I’m having a wonderful time in Vietnam. The longer I am here, the more comfortable I’ve become. Having a motorbike and not having killed myself yet, is a bigger accomplishment than crossing the Atlantic, twice.
But I am missing D so much too. I want to be back on the water. I promise to never complain how hot it is anymore. Even if my eyeballs are baking, I’ll repeat the desert southwest mantra, It’s a dry heat.
So, when I get back in early July, with my new Coast Guard Document clutched in my sweaty little hand, it will be all hands-on deck to get moving north.
All two, hands that is.
Having Micah on board for so many months, clearly spoiled me. I don’t even remember that person who crossed a third of the Atlantic alone. I haven’t been alone since the Stockholm to Waterford run of September 2015. That was eons ago.
The table below is my tentative cruising program. So, for example, it shows I’ll spend about three weeks in Costa Rica, with the last stop around Santa Elena before heading to Mexico.
I’ve made the difficult decision to bypass Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. El Salvador ends up being a casualty, in that it’s too hard to stop there and avoid the other places. Some of my friends say I’m being ridiculous and too much of a gringo frady cat, but, I am a gringo frady cat.
I know and understand the ocean; people are harder.
I use sites like No onsite and Active Captain, to point out problem areas and then I avoid them. No matter how beautiful a place is, it’s simply not worth it for me, if I have to worry about the safety of my friends & crew, me for the boat.
Here is what the trip looks like so far. The stops listed are the primary overnight or multiple day stops, with there being no overnights except for those with the “P” in the second column. Other than the initial Santa Elena to Mexico, all the others are open to stopping:
Summer 2017
Because of my delay in getting back, I am a bit more pressed for time than I would have liked, but it’s still a third less than I’ve done in the past.
I have friends joining me from mid-August until the end of September (I think J).
My July people are not answering my calls. Ummm, I think I need to find replacements.
I’m an eclectic person, who grew up in New York, lived overseas for many years and have a boat, Dauntless, a 42 foot Kadey Krogen trawler yacht. Dauntless enables me to not only live in many different parts of the world, but to do it in a way that is interesting, affordable, with the added spice of a challenge.
Dauntless also allows me to be in touch with nature. As the boat glides through the ocean, you have a sense of being part of a living organism. When dolphins come to frolic, they stay longer if you are out there talking to them, watching them. Birds come by, sometimes looking for a handout; sometimes grateful to find a respite from their long journey.
I grew up on the New York waterfront, in the West Village, when everything west of Hudson St. was related to shipping and cargo from around the world. For a kid, it was an exciting place of warehouses, trucks, and working boats of all kinds: tugs and the barges and ships, cargo and passenger, they were pushing around.
My father was an electrical engineer, my mother an intellectual, I fell in between.
I have always been attracted to Earth’s natural processes, the physical sciences. I was in 8th grade when I decided to be a Meteorologist.
After my career in meteorology, my natural interest in earth sciences: geology, astronomy, geography, earth history, made it a natural for me to become a science teacher in New York City, when I moved back to the Big Apple. Teaching led to becoming a high school principal to have the power to truly help kids learn and to be successful not only in school but in life.
Dauntless is in western Europe now. In May and June, I will be wrapping up the last two years in northern Europe, heading south to spend the rest of the year in Spain & Portugal.
Long term, I’m planning on returning to North American in the fall of 2017 and from there continuing to head west until we’re in Northeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, where we will settle for a bit.
But now, my future lies not in NY or even Europe, but back to the water, where at night, when the winds die down, there is no noise, only the silence of the universe. I feel like I am at home, finally.
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2 thoughts on “The Summer Plan 2017”
“… Having a motorbike and not having killed myself yet, is a bigger accomplishment than crossing the Atlantic, twice.”
Dauntless at Sea 
“… Having a motorbike and not having killed myself yet, is a bigger accomplishment than crossing the Atlantic, twice.”
That right thar is funny. 🙂 And I agree. 🙂
I think I’ll write about that now on Despatches from the Orient