The Homecoming

Well, I’ve tried to stretch it out for as long as I can, but before it becomes irrelevant, here is the final Cool Runnings journey blog post! OK…maybe I can squeeze in one more a few months down the line to let you all know how the “after cruising” life is, but for now, here’s our recollection of our homecoming.

When we left Venice on that Friday morning, June 9th, I think we all had our own thoughts about our final homecoming. Well, the kids were still sleeping, so they were not thinking anything at the time, but we had certainly talked about it in days prior! We all clearly remembered the stress of leaving back in 2016, and sailing under John’s Pass Bridge, knowing it would be a long time before we would be doing that again. And now that time was here. In a few hours we would be asking the bridge to open for us once more, letting us return to our dock.

Leaving our dock in April 2016, Ben and Gaby contemplate what's about to happen.  John's Pass Bridge opens for us and our journey begins.  Now it was coming to a close.

Thinking back to the places we’d visited, the people we’d met, new friends we’d made and old friends we’d reconnected with, and the thousands and thousands of sea miles we’d covered, we knew that a new (old) life awaited us, and we would be leaving this one behind. But the experiences and memories were ours to keep, forever in our hearts and minds.

The wind was light, and the sun was shining. We slowly edged our way up the coast and familiar landmarks came into view. The most significant was the Sunshine Skyway. This landmark bridge connects Pinellas and Manatee Counties, spanning 4.1 miles (6.6km) across Tampa Bay. It has a clearance of 180ft (55 meters), so it is a bridge I quite happily go under, knowing that we have plenty of clearance with our 70 foot mast! It is a cable-stayed bridge which has two towers (or pylons), from which cables support the bridge deck. The cables run directly from the tower to the deck of the bridge, forming a fan-like pattern, and making it a very unique, and well-recognized landmark. The cables on the Skyway are painted yellow, further owing to the name, the Sunshine Skyway. We are very proud of our bridge, especially since the Travel Channel rated the Sunshine Skyway number 3 in its special on the "Top 10 Bridges" in the World! 

Sailing under the Skyway at dusk a few days before we left in 2016 and our first view as we sailed home in June 2018

As we slowly sailed past the Skyway, we soon spotted our next most visited spot…Egmont Key. This island was our weekend getaway. Ever since we have owned a boat in Florida, we’ve spent weekends and many holidays anchored off Egmont Key, enjoying exploring the island and its beaches. Egmont Key is a Florida State Park and the Egmont Key Lighthouse and the ruins of Fort Dade, a Spanish–American War era fort, are located on the island. Sailing past it now brought back so many memories, and it felt like we had just been there yesterday!

Sailing past Egmont Key island with its historic lighthouse just visible against the light sky

We had just spotted the Don Cesar hotel, also known as “The Pink Hotel”, when we heard someone hailing “Cool Runnings” on the radio! We answered, not knowing who it was, nor seeing another vessel close by. Turns out it was the first of our welcoming committee!!! Jeff and John, both residents of Normandy Road where we live, had come out on Jeff’s boat to greet us and welcome us home! John, who lives two doors down, has been a wonderful support to Dave’s parents while we’ve been gone, routinely cutting and edging our lawn, cutting back out of control plants and checking on everyone, especially during the harrowing 2017 hurricane season. And now he and Jeff were the first to officially welcome us home! They came along side, and tossed us two cold Budweiser beers! Thank you, John, for your help in keeping the home fires burning, and to both you and Jeff for taking the time to come out and meet us!

Jeff and John welcome us with a cold beer!

After a short chat across the water, they returned home and we continued sailing. We were taking our time, slowly sailing along because we were waiting for Dave’s mom, Rosemary, to finish work, and make her way down to John’s Pass Bridge so she could watch us sail in. We took this time to string up all our flags of all the countries we’d visited and hoisted them up the back of the boat. We were getting ready for our grand entrance!

Stringing together all the country courtesy flags and flying them off the stern

We could see a typical Florida afternoon thunderstorm forming on the horizon, but we were so excited about getting home, we didn’t pay it much attention. The weather was still good, and we had our full sails up. Our canvases were rolled up and our country flags were flying. Before long, our second welcoming committee boat came out to see us! This time, it was Mike Auton, who lives a few roads down from us, and had been following our journey on our blog. He came out on his sailboat to greet us. We were busy waving and shouting hello, when I distinctly remember Dave shouting to Mike, “Looks like we might get a bit of a storm”, pointing to the dark clouds on the horizon.

