Well, that was short lived…It’s with great regret that I
have to announce that my sailing circumnavigation trip has come to an abrupt
end. Since this is a public forum, I think the easiest way to explain my
departure from the trip is a personality conflict.If you want more details shoot me a message
on facebook or something.I knew this
was a risk when finding something on the internet, but it was a risk I was willing
to take for the opportunity of a life time, so it’s a bummer that it didn’t
work out.I am wishing the best of luck
to Joe and Mike in finding a replacement crew and making it around the
world.
So what does this mean exactly.... I loved the sailing parts
of the trip, and I learned a ton. In 2 weeks at sea I actually had the
opportunity to experience most sailing conditions out there, from windless
doldrums to 30 knot winds with huge swells, with water crashing over the boat
(it was pretty awesome). I got to see pods of dolphins, whales, and a shark; I
am reminded to be grateful for what I did get to experience. I would love to
try again at some point, but the deal I made with Christine is that if this
didn’t work out, I wouldn’t try again, at least until after we have had kids
and they are all grown up.
I am not done with my adventure yet that’s for sure.Currently Christine and I are enjoying our
time in Zihuatanejo, and then in January we are headed back to Korea
together.From there I will hang out in
Korea for a few weeks until the next break from school (Lunar New Year), then
Christine and I (and anyone who wants to join us???) will take a trip to either
Bali or Phuket, we’re still trying to decide.After the break Christine will head back to Korea for the school year,
and I will stay behind for a few months and begin my training to become a scuba
dive instructor.It will cost about the
same as sailing around the world, and this way, a lot of the money on gear and
insurance that I’ve already spent won’t be wasted. And now once I am done, I’ll
have a skill that I can use wherever we end up next. Also, it means regular
contact with Christine, instead of 2-3 weeks at a time with out her hearing
anything from me.I should be back to
Korea by the end of May, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch some of my old
students graduating.So really it’s a
win-win situation for us. (I am trying to be optimistic about everything).
There is some good that came out of this though, while on
the boat I had a revelation that I was actually really excited about the
prospect of having kids with Christine.For those of you that know me, you realize that is a HUGE deal.Never before have I wanted A kid, let alone,
multiple kids and a family, and all that stuff.So maybe I needed to have this experience in order to get this
point.And if you’re wondering about my
tattoo, and what I am going to do about filling in the anchor, I have decided
to fill it in with the names or something symbolic of our children.
For those of you faithful readers following along at home,
first I want to say thanks, and secondly I am sorry I won’t be able to complete
this adventure.Try not to judge too
harshly.I will continue to update a
long the way, but probably not as frequently, it will probably be much more
scuba oriented.Thanks for all of the
support I have received over the last few months.
So after my last post we had a series of small delays,
waiting for stuff to come in the mail, then the weather, and something I else I
just can’t remember at the time of writing this.So that week (which feels like forever ago),
I decided to rent a car and drive up to see my brother for the night. On the
way up I was able to have lunch with my friend that use to work in Korea,
Dan.He’s living north of LA and kind of
doing a lot of various things.
.
From there I drove to central California, and spent the
night with my little brother, Jas, and his girlfriend, Lexi.It was a Thursday night in SLO so we went to
the downtown farmers market, and had some good food, and heard good music.
So after that this happened….
Our first day was actually pretty crazy; we woke up at 2am
and set off for a local town.We were
going to weather, which means we were sailing into the wind, which also means
that it was rough waves, and our boat was heeling.There would be surf splashing over the front
of the boat from time to time, and we had to have the motor running most of the
way. The worst part was the cold; it was bitter cold.At one point Mike had me go below deck to
sleep, later he told me he did that to not freak me out with rough sailing on
the first day. We arrived in Ensenada, Mexico late afternoon, so we went to dinner,
and then went to sleep.I fell asleep at
7:30pm and didn’t wake up until 6:30am,
so we were all pretty exhausted after the first day.
The next day the first thing we did was head over to the
marina office where we filled out some paper work
And then we went to Immigration for more paper work.
So after about half a day we were on our way.We started out sailing in perfect conditions.
Wind was blowing across the middle of the boat and at a good speed, and not too
many waves, so we had both our sails up.
It wasn’t too long into things until on only our second day
out we see a dolphin, and just when I think things can’t get any better …
It started out with a bunch of dolphins off in the distance
jumping out of the water, and then they came over to us and were just swimming
all around us for awhile, there were about 20 dolphins, just playing around our
boat.(check out the video below)
That night we enjoyed an incredible sunset.
So from 3am-6am is my nightly watch, my first night I was
pretty nervous about it, but the wind had dropped and we were motoring again.
Although it was chilly out, it was really peaceful, and I just listened to some
podcasts and watched for other boats and to make sure we were holding course. I
saw 5 shootings stars my first night as well, I forgot to make wishes, so
there’s five free wishes out there for anyone who wants them.
