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Raise the anchor! We are heading south to the exotic Los Roques archipelago. It is Thursday July 20th, 2017. In an hour Ad Astra will set sail for the Los Roques island group 433 nm to the south west from Sint Martin. We should have a nice sail, the tropical storm Don has faded as it crossed Grenada and taking strong winds through the southern Caribbean right now. We will be sailing through the weather window behind Don and before the next wave rumbles through.

It is the Fourth of July, 2017 and I drinking espresso on ice and grabbing a bowl of yogurt and cereal while I take advantage of the free WIFI at Cafe L’Oubli in St. Barts. My friends often ask what about hurricanes? And my cruising friends ask where will you spend “the season”? At the moment I have three guest teenagers on board, and I was updating their parents on how we are handling the possible storm.

It is 6 am, and before anyone else woke up, I wanted to write this note to think over the last year of adventure together. There is a minor tropical wave rolling by overhead with grey sullen skies, winds gusting in the high 20s, rain and thunder. Drinking my cold-brew iced coffee and with RUSH playing it is the perfect mood to reflect. A year ago our home was Austin.

Green Iguana on Petite Terre May 3rd, 2017 The Petite Terre Isles were so lovely. I saw them on the chart but dismissed them out of ignorance. Then my great sailing friend Peter Wraa invited me to meet him and his latest crew in these little lost and protected islets. It would be a hard 5 hours to windward across a shallow shelf and short choppy seas, for Peter it was a long but fast sail down from Antigua.