Gratitude, like many things in life, is a state of mind more than anything else. Having just returned to the Estados Unidos from living aboard our amazing Beneteau Oceanis 393 sailboat for the past year, we have an awful lot to give thanks for during this special time of year.

The list of what we're thankful for is long. Simple things that we used to take for granted come to mind like hot showers, working electricity, functional plumbing, reliable high-speed internet, second-day shipping from Amazon and boundless amounts of choice at the local grocery store. After the past year, we now look at things like this with a completely different mentality. They're not just things to be thankful for, they're magic, amazing, things worth taking the time to think about.

We're more grateful for the amazing new friends we've met over the past year in the sailing community and in the Bay Islands who have helped turn our little floating dream into a home. Roatan is a big small island, full of impossible to imagine dreams spun by a motley cast of salty characters who wouldn't deign to call themselves dreamers. They're more pragmatic than that, more down to earth, rooted in the very soil of the landscape: renegades, iconoclasts, visionaries and chameleons of every kind.

Last year, we did our Thanksgiving on City Dogs alone with Fozzie Bear and Mischa in the mooring field in Key West. At that point, we were simply thankful we hadn't sunk yet, this being after Hurricane Irma and a steep learning curve on all the integrated systems that make a sailboat work. Doing Thanksgiving on the boat wasn't easy. It was a feat of logistics that we were barely able to hurdle, but it worked out with some tenacious teamwork. But Turkey Day just wasn't the same being away from those we love and cherish. This year, we're doing Thanksgiving on the hard as they say, up near 6,000 feet of elevation in the gorgeous city of Boulder, Colorado, surrounded by family, friends, and of course, lots of doggies.

Next week, when we're back on the East Coast, we'll do a second Thanksgiving with even more loving friends and family. The support, love, encouragement, and hope that our families provide us is one of, if not the most important thing that we are grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day in 2018. Without them, this journey we're on would not be possible.

Of course, I'm also thankful for Captain Andrea. This journey, this life, this place in space and time would be nothing without her. And she's thankful for me when I'm not up to my elbows in grease and cursing about bad electrical connections. And we're both thankful for the doggies for consistently guarding the boat and constantly keeping us on our toes.

We're going to try and take this giving state of mind, this aware thankfulness that we practice on this day and push it forward from Black Friday through the rest of the holiday season into the New Year and through 2019. Because there is always something to be thankful for, even if the power is out, the internet isn't working, the dogs are barking at nothing, one of the head's is clogged up, and the AC isn't working.