‘swallow the anchor, to’,

a nautical term meaning to retire from sea life and settle down ashore.

Oxford Reference

Well a lot has happened since our last post.

We built a house on Pine Island Florida on land we have owned for almost 20 years.

The house is built with as much 'Old Florida' feel as practical. Pictured above, you can see that while the house is 'complete' ,much landscaping work remains.Tom has been working on planting about 1 acre of grass that was 'destroyed' in the construction However, one of the outstanding existing features of our land (4.5 acres) is about 10 mature live oak trees (not shown).

The garage is detached. Shown in front is the tractor which is essential to take care of a piece of land like this (so says Tom).

The boat looks better than ever and sports much new equipment. She has been a great boat!

She is listed for sale by Whiteaker Yacht Sales.

So we are 'swallowing the anchor', an old term describing someone giving up life at sea. We have owned the boat for almost 9 years; lived on her for 6 years; cruised the Bahamas for 5-6 months a year where we made many Bahamian friends that we call family. It has been a great run, but it is time for the next phase of our lives.

This will be the last blog post of S/V Barefoot. Thanks for following along through the years!

Tom & Joyce,

At Home, Pineland, Florida