Coming Home – Virginia Johns, P
We left Santa Barbara in January 2011 for the start of our circumnavigation adventure. We head back to the boat Dec. 30 to finish up the loop and bring Libertad home in 2017. We have enjoyed a nice long visit to our home in Santa Barbara this year. And although we weren’t out on the water much, boating was still a big part of our life. We were able to get more involved in our squadron activities and were asked to speak in a number of venues about our cruising experience. We had a lot of fun teaching our squadron’s Cruise Planning class as we got to share stories regarding the practical side of cruising – our successes as well as lessons learned. This brought back fond memories of our time as students in this class, learning from the Rowlands!
Currently Libertad is in southern Grenada, out of the Caribbean hurricane zone. We will return to Libertad in late December to travel northwest through the islands towards the Panama Canal and homeward. We expect to have Libertad home in Santa Barbara mid 2017. A number of family and friends plan to join us on this last leg of our journey so we will have more company than any other year of this trip (maybe it’s the “last chance” concept at work); and the Caribbean is supposed to have some of the world’s best sailing conditions. So it should be a very pleasant cruising season.
To date we have visited 40 countries on this amazing journey and plan to visit at least another 10 before we complete our journey. We have had numerous opportunities to interact with local residents and experience the local cultures. We visited museums, hiked through beautiful and varied natural wonders and ancient ruins, attended music and dance performances, observed artists at work, interacted with children at schools, and enjoyed the local food. And we have definitely used all the knowledge gained in our squadron courses to good use – keeping us comfortable, entertained, and safe.
We spent some nights in hotels when making our inland trips. Otherwise Libertad has been our home for more than 30,000 nautical miles as we have travelled on the sea in this fantastic adventure.
Here’s a link to their blog:
http://www.sailblogs.com/member/sb-johns
