A year and a half ago Joel and I took a vacation to the US Virgin Islands. One day we took a daysail trip over to St. John. I loved sailing across the waves. I loved the motion of the boat. Now I hate motor boats. They smash you into the waves, but the gentle, hypnotic motion of a sailboat was perfect for me. So Joel and I decided that someday we would take a real sailing trip.

Joel and I take one vacation a year without our kids. When they were younger they stayed with one of the grandparents or with friends of ours. Now that they are older they spend time in overnight camp and we go then. I'd wanted to take the kids sailing with us, but the timing was right for us to go now. Joel and I couldn't do a more active trip without the kids since I've been fighting to get over some knee problems and my knee couldn't take things like backpacking.

I looked around for boats. I talked with Erin who had gone on a sailboat for her honeymoon. She gave us two pieces of advice. Take a catamaran since it has more outside space than a monohull and make sure they have electric toilets - pumping toilets by hand is no fun.

I arranged the boat through Admiralty Yachts. Anne helped me pick out a boat a couple of months before we were leaving. There are food preference sheets and contracts to fill out and I expected them to show up about a month before we were to leave, but nothing came. I was a little worried. So about three weeks before the trip I called Anne. It turns out she had emailed them about a month before, but they had bounced back to her. She had been having a lot of trouble with her email. I wish she had called and talked to me. But finally everything was filled out and we faxed all the forms back to her.

The boat we picked was the Cat Maudy. It was run by a Swiss couple Captain Theo and Ursula Breiler. The sailboat is a 44' catamaran. (If, after readying this journal, you want to book Cat Maudy yourself, you can go through a broker or contact Captain Theo directly at catmaudy@pocketmail.com.)

This web site is a journal of our trip by Daphne. Also included in this web site is a set of pictures taken by Joel. Click the arrow below to continue reading the journal.