hello world is for sale!

We lived aboard s/v hello world for 8 years. 3 countries. Thousands of sea miles. Over 500 nights at anchor. Glaciers. Orcas. Beaches. Friends. Some of the best times of our lives have been on this boat.

But tied to a dock is no place for a boat like her. It's high time someone else get onboard and go sail somewhere.

Here's a short list of what she has going for her:

• Iverson dodger, bimini and full cockpit enclosure
• Skookum ground tackle
• Custom-built high efficiency refrigeration system
• Roller furling sail plan that can be operated from the cockpit
• Modern navigation equipment
• Refit mast and new rigging
• Fiberglass RIB dinghy, Johnson 15HP & dinghy davits
• Exhaustive list of cruising equipment

For a much longer list, go here:
http://svhelloworld.com/equipment/

For a tour of the interior, go here:
http://svhelloworld.com/interior/

Want to see her in action? Go here:
http://svhelloworld.com/cruising/

$148,000
Seattle, WA

Jason and Christy's (mis)Adventures around Vancouver Island to Alaska

We had a fantastic time at CYC last week recounting our trips north - here's the ppt

Vancouver Island to Alaska - our CYC presentation

business trip to Taipei? Yes please!

Better late than never, but 6 months after this awesome trip, here are some pictures! (I had to beat Jason's post about Romania)

I've never seen so many mopeds in my life.



At every intersection, there is a special area that the mopeds are all allowed to cut in front of the cars



Resulting in what sounds like a moped gang at every green light



Temples were everywhere and just gorgeous



Candles, chanting...



Flowers of sacrifice were beautiful



Some of the coolest trees ever



I got a chance to go to the National Museum - my favorite part of which were the gardens



But by far the best part of the entire trip was my last day there. A very good friend of the family grew up in Taiwan and hooked me up with two of her good friends that still live there - they took an entire Saturday to drive me around outside of the city and we had an absolute blast!

First stop was a national park called Yehliu which had some spectacular natural sandstone sculptures, including one called Queens Head that busses upon busses of Chinese tourists stop to see!



Yeah, we stood in that line

New blog!

You may have noticed the glaring lack of posts on this blog as of late. We've been pretty preoccupied with the land, so we've decided to start a new blog to expose our adventures and follies of building. Please join us at http://andermentranch.blogspot.com/

(we're not giving up on this blog, but I'm not promising anything either!)

a new adventure

A week ago, we put an offer in on 5 acres on Vashon – the story starts much before that, of course; we’ve been looking for the right spot to buy for a few years, but we couldn’t work out how we could live on some land AND also work for a living. Then we sailed by Vashon Island this summer. We both knew the island was there, but for some reason had not given it a look. I’d never stepped foot on the island and I think we both figured it was out of our price range (I keep wanting to refer to the island as “she” – is that a sailing thing or is that an actual thing?).

As we sailed by, we happened to have data on our phones and realized two key things: 1) we could afford land there and 2) there was a commuter ferry to downtown Seattle!!!! We stopped into Quartermaster Harbor on our way back to Seattle and toured around with friends Ken and Susan and even looked at a lot that was for sale. But truthfully, I had already fallen in love with the island before I stepped foot on it.

Once we figured out there was affordable land and we could commute, I commenced research. And research showed this was an awesome community. That has been the big thing we look for after coming from the extremely tightknit and helpful sailing community. Not only was there a great group of people on the island, it’s a very active group and supports a ton of local events, businesses and organizations. Definitely our kind of place.

We started looking for land in about September and lived on the island for a few weeks while housesitting to get a better feel for it. We finally found an awesome parcel- a great size, near town and the ferry, walking distance to TONS of trails and a fun little “neighborhood” (is it called a neighborhood if you can’t see your neighbors?).

We’re excited and thrilled and completely scared at the thought of building a house, but definitely up for the challenge!