Taking It Slow...the Only Way to Go
(Especially if you're in a sailboat!)
The crew of Nine of Cups spent Christmas and New Year's Eve 2002 in Puerto La Cruz,
Venezuela and departed for the Western Caribbean on January 15, 2003. We logged 2,152
nautical miles for the year (2,475 statute miles)...not very many miles, but oh, there was so much
to explore. Our total cumulative miles to date are 14,667. We visited Venezuela, Bonaire,
Curacao, Colombia, the San Bals Islands, Panama and many of the little islands in between and
we're now in Ecuador.
We've lived aboard for nearly 4 years now, having purchased "Nine of Cups" in March 2000.
We've crossed the Gulf of Mexico, spent two seasons exploring the U.S. Eastern seaboard and
Maritime Canada, traveled extensively in the Caribbean, transited the Panama Canal and now
we're concentrating on south of the Equator for a bit. We've visited 23 countries since 2000. As
you're reading this, the boat is "on the hard" in LaLibertad, Ecuador getting some needed
maintenance and repairs done and we're visiting family and friends in the U.S. for 6 weeks.
Where to next? Our plan (always subject to change at a whim) is to spend more time in South
America especially the Galapagos Isalnds, Chile and Peru including extensive inland travel before
heading west across the Pacific. A circumnavigation is still the ultimate goal, but there's so much
to see, it could take as long as a decade to complete.
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