Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

December 24, 2023

As 2023 comes to a close, we would like to provide a brief review of our year for our friends and family.  

We know that we live a lifestyle that is exceptionally fortunate or perhaps enviable.  That is only true of course if you believe the retirement brochure with people sailing on flat seas and sunny skies all the time.   In reality this is a lifestyle choice and it comes with ups and downs. 

Like most years, our year was mostly ups!   After spending Christmas in Canada last year, we made our way to the boat and headed south for new lands and to start the so called, ‘adventure of a lifetime’.  We visited the Bahamas (our fourth time there) but then moved on to the Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, St. Kitts, Antigua, Montserrat, Guadaloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Saint Vincent and finally Grenada.   Phew what a trip.  All of that before Summer started.

We returned home to Canada for the summer and came back to the boat in Grenada in the fall.  We have been to Bonaire, Curacao and next week Aruba.   So we will have covered 17 countries by boat this year (and Canada and the UK by land).

We get asked a lot, what it was like or our favourite spot.  We covered the territory (way, way) too fast, almost all these spots had something amazing to offer and the experience was still awesome in almost every way.

While Jinhee retired from her job last year, she is still actively working, sitting on boards for a number of companies.  Two of those companies went through dramatic changes in 2023 and it kept her on her toes and travelling a lot.  That is one of the reasons our path through the Caribbean was ‘fast’ as we made time for her schedule.

Don spends a lot of time on the boat, taking care of its many systems as well as seeing the world by bicycle wherever he can.   Financial markets also eat up his time, and as the world becomes ever crazier, he seems to spend more and more time trying to figure it out.

The kids are doing well too.  Megan has signed a purchase agreement to buy a condominium in Montreal with her boyfriend Emile.   They expect to close the deal in March of 2024.  We don’t ask too many questions about the living arrangements, but it seems this relationship has the hallmarks of a permanent attachment.   They have arrived on the boat for Christmas and we will get to enjoy their company for a week to make the holidays special and get lots of updates then.

Megan continues to work with a mining consulting firm in Montreal (BBA) and has spent a lot of time working at a mine in Baffinland, the end of the earth really, which has provided her time to travel when she isn’t at the mine.  (The role there is a ‘fly-in; fly-out’ role, meaning you are flown in and work crazy hours for two or three weeks then fly back out and do whatever you want for two or three weeks.  Megan has been travelling a lot!)

Andrew is still working at building Brodie Rec Leagues, a basketball club.  The company has been expanding aggressively and doing very well.  While all of that work keeps Andrew very busy Andrew and his girlfriend Isabella did join us for a week in the Turks and Caicos last winter and he and Isabella also took a trip to Spain for a few weeks in the summer.   For Christmas this year, Andrew will join my sister Barb and her family (before Christmas, celebration) in Niagara Falls and then Jinhee’s family at the house on Amherst Island for Christmas day.

There are so many stories to tell for the year!  The boat stories are all on the blog (www.myhomefree.ca) and on the personal side, we had a lot of unique experiences this year.  Jinhee travelled to South Africa twice for work (yikes!) and we travelled to Seattle to take a boat maintenance course and some hiking in the woods.  Finally we travelled to the UK together, and while Jinhee had to work, we also toured a bit of the country to see something outside of London.

We made a lot of new friends, we had many old friends join us at the house, and on the boat as well, and we look forward to keeping up with all your stories as best we can.

Because this is being done electronically there are quite a few pictures below.   We took a few thousand pictures this year and we simply can’t share them all.

To all of our family and friends that we haven’t had the opportunity to send best wishes to in person, we do think of you and wish you our best for Christmas and the coming year.  We hope your end of year celebrations are full of family, happiness and good cheer and we wish you the best for 2024.

Some Images from our trip through the Caribbean

Time on Amherst Island

Our Travels away from the boat and the island