Rick and I lived in Toronto and sailed all around Lake Ontario for the 25 years prior to heading south. We started with a 17 ft Siren that we named "Notre Bateau", a book "How to Sail", and a 2 day night school course. After an almost disastrous foggy May 24th weekend (our first attempt, we thought we should learn a little more about sailing if we were going to survive on the water. After a few more sailing courses and a lot more practice, our fears quickly turned into passion and our hobby became our lifestyle.
Our 2nd boat was a 25ft Bayfield (Dawntreader), with this boat we fell in love with the Bayfields. We sailed Dawntreader for nine years and visited every port and anchorage on Lake Ontario. We spent every weekend and 3 weeks of vacation each year on the boat, averaging about 500 miles a season. We felt this was a big boat and could not imagine why anyone would need more room than what we had on Dawntreader. But, eventually foot-ites set in and we started looking for a Bayfield 32.
Our 3rd boat, a Bayfield 32 we named "Paws II". This boat was sooo large that I had trouble docking it the first couple of times. Rick and I with our two Burmese cats, became summer live-aboards. We docked at the Outer Harbour Marina in downtown Toronto which allowed us to go to work each day from the boat. Paws II was an amazing boat to sail and we gunkholed around the lake again, visiting all of our favourite ports.
Our sailing goals were gradually expanding and retirement in the Caribbean was now a regular topic of discussion. Although we loved Paws II, it was not quite large enough. (I can still remember when we thought the Bayfield 25 was huge and here we are saying the Bayfield 32 is too small). We needed more room for storage and additional equipment, if our plans were to include an extended Caribbean cruise. We started to look for a Bayfield 36 and felt that if we found one then we would move up, but if not we would head south with Paws II.
Wind-Borne III, our 4th (and current) boat was purchased from Peter Watkins who sailed it from Toronto to Lewisport Newfoundland. We had it trucked back from Newfoundland to Toronto where it was from originally. Wind-Borne is extremely comfortable to both sail and live-aboard. She was in good condition when we received her but we upgraded and modified many things before taking her south. We had lived aboard Wind-borne in Toronto for the last two summers while still working. At the end of ’99 both Rick and I retired from Bell Canada.
With retirement, our time became dedicated to preparing both the boat and house for our extended Caribbean voyage. I won’t bore you with the house details but I will post all of the upgrades and modifications we made to the boat (see what worked and what didn't).
Training
As I mentioned previously, when we first started sailing we were inexperienced and more than a little nervous so we began taking courses. Following is a list of the training courses that we feel have been and/or will be of benefit.
