It’s all the fault of Red Letter Days.

 

Our sailing adventures started many years ago with a small gift from Maria to Allen of sailing experience in the Solent. The fulfilment of a long-held ambition to step aboard a sailing yacht. It was a beautiful evening of sunshine and light winds, good company, fine food, followed by a glass of celebratory wine back at the marina just to round things off.

 

And Allen was hooked. So much so that he told Maria he wanted to buy a boat and sail off into the sunset – or at least into the Solent. A passing phase, Maria thought, after the previous enthusiasm for motorcycles and camping holidays. She is still waiting for the phase to pass 18 years later.

 

Sailing has stuck, and that small gift has changed both our lives in a big way.

 

After several sailing holidays in the Mediterranean and many years of boat ownership, Maria’s ambitions and enthusiasm for sailing have more than caught up. We are both lovers of travel and have always tried to squeeze in visits to as many new places as possible during our working lives. A spell working in Singapore added greater impetus to our drive to see places less well-travelled, and it gave us a taste of life in the tropics.

 

And now, after long careers in IT (Allen) and Finance (Maria), we are exploring as much of our planet as we can – at least the warm bits – which started by crossing the Atlantic with the Jimmy Cornell’s Islands Odyssey, in our much-loved Moody 425.

 

We chose to cross the Atlantic with the Islands Odyssey because of a combination of factors: the social side of the rally, its non-competitive nature, value for money, and its size. And, of course, the extensive knowledge and experience of the Cornell clan.

 

Although we don’t know the origin of Lady Jane’s name (she has always been called that) we quite like it – and given that Jane is Maria’s middle name, we couldn’t possibly consider changing it.

 

We hope, through this blog, we can share something of our experiences through words and images.