On the way back to our boat from filling the propane tanks in Papeete, a pilot for Tahiti Nui gave us a ride to the boat. He told us that Tahiti has the lowest visitor return rate of any vacation destination in the world. The experience and the costs does not seem to be worth a repeat trip. After staying in the Society Islands for 26 days we can add four more people to the list of who will not return.

Passages are so quickly forgotten with the excitement of arriving in a new place and country. The four day trip to Rarotonga, Cook Islands was a fast one which turned into a hard one. 25 - 30 knots of wind on the nose for the last 20 hours. Quickly the memories of not being able to eat or move for more than two days were put aside as we tied up to the government dock. A beautiful lush island and locals stopping by asking how our trip was and how long we will stay (there is so much to do here, we hear). The free tie up, free water and amazing farmers market make this one gigantic step in the right direction of where we want to be.

The list of places that are said to be too difficult to get to or anchor at continues to be our guide of where to go. With only one other boat here, we have no doubt we will find new friends, have great experiences in a place most people can not find and be in a amazing place. Now, who knows where Niue is?

New Tracking System Is Ready

Click Here
For More Information

When little girls grow up!
MeiLing turned 2 just weeks before we stepped on the boat. Oh what a difference three years makes! MeiLing turned 5 on May 2nd. No longer the baby she has really grown up into an amazing little girl!

The site for the sailing trip of the Maddox's on the Red Thread
The idea of the Red Thread was to do something meaningful. Putting four people on a boat for a few years, go explore and grow together. On May 23, 2006 our brand new Catalina 440 was christened The Red Thread in St. Petersburg Florida. That is pretty much when the plan started to change.

The idea, to spend time with our children now and not wait until we were older, plus they were small enough we could still over power them.

Our journey took us north to Canada a u-turn to the Caribbean. Our purpose for the trip was three fold:

Connect with ourselves
Connect with our environment
Connect with others we would meet along our travels

Being together in a 44ft sailboat was a little like going into a pressure cooker, by the time we reached Venezuela we started to become a cohesive group as we learned to work well with each other and the boat.

The islands of the Dutch West Indies were put behind us, we explored the Columbian and Panama Coasts before transiting the canal in November 2007. From there we would sail 5,700 nautical miles to Ecuador, the Galapagos, Easter Island and southern Patagonia Chile.

We still work on those three purposes. We will leave Chile very fulfilled by those we have met. On December 28th the Red Thread was re-launched for the remainder of her trip that will take us far across the Pacific twice.

This site will include portions of the boat's log, our real time location and stories of what is happening. Thank you for being part of our thread.