Mike sails past us, and takes some photos of us.  I do believe that is quite a storm brewing on the horizon!

By now we had received word from Dave’s mom that she was at the bridge, so it was time to come in. It was almost within minutes of getting ready to hail the bridge for an opening, that the first wind hit us. It was so fast, and so strong, it took us totally by surprise! While Dave managed the boat in the strong wind, I radioed the bridge and asked if he could open up for us. The answer was negative. The wind was so strong, that it was not safe for the bridge to open! We watched the wind instruments reading the wind strength…20 knots…25 knots…30 knots…it just kept rising! We were way overpowered with our full main and jib. We had to put a reef in the mainsail. Dave pointed the boat into the wind, and once again we were crashing up and down as we faced directly into the wild waves. We also had to watch the depth…soon our depth alarm was going off! 5 feet of water…we were about to run aground!!

This series of shots from the GoPro tries to capture the waves

Our safest course of action was to sail away from the bridge and the entrance channel to John’s Pass. Our friends and family waiting on shore, also being buffeted by the strong winds, had to watch us sail away! We were so close, but we had to turn around! On board Cool Runnings, our country flags were being shredded, and with our canvases up, we were being soaked by waves crashing into the cockpit.

We got pretty soaked!

We continued watching the wind strength…30 knots…35 knots…we had gusts up to 38 knots, but sustained 32 – 33 knots! We tried to get our country flags down, and in the end, had to cut the halyard that held them, so twisted and torn were they! We were still way overpowered with one reef in our main sail, so we had to drop it. In dramatic fashion, we quickly faced into the wind once again, and just let the main halyard go, and with a bang, the main sail crashed down onto the boom, landing in a messy heap on the sail bag! But that was the least of our worries…at the same time, we realized that we had lost an engine! We had put the engines on when the storm first came through, and when Dave revved them this time, to turn the boat into the wind, only one engine engaged. We had lost our port engine!

Gaby mourns our sodden mass of flags dumped unceremoniously on the floor, never having lived the glory they were meant for!

About 45 minutes had passed since the first winds hit us and the bridge couldn’t open, but we soon heard them on the radio. The bridge tender advised that the wind was now at a safe enough strength for him to open, and he would do so when we were ready. With now only having one engine, we had to raise the sail one more time, to have some additional maneuverability going through the bridge. We put a sliver of sail up, with 3 reefs in the mail sail. We turned the boat around and once again headed towards John’s Pass, limping into the channel that leads to the bridge. Throughout this whole drama, Mike Auton was also stuck out here on his boat, single-handedly keeping her under control in the storm!

We turn Cool Runnings around for the final time and head toward John's Pass Bridge.  Mike is in front of us also waiting for a bridge opening

Soon we were close enough to see our land welcoming committee! Waving flags and holding up a huge sign that read “Welcome Home Hibberd Family”, there were cheers and shouts of joy!  We radioed the bridge and asked for an opening. The bridge tender came back and said, “I understand you are just returning from a world circumnavigation”.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Dave. “We’ve been gone for just over 2 years, and we are now coming home!”

“Well,” said the bridge tender, “we at John’s Pass salute you and are honored to have you amongst us! Welcome Home!”  It was so moving, I had tears in my eyes!

As we get closer, we see them waving to us from the shore!

Unfortunately, Dave missed most of the transmission and the kind words because he had spotted Mike in a bit of a pickle! During the rough seas in the storm, his anchor had come loose and fallen over the bow of his boat! He was having to pull it up by hand, and keep his boat somewhat into the wind! There was little we could do, as we ourselves were a bit bruised and battered, limping along with one engine and it was still rough and blowing about 20 knots!

Mike working on pulling up his anchor

As we sailed through the bridge, the bridge tender gave us a very long, very loud blast of his horn, and announced through his microphone, “Welcome Home, Cool Runnings!”. Even the cars on the bridge, who normally get annoyed with the boats going through, (because it inevitably delays someone), were honking their horns in welcome! It felt wonderful!!

On shore, Allen, Dave's dad, Kayla, our niece and Rosemary, Dave's mom, cheer us on

Gaby waves back as we get ready to go through the bridge

In calm water at last as the bridge closes behind us.  Mike is still out there, and had to wait for the next bridge opening!

