Finding a winter home/Back to the U.S.

October 1998 to October 1999, Bijou stayed in Roanne. We had planned to be gone for four months, but life got in the way, so it turned out to be a year. She was side-tied to a large barge, whose permanent home was Roanne.  Jim, the skipper, took good care of her while we were gone, but we didn't think that responsibility could carry on any longer so when we returned to Roanne, we decided to move Bijou to the Mediterranean. We knew we didn't have the time to take her there via the canals due to time constraints, so we decided to truck her. It was a harrowing experience and we still can't believe we pulled it off. BUT Bijou got safely to Port Saint Luis on the Med. and we had time to get her settled into her new digs. She is in a huge hangar-like building with many other boats.  Safe from the elements and secure from vandals.  

Bijou on the hard at Port Saint Luis Marina. She gets taken from her hangar environs to their outside boat yard for maintenance and care.

Carl helping with lines to secure Bijou onto the truck that would take her from Roanne to Port Saint Luis on the Mediterranean.

Bijou and her truck leaving Roanne. Next stop, Port Saint Luis. The truck and boat actually beat us there. Really surprised us.

October 1999. Once we got Bijou settled in her new home in Port Saint Luis, we headed back to the U.S. and to a life we thought was going to be short-term.  But again, life had other ideas and so Port Saint Luis became her permanent home. The term "swallow the anchor" is used for people who have for one reason or another left the cruising life behind. And so it was for us. 

This is the last entry for the cruising blog. The story of life on a boat is over and another one has started. So many memories and experiences that this blog only highlighted with a few posts. Nine-and-a-half years was something we never thought possible and we feel so fortunate to have had the chance to live it.

We did carry all of the pictures and slides we took over the nine-a-half years back to the States.  It took awhile, but we did get them in some sort of order. The only time period missing was our journey from Panama to Florida. We made many stops and took ten rolls of film with 36 exposures each. When we put them in to get developed in Florida, the company lost all of those films, so we are missing a sizable chunk of our cruise. It took a long time to get over that loss.