Annual Status Report- August 2021 to 2022

August 2022 marks my fifth year sailing around the world with my boyfriend Gary. I have traveled to 17 countries and sailed approximately 40,000 nautical miles.  Gary started sailing on SV Illimite in 2015 and is up to 70K nautical miles.

 

A lot of our sailing friends have had to stop sailing and sell their boats due to the disruption of the COVID pandemic.   We have not stopped, our safety net was sailing back to the US and sailing within our country.   We feel very blessed and fortunate to continue our journey together.

 

Gary and I are both planners, we like to have our plans three years out in a schedule and we modify as necessary.    When I met Gary he showed me his Excel spreadsheet and I knew this is the man for me! “He had me at Excel!” I am a certified Project Manager, planning is my trade, and well, Gary’s planning is very impressive. Gary’s original plan was to complete a circumnavigation within 3 years and then continue sailing.   To date my changes to our sail plan included sailing to Thailand, Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Alaska.  These additions have prevented us from completing an east to west circumnavigation.   Instead of completing a direct circumnavigation we have transitioned our goal to seeing as much of our remaining coral reefs as our # 1 priority.  To that end, we plan on finishing our circumnavigation in 3-4 years from now.

 

Sailing 2021 – 2022 we finished our second season in Alaska and sailed down the West coast of the US.   I left Gary in San Diego CA so I could work.   I rejoined SV Illimite in Panama, we sailed through the canal, sailed North, stopped in the Cayman Islands for some diving. We then sailed on to Florida, did a months’ worth of boat projects and then on up to Maine.  Having spent the summer in Maine, we had time to reflect on how much we really love Alaska, the last frontier.  

 

For the remainder of 2022 we will sail south down the East Coast of the US to Florida.  In 2023, we will again transit the Panama Canal and sail to the South Pacific as they have lifted their COVID restrictions.  It will be my first time sailing to French Polynesia and Cook Islands.    We are both dreamy about getting back into Indonesian waters and diving in Raja Ampat.  Raja Ampat has been under conservation for over 30 years and the reefs have a lot of biodiversity, healthy coral, schooling fish and great visibility.   After Indonesia we will sail to the Philippines in 2024.  After the Philippines we will sail to JAPAN, which we missed in 2020 due to COVID. The North Pacific Ocean is challenging sailing, it is cold, foggy, huge waves, and full of dozens of lows/Gales, but enough time has passed that we are ready for the challenge again. The state of Alaska is my siren, she sings of beautiful summers where we get to enjoy full on nature; 20 hours of daylight, forests thick with spruce pines, bears, orcas, whales, and the best fishing and shrimping!  Alaska is what happiness smells like, oxygenated air with the fresh scent of pine.  Did I tell you I love Alaska?

pink lines are our sail tracks

Includes some of segments I didn't sail: Washington to Mexico to Hawaii & CA to Mexico to Panama