12 Countries & Counting...
What started as a leap of faith from our life on land has grown into an ever-evolving adventure across the globe. This page traces our sailing journey—country by country—as we share the places Afterglow has carried us, the cultures we’ve discovered, and the unforgettable moments along the way. From our first days learning the ropes in the United States to exploring hidden anchorages in the Caribbean, here’s a look at the voyage so far.
If you’d like to follow our daily travels more closely, you can find every one of our trip logs on the Sea People App.
We started our journey on Afterglow in Key West, Florida, where we were living at the time & found the boat on Facebook Marketplace. We had been on a full time hunt for our new home on the water and were lucky enough to find it in the mooring field where Andrew used to live on his old trawler, Bad Decisions.
We lived on Afterglow for a full year on the dock in Key West before sailing up the keys and across to our first stop, Bimini in the Bahamas.
We spent 4 amazing months cruising through the Bahams. We started in Bimini, headed up to West End, then the Abacos for a fun Sail Away Catamarans event (Andrew's Brokerage).
From there, we headed down to Eleuthera where we took our dinghy across the Devil's Backbone to Harbour Island for the day, visited the Glass Window Bridge, and spent some time with a friend in south Eleuthera.
We then motored across to Little San Salvador for a night to troll and caught 3 tuna along the way (YUM!).
We spent a majority of our time in the Bahamas in the Exumas, one of our favorite places in the world. We island hopped our way down, spending a ton of time around the Land and Sea park and Staniel Cay.
Towards the end of our time in the Bahamas, when Hurricanes became more prevalent (late August), we visited Long Island and from there went straight to Hogsty Reef, a remote Atoll, to meet up with a few buddy boats before sailing down to Little Inagua, where we saw wild flamingos and the most amazing diving we've experienced in our lives.
Although the Dominican Republic is technically in the "hurricane belt," we found out about this little hurricane hole harbor with 360 degree protection and sprinkled with cruisers called Luperón. Not only did we meet the most interesting cruisers at the bi-weekly trivia night at TK's and nightcaps at Wendy's Bar, we experienced our first big community of cruisers since leaving the USA. We spent 3 months in Luperón, 1 of which we left our boat on a mooring ball to visit family and attend the Annapolis Sailboat Show. Luperón is a great place to leave your boat during hurricane season with great resources to keep an eye on it while you're gone.
In November when we were nearing the end of hurricane season, we beat into the wind towards Samaná, where we stayed in the beautiful Marina Puerto Bahia for a week while we prepared to cross the Mona Passage. We felt truly spoiled with the pools, restaurants, and friendly staff! Highly recommend stopping there if you're passing by or spending a hurricane season in the DR.
After a pretty uneventful trip across the Mona Passage, we reached the southern coast of Puerto Rico. We decided we were in the mood to sail long distance and chose to sail across the entire island, finally anchoring in the Spanish Virgin Islands.
One of Andrew's best friends has lived on the island of Vieques for 8+ years, so that was our first stop. He showed us around the island, we shared a couple (more than a couple) Medalla beers, and were in awe of the hundreds of wild horses roaming the streets.
Next we sailed to Culebra, an island not too far from Vieques, but boy was it a rough sail. We had the best crab dip of our lives at the restaurant "Dinghy Dock," and rented a golf cart for the day to explore and visit Playa Flamenco. The next night we spent anchored in Culebrita, with the clearest water we had seen since the Bahamas, and definitely worth stopping to see.
Sailing up to the Virgin Islands was high on our bucket list. 2 years prior, we got engaged on our trip to the USVI/BVI, and almost went home, packed our bags, and moved to an apartment on St John. Since our last visit, we had been dreaming about spending more time there, and so we ended up in the USVI/BVI for 6 months on our sailboat.
We rented a long term mooring in Red Hook, St Thomas, where Andrew was able to get to work on a few charter boats while we were in the area to keep funding our travels.
During our time there and between charter work we traveled back and forth many many times between the USVI and BVI.
In February of 2025, we had our immediate family visit us in St John where we got married on a balcony overlooking Great Cruz Bay where Afterglow was on a mooring. Instead of a rehearsal dinner we chartered 2 center consoles to take our family around the BVI for the day, to the famous Soggy Dollar bar and Willy T to party it up the night before we tied the knot(t)... lol.
Towards the end of the season we attended the Chasing Bubbles Regatta. What. A. Week. We had 3 friends fly in to crew on our boat, and had an epic YCA raft up in Virgin Gorda. It may have been the most fun week, ever. We met so many other cruisers that we still see to this day, and will hopefully see others in the future and maybe on the other side of the world. It was a gathering of salty expats from all over, some who have sailed across oceans, some just starting their journey. We highly recommend participating in the next one if you're in the area!
We didn't leave the VI until June 1st, the first day of hurricane season.
When we first left Virgin Gorda, BVI for St Martin, we turned back from the rough seas shifting our brand new dinghy in the davits. We figured it would be best to turn back and regroup, mount the outboard, and wait for a better weather window.
We sailed the journey across, our longest trip in over 6 months after short hops around the VI for the season.
