Ok… What’s Tom talking about now?
Well… I was browsing the net and came across the tale of Neil and Nancy Sirman and their “Amazing Geriatric Adventures aboard the terrific sailing vessel Active Light”.
They set sail on a voyage to circumnavigate the world. Along the way the spent a year in Mexico, about 14 months in Phuket, Thailand and were present on the day of the tsunami in December of 2004. From reading every page on their site, it looks to me like they had a lot of fun and from their writings met a lot of people along the way. They were away from home for just shy of 8 full years.
You can read about it if you like. Their page telling their story is archived on the Internet Archive at http://web.archive.org/
They documented their trip in a series of letters via email that can be found at: The Internet Archive.
There was also some news coverage in their local community they they returned after 8 years in the Kitsap Daily News.