It all begins here.
Pure Joy on the dock in Rodney Bay Marina, St. Lucia on the morning of January 11th 2025.
It’s January 11th 2025. A date that’s been seared in our brains and on our family calendar for nearly 4 years now.
I’ve stolen away from the boat to take moment to ground my feet and to have a coffee alone in the marina. On the precipice of something so monumental ahead of us, I’m thinking about our journey to that got us to this very starting line.
If you’ve joined recently and aren’t familiar with how this crazy idea to sail around the world came to be, I share the single conversation that changed everything here. It’s so easy to fast forward from that point to today, and to start looking forward at the adventure ahead.
But I’m pausing here to look back, because it feels important. It feels meaningful to remember:
· The huge ups and downs in purchasing, designing, collecting and getting to know our new home, Pure Joy. The scare-itedness of making the first deposit – and so many other financial decisions and trade-offs after that. The thrill of stepping onto a similar boat (Wanderlust) for the first time at the Annapolis Boat Show – AFTER we’d already committed to buying the boat. The fun of going to visit Pure Joy in the factory in Vietnam. The drama and STEEP learning curve of picking her up in Thailand, sailing through parts of Southeast Asia, getting her on a transport vessel to the mediterranean. Sailing her to the start of the ARC (Atlantic crossing). The ARC itself! The sadness of finding a new, loving home for our dog. Spending every minute of holiday we could on her so we could prepare her and US for this very moment. The heavy lift of packing up our home and renting it to complete strangers. And of course all of these ups and downs were happening in parallel to life and business as usual in London!
· This last leg from London - to Michigan (gorgeous Christmas with my family) - to Grenada (12 of our 14 bags making it with us – other arrangements in process for the 2 missing!) to St. Lucia (ooof, long bumpy sail with just the three of us) and into Rodney Bay Maria for final preparations.
· The training and learning over the last few years that went into making us qualified sailors, first aid responders, radio operators, boat fixers, provisioners, homeschoolers…the list goes on.
· The support we’ve received from family and friends. Kind, encouraging words as we experienced some of the aforementioned downs. Big favours. Genuine excitement for our journey and love for us.
· The joy and kinship we’ve just begun to experience alongside our fellow World Arc sailors and the World Cruising team. Prediction: this is going to be fun.
· The ‘frew’ (friend+crew) we’ve assembled along the way. We truly have an incredible bunch of capable, fun humans on board (and promised to join us in later legs). This is everything.
· The privilege and luck that underlines ALL of the above. This one’s hard to put into words. (But I’ll keep trying in subsequent newsletters.)
· The persistence, patience, creativity and teamwork that has put that has put that luck to hard work. It feels like we are maximising the opportunities afforded to us, and that feels good.
Time is short, and I’m due back at the boat for our final crew briefing before we head out. (eeeeek!). So I’ll now sign off on behalf of Pure Joy with a full heart and feeling SO SO SO ready for a 5 day sail to Colombia and everything else that lies ahead
xJoy
P.S. Coming soon to the newsletter:
- Who’s That Crew – I’ll introduce you to the team that’s with us for this first leg
- Updates from our next destinations (Colombia & Panama).
For day-to-day updates and pics, check out our stories on Instagram (@sailingpurejoy). You can flick through the ‘Highlights’ to catch up on recent happenings.