Farewell Brisbane Marina and Friends!

We’ve been living on our boat in Brisbane Marina for over a year and it felt like home. We were welcomed and surrounded by a community of sailors, boat lovers, and boat mechanics too! Wow… we lived across from a workshop in fact! What a dream for Peter.

Dock One was our neighborhood and I so enjoyed how safe I felt living there. We never locked our doors - and maybe it was no coincidence that everyone had an open heart too. Now that we live in this wonderful community, how could we ever think of leaving?

But the Sea kept calling us to embark on an adventure and our day finally came to untie the lines. I couldn’t help but cry, and laugh with joy and feel anxious and excited at the same time? Strange mix of feelings!

Thank you dear friends! We will never forget your generous spirits and wondrous souls. Thank you for all of your kindness and especially for your wisdom and knowledge through this ambitious undertaking! We could not have done it without you.

With an intention to shove off at around 10:30, we got up at about 6:30 and dove into the remaining work to get the boat ready to leave. We didn’t actually leave the dock until about noon! Jimmy and Raffi spent nearly all morning helping with various bits, and we had a steady stream of well-wishers stopping by the slip for one last good bye. It’s been much harder than we expected to say our farewells!

Andrew brought our last package early in the morning, Allan and Lynda stopped on their way to the ballpark, Christopher and Elise got to watch Raffi get hauled up the mast for a last minute flag halyard installation, and Amy stopped by to see us off! Once we had everything set, as Jimmy said, we were all out of excuses to keep working on the boat!

So we left….and we got through the channel and were putting up our mainsail when lo and behold, we heard someone calling out to us from behind us and over the sound of our engine? Who could this be? Wait… What?? It was Scotty! We saw him motoring his sailboat as fast as he could to catch up to us to say goodbye and to give us a gift! It was then that I realized that we didn’t see him when we left the dock! Now that’s exactly the kind of heart and soul I’m talking about!

All of our neighbors in Brisbane… Thank you!! Michael, Jimmy, Tim, Andrew, Teresa, Scotty, Terry, Diane, Les, Dave, Sindee, Bruno, Tara, Cash, Nocca, Allison, Alan, Kathy, Aqua, Terry, Robert, Alan, Lynda, Bill, Liam, Margaret, and Raffi! You will forever live in our hearts❤️ and we hope you join us along the way!