The crew of Yahtzee, 2023 in Playa Naranjos, Colombia.

The crew of Yahtzee is Jill, Andy, Magnus and Porter Cross. We bought Yahtzee in June 2012 and moved aboard at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. In September 2014 we gave up our slip, sold our car and headed north for the San Juan Islands and beyond.

Our goal was simple: Cast off, explore, make memories and live each day in the moment together.

We’ve being doing just that ever since. Magnus joined our crew in Bellingham in late 2014 and 2015 was spent exploring British Columbia’s Gulf Islands, Sunshine Coast, Desolation Sound and more. In April 2016 we sailed down to the Columbia River and cruised as far up as Portland before participating in the 40th Oregon Offshore Race from Astoria, Oregon to Victoria, BC. From Victoria, we spent three spectacular months cruising around Vancouver Island and then enjoyed winter cruising again in Puget Sound and the San Juan and Gulf islands.

In February 2017 we shoved off from Puget Sound and sailed north up the outside of Vancouver Island and to Haida Gwaii before arriving in Alaska in late April. After cruising throughout Southeast Alaska for two months, we sailed across the Gulf of Alaska to Kodiak Island, the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound. Of course, we couldn’t get enough of the The Last Frontier and ended up living in Seward through two winters so Jill could work and we could make some necessary upgrades to Yahtzee.

We left Seward on May 24, 2019 and cruised Alaska for the summer, spending two weeks exploring the Kenai Peninsula before retracing our steps to Kodiak then back across the Gulf of Alaska to Sitka. Summer in Alaska was so good we ended up hopping around Southeast until mid-August and then did a big offshore passage 1,300-miles from Craig, AK to San Francisco. We sailed down the coast of California for two months and then into Mexico for the rest of 2019 and into 2020.

In 2021/2022 we spent three months in Costa Rica and four months in Panama before hopping to Cartagena, Colombia where Yahtzee was for the ’22 hurricane season. From Cartagena, we based up the Colombian coast to Puerto Velero and then Santa Marta. Onward we went from Colombia to Aruba and then Curaçao.

Yahtzee’s track from Alaska (May 2019) to Curaçao (May 2023).

What does the future hold? We shall see where the winds of change take us…