Our Proposed Route

Author:  Pete

Here’s our proposed route for our ideal circumnavigation, a lofty goal, to be sure.  Our itinerary has us leaving in November 2014 out of Florida and returning to the Caribbean around June 2016.  Best laid plans…  We created a course by taking the path of least resistance through the westward trade wind route, staying mostly in the tropics.  The itinerary shadows the retreat of the tropical storm season in each region of the world, marked on the map.

Click on the map to enlarge.  More details below.

Proposed Route

Nov 2014 – Jan 2015:  Miami to Panama

Feb 2015:  Panama to Galapagos

Mar 2015: Pacific Passage, Galapagos to Marquesas Islands

April – August 2015:  French Polynesia and South Pacific

Sept – Dec 2015:  South East Asia

Jan – Feb 2016:  Indian Ocean

March – April 2016:  Red Sea/ Mediterranean*

May 2016:  Atlantic Passage

June 2016:  Florida / Sell our faithful vessel!

August 2016:  Start teaching again in beautiful International School of Philenzublank!

 

*If the situation off the coast of Somalia doesn’t improve by January 2016, then we will need to make some alternations to our route.  Like we said earlier, this is just our initial plan and will probably change several times in the next two years.

 

As you will have also noted, most of our time is dedicated to the South Pacific and South East Asia.  This is an aggressive timeline, however, we are not planning to ‘see’ the world in this two year window.  We are international educators and plan to be living abroad ‘seeing’ the world much of our lives.  This adventure is about being on the high seas and the self-discovery that comes with it.

 

Come join us!   This trip was dreamed up to leave room for our family and friends around the world to visit us along the way!  Come do a passage, island hop, or meet us in a port city!  Our itinerary is dependent on the winds, so your travel plans may need to be flexible, but we’ll make it worth your while with a cold beverage in the sun and shining seas!  Email us if you have any interest in being a part of this adventure!  We’ll even put your face on the blog!

 

Here’s our backup plan for the whole trip:

Plan B:  Tour the Caribbean.  If we’re short on time, funding, or Dramamine, we may end up cruising the Carib for a year before hitting the books again.

Plan C:  Charter a boat in the Caribbean or South Pacific where we can’t get into too much trouble.

Plan D:  Keep taking classes and help move boats in our off time and do this trip or similar later in life with kids or during retirement.

Plan E:  Take an extended bath and slosh a lot of water around.

 

Quintero Pacific Sailing Lessons: Day 1

Author:  Pete

Location:  Quintero, Chile.     [ 32°46′58″S  71°31′50″W ]

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We finally got our feet wet!  Found a fantastic gentleman who had a sailboat on the coast and gave private lessons.  There is an ASA equivalent here in Chile, but they are more focused on theory than practice, and are similar price as the ASA courses.  Thus, Pash and I have decided to do the majority of our instruction in the states this summer.

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It, however, is exceedingly frustrating to be soaking up theory from books, planning like crazy, and ducking under the looming specter of this unknown trip and not be able to do anything tangible.  We’ve been itching for some time on a real boat in real waves.  I do realize we’ll be inundated with these experiences very soon, but we’re impatient folk.

 

It was a fantastic connection to find Mario Carmona, a sailor from Santiago who kept a small house and boat in nearby Quintero, a small, industrial, port town.  He happily arranged a few days of sailing with us with the aim of familiarizing us with the systems aboard and have us be able to sail by ourselves.

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At the beginning of the the ‘long’ Easter weekend we met Mario at the Quintero Club de Yates and jumped aboard his 35′ Ericson.  We spent the first hour or so in the calm of the bay focused on systems of a cruising sailboat, electronics, plumbing, navigation, and so on.

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Motored out of our mooring between long rows of gorgeous sailboats and beat up fishing boats, a juxtaposition of reasons to be at sea.  We practiced man-overboard drills, and handling the boat under power.  Even with a 12,000 pound displacement she responded well to the diesel.  A fat sea lion frolicked along with us, laughing at our ungraceful choreography.  Bonus points if you can pick his laughing face out in the picture below.

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When the wind picked up we raised the main and worked some drills under its power alone.  Later we unfurled the 120 genoa and aimed out of the bay.  Who’s laughing now, sea lion?  As Chile imports the majority of it’s energy, La Bahia Quintero is a busy port where tankers of petroleum and natural gas are offloaded.  So our first excursion to open water came after we ran the gauntlet of giants.

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Making out into the open seas we worked drills on handling in large swell.  We estimated they were 2.5 meters.  Pretty good.  Mario was a fantastic instructor.  By the end of the day we were handling the boat by ourselves with ease… and only a little green from the swell.

 

 

Why Now?

Save the Date, 6x4 final Smaller

Author: Miranda

I’m sure years from now we will certainly ask ourselves what in god’s name prompted us to quit our jobs, plan our wedding, get married, and leave for a sailing trip set on circumnavigation all in the same 12 month span.  Hell, who needs “years from now…” ?   I’m already convinced that we are certifiably nut-so.  It is entirely possible that this is the worst time for us to plan a trip around the world.

 

But I saw it.  I saw it in Pete’s face.  The juxtaposition of getting married and consequently deciding to put off Pete’s sailing adventure put me dangerously close to being the wife who kills her husband’s dreams.  Whether it was my decision or not.  The timing was just too close.  A connection between the two was unavoidable.  At one particularly tense moment of wedding planning, I saw my life flash before my eyes.  Not in the morbid, oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-die sort of way, but in the way that makes you realize that the time to act is now.  It just has to be.  There is no other way.  The alternative is a life worrying that I caused this adventurous man, a man who’s insane search for  adventure and self-growth caused me to fall in love with him in the first place, to lose a piece himself that he’s spent years of his life dreaming about.  It wasn’t my past life that flashed before me- it was our future life.

 

We feel ready to leave Chile.  We feel ready to start our next adventure.  But, we’d like to stick around our next school for a little while.  We’ve both realized that to grow professionally, to see our students grow, graduate and mature into young adults, and to experiment with different courses requires a certain time commitment.  Our next teaching job could quite possibly involve down-payments, day care, and munchkins.  We are looking to give a coup de gras to our irresponsible, DINK-iness  in the most thrilling way possible.

 

So, we have what we hope to be enough money.  We have the drive.  We have our health, and we have parents who will, begrudgingly, put us up in their basements if it all goes to shit.