our apartment building in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

we always manage to find boats and ships and anything maritime or nautical, wherever we go...

I took a shine to the mosaic artwork under the city

more mosaics under the Museum of Natural History

amazing waffles at this place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

from freezing NYC to toasty St Lucia island - first day back on Melody!

last sunset in St Lucia before we headed off to St Vincent

Friends!

We are back! Back on the blog and back on the BOAT!!

For those of you who are new to our blog, in 2010 we bought an old steel boat with a couple of friends, renovated it for a year and a half and then sailed it across the Atlantic Ocean in Sept/Oct 2012 (see the old blog at offtheline.co.za). We set off from South Africa to Brazil and then on to Tobago ( the smaller island of Trinidad and Tobago). Ruf and I then left to Zambia to pursue work opportunities while our 2 friends, Vivian and Daniel, continued to sail the Caribbean for another year (last year, 2013, to be exact).

After working out our contracts and saving all our hard earned cash we bought out Viv & Dan's shares in Melody (the afore mentioned rust bucket) and have returned to her fat steel belly to continue and complete our world domination, I mean circumnavigation ;)

On our way back to the boat, from Zambia, we had to re home our legendary dog Jack, spent a month in SA with our family and friends (unfortunately more doing admin than spending precious time with our favorite people - boring but necessary) and then finally a week in New York.

I'm planning to do posts on all the above but I first have to tackle the mammoth task (or so it feels to me) of sorting and editing/resizing all the relevant photos. Can you say PRO-CRAS-TINATION?!

We are currently on our planned route from St Lucia, where we got back onto the boat, south down to Trinidad where we want to do some work on this sturdy lady before we hit the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean. We just arrived in St Vincent (one island down) and so, when the power onboard ( we only have one solar panel and a wind generator to power the boats systems and electrical devices, including and not prioritizing the laptop) and, hopefully free & unlimited, WIFI are in abundance the posts shall appear for your enjoyment!

I have included some Instagram shots to wet your appetite, but mostly because it's the easiest thing I could come up with for visuals. I am lazy after a days worth of semi-rough sailing, rain (boohoo!) and my old best friend - sea sickness. So I feel I am being quite generous and productive considering the circumstances. It's a tough life in paradise... :P

over & out