Marmoris is a Latin word that means “shining surface of the sea.”
It’s also the name of the 49-foot sloop that the Morbey family from North Saanich sailed on during an 11-month voyage that took them down the west coast of the United States and Mexico, and across the Pacific to Hawaii.
Nathaniel and Andrea and their three kids — 12-year-old Eli, 11-year-old Leon and nine-year-old Piper — had an amazing trip but are happy to be back. Life is quickly returning to normal, with Nathaniel heading back to his job as an accountant for the Capital Regional District on Tuesday after a one-year leave.
The tenants who rented their house are gone and the unloading of the boat is done. With the Marmoris tied up about 500 metres out along one of the wharves at Van Isle Marina, that meant each trip back-and-forth to shore covered one kilometre.
It was the same when they were getting ready to go, of course, so they knew it would be a big job, Nathaniel said with a smile.
The Morbeys sailed out of the marina last year on Aug. 1, then said goodbye to Victoria the next day after spending a night in the Inner Harbour. Their return came last Sunday.
Nathaniel and Andrea, who met each other at 15 when they were taking sailing lessons at the Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club, both had a desire to take an ocean-going voyage — but had nothing specific in mind.
“We wanted to sail somewhere on some sort of a boat,” Nathaniel said.
Since they both turned 40 during the trip, Andrea said they jokingly refer to it as “our mathematical midlife crisis.”
All told, four of the Morbeys celebrated birthdays in the middle of the Pacific Ocean while they were going to and from Hawaii, while Eli’s came in the Channel Islands in California.
The journey came together when the Morbeys met the Grant family from Brentwood Bay, who happened to be preparing for a trip down the coast. It also helped that the Morbey children were taking sailing lessons at the time.
There’s no trick about taking such a significant trip, Andrea said.
“You just have to decide to go.”
The Morbeys bought Marmoris about a year before they left — the biggest boat they have owned by far — and the two families set out on the trip together. “They are not quite back yet,” Nathaniel said.
“They have two more months.”
There was a little fit of friendly competition along the way, he said laughing.
“Any time two boats are going the same direction, it’s an unofficial race.”
Their route took them south of Puerto Vallarta, back north to Cabo San Lucas, then off to Hawaii — “a big triangle” they call it.
“It was 19 days to Hawaii, 21 days back,” Nathaniel said. “We were in Hawaii for about a month and we hit most of the main islands, hopped along the chain.”
The family was in Mexico and its environs for just under six months after taking a few months to get there.
The trip south included the spectacle of sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. “We stopped lots of places in Washington, Oregon, California,” Andrea said.
She said it was interesting to see the coast from the ocean after having driven along it in the past, including the Baja California Peninsula.
During the many stops, Nathaniel and Andrea kept up with their kite surfing, and the whole family did other water sports like paddle boarding and snorkelling.
“The kids all learned to free dive and surf at various places,” Andrea said.
They also got to swim with turtles in Hawaii at an out-of-the-way beach.
Home-schooling was part of the routine, as well, with Nathaniel quipping that the schedule “was heavy on social studies and P.E.”
“They did lots of ‘outschooling,’ where we go and do field trips wherever we were,” Andrea said.
A highlight of the trip was meeting up with people from home along the way, Nathaniel said.
“Some meet-ups were planned and some were random,” he said.
Two groups of friends in Oregon and his cousin’s family in San Francisco were among the people who were on their itinerary, Nathaniel said.
“We also had a late Christmas when the grandparents all flew down to Puerto Vallarta. We did a week in a resort with them.”
The wind was tricky at times and occasionally stronger than expected, but Marmoris handled it well.
“The great thing about modern technology is that we can just turn on the Starlink, the satellite, and look up the next 12 hours of weather predictions,” Andrea said. “You can see generally when there’s going to be big storms rolling through and avoid those for the most part.”
Nathaniel said that harbours along the way tended to be in the middle of their communities, so the family was often right in the thick of things.
With a boat “you just take your home with you,” then pop ashore to see the sights, Andrea said.
She said there are several “hubs” along the coast where sailboats tend to gather, including Puerto Vallarta — which is a common starting point for people bound for French Polynesia.
Sailing back into Van Isle Marina, it almost seemed as if they had never left, Nathaniel said.
Andrea said it’s nice to have easy access again to things like groceries and fuel, and the kids are happy to see their friends. She said it will be some time before another big trip, and they might even do the same one again with a few new stops along the way.
More on the newly completed adventure can be found at facebook.com/sailingmarmoris/.
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