Hello from Terra Firma, Indiana! It’s over a week now since Bodacious Dream and I arrived back in Jamestown, RI. That was Saturday the 14th, and what an incredible day it was!

I pulled into the dock just after noon to a great welcome from a special gathering of friends and family, including my wonderful 83-year-old mother who made the trip all the way from San Diego, CA!

We celebrated the completion of the circumnavigation right there on the dock and then after a toast (or two) and more hugs than I can count, we wandered up the road for a bite to eat at the Ganny, more officially known as the Narragansett Café.

It was a great time… so many happy faces… but now even a week later, I find myself waking up and not sure of where I am.

The next day, Sunday was a perfect New England coast day, and with some friends and family we sailed Bodacious Dream up the Bay to the Hinckley Boatyard. The sail was a perfect reach in 10 knots of breeze. Bodacious Dream sailed as smooth as can be, and my Mom even got a chance to steer her and enjoy the wind and sun.

Monday morning came early, and it was time to start the maintenance on the boat. I began to take her apart and by noon, we had the rig down, the keel off and had her sitting up in her cradle. She will be on the hard for the month of July for some much needed rest and rejuvenation! When lunchtime came around and my good friends at Hinckley, who had helped me to prep Bo last fall, honored me with a boatyard cookout! Thanks guys!

With Bodacious Dream securely at rest, I jumped back to the Midwest for a few days to mow the lawn and catch up with all those things that come a little undone when you’re gone for so long. But, I’ll be back end of the week to hit the worklist on Bodacious Dream and to get her ready for returning to the water at the end of July.

In the meantime, we’ve got four Leg 4 photo albums up that you can view… (1) The Galapagos to Panama, 2) Crossing the Panama Canal, 3) Panama to West Palm Beach and 4) The Arrival.

Also our friends over at The Jamestown Press ran a great story you can view HERE!

In addition to all that, we’ve begun putting up pretty comprehensive “RECAPS” on each one of the four legs of the trip. Start with Leg 1 right HERE if you like. And I will keep going through the folders of photos and videos I captured to find the more exciting stuff to post.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in following along on some good racing, my friends of Bodacious Racing are racing Bodacious IV in the Newport to Bermuda Race. They’ve had some good sailing, but there has been some really calm conditions with not  much wind. I understand too that they had some electronic wiring situations and that has slowed them down some. The leaders are starting to cross the finish line on this one, but you can check into race tracking by following this link right HERE! (Note: Bodacious IV is in “Class 8” and our friends in the Class 40’s are sailing double handed in “Class 14.”)

Back in my home waters of Lake Michigan, many of my solo sailing friends are competing in the Great Lakes Singlehanded Society’s Solo Mackinac Race.  About 28 boats started on Saturday and they are struggling upwind along the Michigan coast as of early Monday morning.  My good friend Joe Turns on Renaissance seems to have beaten the winds and taken a commanding lead in that race, I also follow closely Geronimo, my old boat and good friend Herb Philbrick….best of luck to all the guys in both these world class races. The link for that is right HERE!

OK, I’ll leave it at that, got some errands to run … but I’ll be back with more soon.

And one more time, thanks again for all your incredible support!

– Dave, Bodacious Dream and (lost to the World Cup) Franklin

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