Fiona:

I was born and brought up in Barnet, north London. I went to the local Girls grammar school,  where I did O and A levels. I was a keen swimmer, participated in most sports at school and also enjoyed camping and hiking. The only sailing I did was in Wayfarers when my brothers were in the Sea Scouts, but honestly I preferred to mess about in the open air swimming pool next door! In 1980 I went to UWIST in Cardiff to study International Transport and subsequently got a job as a graduate trainee with a soft drinks company. I moved around the country and ended up in Devon as manager of a small distribution depot. When the company merged with another one, I lost most of my enthusiasm and left to try other avenues, ending up as a sales rep for Federal Express in the Devon/Cornwall area in 1988. I changed roles several times with FedEx, working in quality training, project management for the Invoicing/Revenue department which involved lots of travel internationally and ended up in the Customer Technology department installing software and computer systems, training customers how to use them as well as having to maintain and repair the systems too.

I met Terry at work (FedEx) in 1990. I had no sailing experience (see above) but joined Terry as crew on his Swift 18 trailer-sailer in Southampton at weekends. We got ourselves into plenty of scrapes and learnt quickly in Southampton Water and the Solent. Our first weekend overnighter was to Bucklers Hard up the River Beaulieu. It was an idyllic weekend in perfect summer weather. We rafted up to another boat on the piles in the middle of the river, but we were so inexperienced we had to be loaned lines long enough to reach the piles by our temporary neighbours, they even had to set them for us as we had no dinghy either! We watched the sun go down with a glass or 2. the next day, back in the Solent with a massive hangover we had to deal with the racing fleets bearing down on us, while we had light winds, a foul spring tide, and were on port tack. ouch!

Terry moved up to a Westerly Centaur - a complete antithesis to the very tender Swift - which gave us more space so we could spend longer on board. Terry had always voiced his dream of one day sailing away into the sunset. It wasn't something I could imagine myself doing but happily spent weekends and summer holidays sailing to the west country and across the channel. In his quest to get a 'proper' sailing boat, Terry bought a Rival 34, a boat he fell in love with when one arrived in Weymouth. This was the boat he was going to prepare for sailing away in. In 2002 we took Roam to the Isles of Scilly during a 6 week sabbatical. At that point I also 'saw the light' and began to see myself living on board for extended periods and sailing longer distances. Roam was also a wonderful sailing boat, so different to the Swift and the Centaur.  Terry had crew to join him on his dream

We then seriously began plotting our exit strategy. This involved paying off the mortgage and accumulating as much cash as possible. Actually we didn't feel we went without anything, we still had winter holidays skiing or somewhere hot as well as 3 weeks on board Roam in the summer. Neither of us has a taste for the latest gadgets, new sofas or designer clothes, so it wasn't hard. In 2003 we reckoned that we should aim to sail away in 2005 before Terry hit the ripe old age of 45. In 2004 we down-sized our property and paid off the mortgage and then spent the next 6 months with me working on the house and Terry preparing the boat.

On June 9th 2005 we were waved off from Ramparts Quay in Southampton towards the Solent. The rest is, as they say, history....

 

 

Terry: