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EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING


 

Where did they go?

Nowhere, everywhere.

What did they accomplish?

Nothing, everything.

 

Arthur Beiser

 

I've been sailing around the world for eleven years on Exit Only, and what a trip it has been, full of agony and ecstasy, and everything in between.  I nearly died in a car accident in New Zealand, and I reckon that qualifies as agony.  In the ecstasy department, I sailed 33,000 miles around the world, and have seen the things sailing dreams are made of.

 

So where did we go?  Some people would say nowhere, but I would say, everywhere my heart desired, and everywhere I had the courage to point the bows of my sturdy catamaran.  It's all a matter of perspective.

 

If you are a die hard city dweller living in New York, Paris, Rome, or London, I suspect you would say nowhere.  After all, we didn't go to a single Broadway musical, or watch the new year change over in Times Square on December thirty-first.  We didn't walk down the Champs D'Elysee, walk under the Arc de Triomphe, visit the Sorbonne, or munch croissants at a sophisticated Paris cafe.  We didn't go to the Vatican or tour the Roman Coliseum.  We didn't ride gondolas in Venice or view the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  We didn't see Buckingham Palace, ride the tube, or visit the Millennium Dome on the River Thames.  So there you have it.  Hard core city dwellers are right.  We never went anywhere.

 

But before you pity our pathetic plight or heap reproach upon our clueless heads, let me tell you where we went.  We went everywhere most city dwellers never go.

 

We sailed through the Panama Canal, and spent the night on Gatun Lake in the land between the seas.  We swam with the penguins, seals, and white tip sharks in the Galapagos.  We watched lizards eating cactus blossoms and marine iguanas swimming along lava encrusted shores.

We sailed into Kontiki Land - the high volcanic Marquesas Islands - the land of ancient Polynesian warriors, and we walked through the ruins of their long abandoned villages.  We swam beneath a waterfall that was more than 1200 feet high, jumping off rocks into cool Polynesian pools.  We sailed the crystal clear lagoons of the Tuamotu Archipelagos, exploring the motus of Apataki with its pearl farms scattered across the lagoon.

We Med moored downtown on the Quay in Papeete and shopped in traditional markets.  We anchored in paradise in Moorea and hiked up to the Belvedere.  We visited Polynesian ruins in Raiatea and anchored in Beautiful Taaha.  We visited Michener's Bali Hai, Bora Bora, a Pacific crown jewel and personal sailing mecca that proved I was living my dreams.  In Bora Bora we explored a tabu motu where "extraterrestials"  established a now defunct French new age cult.

We visited Suvarov atoll and met the family that watches over this remote patch of paradise.  We restocked our yacht in American Samoa and then pointed our bows south to the Kingdom of Tonga.  We visited my favorite named island on planet earth - Malafakalava.  We snorkeled Mariner's Cave, and shopped in Niafu's narrow streets.  We sat around bonfires on the beach and made plans with other cruisers whether we would sail south to New Zealand or west to Australia.

We dodged uncharted reefs and undersea volcanoes on route to Fiji, and finally turned south to the land of the long white cloud, New Zealand.  We toured from the North Cape to Wellington, and rode the Lynx across the tempestuous Cook Straits to the South Island of New Zealand.  We visited glaciers, mountains, drove down Skipper's Canyon and up the Remarkables, and shot river rapids in jet boats.  We visited  Christchurch with its Antarctic staging center and visited Milford Sound in Fjord Land.

Next stop was New Caledonia and the Isle of Pines, a tiny Pacific paradise with clear water and beautiful reefs.  There were hikes in Prony Bay where jumping Spanish mackerels land on your boat and into your frying pan.

Next stop was Australia and the Great Barrier Reef with a ten thousand kilometer side trip into the Ozzie outback.  Then on to Brisbane, Sydney, Cairns, Townsville, Lizard Island, Thursday Island and Darwin.

Next stop Bali and remote Borneo,  traveling up remote rainforest rivers to commune with wild orangutans in the jungle.  We moved on to bustling Singapore and the Malaysian paradise of Langkawi.  We fed Eagles at the hole in the wall on Langkawi's north shore and cruised among the immense limestone pinnacles of Malaysia and Thailand.  Next came Phi Phi Island and Phuket in Thailand with a global tsunami that wreaked havoc in the Indian Ocean.

Then came the Maldives in the middle of the Indian Ocean - a clear water paradise, and the last outpost before entering the Gulf of Arabia.  Don't forget the adventures in Oman, Yemen, Eritrea, Sudan, and Egypt.  There was a Nile River cruise from Luxor to the High Aswan Dam visiting the ruins of the pharos' domain.  There were Pyramids in Giza and a two day passage through the Suez Canal.

We made an overnight sail to Israel, running the Israeli Navy gauntlet. We toured the ancient glory of Nimrod's fortress, the Holy Land, the Dead Sea, and Mitzpah Ramon crater.  Then we made a visit to Jordan's Wadi Rum and Petra's hidden kingdom.

