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I was admiring kilarney and wife's recent circ. someday I'd like to do one myself, and no, I'm not one of those fly by night posters that gets the sailing bug in spring and quickly forgets.
I'm on part three of a multi step training program I have set out for myself.
The first part was just teaching myself to sail. Basically owning a boat in Honolulu for about two years and doing day sailing.
Part two was last year, where I spent just around five months cruising. I went all around the Salish sea in the Pacific Northwest. Learning to anchor, fix little things. Really just learning a lot about cruising. I had never been in a dinghy, I didn't know what dinghy to get. I learned some about rigging, solar...maybe most importantly chart reading, interpreting currents, and navigation. It was an extreme success.
This year, next week actually I am beginning part three. It involves me moving to a slightly larger, sturdier boat, with much more complex systems. From my first autopilot, to a good electronics suite. I'm intending to go back to some of my favorites in the pnw and try some new places I missed. Once I feel ready, assuming I do, I intend to sail down the coast, probably offshore, to San Francisco, where I will coastal cruise to Southern California.
Now, I feel that that is enough to focus on right now, but since I am a dreamer, part four does cross my mind from time to time.
Part four will either involve sailing deep into Mexico, or more likely, crossing the pacific, probably Hawaii, since it is familiar and I love and miss it, and it is a great jumping off point to my ultimate dream destination. The South Pacific.
Logistically, I'm wondering how a circ. takes place. Not really the long term planned kind, but more the "well, we mise well keep going" kind, where you just end up continuing. How do you know where you're going? I know that sounds stupid, but I thought about it as I was downloading charts onto a prepaid navionics chip. I was deciding places I would probably go and putting them on. But it only goes from BC to Baja. Say you got to Baja and felt like you could turn right? How do you possibly get all the charts to cover everywhere you may go? And I would assume, often you end up going somewhere completely unplanned. You may think you're going through the med, but as you get into the Indian Ocean, piracy reports intensify and you end up sailing around Africa. You didn't download Africa, you may not even have the capabilities. You can't carry paper charts for the whole planet, you don't want to spend $300'dollars on Navionics Norway on the off chance you end up there, so how do you do it?
I found not just charts but cursing guides indespensible. The pnw has some tricky passages, some anchorages(like pirates cove) that you would never know you could go into unless you had a guide to tell you about it. I don't want to end up on the rocks, I thi the South Pacific and many places are like this. I would think you would need a guidebook for every destination. How else will you know that idyllic anchorage in Fiji is surrounded 355 degrees by an impassable reef, and only at 5 degrees noth is there a gap into the lagoon? I realize exploration is a wonderful thing, but this isn't the age of discovery. Back then they had a lot of shipwrecks learning things that we have access to.
So I can't imagine just sailing off into the horizon and aiming southwest and hoping you hit land in forty days, but I also can't imagine you buy every single guide and chart for the planet. What's the secret? I want to be adventurous and carefree and go where the wind takes me, but I'd also like to know that if I sail 4000 miles to Vanuatu, there's a store there to resupply, or the water is bad and I need to have a filter, or there's diseases and I need vaccinations. Heck, even knowing the fees to enter and visa requirements.
I'm on part three of a multi step training program I have set out for myself.
The first part was just teaching myself to sail. Basically owning a boat in Honolulu for about two years and doing day sailing.
Part two was last year, where I spent just around five months cruising. I went all around the Salish sea in the Pacific Northwest. Learning to anchor, fix little things. Really just learning a lot about cruising. I had never been in a dinghy, I didn't know what dinghy to get. I learned some about rigging, solar...maybe most importantly chart reading, interpreting currents, and navigation. It was an extreme success.
This year, next week actually I am beginning part three. It involves me moving to a slightly larger, sturdier boat, with much more complex systems. From my first autopilot, to a good electronics suite. I'm intending to go back to some of my favorites in the pnw and try some new places I missed. Once I feel ready, assuming I do, I intend to sail down the coast, probably offshore, to San Francisco, where I will coastal cruise to Southern California.
Now, I feel that that is enough to focus on right now, but since I am a dreamer, part four does cross my mind from time to time.
Part four will either involve sailing deep into Mexico, or more likely, crossing the pacific, probably Hawaii, since it is familiar and I love and miss it, and it is a great jumping off point to my ultimate dream destination. The South Pacific.
Logistically, I'm wondering how a circ. takes place. Not really the long term planned kind, but more the "well, we mise well keep going" kind, where you just end up continuing. How do you know where you're going? I know that sounds stupid, but I thought about it as I was downloading charts onto a prepaid navionics chip. I was deciding places I would probably go and putting them on. But it only goes from BC to Baja. Say you got to Baja and felt like you could turn right? How do you possibly get all the charts to cover everywhere you may go? And I would assume, often you end up going somewhere completely unplanned. You may think you're going through the med, but as you get into the Indian Ocean, piracy reports intensify and you end up sailing around Africa. You didn't download Africa, you may not even have the capabilities. You can't carry paper charts for the whole planet, you don't want to spend $300'dollars on Navionics Norway on the off chance you end up there, so how do you do it?
I found not just charts but cursing guides indespensible. The pnw has some tricky passages, some anchorages(like pirates cove) that you would never know you could go into unless you had a guide to tell you about it. I don't want to end up on the rocks, I thi the South Pacific and many places are like this. I would think you would need a guidebook for every destination. How else will you know that idyllic anchorage in Fiji is surrounded 355 degrees by an impassable reef, and only at 5 degrees noth is there a gap into the lagoon? I realize exploration is a wonderful thing, but this isn't the age of discovery. Back then they had a lot of shipwrecks learning things that we have access to.
So I can't imagine just sailing off into the horizon and aiming southwest and hoping you hit land in forty days, but I also can't imagine you buy every single guide and chart for the planet. What's the secret? I want to be adventurous and carefree and go where the wind takes me, but I'd also like to know that if I sail 4000 miles to Vanuatu, there's a store there to resupply, or the water is bad and I need to have a filter, or there's diseases and I need vaccinations. Heck, even knowing the fees to enter and visa requirements.
