Welcome!
We are Pat & Kate, from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. In 2012, we purchased Shantí, a 35 foot Young Sun sailboat. For 5 years we cruised the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior. During that time, we began to talk about the possibility of taking some time off and doing an extended cruise. We had no destination in mind, and we had no idea when – only that we wanted to. We kept talking about doing it “within a few years”. In 2017, thanks to several things falling into place, we made that dream a reality. In May, we left Washburn, WI, and began the adventure we talked about for so long.
Our Journey (so far…)
Our original plan was to sail across the Great Lakes, out the St. Lawrence Seaway, and down the coast of Nova Scotia to Maine. Once in Maine, we would decide whether we had liked our journey to that point, and if so, we would continue down the east coast to somewhere warmer (and if not, then figure out what would be next). We left Washburn, WI on May 21st fully committed to this plan. But along the way, several things happened and our original plan changed many times. Within our first couple months, we learned what every cruising book mentions over and over: the need to be flexible. We won’t go into the details of all the changes we’ve made, but you can read about the two major ones in our July post Change of Plans and our September post Updated Plans.
Because our adventure is now “split” into a sailing part and a road-trip part, we have created two separate pages with details and maps of each trip.
Our Sailing Journey
Our Road Trip
Our Website and Blog
We intend to post the travel logs of our journey here, including pictures and videos, to share with family and friends. To make it easy to read our postings, we have set up several ways to find them. First, you can use either of the links provided above. On those pages you will find a list of our planned and actual stops with summaries of each place and links to each posting. Second, you can use the sidebar, which is on the right side of most pages (and on the bottom of each page if you are using a smartphone). The sidebar has 3 sections. The “Recent Posts” section contains our 5 most recent postings. The “Archives” section organizes them by year and month, and the “Categories” section collects them by a category we assign.
The Other Stuff
Since we purchased Shantí, the projects have seemed never-ending. The list continues to grow, and never seems complete. But that’s the norm in owning a boat. Our posts include many of the projects we’ve done, and you can find them under the Projects menu, or under the Projects Category in the sidebar. On our Shantí page you will find more information about our boat, and you can find out more about us on our About Us page. Also from the menu you can see our Photos and Videos pages. Most of our posts will have their own collection of photos and videos, but these pages will contain those that just don’t fit anywhere else.
Feel free to leave us a comment on any of our posts – we’d love to hear from you!
Pat & Kate
