Kathryn’s Voyage Blog

Publish Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Location: Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine
Coordinates: 44° 17.774′ N  68° 16.977′ W

What a Year!

It seems hard to believe that we have a solid year of cruising and living aboard under our hull now, having covered more than 7500 nautical miles, from the eastern seaboard and The Bahamas, to The Great Lakes and Canada. This first year has been about a lot of things:

• honing our seamanship skills, and testing our ship and equipment in a variety of conditions and locations,
• learning about and adjusting to our new life living aboard, from maintenance to provisioning,
• understanding and executing home schooling for Ayla,
• and cruising and exploring new areas, while seeing if we could effectively share our journey with you.

What a jammed packed year it’s been. Whew!

Sharing our voyage with an interested community has always been at the heart of what we hoped to accomplish, which is why we created this web site from the start. Unfortunately, the one goal we were unable to accomplish during the first year was to get a media partner interested in helping us, which would have provided the necessary funding for the circumnavigation. Ironically, it proved to be more difficult to make meaningful contacts in the entertainment industry than everything else we did combined! 🙂 But we still believe passionately in our vision, and responding to encouragement from you, our virtual voyaging community, we have established a nonprofit corporation to help us continue our efforts.

Full Speed Ahead

Working through Three at Sea, Inc. we can secure corporate sponsors, solicit individual contributions, and eventually receive grants from foundations, all of which will help provide funding for the voyage. The formal mission of Three at Sea, Inc. is outlined on our About page. The brief version is that Three At Sea, Inc. will support a three-year circumnavigation to share the beauty, wonders, and people of the world with others through videos, photos, blogs, maps, etc., with the intention of creating a personal connection to help people realize that there is more that unites us in the world than divides us.

Furthermore, Three at Sea, Inc. is committed to educating people worldwide, especially kids, about the troubles our oceans and waterways are facing, and what young people can do to help. We believe passionately that kids can be a strong and positive force for change. In demonstrating Ayla’s passion for ocean conservation, we also hope to inspire other kids to discover their passions, and become involved in improving their communities, one small action at a time. We look forward to sharing their stories with you.

Call to Action

So, you’ve probably figured out what’s coming next. 🙂 If you are enjoying our web site, and you feel there is value in our mission, please consider making a contribution to help us continue. You’ll notice we have added a “Contribute” item to the menu bar: the Contribute page has a video of Ayla talking about the mission of Three At Sea, Inc, and from there you can follow the “Learn More” button to a page where you can read FAQs, and potentially make a contribution.

Please know that we ask for your support with deep humility. We are not blind to the reality that our economy is in a deep recession, and there are many causes worthy of support. However, we believe passionately that sharing the world through the lens of this voyage represents a unique opportunity to shrink our global community, making meaningful connections that we hope will make our world a better place.

Secondarily, if you know any contacts in the media industry who might want to partner with us, or if know of a company who might be interested in becoming a corporate sponsor, please send their contact information to us, and we’ll follow-up.

Our plan is to depart Florida around December 1, 2009 to begin our three-year, westbound circumnavigation. Thank you for joining us on this voyage — we hope you are inspired to help us continue it. Please accept our heartfelt gratitude.