Several people have asked me about the name of our boat. Ananda translates from the ancient Indian language, Sanskrit, as “ultimate bliss”. My wife Catherine’s passion is yoga. She tells me that the purpose of yoga is to remember and celebrate our true nature, Ananda, which is joy or bliss. The boat truly is a special place of bliss for me 🙂

Our last boat was called Navasana which refers to “the boat pose” in yoga. We recently learned from an Indian friend that Navasana can also mean “humble or modest abode”, which was fitting for that particular boat because it was quite small.

We put Ananda on the transom last spring. When we were ordering the stencil I did not realize that the size of the letters was going to be so large in relation to the space on the transom. The name is probably about 50% bigger in size than it should be, but what the heck, people coming up on our stern will be able to figure out who we are pretty quickly.

Plus, in life, it’s important to go for as much bliss as you can have!