Welcome to Gary and Jojo Snyder's "Home Port".  This site is created in hopes that our family and friends will be able to stay in touch with us as we travel and move about the globe.

After retiring from 24 years in the Navy aboard nuclear submarines we traveled around the US in a class A 34' Komfort motor home.   After traveling the western United States for 3 years we settled in San Diego, Ca.  It wasn’t long until we decided to move back to Hawaii and sail out of Pearl Harbor to other islands.  After selling our three small businesses and all of our possessions to obtain a sailboat we quickly made our new boat/home ship shape and ready to go.  We purchased a Cal 34 sloop and named her "Paglayag".  Paglayag means “sailing” in Tagalog (Filipino) and is consistant with how we named our two cats Nikko (Japanese for cat) and Gato (Spanish for cat).  OK, so I am not very original with names, so what.  As it was November of 1994, and the weather was not conducive to crossing the Pacific yet, we decided to spend a few months in Mexico's Sea of Cortez awaiting good weather.  While in the Sea of Cortez, out of La Paz and Cabo San Lucas, we kept hearing how "Mainland Mexico” is so much better then the "Baha".  This we had to see.  We crossed to Mazatlan and traveled down the Mexican coast always with the thought "we can cut across from anywhere".  Now we started hearing how "Costa Rica is so much better then Mexico".  After seeing every harbor on the Pacific side of Mexico we just had to take a look so we set course for Costa Rica.  It was nice and we liked it but we kept hearing  how "Panama made Costa Rica look like a garbage pit".  I was starting to see a trend here but guess what,  we went there too.  Needless to say with the “Capt Ron’s” approach to navigation this trip ended up taking over two years.  After arriving in the Panama Canal we decided that now that we are there, "you just gotta do it!"  So we went through the canal, back again, and back through until we were well into the Caribbean.  Funny thing about that, because as you get to the canal, you say "we can't leave without going through as it is a once in a lifetime thing".  Then when you reach the Caribbean you hear how "neat it is in Columbia, San Blas Islands, the Bay Islands of Honduras, and of course the Rio Dolce in Guatemala".  I was really starting to see a trend here.  After going to all of the above we needed a bottom job on the boat, and were close enough to Florida to make it worth it, besides "we can always go the back way to Hawaii through the Suez Canal"!  It wasn't planned that way, just ended up that way. Obviously we changed from "we can always cut across from here" to “lets go the back way and see the rest of the world.  ".  We ended up visiting almost all of the good harbors along the Baha and the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, San Blas Islands, Columbia, The Bay Islands of Honduras, The Rio Dolce in Guatemala, Belize, and of course the east coast of Florida.  To say it was incredible is an understatement.  The trip truly changed our lives and set the stage for many wonderful things to happen.

Then we found Stuart, Florida.

While sailing north along the Florida East Coast bound for Mystic, CT where we had planned to cut across to the Mediterranean, we found Stuart Florida.  Stuart is a beautiful little town on the east coast of Florida.  It is situated just north of Palm Beach, and south of Cape Canaveral.  We fell in love, checked out the demographics on our PC and saw that the freeze line was north of here at Cape Canaveral, the expensive property was south starting in Palm Beach, and the town had everything we ever needed, three Wendy’s restaurants. Hey, after 2 years without a good burger you have to set some priorities.  The off shore fishing was incredible as was the SCUBA diving out of Jupiter.  We stopped July of 1996, sold the boat, bought a 20' center console power boat (forgive me fellow sailors) and a home.   We could even watch the shuttle launches from our pool.  It happened again,  we were going brain dead from all that fun so Jojo found us jobs.  Jojo managed a Human Resource Department for a medium size security company while I worked as a  Network Administrator for a medium size upscale realty company.  We had finally found a "Home Port" from which we could fish, dive and explore the east coast while still maintaining a place to call home.  The dream put on hold .......on long enough to over Stuart.

On To North Carolina

    Murphy:  Even though Stuart was one of the best places we have ever lived it was time to go when we found ourselves starting to repeat activities and places to see.  We spent some time driving around western North Carolina and found a great little town named Murphy.  Nestled in the mountains about 5 miles from town was a perfect home.  We bought it, added on a garage for our cars and RV and settled in.  I have to say the western end of North Carolina is one beautiful place but you can only make so many bird houses until you get really bored.  I decided to try something different and started driving 18 wheelers for Schneider National Trucking.  Going all over the country was right up my alley but being away from Jojo wasn't.  We talked it over and after 2 years in Murphy we took the RV and drove to Raleigh and found new Jobs.  We rented an apartment in Raleigh to get out of the RV and be more comfortable.  We still own the house in Murphy and enjoy time there once or twice a month.

    Raleigh: Jojo and I found very good jobs in Raleigh and decided to stay here for a while.  I am working for a great software company named SoftPro doing document coding and Jojo is working for Nortel.  We are enjoying our time here and plan on staying long enough to get bored again.

We hope you enjoy the photos and also that you keep in touch whether you are family or "extended family/friends".  Remember this site is a "work in progress" so check back every once in a while and see what is new.