We have been sailing together since 1977 when we both owned Lasers and sailed on tiny Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In 1989 we moved to Providence, Rhode Island where we had an opportunity to sail on the ocean for the first time.  Narragansett Bay was an incredibly easy and beautiful place to pick up sailing again and after a few years we bought an old Pearson 323, named her Sabbatical, and started exploring the bay and the lovely harbors of Jamestown and Newport. Each year we became more adventurous and more anxious to expand our cruising grounds.  In the winter of 1995 we chartered a 38 foot Freedom in the Caribbean and soon after traded our Pearson for a 1991 Freedom 38, naming her Sabbatical II. It was about that time that Mark started dreaming about doing a circumnavigation. He joined the crew of a Swan 48 for his first blue water sailing experience, sailing from St. Maarten to Bermuda.  After extensive research, we decided that the boat for us was the Amel Super Maramu, a 52 foot ketch built in La Rochelle, France.
In October of 2003 we flew to La Rochelle to take delivery of our new boat, the current Sabbatical III.  Mark sailed Sabbatical III across the Atlantic to St. Lucia that year as part of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. It was another 3 years before we began our circumnavigation, officially starting in St. Maarten in December of 2006.
 All details of the trip from that point on are recorded in the ship’s blog.