Living in the Here and Now

WATCH... Follow your dreams! Live spontaneously for the HERE and NOW.

Dave and Jaja Martin spent seven years sailing around the world aboard their 25-foot boat. Dave purchased the boat in 1985, gutted her to a bare hull, and then went to work beefing up the structure. He glassed in stringers, added keel floors and extra bulkheads, and then re-designed and re-built the interior. "I built a new rudder, re-stayed the mast, built a smaller cockpit, and then christened her with a bottle of warm Bud in an effort to get the mood right for the intended circumnavigation" is the way Dave puts it. He met Jaja shortly after starting his cruise in St. John and they finally got together in the UK. They were both 25 when they left England on their circumnavigation. From England they headed West to the Caribbean, via the Cape Verde Islands. They were married in Barbados, then transited the Panama Canal, visited the Galapagos; and did the usual trip through the South Pacific, spending several seasons in Australia, New Zealand, and the nearby cruising paradise to the north. A trip through the Torres Straits, Indonesia, and then across the Indian Ocean had them rounding South Africa before arriving back in the Caribbean and then the States in 1995. Along the way they had two children and then a third was born at the end of the voyage. The Martin family set sail again in 1997 on their 33-footer and have spent time in the Bahamas, Bermuda, Iceland, the Faroes, Northern Scotland, Norway, Greenland, and Newfoundland. [more...]