in handy.

*Our very good friend Scott in Key West both for joining us on our first leg of the journey and for taking care of all of our things back home for us. You really are one in a million!

*Larry our sailing guru in Key West. The wealth of information you provided us with as we prepared for this trip was priceless. Thanks also for keeping us in the know with weather.

*Our moms Laurie and Gail and my dad Pete for their support and inspiration.

*Our families. Your love and enthusiasm was with us all of the way!


I will still be updating the site every now and then for anyone who would like to check in on us. It may not be be quite as exciting as the last eight months in Central America, but Key West can be pretty interesting too!

Love, Jeremy and Crystal on "MAX"