Chocobo is sold and on April 25th we not only closed a sale transaction but also the most amazing adventure of our life. We shouldn’t get attached to material belongings but for 3 years, 7 months and 21 days we lived, ate, slept, laugh, cried and sheltered in this boat. She took us through 48 different countries, over 3 oceans and over 30500 nautical miles (56730 km) across the globe. We constantly took care of her and she took well care of us in return. How can anyone other than a concrete block be unemotional about this? We sure aren’t but nevertheless our journey ends now and Chocobo cannot come with us. Did I weep a little went I read the email we received from the agent stating that all the paperwork had been processed and Chocobo was officially sold? You bet I did and for a guy who was daring Somalian pirates in their own territory about a year ago; that’s embarrassing! Her new name is now “Escape Velocity” and Chocobo will now live only in our hearts and in the ones of all of you who followed and lived our adventures during the past four years.
I would like to write a great closing text for our journey but how can one describe in a paragraph how we felt and what we saw during 1329 days of intense travelling? Even if I was to give you only one world for each country we saw I would fill an entire paragraph. I guess this will have to wait for the book I’m hoping to complete within the next year. Yet in retrospective was it worth? Every single 114 825 600 seconds of it. Was it too expensive? Indeed it was but we don’t regret any of the 18 788 200 pennies we spent. What we lived in this trip is ours forever and as we all know the point was not get anywhere since we are now back exactly where we started but to imprint ourselves of the world out there and that we sure did. Danielle and I are not the same people we used to be. The world is not a quiet and totally safe place and if anything else we are now tougher people. We’ve learn to stand our ground especially from people who trying to rip us off or with officials trying to entangle us into rules based on a logic borrowed from another dimension. We saw the bad and the ugly for sure but also the good and the beautiful. The smile of a Peruvian woman is enough to make us forget Egypt. The peaceful atmosphere of a meal in the Chora on the island of Amorgos in Greece gives us the impression that time just stopped and the universe revolves around us. We learned so many things such as that sea lions have a fur and shed millions of hairs every nights especially when they lay in our cockpit. We know that Port Vila is the capital of Vanuatu and that we can sit at a table in the central market and have a good local meal for just a few dollars. We know that the Pacific Ocean is impossibly huge. As a matter of fact, I can tell you that the ride from the Galapagos to the Marquesas in the Pacific was 3000M long but you’ll never really know how huge this is until you jump on a boat and cross it by yourself. This and many other things we now know. This may never directly be useful to us in the future but these sensations, odors, colors and all those feelings induced by the many places we saw are now part of who we are. Our views of the world are now more precise and are the ones of peoples who saw it firsthand.
I would like to write a great closing text for our journey but how can one describe in a paragraph how we felt and what we saw during 1329 days of intense travelling? Even if I was to give you only one world for each country we saw I would fill an entire paragraph. I guess this will have to wait for the book I’m hoping to complete within the next year. Yet in retrospective was it worth? Every single 114 825 600 seconds of it. Was it too expensive? Indeed it was but we don’t regret any of the 18 788 200 pennies we spent. What we lived in this trip is ours forever and as we all know the point was not get anywhere since we are now back exactly where we started but to imprint ourselves of the world out there and that we sure did. Danielle and I are not the same people we used to be. The world is not a quiet and totally safe place and if anything else we are now tougher people. We’ve learn to stand our ground especially from people who trying to rip us off or with officials trying to entangle us into rules based on a logic borrowed from another dimension. We saw the bad and the ugly for sure but also the good and the beautiful. The smile of a Peruvian woman is enough to make us forget Egypt. The peaceful atmosphere of a meal in the Chora on the island of Amorgos in Greece gives us the impression that time just stopped and the universe revolves around us. We learned so many things such as that sea lions have a fur and shed millions of hairs every nights especially when they lay in our cockpit. We know that Port Vila is the capital of Vanuatu and that we can sit at a table in the central market and have a good local meal for just a few dollars. We know that the Pacific Ocean is impossibly huge. As a matter of fact, I can tell you that the ride from the Galapagos to the Marquesas in the Pacific was 3000M long but you’ll never really know how huge this is until you jump on a boat and cross it by yourself. This and many other things we now know. This may never directly be useful to us in the future but these sensations, odors, colors and all those feelings induced by the many places we saw are now part of who we are. Our views of the world are now more precise and are the ones of peoples who saw it firsthand.
Please meet the two new and very proud owners of Escape Velocity, Marce and Jack Schulz, two very nice peoples from Pittsburgh, PA who have been working for the last 20 years to reach the escape velocity, hence the name, necessary to quit their jobs, sell their house, jump on a boat and sail around the world! Yep, Chocobo has not seen the last of her oceans. Our dream comes to an end but their now begins and we are confident that our Chocobo will take them in places they can barely imagine. I invite you to follow their adventures on their blog at http://escapevelocity.mobi/ and to wish them fair wind and following seas for years to come. 
So with the most amazing adventure one can expect in his or her life behind what’s ahead of us? Well we haven’t totally figured it out yet. The last few months have been so busy and so intense for us, with packing our stuff and preparing the boat that we couldn’t make out a perfect scenario for our future but we will find something soon and keep you posted. We know that a very large number of peoples are really curious to know how peoples end up after a trip around the world. For the time being we are moving to Montreal to stay at Danielle’s daughter’s place, Jessye, until we can find a place we call home. Everything we had fit in 24 boxes that we stored temporarily in a rented storage before shipping everything up north. By the way, although Danielle and I have been together for 17 years, almost to the day, we actually got married just before we departed for our journey three and half years ago and this trip was officially our honeymoon. I don’t know if there is a Guinness record for the longest honeymoon in the world but I’m sure you’ll all agree that ours is one hard to beat!
By the way, although Danielle and I have been together for 17 years, almost to the day, we actually got married just before we departed for our journey three and half years ago and this trip was officially our honeymoon. I don’t know if there is a Guinness record for the longest honeymoon in the world but I’m sure you’ll all agree that ours is one hard to beat!
