Wizard In The Land of Oz!

Lift out by Scarborough Marina for  Wizard's new owner...

The End…in the land of OZ...Dorothy and Toto are starting home...
It’s bittersweet, the end…the end of our sailing adventures on Wizard.  We have realized our dreams of sailing through the South Pacific islands and have finally landed in OZ!  We’ve come so far! Never did we think we would sail to Australia!  And now, the end is near…we have sold our sailboat, Wizard.
 Both of us knew after 10,000 ocean miles and one and half years away from home that the end  of sailing was coming...
And now, the time has come for new adventures on land.  We will be “landlubbers” by next week when the sale is final.  We’ll be free to come and go as we please…a freedom we thought sailing would offer, but the truth is… when you own a boat, you are never really free from the worries and care of the boat, restricted by weather, ports and breakdowns.  Traveling by boat is much more restrictive than land travel and you are always tethered to the boat.
 I’m not complaining.  I wouldn’t change a thing!  Our travels have been exciting and challenging, which is why we all go in the first place.  We enjoyed boat travel; it just has its own set of limitations.  I’m glad we experienced sailing.  Wizard proved to be a strong and capable boat. We both learned a lot about ourselves; our strengths and weaknesses.  We've met a lot of great people along the way.  Others, just like us, who “dropped-out” of mainstream and decided to try something different.  We'll have memories to share , but only those who have gone to sea will appreciate and understand.  We did it!

Celebrating the end...

But, now we're on the road home.  We both agreed we didn’t want to sail around the world…too much time and money for that trip and we knew we didn’t want to sail back to California from Australia, too much against the seas…so, the only option left was to sell the boat here and that’s what we did.

Bittersweet, the end, …but looking forward to the next homeward bound travel adventures for us... just not on Wizard!

One of our last dinners  on Wizard...

Christmas lights signal the end of a year...

Here’s to "The End" and to New Adventures for Dorothy & Toto in the land of OZ!