A look back on how we got here and where we are going!

This sailing season has been tough for me in regards to publishing blog posts. I don’t have writer's block, in fact I have written more this year than I wrote all of last year. Instead I have what I am calling editor’s block; the inability to sharpen the rough draft into a publishable final draft that I am willing to share. I think this “editor’s block” is in part due to how I left last year's blog…unfinished. I was publishing about two months behind real time and when I reentered the work force, I lost all motivation to dream about and share how special last summer was. I have tried to write wrap up summaries but I never felt like any words conveyed how incredible last year's trip was, and how hard it was to go back to the typical 9 to 5 (or in my case 0500 to 1700). I also struggled to make each story unique. It was easy for me to write about the sailing days, the words just flowed out of my fingers. However, when it came to attempting to describe what each new place felt like, my words always felt repetitive and boring. I was failing to capture the beauty and uniqueness of each day, and that made editing my works almost painful. Many people recommended I use ChatGPT or some other form of AI to be my editor, but I personally feel as if that will cover up my true self. When I reread these stories, I want it to be just me, even if that means my words lack the eloquence that AI can add and there is the occasional grammatical error.

My other struggle with publishing this blog is balancing my desire to reduce screen time and spending time on the laptop to write, rewrite, and publish these posts. Recently, I have made a concerted effort to keep our navigation station free of clutter and to keep my handwritten journal accessible so that these rough drafts are written with just the old fashion pen and paper. The goal here is that when it does get transferred over to digital media, it is closer to a final draft state and the time spent on the laptop is greatly reduced. Time will tell if this actually ends up working for me or not.

So where does this leave the future of the blog? Well I don’t know to be honest, but I have some ideas! First off, it's not going to be the in-depth chronological story that was last year's blog. Instead, I want it to mostly be a collection of my favorite moments. Sure, I might do some summarizing of our daily experiences or general experiences in a place so that when I am old and decrepit I can hopefully use it as a reference to relive this experience, but I don't want that to be the focus. I also want to lean more into describing the technical side of what we have done and what's to come.

Now saying all that, I am going to do the opposite and start with a general summary of what the last year and half has looked like since purchasing Salty Foxx. This is purely to catch you all up and to give a point of reference for my future posts.

October 2024 - After a year plus of looking at boats we found and purchased Salty Foxx. The day after closing we immediately took her on an overnight journey up the Chesapeake Bay to Back Creek. 30 Nautical Miles Sailed

After years of dreaming, we finally got our boat!

November 2024 thru April 2025 - These months were filled with day sails and upgrading the systems to get Salty Foxx ready for off grid living. 85 Nautical Miles Sailed

May 2025 - Most weekends we set out up the Chesapeake Bay as we tested our winter upgrades and became more confident in the handling of Salty Foxx. Highlights include multiple weekends in Mobjack Bay and a beautiful sail to Cape Charles. 140 Nautical Miles Sailed

June 2025 - We left boat life and flew to Arizona where we spent 2+ weeks living on the Colorado River and river rafting through the Grand Canyon with my family. What a truly special experience. 265 Nautical Miles River Rafted

July 2025 - One last weekend trip with friends up to Mobjack Bay… and then officially casting off and pointing our bow north. We had our first overnight sail up to Sandy Hook, New Jersey before heading to New York City, sailing through Long Island Sound and finally into Southern New England. 600 Nautical Miles Sailed

August 2025 - We crossed the Cape Cod Canal into the North Atlantic where we visited Provincetown before doing another overnight sail to Portland, Maine. Here we picked up my parents and sailed quickly up the Maine Coast to Bar Harbor where my parents departed and Abby’s parents jumped onboard. Soon we bid Abby’s parents farewell and we headed back to Penobscot Bay to meet up with our friends on SV Sasa to get ready to head Downeast. Well life got in the way, and SV Sasa had to turn back south early, so we embarked on a journey Downeast alone. 410 Nautical Miles Sailed

September 2025 - The magic that was Downeast captured our hearts, but soon it turned cold and we decided it was time to return south. We slowly worked our way back down the Maine Coast with resolve that we would return one day to finish exploring this incredible place. At this point, we knew we were in for a winter of landlubber life if we wanted to have the funds to be able to return to Maine without taking away from our future sailing plans. We left Maine the day before the first freeze warning and sailed outside of Cape Cod to visit Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard which we had missed on our way north. This was still our most intense sail to date. We then waited out Hurricane Humberto in Newport, Rhode Island and Hurricane Imelda in Shinnecock, Long Island. We only stopped in Shinnecock because of the hurricane but we found one of my favourite bars to date! 550 Nautical Miles Sailed

