Wow! I can’t believe I went through the entire summer without making a single post to this blog. I started the summer cruise with a resolve to keep it up to date, but when I fell behind, I rationalized with these excuses: (1) No one cares what we’re doing and besides, (2) I’m too busy running the boat and having fun! I began to think I’d just let the blog die and be done with it. That was before Dad set me straight.

During a recent conversation with my 90+ year old father, he mentioned that he loves to look back through his old cruising logs to remind him of the wonderful Caribbean cruising experiences he shared with my Mom in the 80’s. Mom & Dad spent 10 years cruising the Bahamas and Caribbean. They took hundreds of pictures and he kept a log that included interesting tidbits, anchorage waypoints, navigation details, etc. Remember back in the 80’s when pictures were taken with film and there was no GPS, no electronic chart plotters, and no internet? Those were the days when cruising was hard and cruisers had to be completely self-reliant. Back then, Dad kept his log so that he could help others and help himself if he ever cruised the same area a 2nd time.

Through our discussion about his logs, Dad was gently reminding me how important it is to document our cruising story. Not because we need to build our Klout Social Media Score (it’s a real thing, look it up!), but because our story matters to us and because posting our cruising stories on the internet preserves them for that time in the (distant) future when we’re too tired or broken (or broke!) to have new adventures. Some day we’ll want these stories and pictures to remind us that our lives were well lived. And thanks, Dad, for reminding me that keeping a blog isn’t a self-absorbed waste of time, but a preservation of our history.

Speaking of pictures, here are some that tell a bit of a story about Mom & Dad and our cruising history: