Hey Larry,

I had the great pleasure of meeting Teresa and her partner Ben Ericksen last week down in Annapolis, they were checking out a Valiant 40 that I had delivered for bernie a few months ago... Was only able to chat for a couple of minutes, but what a delightful pair... Yes, it's wonderful to see young people living this way, I wish them all the best...

http://sailingsimplicity.com/

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I came across this cautionary tale last night in a post by Elaine Lembo on the CW site... A family that sold it all to Follow the Dream, buying an old 52' Nauticat, spending years up in Albany to fix it up for a Caribbean sabbatical... Elaine ran into them at the Annapolis show, and learned they had already decided to bail out, and were putting the boat up for sale... Sounds like they were simply tired of fixing stuff, and had grossly underestimated the costs involved... Damn, what a shame - I wish they had at least managed to make it down the ICW, such a boat would have been perfect for that trip...

http://www.cruisingworld.com/people/passage-notes/a-dream-on-hold

best regards,

Jon