Why sail around the world

Forty years later, she finds herself back on the waters of Bogue Sound, where she lives and sails with her daughter, Morgan, and chocolate lab, Choco. This site also participates in other affiliate programs and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies. The 5 Best Sailboats For Beginners. Can a Novice Sail Around the World? Best Liveaboard Catamaran Sailboats. How Long is a Sunfish Sailboat?

Best Sailboats For Families. Can You Sleep While Sailing? What To Wear on a Sailboat. Best Winter Sailing Shoes. Best Winter Sailing Hats. What Is a Ketch Sailboat? Related Articles. Show Hide Table of contents. Most Recent. Daniel Wade November 12, Freediving with whale sharks in Namibia. Photo Haley Haltom. Having a floating pool of experienced crew became an invaluable resource for some boats. American retirees Ruud and Laurie Bosman on the Hylas 54 Blue Pearl had originally only planned to sail the first half of the rally.

Both aged 71, the pair never wanted to sail double-handed and had organised crew for the Pacific legs, but no further. The unspoilt beauty of the Marquesas. When Laurie returned home to spend a few weeks with family, they invited other ARC crew aboard, some staying for the entire second half of the circumnavigation. There are still no guarantees that an experienced ARC crewmember will be a good fit. Flashpoints were usually over domestic niggles like food preferences several couples commented on how provisioning was much simpler with just two aboard, reducing one area of work.

For those who did sail as a couple, how they divided the roles often reflected home life. Other couples, where one had spent much of the marriage putting in long hours at the office, had a bigger adjustment to make.

There were exceptions: on Misto British ex-pat Rosalind Cheetham skippered their Nautitech and was hands-on with maintenance. At sea the roles tended to shift slightly. Many adopted a much more fluid watch pattern during the day, each taking naps whenever needed. Several skippers took longer night watches than their partners, but would set alarms to allow minute naps on open ocean legs. They also modified their safety rules. Several boats started out with conventional spinnakers and ordered furling Code Zero or asymmetric kites to replace them en route as they became more confident in sailing double-handed.

Every couple I spoke to emphasised that while the World ARC schedule was intense, and some stages had been very challenging, the rewards were hugely worth it. Swimming with manta rays at Suwarrow in the Cook Islands. Many boats ordered new sails in Darwin, Australia, or South Africa — several of which did not clear customs in time to reach the yachts before they set off on the stage they were ordered for.

The most popular were furling downwind sails. Multiple boats had issues with faults on one system triggering an issue on the other — an update to the MFD, for example, causing a fault on the SSB radio. If you're a well kept lady who would rather get hit by a truck than give up one or more of the following; spa pedicures, gel manicures, gym memberships, hair cuts and colour or waxing, you are not the ideal candidate for cruising.

The Good News: if you ever decide to go rogue, your monthly "upkeep" budget will help fund you and a loved one for a few weeks a month while cruising. Better News: Cruisers don't care what you look like. Seriously, no one cares! If you've ever pondered that you might be part vampire due to your avoidance and hatred of the sun, don't even think of cruising. If the term "clean clothes" doesn't have a large variance in definition, you are not ready to cruise.

If your reaction to being awaken at 2am and told "it's your turn for watch" would result in punching someone in the face, you shouldn't consider cruising If the thought of tracking down the source of at least 5 different leaks in your house every time it rains sounds absurd to you, cruising may not be for you.

If the idea of your entire life revolving around the weather makes you roll your eyes, you are not ready for the cruising lifestyle. If the idea of drinking a tall glass of water that was seawater only 5 minutes earlier makes you throw up in your mouth, you've got a long way to go before cruising.

If going to the grocery store needs to take less than 3 or 4 hours and not involve you getting wet along the way, you may need to rethink this whole cruising idea.

If your definition of a hot shower does not include a 5-gallon solar shower strapped to your boom that you have to wait a few hours to heat up before showering, you either need to adjust your definition or not cruise. Now that we are back in the US, we have met other children aboard and Sierra has had her first play date. However we spend most of our time socially distancing, hiking the beautiful trails of Maine.

At the time, we intended to take a 2 to 5 year sabbatical. Initially we went south to Mexico, and were there over a year in Mexico before sailing to the South Pacific. Two years in, our money was running out because we hadn't been able to sell our house in the real estate crash; I interviewed via Skype from Tahiti and found a job in Australia.

Our route carried us first up to Papua New Guinea, a place that captured our hearts; we sailed through Southeast Asia for a couple of years; took a northern route across the Indian Ocean until reaching Africa, then went down around South Africa instead of tempting pirates on the Red Sea route; we came up the Atlantic from South Africa to New England in the first six months of After US east coast and Caribbean cruising, in we transited the Panama Canal and headed north, crossing our outbound track to mark a closed-loop circumnavigation in April A few months later, our son left for college.

Circumnavigation was never a goal until it was clear that we needed to get it done before he departed, because otherwise we might not have accomplished it as a family; this was acceptable to no one.

Working in Australia was a major inflection point. Our kids realized that "normal school" paled in comparison to their lives as boat kids. This is huge: otherwise, they'd likely have determined as teens that they must be missing out and wanted to return for high school. That, and finances, were the major bounds on our maximum estimate at a five year voyaging life.

Jamie and I realized we weren't comfortable being part of mainstream priorities any longer, and my old dream job - which I stepped into in Sydney - wasn't fun any more. With thin savings, we determined we needed to find ways to support ourselves financially while remaining nomadic voyagers; we aren't living on any deep savings or inheritance.

We've grown several trickle streams of income and while we are "low income" by US standards not to mention, my biz school classmates and former management consulting colleagues, or Jamie's fellow entrepreneurs in Seattle - we feel wealthy beyond measure for the time we have been able to spend as a family, exploring the world.

I will never again choose money over living well, or confuse one for the other. By mid-March, it was clear that we should not go to the South Pacific; even before French Polynesia's border closed, there was too much unknown to do it safely for us, for the islanders we'd meet, for the uncertain future.

With the ability to be quite self-sufficient aboard, in April we sailed from our winter base near Puerto Vallarta up into the Sea of Cortez Gulf of California. This was important for safety during the looming hurricane season, but also offered remote and uninhabited islands where we could isolate ourselves.

We have remained in the Sea of Cortez as COVID played out, prioritizing staying in range of communities for communication and supplies. There aren't a lot of cell towers in Baja!

And the town of 18, is among the larger communities in the peninsula; we were able to get weekly deliveries from a farmer, and make contacts on shore to help us with other shoreside-supply-needs at times when those were not possible only locals allowed or not desirable we are very wary of covid risk in Mexico. We've kept company with a group of four other "bubble" boats - other families making similar choices.

The socializing with them has been good for mental health! This way of life is the ultimate pandemic prep. It's made coping much easier for us. Looking ahead it seems unlikely that the South Pacific is an option for Although some destinations are open French Polynesia and Fiji , there are no safe harbors for hurricane season.

To set off to the west and south is one challenge; to return to North America against all prevailing conditions is another, and one we are not interested in undertaking. Homeschooling is going pretty well; our daughters have had less of our time lately, as our work coaching people on how to go cruising has truly exploded a silver lining to COVID; our escape pod looks good to many.