Steve grew up sailing. Luanne always wanted to travel to far off countries. One night in 2007 she said “Why don’t we sail around the world?” He said “Sure, that sounds like fun.” and The Plan was born. Departure date was set at 2018.
The Plan became The 50-year Spreadsheet. It mapped out how we could raise two children, go on this grand adventure and not end up at 80 living under a bridge and eating cat food.
Of course, we’d need a bigger boat. At the time, we owned a Compac 16 named Cygnet. Cute boat, but not quite up to the task.
In 2007, we bought Traumërei, a 1976 Sabre 28. She was another great boat, but not large.
We found a 1983 Najad 343, a wonderful small cruising boat. We knew we’d probably end up wanting something larger, but she was ideal for a first real cruising boat.
Finally, in October 2016 we found our cruising boat. Named Blue Oyster at the time, she is a 1995 Oyster 435. She’d been sitting on the hard in Annapolis for four years and was suffering from neglect. But she was a solid boat and just needed caring owners to get her back in shape.