Where Are We Now?

Six months or so after selling Long Summer and saying goodbye to our sailing life, we are reflecting on the adventure that was. The most incredible experience and life-changing opportunity to see the world from a new perspective. It was a shot at showing our kids a different way of being and a chance to spend the wonder years together as a family unit. A crazy dream that we made into a life-affirming reality. 

Travelling over 6,000 nautical miles across the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, we feel like we have packed 20 years into the past five! Living on a sailboat is an experience few families can say that they’ve had, and the gratitude we feel for this privileged opportunity cannot be understated. Setting out on just a wing and a prayer, it seems that all of the clichés are true and we really are capable of things we could never have dreamed of.

From total newbies to competent sailors, getting to grips with sailing life was bloody hard work! Doing it during the pandemic and Brexit with two little kids at our feet doubled the fun… It really did bring us the highest of highs and lowest of lows. But it also shaped who we have become. Not only that, we now have countless memories that will last a lifetime with all the wonderful people we have met along the way. Just don’t ask us to pick our favourite destination - that would be an impossible task!

Surprisingly, the final goodbye to Long Summer wasn’t as heart wrenching as we had imagined it might be. For years she was our safety, shelter and travelling companion. (Hats off to The Captain who worked tirelessly over the years to keep her maintained and shipshape!) But having now sailed the Mediterranean in detail we’ve realised that crossing oceans is not for us, and that’s ok. It seems that the time was right to close the book on this chapter and start a new one… 

Of course, it is not the end of adventure for us! Since packing up our belongings in Greece last summer, we stuck them on a truck bound for Spain and have now settled on the Mediterranean coast in the sunny city of Valencia! ¡Olé!

Fair winds and following seas,

The Long Summer Crew