Although St Martin was pretty desolate and empty since most cruisers had already headed south for hurricane season, we loved it. Our favorite area by far was Grand Case, where we anchored for a long weekend. We had read about the food before heading over, but it truly was a foodie's paradise. The french wine, the baguettes, the cheese. Unbeatable. Our friend told us you always need to buy two baguettes, because you'll always be too tempted to finish one on the dinghy ride home.
We stocked up on food, wine, and liquor in St Martin because the prices were cheaper than we had seen in a long time, as the French islands have great prices.
We had a rigging inspection done, bought too many things to count from the marine stores, and completely took advantage of the infinite amount of resources St Martin has to offer.
We only spent 1 night in St Barths, for a few reasons. We got on a mooring ball in a bay that smelled so badly of sargassum that it stunk up our whole boat, and it was EXPENSIVE. We knew we were stopping at a pricey island, but we wanted to stop by just to see what all of the fuss was about.
It was a beautiful island, we took a taxi over to Nikki Beach for a drink or two and the views were stunning.
Not a practical stop on a cruisers budget, but glad we did before heading south.
We arrived in Fort de France after a long 230 nautical mile sail south. It has been the first place we had visited in the Caribbean that felt like a proper city. We explored, then decided to sail south to an area that was more our speed, Les Anses d'Arlet. We loved the beach town and spent days letting Isla roam the beach, snorkel with turtles, and sitting at the restaurants on the beach watching time go by.
We ended our time in Martinique in Le Marin, where we were surprised to see so many boats and cruisers. We hadn't done much research about this spot, but were excited to explore. We took Isla to the vet here before heading down to Union Island and HIGHLY recommend taking your pet there. Isla got a French passport and the vet was extremely knowledgable, helpful, and super friendly: Clinique Veterinaire du Marine.
Our first time visiting the Grenadines we sailed 120 nautical miles overnight to catch up to our friends in Union Island for the 4th of July. We heard there was going to be a party on Traveler, and we hate missing a party on Traveler (iykyk). We spent 5 days catching up with friends, some that we had met at the Chasing Bubbles Regatta, some from Dominican Republic, and some new friends. It was terrible seeing the condition of the island after Hurricane Beryl destroyed most a year prior, but the locals seemed to be in good spirits and were friendly as ever.
The next time visiting St Vincent & the Grenadines we sailed up from Grenada. We checked into Union Island, then the next day visited the Tobago Cays. Although it was a bit windy, the water was stunning and we had the BEST lobster dinner on the beach and let Isla run free on the beach while we cooled off from the hot Caribbean summer heat.
We sailed up to Canouan where we had the southern anchorage all to ourselves. We took the dinghy over to Charlestown and met some local kids hanging around curious about our dinghy. Andrew took them around the harbor on a dinghy ride and they had the time of their lives swimming around and messing with our new DJI camera filming underwater.
After that we explored Bequia, which is now one of our top 5 favorite islands in the Caribbean. Bequia not only has amazing beaches, tons of restaurants on the water with dinghy access, but the absolute NICEST people around. We could easily spend the entire hurricane season here. There is great access to trash, grocery stores, laundry services for 25EC per load, and I could go on and on. From here we sailed up to St Lucia for a few days before hopping back down the Grenadines back to Grenada.
On our sail up to St Lucia we caught our fist ever SAILFISH on Afterglow!! It was such a rush, and unfortunately the rod jammed towards the end and we lost it, but it was definitely the highlight of our sail.
Sailing up to the Pitons is something you see in movies and don't think you'll ever get to experience in real life. We got on a mooring ball right next to Petit Piton, and it felt like we were on another planet. We explored the town and snorkeled right off of our boat next to the piton.
A few days later we moved between Petit Piton and Gros Piton right outside of Sugar Beach Resort. This view might have been our favorite out of any anchorage we have ever been in. We took our dinghy to the resort for lunch and had the view of being surrounded by the pitons with our boat right in the middle.
We hired a taxi to take us to the start point of a hike with the view of the Pitons and visited the mud baths, a must do when in St Lucia.
The only negative we have for St Lucia is the fear of theft, that we saw on Navionics. Most reviews were from 10+ years ago, but one from a few months prior. We didn't experience anything while there, but something to keep in mind. We always feel much safer because of our boat alarm system (Isla), knowing she will alert us and bark any time someone comes up to the boat.
We're so excited to share what the next country we will be sailing to is. It will be our longest sail yet and we have a returning crew member joining us for the journey! More on that soon...
Arriving in Grenada felt like a huge accomplishment as sailors. There are these areas of the world that you reach that feel like you have conquered a certain region of a circumnavigation. Our first accomplishment was reaching the DR, then Virgin Islands, and next Grenada.
We were in a rush to get to Grenada to haul out at Spice Island Marine, who did a great job painting the bottom (which was well overdue) and had some welding done on our stainless.
We flew back to the states for a month while our boat was being worked on, then came back and finally got to explore Grenada.
We sailed over to Grand Anse for Emma's birthday and explored the beaches and St. George's.
We also stopped in Carriacou for a bit, but were cautious after hearing they add poison to the beaches and aren't big fans of dogs. We cautiously took Isla to shore there but didn't want to risk spending too much time if that was true.
We still have more to explore in Grenada, and plan to before we head off to the next country....