The voyage continued on to Cyprus and Turkey, land of Crusader castles, Ephesus, Heriopolis, and waterfalls frozen in time at Pammukale.  Next, we sailed on to Greece, Italy, the  Balearics, and Spain.  Then we explored the pillars of Hercules at Gibraltar, the staging ground for our transatlantic adventure.

Next, we jumped off to the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, and across the Atlantic to Barbados.  Finally, there was the Caribbean with dozens of unique destinations before crossing our outbound track in Fort Lauderdale, eleven years after starting our global adventure.

 

Along the way we saw thousands of sunrises and sunsets, dozens of green flashes, and we watched the Milky Way make it's nightly journey across the sky.  Orion, Taurus, and the Pliades were our constant companions as we sailed on through our nights at sea.  We breathed clean air and swam in crystal clear waters for eleven years.  Those were the best eleven years of my life.

 

Perhaps die hard city dwellers are right.  Maybe we never went anywhere or accomplished anything.  After all, we didn't visit New York, London, Paris, or Rome.

 

I'll let you decide.  Where did we go?  Nowhere or everywhere?  What did we accomplish?  Nothing or everything?
 



Log 1 Peter Pan Around the World
Log 2 Weapons of Mackerel Destruction
Log 3 Pirates of the Malacca Straits
Log 4 Kissing Cobras
Log 5 Debriosaurus Rex
Log 6 Go Ahead - Live Your Dreams

Log 7 The Man Who Built His House on a Rock
Log 8 Ambivalent Eagles
Log 9 One-Shovel Full at a Time
Log 10 Hitchhiker's Guide to Planet Earth

Log 11 Keeshond

Log 12 The Red Sea Blues

Log 13 Feel the Freedom

Log 14 The Danger Zone

Log 15 Lucky Man
Log 16 Dream Machines - Land Rover Defenders

Log 17 Trade Wind Dreams
Log 18 Logs With Fins
Log 19 Everywhere, Everything
Log 20 Shark Slayer Is History

Log 21 Viking Funeral - Burial at Sea
Log 22 Improbable and Impossible

Log 23 Keep on Trucking
Log 24 Dream Machines II
Log 25 Bodysurfing Whales
Log 26 Hitting the Wall
Log 27 Surviving the Savage Seas

Log 28 The Next Step
Log 29 Welcome to Barbados
Log 30 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers
Log 31 The Man with the Unplan
Log 32 Dali Dolphins
Log 33 Flying Like a Turtle
Log 34 The Foolish Man Built His House on a Pitch Lake
Log 35 Go West Young Man
Log 36 Crossing the Atlantic in a Row Boat
Log 37 The Unsinkable HMS Diamond Rock
Log 38 Catamaran Capsize in 170 mph Winds
Log 39 When Are You Coming Home?

Log 40 Master and Commander of Anegada - Frigate Birds
Log 41 Baths of Virgin Gorda - Batholiths of Central Arabia

Log 42 Free at Last
Log 43 Stalking the Wild Manatee

Log 44 Spreaderman
Log 45 Attack of the Flesh Eating Bees
Log 46 Sharks and Coconuts
Log 47 Stingray Picnic
Log 48 Boo Boo Hill
Log 49 Whale Slayers
Log 50 Noddies (Not Naughty)

 

Log 51 Exumas Land and Sea Park
Log 52 David and Goliath
Log 53 Turquoise Clouds of Paradise

Log 54 Momma Nightjar
Log 55 Maximillian The Great
Log 56 Chiton Kingdom
Log 57 Flying and Holding On
Log 58 Far Horizons
Log 59 Clouds Are a Sailor's Friend
Log 60 Getting Connected
Log 61 Fear
Log 62 Grand Schemes and Other Important Things
Log 63 If Jellyfish Had a Brain
Log 64 Cousins That Don't Kiss
Log 65 Swimming With Sharks
Log 66 Perfect the Way You Are
Log 67 Space Travelers
Log 68 Aliens
Log 69 Monsters of the Mind
Log 70 My Butterfly Collection
Log 71 Somewhere Other Than Here Societies
Log 72 Five-Hundred Pound Spiders
Log 73 Red Sea Sunsets
Log 74 Gibraltar Sunrise
Log 75 Big Sea - Small Ship
Log 76 Just Cruising
Log 77 Castle Mania
Log 78 You Must Know the Sea
Log 79 Flying Like a Goat
Log 80 The Joy of Photography
Log 81 Universal Camouflage
Log 82 My Rainbow Collection
Log 83 Indian Ocean Reward
Log 84 Fiber W
Log 85 Turkish Reflections
Log 86 Mirrors and Mirages
Log 87 Lycean Tombs Rock
Log 88 Rigging Emergency
Log 89 Pamukkale
Log 90 Volcano Land
Log 91 Sniffing the Air
Log 92 Why I Don't Kite Surf
Log 93 Resurrecting Exit Only in Turkey
Log 94 Greased Pole Competition
Log 95 Tsunami Damage
Log 96 Afraid of Living
Log 97 Living on the Edge
Log 98 Borneo Adventure
Log 99 Uligamu Tree Tender with Full Benefits
Log 100 God's Fireworks Display

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