The Plan......
We started with a general idea that we would like to cruise "somewhere" someday. Just to cruise. Just go "somewhere" in our boat. Maybe down the coast to Mexico. Maybe do the Baja Ha Ha. We just knew that we wanted to go. "Somewhere". We liked sailing, and for Elisabeth, San Francisco Bay was just too small. "We just go in circles and avoid traffic." she would say. That is bay sailing to Elisabeth. She doesn't mean to offend or belittle bay sailing. It's just that for us, we needed to go.... "somewhere".
The previous owners of our boat had all gone "somewhere" in our boat. The original owner lived in Travemunde, Germany, and had taken delivery of the boat in Finland. He had sailed the Baltic and North Seas. The second owner sailed her across the Atlantic from Germany to the US. The third had brought her to the west coast, and had cruised Mexico in her. The fourth had cruised her from San Francisco to the Caribbean. The boat clearly knew her way around and she whispered in our ears "Let's go places."
Elisabeth is from Northern Germany. While on a trip to her hometown of Bremerhaven, we met some local sailors who encouraged us to bring our boat to Germany. We wanted to sail to the Mediteranean. If going to the Med, we could go up to the North Sea in summer, and see Germany. But, if we go to Germany, we ought to go to Denmark, and Elisabeth could show Rod the places she cruised in the early days. But if going to Denmark, we really ought to consider Sweden, Norway, the former Soviet Baltic States.... And, and...
Discussions with experienced people convinced us that the easiest way to go east might be by going west. So we started looking at that. To get a taste of the "west" we signed up for a training passage aboard the Alaska Eagle, the 65' Sparkman and Stephens, Whitbread winner formerly known as Flyer. We met the Eagle in Suva, Fiji, and sailed to Port Resolution, Tanna Vanuatu, to Port Vila, Efate Vanuatu, and on to Sydney, Australia. We liked it, and decided that we would go west in our boat.
So the plan?? We leave San Francisco on September 15, 2009, bound for a winter in Mexico. In the spring 2010, we depart Mexico for the Marquesas, French Polynesia. We intend to traverse westward until the end of the sailing season. At that point, we plan to head south to New Zealand for the winter. In New Zealand, we will re-asess. Do we want another season in the Pacific? Is it time to push further westward? Do we hate cruising and want to buy a home in Kansas? We still have Europe on our minds, but it feels a bit arrogant to call it a circumnavigation......yet. Let's watch, shall we?
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