Robert and Virginia Gleser Reflect on 25 Years of Cruising
In the late 1990s, even though we still had kids in college and six viable businesses all clicking along nicely, I decided that going cruising was what I wanted to do. My wonderful wife Virginia, whom I have now been happily married to for 53 years, thought I was out of my mind, but I was determined, and by juggling the financial numbers and imposing several measures of austerity, in fall 2000 we sailed out the Golden Gate and turned left for Mexico. This is now our silver jubilee, our 25th season of cruising as far south as Central America and Ecuador.
Once grandkids started arriving on the scene and the new moms were needing Grandma to help out, we returned to Mexico and the easily accessible cruising grounds of Baja and the Gold Coast south of Puerto Vallarta. Settling into our about 1,700-mile annual journey during the Mexican fall and winter, we continue to have new experiences, and meet wonderful old and new friends. After leaving San Carlos, Sonora, where the boat has been in storage, and heading across to Baja, we spend a month or so going to the many lovely anchorages with clear blue water and great snorkeling. We then park Harmony for a couple of weeks each year to return to the US to have Thanksgiving with our family.
When we return, we make our way south past Puerto Vallarta and Cabo Corrientes to lovely anchorages where we have the kids and grandkids down for the winter holidays. The kids always came down to wherever we were, and now the grandkids have been doing it for 14 years. They love being in nature with other cruiser kids and learning all the water sports.
We’ve found the Manzanillo area a convenient place to have visitors, and for two more months we keep busy living the cruising life. We start heading north near the end of February to put the boat away, and arrive back in the US sometime near the end of March. One of the biggest lessons we have learned is not to have a tight schedule, so although we do need to be somewhere to meet friends or family, we leave plenty of time to get there.
There have been amazing changes between 2000, when we were the young kids on the block, and now, when, well, at 77 and 74, there are not too many old timers still pursuing the dream. But one thing remaining constant is that everyone out here still makes up an incredible community of happy, hardworking, hard-playing idealists who are actively doing what they love, which is somewhat rare these days.
Robert and Virginia Gleser from Alameda are still cruising after 25 years aboard their Islander Freeport 40, Harmony. Continue reading their story in December’s Changes in Latitudes.