It’s June, and we’re back aboard heading north. Hopefully with no unexpected calls or U-turns, just the steady pull of the seasons and the familiar rhythm of preparing to return to our life on the boat. After missing last summer aboard our trawler Liberdade,the anticipation feels different, sweeter. Absence has a way of sharpening appreciation. And now, after a year of tending to family matters, we return to the sea, not just with excitement, but with a renewed sense of what it means to have this life.

Last year, my wife Dori lost her mother, and we lost our summer of cruising. I wouldn’t begin to equate these with the same gravity by any stretch, except that both have reminded us of the importance of spending time with people we love, and doing the things that we love.

Loss is not just the missing, more often it is the remembering, the longing. It is the sudden or gradual realization that something, or someone who once anchored your world is no longer there, leaving behind a space that refuses to be filled. It is love with nowhere to go. Sometimes it is sharp and immediate, like the unexpected phone call that turned our world around last May. Other times it is slow and quiet, like the tide pulling away, leaving only impressions in the sand.

The act of getting back aboard is always a transition, a shift from land’s solidity to the gentle, ever-moving world of the boat. It’s a process of re-familiarizing—the way the decks feel underfoot, the sound of water against the hull at night, the particular scent of aged teak and salt air. It reminds us of countless past adventures aboard. But this year, that transition feels even more profound. There’s something grounding about stepping back onto a boat you know so well, about opening lockers and finding things just as you left them—reminders of a life that paused but did not disappear.

Stepping away from the water for a season wasn’t something we planned, but it gave us something unexpected in return: a deeper gratitude for this life we’ve chosen. There is a comfort in knowing that the sea will wait. That no matter what unfolds on shore, the tides will still rise and fall, the anchorages will still be there, and the friendships forged along the way will pick up right where they left off. Perhaps that’s the real lesson in all of this: It’s okay to let life intervene, to pause. To tend to what needs tending. The water will still be there when you return, and when you do, you will appreciate it even more.

Returning to the boat feels like reclaiming a missing piece of our soul. The boat has been such a constant in our life for the last 12 years. Each detail speaks of resilience and continuity, as if the boat itself understands our need to heal. Here, amid the rhythmic lapping of waves, we reconnect with our adventurous spirit and embrace the promise of new tomorrows.

We look forward not just to the places but to the people—those familiar voices on the radio, the spontaneous dockside conversations, the shared meals in quiet anchorages. Our life aboard has proven the connections we’ve forged are strong, no matter how much time passes. There is something comforting in knowing that the people who share this life understand its patterns, its joys and its inevitable interruptions.

There’s also something deeply satisfying about slipping back into the cadence of our life aboard—the morning ritual of checking the weather, plotting the day’s route over a cup of coffee, the feel of the boat coming alive beneath us as we pull up the anchor. It’s a rhythm we know well, one that feels like home.

And so, as we prepare to get underway this time, it is with a full heart—not just for the journey ahead, but for the unexpected turns that have made it all the more meaningful.

This article originally appeared in the June/July 2025 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.