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THE NEXT STEP


 

There is a certain amount of comfort derived from planning your future.  A man with a plan usually goes the distance, and a man without a plan goes nowhere.  There's no doubt about it, you need a plan.  But a plan is much different than a scheduled itinerary.  A plan is a general direction with possible stops along the way and suitable contingencies should problems arise.

 

Plans are great as long as you don't fall in love with them, and then get stressed out when things don't work out exactly as hoped.  The plan is there to get you going - it helps you overcome the inertia caused by fear, indecision, and ambivalence.  The plan also tells you where to take the next step.  That's how you make dreams come true; you take a series of steps, and each step is in the right direction.

 

When you live your dreams, you don't need to see far into the distance.  You only need to see where to take the next step.  The same is true when you sail across an ocean.

 

While we were sitting in Gibraltar preparing to cross the Atlantic, we knew we had to take three giant steps.  The first was eight hundred miles southwest to the Canary Islands.  The second was seven-hundred and fifty miles southwest to the Cape Verde Islands.  The third was two-thousand one hundred miles west to Barbados in the Caribbean.  Each of these steps consisted of smaller ones that we took each day in the right direction - one day at a time, one step at a time.

 

The giant step from the Cape Verdes to Barbados required more than two weeks because there were no trade winds during the first half of the trip.  It was mostly motoring or slow sailing in light northeasterly breezes. 

 

We had a plan, and worked our plan.  We carried twelve jerry cans of fuel because we knew this was a windless year in the eastern Atlantic.  There was a high probability we would need a large amount of fuel to make it to longitude forty degrees west where reliable trade winds made their appearance.  That meant we needed to carry enough fuel to motor one-thousand windless miles.

 

People who didn't have enough fuel drifted west under spinnaker and light air sails making sixty miles a day toward their destination. One boat was at sea for nineteen days and still had one-thousand three hundred and fifty miles to go before arriving in the Caribbean.

 

If sailors could see into the future, they could always leave port with favorable winds that would continue all the way to their next port.  Sailing would be a waiting game in which they sailed only when conditions were perfect.  That's exactly what many sailors attempt to do; they take a trip to fantasyland downloading weather files that purport to predict wind direction and speed one week in advance.   Actually these files should be called computer generated wind fantasies because the predicted winds frequently don't materialize.

 

It would be great if long range weather predictions were accurate.  Then crossing an ocean would be like catching a train on schedule and riding it to your destination.  But that's not the way you sail across oceans.  Weather predictions are generally accurate one or two days in advance, but beyond that they are a trip to fantasy land.  They make excellent fodder for feeding endless speculation regarding what your weather might be on passage.  But highs and lows, fronts and troughs, and tropical waves and hurricanes are all chaotic in their behavior, and therefore, unpredictable.

 

Mariners must accept the chaotic nature of weather and set off with a sea chest full of contingencies - ready to deal with the meteorological mysteries that unfold along the way.  After all, they are a sailboat, and sail they must.  Port tacks, starboard tacks, beating, reaching, and running are all in their bag of sailing tricks.  And if they use their common sense, they will arrive at their destination earlier or later than planned, but they will arrive, and it will be an adventure.  And that is why  they sail.  Adventure.

 

Arriving is a great reward giving a sense of accomplishment.  But the voyage is even more important, because in the voyage lies the adventure.  When they are finally in safe harbor, the biggest part of the adventure is over.  They will enjoy their time in port, checking out the sights and renewing acquaintances with fellow cruisers for a week or two. There will be plenty of time to discuss their adventures with their friends until they pull up their anchors, raise their sails, and a new adventure begins.
 


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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This web site is a companion to Outback and Beyond.com.

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