My Salty Suitcase

Hey there readers! This post comes terribly late but you can chalk that up to lack of sea legs and internet connection. After staying on land for the past year, I’ve found it’s taken some time to grow accustomed to the motion of the ocean enough to write while underway. More than my writing skills have been affected by our long stay ashore: captain, crew, vessel, and of course dogs all needed to be eased back into life at sea. Keeping in mind we were only a few degrees better than a bunch of land lubbers, we decided to take it easy down the Florida Intracoastal Waterway.  Vero Beach: Home of Mosquitos Banjo playing at the dog park. Vero Beach was a wonderful place to prep Jasamine (and us!) for the voyage. To any boaters out there who might be reading this, I can’t recommend Vero Beach City Marina, Florida, enough! It boasts a well-protected anchorage, numerous moorings and slips, a fuel and water dock, laundromat, internet lounge, free bus service, and general welcoming...

Jasamine! FaceBook has an option on its profile setting to list where you currently live. I have tried several times writing “The Ocean” but they have never accepted that as an appropriate answer. But it is the one closest to the truth. I live on a 54 foot ketch rig sailboat, ‘Jasamine’ with my mom, dad, crazy parrot, and two lovable, rambunctious dogs. Welcome to my life! Every day is a new adventure!                                                              My Family In 1975 my father and uncle, with the help of my grandfather, built Jasamine in Sydney, Australia. In 1984 my dad took a break from his job as a pilot to sail around the world in Jasamine. Although he returned to work two years later, he was hooked on the cruising life and in 1989 quit his job to sail full-time. On his second trip around the world, while ad...