Welcome

Do to popular and surprisingly vocal demand, I have decided to start my fourth blog. I hear the cheers from my Island Babble fans now. Thanks for the push guys.

For those of you who don't know me... in 2006, my husband and & I sold everything we owned, bought a boat we didn't know how to sail, and took off for the Caribbean (with our cat). The point was to find a warm island to live on and to find jobs on one we liked so we could stay as long as our sanity allowed. Believe it or not, our plan worked and after three years, we ended up selling our boat and living on the wonderful island of St. Kitts. Once on land, I started to convert my sailing blog to a printable keepsake for family and boater friends, and realized I had a fun story to tell. There aren't too many books that are honest about what it's really like to cruise for three years, nor were many from a female captain's point of view. The next thing I knew, I had A Sail of Two Idiots, and McGraw-Hill made sure it got out on shelves around the world (and online and in ebooks). My Babble fans were invaluable, not only by buying the book, but also making sure that their local bookstores stocked up as well. I will be forever grateful. If you haven't read it yet, I think you'll have a good time with it, whatever your background. Here's a video to give you a little taste.

When I wasn't in contract negotiations, being edited, or marketing myself, I was posting on my new blog, Island Babble. Originally designed to simply wean friends and family off our sailing blog, it wasn't long before I discovered over 5,000 lurkers, who also seemed to be interested in what it was like to live on an island about 23 miles long and 5 miles wide. Incredibly, I was able to keep that blog going the whole four years we lived there. Eventually the website evolved and became not just posts about our lives in St. Kitts, but also of ways other people could enjoy it too. I created many tools from a map, to a calendar, to a Facebook Fan page. A change in employment forced a move at the end of the August 2012 and just like that, we were selling what little we had accumulated and were on the move to Key West. Here are links to my final posts about the craziness that ensued prior to our departure, during the move, and right after landing.

I'll admit, we're still a little overwhelmed. I expect The Babbling Conch to evolve like Island Babble did, and hope that this blog will become a resource for island businesses and events. If any businesses or organizations want to advertise or get word out on The Babbling Conch, just contact me. For now, we'll be posting about the culture shock that sets in when you return to the USA after a seven-year absence.