So when I woke up from my after watch nap, I come up to us
motoring the boat and some pretty calm seas.
12-12-13
Today we finally got some pretty good wind coming from
behind.So we were able to turn the
motor off and do some actual sailing.This is important because we can go faster sailing than motoring, and
it’s cheaper, and we won’t need to make a stop to refuel, which will ensure we
get to Zihuatanejo (sp?), in time to meet with Christine.
Today we did a couple of different types of sailing, the
first thing we did was take out something called an asymmetrical spinnaker, and
let that fly instead of the jib sail, which is the sail at the front of the
boat.The second cool thing we did was
something called sailing wing-to-wing.Basically it involves taking a long pole called a spinnaker pole, and
attaching it to the mast of the ship.Then,
you attach the jib to it so that it sticks way out.Essentially, when sitting in the cockpit one
sail goes out to left while the other sail goes out to the right. Below is a picture of the asym spinnaker.
Ok I realize that I am telling a lot of sailing stuff and
not as much travel stuff, well for now I am busy doing a lot of learning, and
so that’s what’s on my mind.Once I have
that stuff down, I’ll write more about some of my thoughts and the other cool
things we are doing as they happen.
12-15-13
So the last couple of days I haven’t really been able to
write due to craziness.2 days ago I was
in bed all day with sea seasickness.I
haven’t been able to really eat for the past few days so I’ve been feeling
pretty drained.So then yesterday right
when I was I getting ready to write we get some pretty crazy weather.It was my first time experiencing the crazy
weather.We were getting 25-30 knot
winds sailing at a close reach.What
that essentially means is we had some pretty big waves.Just when Joe and I thought we were going to
put the sails away, Mike pulls out a storm sail and puts up another sail. So at
that point we were at the mercy of the wind, and so we were going to stop at
Cabo to refuel, but we were pulled out to sea over night, and so by the time
the wind had calmed there was no going to Cabo.
So far a typical day for me looks like this-
12am-3am: Try to sleep
3am-6am: Watch duty
6am-9am: Try to sleep
9am-5pm: Hang out on deck, either reading, or helping change
sails or whatever.
5pm-6pm: go below deck to journal and blog
6pm-9pm: Watch duty
9pm-12am: Try to sleep
12-16-13
So today was a pretty relaxed day. No sea sickness at all,
and I ate a decent dinner. We are ahead of schedule, about 3 days away from
Zihua, so we didn’t worry about motoring, we just sailed all day.. There were
times we were moving pretty slow, and just chilling out. We found a flying fish
on the deck that was dried out, so it must have been from the heavy winds day.
At this point the days are starting to move slower, I am
looking forward to getting to our destination.We’ve been underway, just over a week now. Also, yesterday I saw a whale. So that was
pretty cool, although it was brief so I wasn’t able to get any pictures.
12-17-13
So we’ve reached the 48 hours until Zihua mark.The forecast for the next couple of days is that
the wind is going to be difficult with us, so we will probably be doing a lot
of motoring.
So one thing that is kind of hilarious is that the guys keep
a flare gun with flares from the 70’s on deck. Not for emergencies, but to
shoot at birds so that they don’t land on the deck and poop on it.Don’t worry they never come close to actually
hitting the birds, they’re just trying to scare them off.
I thought I would also leave you with a picture of the moon
from last night on my watch…
12-18-13
Today has been pretty low key.There has been no wind, so the water has been
like glass, barely a ripple, and so we’ve had to have the motor running all the
time, and as it is now it looks like we will be motoring all the way into
Mexico.So we should arrive around 3pm
tomorrow.I am looking forward to some
dry land and possibly even a shower.Yeah, I haven’t showered or even put deodorant on in almost 2 weeks, so
that’s kind of awesome.
One cool thing that did happen today as we were watching the
glassy water is that we totally saw a shark fin just poking up above the water!
12-19-13
So last night on watch I was checking out our radar
screen, and was looking at a boat crossing our path, check out the name of the
boat! I bet they’re scurvy free. (This will only be funny to people from Ship,
but they will think it’s hilarious)
So today we finally arrived in Zihua in the late afternoon,
so we didn’t get into the shore, so I have yet to contact my lovely wife and let
her know my whereabouts, but I took some sweet video of the area.Here’s a picture of us arriving, and you can’t
tell by the picture but the dudes in the boat are fishing and are being swarmed
by nearly 100 birds.It’s hilarious.
12-21-13
So now I am here and at my hotel. I'll try to post another blog in a week or so telling you about Zihua, and the adventures that Christine and I are having here. She gets here in 2 days and I am super excited to see her! So I will leave you with a video of our trip from Ensenada to Zihua...
