Those of you who have been following along know that Garrett and I finally made it back to the United States this week after being stranded in Nicaragua without a way home for the past two months. Since landing on U.S. soil, we have spent our days relaxing, over-indulging in our favorite foods, and enjoying the simple luxuries of being back in a first-world country.

Since we’ve been back, many of you have asked, where are you calling home?

The answer: Charleston, South Carolina!

This is a new move for us, and one we’ve been talking about for a long time. As a native New Englander who has lived out west for the past decade, I’ve been dying to get back on the East Coast. Garrett and I have both spent a lot of time in Charleston and love it. I, in particular, always feel more at home in old places, and Garrett, of course, is drawn to almost any place that’s close to the water. Charleston checks both of those boxes for us, and has a lot of other appeal, too, including the fact that it’s a short drive from my sister’s farm and father’s house, and just a quick flight to our family and friends who are scattered throughout the Midwest and East Coast.

So now you’re probably asking, what about Thisldu?

The answer: we’re not done cruising yet!

It will just look different in the future. In the upcoming season, Garrett and I are going to try something called commuter cruising. This means that we will be traveling to the boat for holidays, vacations, and any weekends we can once the season starts up again in November. Charleston will remain our home base, and we will sail when we can.

Commuter cruising will be easier for us to do once Thisldu is in the Caribbean, which was always the intended destination for our second cruising season. We had hoped to transit the Panama Canal this past April, which would have put us in a better position to get to the Caribbean quicker next season, but those plans were quashed as Coronavirus swept through the world and borders were closed in its wake. This is also why Garrett and I were so adamant about not sailing back to Mexico—doing that would put us farther away from the feasibility of commuter cruising, as it would have left us with longer passages more subject to severe weather patterns, such as the Tehuantepecers and Papagayos.

Thisldu is still docked at a marina in Nicaragua, where she will stay until November, which marks the end of the rainy season. If it is possible to fly into Nicaragua at that point, we will return when we can and move her down to Costa Rica (about a day and a half’s sail), where she’ll stay for a bit until we hop down to Panama, and then up to Florida, and eventually, down the Caribbean. There is a lot ahead of us and it’s not all ironed out yet, and I mean, even if it was, it wouldn’t matter, because when you cruise, your plans never stay the same anyway. So our first focus when it comes to cruising is moving Thisldu from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, and we’ll figure the rest out after that.

Having a home base in Charleston while continuing to cruise on weekends and holidays satisfies both of our needs and wants. This plan will give us a combination of the stability and freedom that each of us is craving. We are extremely grateful that Garrett was able to get a job upon our return to the States that will let him work remotely, and I’m on the hunt to get my marketing career back on track, too. For now, though, we are just relieved to be back in the United States, appreciative of our health, and thankful that one of us has employment. Our adventure isn’t over, it’s just different.