Meet Abbey & Nick
Over the last 35 years we have shared a deep enjoyment of travel, exploration and adventure, and harboured strong ambitions to retire as early as financially viable to get out and explore, using a yacht as the vehicle to move and live. We bored many unsuspecting people over the years telling them about what we were going to do, but holding true to our vision has paid off and here we are actually doing it. We are still talking, still laughing, and have a broad plan to spend three years in the Mediterranean before taking Skylark to the Caribbean and, just maybe, beyond into the Pacific. Time and tide will tell……
Annabelle (Abbey)
I am a true Devon lass, tracing both sides of my family back over 350 years on Dartmoor and East Devon. I took a gap year after school, traveling around Australia for six months, before University led me to Nick and, eventually, in a very different direction. I spent much of my career as a manager, director, leader and mentor in various parts of the UK’s National Heath Service, responsible for implementing programmes and initiatives at national level. I took a break while accompanying Nick in the USA. Most recently I spent two years with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity before taking full retirement in 2023. Life afloat is not my natural environment - I am more comfortable with a garden spade or paint brush in my hand, but I Iove visiting new places. I am still learning to become a sailor but I am a dab hand in the galley and am excited about the new horizons ahead.
Nick
Brought up in Northumberland and Newcastle, I left home at 18 and headed for Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon, to join the Royal Navy. A sailor’s life seemed to suit me rather well, firstly as a Warfare Officer, among other things being kidnapped by a French trawler, before a move into the Fleet Air Arm to fulfil a boyhood dream - flying. After a lot of hard graft and more than a bit of luck, I qualified as a Sea Harrier pilot, regularly scaring myself (and others!) flying from aircraft carriers. By way of various ships, conflicts and staff jobs, including three years in the Pentagon, my last job before retirement in 2024 was Commodore Fleet Air Arm, leading the brilliant organisation that had given me a home for over three decades.
Sailing
So where did the sailing come from? I had learned to sail as a boy, mainly in dinghies, and it soon became my weekend activity of choice. I continued to sail once I joined the Navy. The highlight of my Navy sailing was some time with the Offshore Sailing Team competing in many races, including the Fastnet. Whether a kayak or a warship, my happy place is the sea and ocean, particularly under sail. Abbey had grown up by the sea, but was not a sailor until I persuaded her to have a holiday on a bareboat charter in Greece a few weeks before our wedding. It was a disaster (the holiday, not the wedding!); the Meltemi howled without pause and it took a further five years to coax Abbey back onto a yacht. But she loved the freedom exploring from afloat affords and after a dozen or so charters has amazingly agreed to try this sailing lark on a semi-permanent basis. Skylark is our first yacht and although we are extremely comfortable sailing her it is quite definitely a learning process. We took it pretty easy last year, remaining in familiar cruising grounds and being super-prudent about the weather, but are looking forward to stretching Skylark, ourselves and our horizons this year as we head from France to the Adriatic.