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?
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| pink lines are our sail tracks |
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| Includes some of segments I didn't sail: Washington to Mexico to Hawaii & CA to Mexico to Panama |
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