Here’s what I said at the Bon Voyage gathering two nights ago for those that missed it.
Your are all special in some way and we’re really going to miss you all. There’s an appropriate nautical toast that captures how we feel.
May those who love us, love us. And those who don’t love us, may God turn their hearts. And if he can’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles. So we’ll know ’em by their limpin’
We’re going to be gone on this grand adventure for a long time. We really don’t know when and how far we’ll go but we do know that we we will return to our favorite place in the world called Boulder that we call home. We’re committed to fully immersing ourselves into the life of vagabond cruisers and plan to sail the 7 seas in a circumnavigation that will take a minimum of 18 month and could last several years unless we decide to circled the globe twice!
We have an capable ship, and an able crew, that means you my lovely wife and we’ll be equipped and provisioned to be off the grid indefinitely.
We have a kilowatt of solar power which should sustain us without the aid of fossil fuel and when we are under way with sail power we will drag an electric hydro-generator to proved enough power to satisfy all the electronic navigation equipment, the satellite communications and at least one of the two autopilots.
Our boat has redundant systems for navigation, communications, making water from seawater, power from the (wind, sun and sea), redundant propulsion systems, soft sails and two fiberglass composite wing sails that look like glider wings installed vertically. Of course we have everything you could imaging for safety, comfort and joy.
We will be leaving on January 26th at 4:30PM so that’s about 110 hour until we board our flight but who’s counting.
Our journey will begin in Santiago Chile for the first two weeks where we will get acclimated to the beautiful Chilean summer. We’ll pick up extra gear for the boat and begin to provision for the period of time we’re away from civilization with limited access.
We plan to leave in March for Patagonia for do an extended shakedown cruise to work out all the little issues with a new boat so that we can delay the jury rigging that takes place when the captain takes full charge. But know that we’re comfortable with all of the maintenance and repair items except the most specialized and demanding items.
We’ll likely see a few hearty visitors early in the voyage, perhaps one from Santiago to Easter Island, another in Gambier which is our first stop in French Polynesia. Our dear children Elizabeth, Sydney and their partners Alex and Jesse (if he can arrange time off) will likely visit in Papeete the main port in Tahiti.
At that point we don’t really know where we will go, perhaps Fiji, or the Marquesses, or the Cook Islands, the Solomon or maybe even the Marshall Islands.
Either way, we’ll need to decide where we want to be for Cyclone Season by November which means we’ll be north or east of Fiji unless we decided to winter in New Zealand or Australia. In other words, we’ll be….. What’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, I remember, it’s agile. We’ll be Agile.
Enough about the specifics, we’ll figure things out along the way and we’ll factor in the weather as much as anything. Until we’ve had some serious time alone, meaning just the two of us, we won’t really know how fast and how far we’ll want to go. Some claim it takes years to really get into the rhythm of long term cruising.
Philosophically, our goal is to live slow, sail fast. By doing so we plan to achieve a harmony in life that I fell is only achievable in a fully immersive existence like cursing on a sailboat.
Each of you and so many others in some way have contributed to helping us achieve our goal and embarking on this grand voyage. For that I thank you all.
Thanks for coming. We’ll miss you very much.
Here’s to classic ships, here’s to high tech ships, here’s to all the ships at sea. But the best ships are friendships, Here’s to you and me.”