A Blog Is More

When I started this blog, the primary goal was to document our quest to become full-time cruisers so we could explain and answer questions for our families.  I also thought it would be fun to have a journal so some time in the future I could look back at my naive thoughts and theories. I had also hoped that perhaps some of the information would be helpful to anyone else considering this lifestyle change in the future.  You know...learn from the mistakes of others because you don't have enough time to make them all yourself.

Found on the internet.  Might originally be from despair.com

Well, over the past year and a half (wow...it's really been that long...where does the time go) I've actually met some pretty interesting people thanks to blogging.  Thanks to other blogs, I've met some neat people and I've increased my knowledge level (I hope) and certainly my reading library, and thanks to a couple mentions in other blogs have apparently reached a larger audience.  While I don't post as often as I would really like (only so much cruising-related subject matter while I'm land-locked), I do get page views daily from people around the world.  I interact with several other bloggers who I consider "virtual" friends...having never met them in person (yet). All in all, pretty cool.

One particularly interesting thing that has happened is that this blog has helped introduce me to others in my area that share similar goals. Who would have thought there would be a fair number of people in Colorado that either dream of, or are working toward, a cruising lifestyle.  I mean, after all, we are about 1000 miles from the nearest ocean.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised though, Coloradans do tend to be a pretty active lot.  When we were learning to scuba dive in St. Croix, I can't even remember how many times we were told "Did you know that Colorado has more certified divers per capita than any other U.S. state?"* Truth is we probably drag down any rating more than bring it up.

Anyway, getting back to my point.  I've had a few folks from Colorado reach out to me and tell me they are interested in cruising.  I've had dinner or drinks with a couple of them and have found another who periodically needs "crew" when he goes sailing out on the local reservoir. It's been fun to meet folks with similar interests and swap stories. Not a perk I expected from having a blog, but welcome nonetheless.

If you've thought of saying hi, please feel free to drop us a line.  You can send us email at gmail.com by using the blog name, ThisRatSailed, as the user name.

*I have no idea if this statistic is true, but I do periodically hear on the local news that several cities and perhaps the state is ranked among the most active on a pretty regular basis.