Sailing around hoping to see the world
Hello, we are Karen and Darren on our Amel Super Maramu 53 foot sailing Ketch named LaGecko.
In mid 2017 Karen and I met on a hike up to Cathedral Rock at the back of mount Wellington, although it took us several more months and many more walks before we realised that we’d like to see more of each other.
A year later we were sailing with some friends in Malaysia/Thailand and this is what set the seeds for the adventure we now find ourselves on, although at the time we hadn’t realised this.
Around the end of 2018 we decided to sell both of our houses and move in together, we put in an offer on a house overlooking the Derwent river which fell through and lead me to suggest to Karen that why didn’t we buy a cheaper house with storage for our furniture and a 50+ foot sailing boat and go sailing.
In April 2019 we bought a Beneteau First 51, then in September a house in Oakdowns, in December after selling both our houses we settled into living together, boat ownership and learning to sail.
After about a year of owning Katmai and trying to learn to sail her I felt that we had chosen the wrong boat and as beautiful as she was, we needed something smaller and simpler to sail.
In October 2020 we sold Katmai and spent several months looking for our dream boat.
In December we flew up to Bundaberg to look at Tradewinds III, an Amel Super Maramu, which we later purchased and relocated to Hobart in January 2021.
In August 2024, five and a bit years after our five year plan started and a year after we both retired we finally moved out of our berth and started living the cruising life
LaGecko Sailing 