Ben takes the helm as we watch the bridge slowly close behind us

Now in the calm waters of Boca Ciega Bay, Dave had a quick look at the engine to see what the problem was. We had a broken fan belt - it had literally shredded! But no worries for this circumnavigator! He pulled out a spare fan belt that we had carried with us all around the world, and quickly changed it! 30 minutes later, we were back to 2 engines! We dropped our sail for good this time, and motored the rest of the way home.

The broken fanbelt lies on our cockpit table as Dave huddles in the engine room installing a new one!

As we entered our canal, we spotted David and Kay, who live at the end of the road out on their dock, waving, cheering and welcoming us home. Next to them live Patty and Dave Simmons, and as we passed their house, I saw Patty running out, both arms waving, shouting “Welcome Home!”. Jeff was out on his dock, clapping and shouting “Bravo, Bravo!” We felt like celebrities!

Coming down our canal.  

And then there it was…our house, our dock, our family and Dave’s friends from work, (Kim, Cindy and Edette) all cheering us on and welcoming us home! Thank you so much, Ladies, for making the drive out on a Friday afternoon, and for sitting through the ridiculous storm, and waiting the extra hour or so until we were finally at the dock! We know it turned into a much longer expedition than you had probably planned, but we really, really appreciated it! To all our neighbors and friends, thank you for welcoming us home! Mike, Jeff and John, thanks for coming out on your boats to see us. It certainly wasn’t the homecoming we had planned, but boy, was it a story to tell!! How ironic, that we made it all the way around the world, and one of the worst storms we encountered was a few miles from our house!

Arriving at the dock...Gaby is bursting with excitement!

Stepping onto our dock again was a little surreal. It was like we had never even left, and yet, it was a world apart. We had all grown so much (literally and figuratively!), and yet we were still the same. It’s not something I can easily explain. Our adventure was over. The trip; the saving, the planning and preparation that had consumed us for years, was over. We had accomplished and experienced something of epic proportions, and I was sad that it had come to an end. But standing there on our dock, watching the joy in the kids’ faces as they hugged their grandparents and squealed with delight over seeing our dog, Lucy again, made me realize that it’s also OK to let that go, to savor the memories we made, feel proud of what we accomplished, and move on. Move forward, to this new, old life, and who knows, to maybe one day, do it all again!

Back on land!

More Welcome Home!

We hope you enjoyed travelling virtually with us on our journey around the world! We loved having you along, and appreciated every single comment, email or phone call we received. A special thank you to those of you who propped us up when we were down, who helped us out when we were in need, who welcomed us and hosted us when we visited you. There are too many to mention by name, but we hope you know who you are! You are all welcome to come and visit at any time! Cool Runnings is enjoying a well-earned rest right now, but she’ll be ready for some trips to Egmont Key or even the Florida Keys in the near future.

Cool Runnings at rest at our dock at sunset

Please note that our Iridium email address (hibberd@myiridium.net), that we used while we were at sea, is no longer working as we have ended that subscription. You can reach us now on Dave’s email, which is dthibberd@gmail.com. We look forward to seeing old friends and new, if your paths ever lead you this way, we welcome you with open arms!

So what does the future hold for us? Well, we know what the kids will be doing, but for Dave and I, we are not quite sure! Both Ben and Gaby will be attending new schools. Benjamin will be starting 9th grade at Northside Christian School and Gaby will be starting 7th grade at Madeira Beach Fundamental School. Both Dave and I will be looking for jobs, I will hopefully return to freelancing, taking on meeting planning or project management jobs as they become available, but am open to anything at this point!

Although Dave is also open to anything, he has thought of starting a charter business in the interim.  He will get his Captain’s License which will allow him to take paying passengers. We think he has a wealth of knowledge that he can somehow impart to others who either want to do what we did, or enjoy just a night, a weekend or a week on the boat. We have beautiful cruising waters right here in Florida that we can and should utilize, and a beautiful boat to do it in! With that in mind, we’ve spent the last couple of weeks since our return, furiously working to give Cool Runnings a make over, and she is looking fantastic! She’s lost a lot of weight, which will make her much faster in the water, and she’s had a few nips and tucks to make her beautiful again!

Revamped Cool Runnings...ready for a new adventure!

We will see what this new, old life has in store for us, but for the time being, this is Cool Runnings, over and out.  We hope you enjoyed the journey...we certainly have!