In their dinghy, Jack and Zdenka Griswold pull up to the dock at Portland Yacht Services on Wednesday morning, coming to the end of a seven-year adventure sailing around the world.

Jack and Zdenka Griswold had a bit of a conundrum on their hands Wednesday morning as they tied their dinghy to a dock at Portland Yacht Services. What’s next?

“We’ll spend the summer and enjoy Portland, I guess,” Zdenka, 59, said.

In 2009, the husband-and-wife team left Portland in search of “blue-sea voyages.” What followed was a lengthy journey around much of the globe. “Once we were through the Panama Canal there was no looking back,” said 63-year old Jack.

Following an urge to have an adventure before life wouldn’t allow them to, the Griswolds quit their comfy jobs – Jack as a nonprofit worker for refugees and Zdenka as a lawyer on Wall Street – and set off on the adventure of their lives. With a few exceptions for flights home to see family around the holidays, the couple lived on their 42-foot Valiant sailboat, “Kite.” Some of the highlights included visits to Indonesia, French Polynesia, New Zealand and South Africa.

“It was a very old-fashioned way to travel,” Zdenka said. “Four months here, three months there. It was wonderful.”

In 2009, Jack and Zdenka Griswold of Portland quit their jobs to see the world aboard their 42-foot sailboat “Kite,” motoring here toward its mooring in Portland Harbor. “It was a very old-fashioned way to travel,” Zdenka Griswold said. “It was wonderful.”