October 2025 - We continued heading south to the Annapolis Sailboat show where we spent a week hanging out with friends and spending an exorbitant amount of money on upgrades for Salty Foxx (thank goodness I was going back to work). Finally, it was time to sail back down the Chesapeake and return to the work force. It was like I had never left working and soon I was back to being the Chief Nuclear Test Engineer of the PCU Oklahoma (SSN 802). 430 Nautical Miles Sailed

November 2025 through February 2026 - Abby hopped on Saturday Sun II, a 42 foot monohull sailboat, with a Canadian couple and sailed to Antigua via Bermuda while I continued to work. Once Abby returned, we discussed what our future plans were. We knew we wanted to return to sailing fulltime but when and where was still up in the air. I really struggled with the decision of what to do next. Not to toot my own horn, but I was excelling at work as the youngest Chief Nuclear Test Engineer in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program with extremely lucrative future job prospects. After many sleepless nights, we finally decided that if we didn’t head back out to sea soon, we were going to get trapped on land with too many material possessions to effectively be able to set sail. With the decision made, we planned on leaving again the first weekend of May. Abby - 1680 Nautical Miles Sailed on Saturday Sun II

March 2026 through April 2026 - After a quick trip to visit my parents in Hawaii, we spent every day working on getting the boat ready to go. The winter had been cold, and we weren’t fully committed to leaving again so soon, and thus we had procrastinated on many of our projects. Our biggest project was taking Salty Foxx over to Cobbs Marina to get hauled out, new bottom paint, and a new folding propeller installed. These two months were full on and whizzed by. 50 Nautical Miles Sailed

May 2026 - We once again cast off our lines and pointed our bow north. This time we were determined to move slower, as we were leaving a full 2.5 months earlier than we had the previous year. My brother joined us as we meandered our way up the Chesapeake Bay, seeing friends both old and new along the way (Shoutout Sailing Fernweh, SV Osprey, & Sailing Lost Years). My brother left us in Annapolis and we left the Chesapeake Bay via the C&D canal. We headed up the Jersey Coast where we got rammed by a steel sailboat in the middle of the night. Licking our wounds and thanking our lucky stars that Salty Foxx was mostly okay, we jumped up to Block Island before once again crossing the Cape Cod Canal and making our way to Plymouth, Massachusetts. 580 Nautical Miles Sailed

June 2026 - We made it back to Maine and I almost immediately felt the magic this coastline holds fill my soul. The feeling of being at peace I had that first night we entered Maine waters still blows my mind, this was definitely where I was meant to be. We visited almost exclusively places we had skipped over the past summer and had several wonderful beach bonfires. We broke out our free diving gear and couldn’t believe the water clarity and the magic that is the underwater world. We even caught our first fish! 230 Nautical Miles Sailed

July 2026 - My parents once again joined us in Penobscot Bay and we spent the next 10 days gunkholing around the seemingly endless islands. Highlights of their trip include stumbling upon a mussel roast in North Haven and buying lobsters straight from a fishing boat for 6 dollars a piece! Our friend on SV Illusion sailed out to meet us and we had two wonderful nights spent enjoying the company of friends and family. That was probably my favorite vacation I have ever had with my parents in my adult life. After seeing my parents off, we sailed over to the Cranberry Islands where we waited for a weather window to jump across the Gulf of Maine to Nova Scotia. Our sail across the gulf was incredible with an 11+ hour spinnaker run! We also timed the currents at the tip of Nova Scotia absolutely perfectly. After a harrowing experience docking, we checked into the country and set off exploring the east coast of Nova Scotia. It feels like everyplace we stop has a white sand beach that rivals any beach in the Caribbean. 435 Nautical Miles Sailed (so far)

…and now you are all caught up on the 3540 nautical miles under Salty Foxx’s keel, and I finally have the weight off my shoulders on how to restart this blog! Stay tuned for details on the magic of Downeast, the harrowing journey around Cape Cod, my favorite bar in Shinnecock, all the upgrades we have done to Salty Foxx, being woken up by the sickening crunch of metal, what a Mussel Roast is, almost hitting the rocks trying to check into Canada, and so much more! Please join me as I begin to delve deeper into the experiences and the stories that make this lifestyle so enthralling.

Where were we?

A look back on how we got here and where we are going!

Where to go next?