Thread: I lost my mind once. Was late 2009, had been working at a hedge fund for a number of years, and had some early success at a young age...
I grew up in southern Illinois, in Belleville, parents from east St. Louis. No experience with the water, but was always intrigued...
Decided “f—- it”, bought a small sailboat and set my sights for the Caribbean. Was cheap, so I found a homeless guy from Maine on Craigslist, along with a good buddy, to move the boat south for the winter...
We set sail early, end of October, before hurricane season had been declared over. A few days in, we realized our 70-yr d craigslist friend wasn’t much of a navigator...
Checking the weather via satellite phone, hurricanes Sharon and Tomas are to our south. Far away, but enough trouble to stir up our weather...
Anyway, when the weather turned south we called the coast guard (having no idea what we were doing). We were over 300 miles offshore of N Carolina and they told us out of helicopter range..
Any whiskey left on board? Nope, drank it all in first 2 days. F—- it, guess we’ll take what’s coming. Lost a couple sails and got beat up, but made it thru
We limped in to the Abacos, 5 days behind schedule, leaking water, only half a sail. Dockmaster thought we were a joke. Reminder: no idea what I was doing, despite being so-called “Captain” at the time...
Boats a wreck, homeless guy wants a flight to Florida, friend has to get back to family. Left alone in Marsh Harbor... befriend a stranded Aussie who needed help. We spent a month repairing my boat...
Had been dating a girl for a few months and asked her to come down to help out (had just gotten my pilots license while visiting her - so had a lot of quality time together)
Aussie tells me he needs “a lift” to Dominican Republic, can’t stay near US/Bahamas waters any longer. I don’t ask questions and owe him a favor
We set sail for Luperon... takes a bit over a week, much of the waters require skilled navigation, but we get there and he teaches me about sailing along the way..
He leaves on the back of a little moped as soon as we get to luperon, no time for goodbye apparently - and we’re on our own. Looked at a map and said “guess we have to go to Samana...”
Neither me nor my (now wife) really have any idea what that means and it’s our first time alone on a boat, and together
Have some hassles in samana, I get arrested, she bails me out, and we decide we need to leave (it was a bribe economy at the time). Where to? Closest place was Puerto Rico
Alone and no experience, we set off to cross Mona Passage, tough trip for experienced sailors.. we make it in under two days, take comfort in Ponce. Fall in love with Old San Juan (rented a car)...
We decide to keep sailing. End up in a bar with a couple in mid-60s who had just finished a 6-yr circumnavigation
They told us we'd be stupid to not continue - at our age (30 at the time), when else can you do it? "Keep going.." they said. My wife was drunk and said "F-- it, lets keep going"
We did. We headed east from Puerto Rico to the US Virgin Islands, stayed in St Thomas, St John and sailed south to St Croix. Headed back up and did the BVIs. We even convinced some friends state-side to fly down and visit
Did some time at Willy T's and the Soggy Dollar Bar, got drunk, ran the boat aground, got yelled at - but persisted on - Virgin Gorda and onward to Anguilla and St Martin
Dropped some people off, picked up some new scallywags, sailed south towards Trinidad. Hit up every island in the eastern carribbean along the way - took the whole year. Next question was: keep going or call it a day and go back to work?
Trinidad told us to keep going - so we sailed west, along the northern coast of Venezuela and Colombia. Had some issues with Venezuela but managed to escape them, and took refuge in Santa Marta, Colombia. Was a beautiful place and experience
From there, to Cartagena. One of our favorite places. Colombia was good to us, even had a breakdown / re-enactment of "Romancing the Stone" outside of Baranquilla..
We leave Colombia for San Blas - virtually untouched native american island chain in Panama - great time and spent a month there. No electricity, and most people didn't even know what an automobile was.. After that, Portobello - land of misfits and fugitives...
Picked up a random crew there (was drunk at a bar that was basically the same bar as scene in original Star Wars) - offered a ride through the Panama Canal on our vessel
Head north next day, miscreants aboard - packed on like stowaway rats in the cargohold, up to Colon.. to await 'staging' to pass through the canal
Had to wait 5 days for our turn, and of course there was a bar there, so much drinking ensued while waiting.. finally our turn, but as non-commercial vessel, can only traverse at night..
I'm a mess, but push on - 3 locks up to Gatun Lake, an awesome experience - cross Gatun Lake, 3 more locks down through Miraflores to the Pacific
Want to get rid of our scalliwags - but the girl (a czech backpacker) had just been dumped by her random canadian boyfriend and wanted a lift to galapagos..
Fine, we'd brought her this far, we'll take her for the 7-day open ocean sail to galapagos... arrive there on my little sister's birthday (we flew her in to Panama City, Panama to help sail to South Pacific)...
Galapagos is a bit over-rated - sealions would board our boat when we left for shore, making it a pain in the ass to get back on our boat at night - but still had some great sight seeing and experiences. Time to get rid of the czech tourist though...
Luckily she'd fallen in love with a local ecuadorian scuba instructor, and i just had to show customs & immigration proof of her departure documentation (a whole other story).. finally get that, and off for a 23-day open ocean sail to south pacific, land of paradise...
Arrive in Fatu Hiva - truly one of the most beautiful places on earth. Just incredible. Loving it, but low on supplies, alcohol, food and cigarettes (a sad necessity when spending 3 weeks at sea with no land) - we trade some fishing lures for booze and smokes...
There's no bank, ATM, cash, cars, etc on Fatu Hiva- same as its been for 500 years - longer really - after a week, we move on to Hiva Oa to drop off my sister. She can catch a flight to Tahiti from here to get back to work in the states (after 2 months at sea)
At Hiva Oa, we fill up some jerry cans of diesel fuel from some 55-gallon drums and head west towards the Tuamotos - a most magical place...
We stop first at Manihi - a little inhabited island on a beautiful coral atoll - fish, spearfish, scubadive, enjoy isolation.. then on to Rangiroa - where you can indulge and stay in one of the most beautiful hotels on the planet...
Mind you this whole time I had zero sailing experience prior to picking up the homeless guy from Maine... Anyway, on to Tahiti and Mo'orea - civilization!
Tahiti is good to us, we love it and have a great time - meet new friends, and head west to Maupiti (recently featured on BBC South Pacific - great episode). Spend time there, then on to a most enchanted and rare place..
Mauphiaa - out of helicopter range and far too small for an airport, and the reef passage in is too narrow for commercial vessels, only small sailboats can make landfall. There are 7 people living here - trying to farm black pearls and living as their polynesian ancestors did..
we budgeted 3 days here, but stayed 2 weeks. the reef was full of fish, the land full of coconut crabs, and we had plenty of food..
from there, the Cook Islands - another magical place - inaccessible by any means of transportation other than a small sailboat - one of the most beautiful places imaginable...
We are now several weeks removed from any civilization, living off our wind, solar and water desalinator. Time means nothing as we are surrounded by ocean, reef and palm trees. We keep moving west, to the Samoas
We pick up some more riff-raff in the samoas, and ultimately need to head south towards New Zealand... okay, getting tired. Going to wrap this up for now, but i'll continue tomorrow - long story short, girlfriend (now wife) gets pregnant...
in New Zealand, we sail to Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Australia, then head back to the states to be landlubbers again..
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