Blog #053-We’re Back on the Water!

So, what happened to us? Did we fall off the face of the earth? Did we get taken away by pirates? Nope, but a lot has happened. December of 2017 we went through the Panama Canal and we talked then about a tough decision we had to make. The decision was to either head to the South Pacific in our quest to circumnavigate the planet, or to go north up the coast of Central America and on to California. We chose going north. On the way we visited many beautiful countries and met many wonderful people. Our capstan broke going into Costa Rica and that kept us in Golfito for a month waiting for a new one. It was Liana’s favorite place to kayak. Then we stayed a couple weeks in Bahia del Sol, El Salvador where we met up with some old friends and we learned to eat papoosas. We fell in love with this coastal lagoon area!

But we couldn’t wait to get to Mexico for the food-our favorite! We spent a long time going up the coast of Mexico-its a long coast. We crossed over to Baja in time to spend our 25th anniversary with our friends who we got married with in Las Vegas, NV. We had a week of snorkeling and diving around La Paz and then play time was over and we headed up “bashing” the Baja coast to San Diego.

Two years before, my brother Tim was just 56 years old when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and his wife, Betty was already dealing with cancer herself. Tim went through surgeries, radiation, chemo therapy and even experimental treatments and nothing was slowing the spread of his cancer. That’s one of the main reasons we chose to head north to San Diego, CA. So we docked our boat there through December 2018. Steve headed back to Colorado while Liana stayed on the boat and visited family and went back and forth to Colorado. Steve spent many weekends with Tim and went back to work for Platinum to fill time during the week. 

We needed a break and some time for “us” and so over the Christmas holiday we sailed Silhouette to Ensenada, Mexico. We brought along our niece and her son for a quick, enjoyable ride. Ha! It was cold and rough seas and everyone but Steve got sick. But once in Ensenada Steve got sick with a bad cold. We still had a fun few days before they headed back on a bus to San Diego. Silhouette stayed at Baja Naval Marina for the next four months. We were needed back in Colorado. Tim’s condition was worsening and we knew the Lord was calling us to help Tim and his family. We knew Betty was in no condition to care for him and their daughter Kerry Jo was doing her best but she was working full time. We told Betty when it was time, we would come.

January 2019 we got that call and headed back to the United States. Tim had been hospitalized and was now going into hospice care. We moved in, sort of. Steve’s other brother, Pete and his wife have a nice travel trailer and we set it up in Tim’s driveway. It became home for the next four months. We had some very sweet days with Tim. He just needed help walking at first, and was having some nightmares from the drugs he was taking for pain. Those first couple months we just helped out where we could. But soon each day Steve had to carry him down to the living room to his chair. Tim is a man of great faith and love for the Lord. He was never angry at God for any of this. Every day he wanted Steve to read his Bible to him, so for hours he would sit in a rocking chair next to Tim and do just that. In the afternoons we would sneak off and let Tim and Betty have some quiet time together. They would sit and hold hands and talk about life, love and the future. His condition worsened and his care became 24 hours a day. Our “team” of Betty, Karry Jo, Liana and Steve became very close as we cared for Tim. And then on a warm afternoon in late March, Tim went home to heaven. 

We still have a lot left to do. Tim’s estate still needs to be finalized but we made plans to head back to Silhouette in mid-April. We needed some rest. We decided to go back down the Pacific Coast of Baja California and into the Sea of Cortez. We would take a month sailing, exploring, snorkeling, diving and winding our way up through the Sea to a final destination of Puerto Peñasco where we will haul out Silhouette and leave her on the hard over hurricane season. We’ve cruised her nearly four years now and 12,000 ocean miles. Silhouette is in need of some maintenance. At the yard we will give her new bottom paint, some new hull valves, topside Awlgrip and non-skid along with some other projects we want to accomplish before setting off across the South Pacific to continue our journey. 

Our hope for this short season is to post one blog a week for the month or so while we are on the water. Liana is in her happy place and Steve is right beside her 🙂