When hauling out Gyatso two weeks ago, the reality finally sank in: our 8 1/2 year voyage had come to an end. I was grateful and relieved that we had completed the journey safely and sad because it meant the end of long-distance cruising for us.

We’ve been busy since our last logbook update, which was about loading Gyatso on a freighter for the trip back from Europe. I wrote about our experience with “Shipping Home” in the December 2013 issue of SpinSheet magazine.

Here’s a brief update since then…

After the boat arrived safely in Palm Beach, FL, David hired a deckhand to help him transfer Gyatso via the ICW to the dock of Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) port officers and friends Don and D in Oriental, NC. (I was busy with work at the time.)

In December, I joined David for the trip to the Chesapeake Bay, arriving two days before Christmas. I wrote about “Reflecting on a Voyage While Headed Northbound on the ICW” in the February 2014 issue of SpinSheet.

We had to leave Gyatso in Hampton, VA for three months while the polar vortex took hold of the winter weather. The Hampton Yacht Club, with their secure floating docks and slightly warmer weather, turned out to be a good spot to winter-over on the Chesapeake Bay. For my final monthly installment in SpinSheet‘s “Bluewater Dreaming” column, I explained how we were feeling ready to bring long-distance cruising to an end in “Moving on to New Adventures.”

We watched the weather closely and finally found a 5-day window in early March to make it back to Annapolis. We had to stay in Solomon’s for two days due to the bitter cold. On the morning we departed Solomon’s bound for Annapolis, it was 46 degrees F in the cabin with the heater on — brrr! It was a bit chilly and lonely out on the Bay but otherwise a very pleasant and uneventful trip north.

Click here for a photo gallery of our winter trip from Hampton, VA to Annapolis, MD.

With Thomas Point Light in view, we headed straight for Crab Creek, off the South River, to the dock of OCC port officers and friends Wolfgang and Gemma, on 14 March. Gyatso spent a little over two months at their dock, a convenient five minutes from our house, while receiving much deserved maintenance, cleaning and repairs.

Over the winter and on the trip north from Florida, we had numerous heart-to-heart discussions about what’s next. Should we hold onto Gyatso or make the difficult decision to sell now that our long distance cruising days are over? Soon after arriving back in Annapolis, we both came to the same decision. We had put so much into outfitting our Tayana 37 for ocean voyaging and long distance cruising that it only seemed right to sell the boat while it was still in “ready to cruise” mode.

This is why the haul out on May 27th was such an emotional time for both of us. When we set out cruising on Gyatso in 2005, it was truly an open-ended voyage. We figured that we’d know when the time was right to move on. Now the time is right, but that doesn’t make it any easier to let go.

Gyatso is now listed for sale.