The admiral decided she had given me enough time in Mexico and at sea, and the adventure should continue down a different path.

We started the uphill slog out of Mexico. After the usual thrashing and bashing we rounded Cape Flattery and headed east into the Straits of Juan de Fuca on exactly the same date we left years before.

Since then we've been spiffing up the old gal getting her ready to take another captain and his mate on their dream voyage. We've completely stripped the interior to bare mahogany and finished her with 3 coats of satin polyurethane. We had all the cushions redone, added new carpeting and drapes and all the other countless projects to help her put her best foot forward.

Sojourner has been an adventure. No boat is the perfect solution for every problem, but this boat has been the best compromise I could imagine. She was definitely worth the hours we spent searching for her and the hours we've spent living our dream aboard her.

I think the Finns are great seafaring people but they must live on dried fish. I decided I needed more room for beer and leftover pizza so I added an "American-sized refer". It took a little bit of
cabinetry remodeling and furniture moving skills but I think it was well worth it. We just have to remember to open the fridge on the port tack only!

We had 5 glorious seasons in Mazatlan, San Blas and Puerto Vallarta meeting lots of cruising sailors and basking in sunshine. Before leaving San Francisco we purchased a new Bullfrog dinghy and a 15hp Yamaha motor. The combination is fantastically stable and unbelievably quick. I've spent countless hours miles offshore communing with whales, manta rays and sea turtles in Banderas Bay.

It was time to find a better way to carry the new (and heavier) dinghy aboard so I designed new davits and a folding swim platform while in Puerto Vallarta. Luckily I found a marine engineer slipped a few hundred yards away who had a floating fab shop aboard. With his hydraulic bender, tig welder, and every other tool you could think of we fabricated a pretty good system.

After cruising to Skagway, Haines and Sitka, Alaska we were ready for a little bit more sunshine so we headed out the Straits of Juan de Fuca and rounded Cape Flattery making our way towards warmer weather.

As a youngster I dreamed of sailing my own boat underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. I finally got the opportunity but it was so foggy we never saw the bridge. Several weeks later we left Frisco Bay and after provisioning in San Diego we pushed off for Cabo San Lucas.

After getting comfortable with the operation of our new home we headed north to Alaska and into some of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. We felt like the Titanic when we saw our first iceberg calved from Sawyer Glacier. The middle picture is on the upper end of the Behm Canal around Revillagigedo Island. We spent a few days in Traitor's Cove tied to a floating "dance floor" and had the whole place to ourselves.

Our first official act was to put a fresh coat of antifouling on each other and try to get some on the boat too. We then launched our new home and the adventure (and learning) began.