Sometimes it's funny how a seemingly uncorrelated set of circumstances can conspire to dent ones resolve.  And by funny I mean odd, strange, or friggin screwy...

Sam and I were supposed to go sailing on Saturday.  There was a chance that Maddie and Mandi might go but Maddie's nap schedule got in the way.  Sam and I headed down on what appeared to be a perfect sailing day!  It was somewhat cloudy but the when we got downtown, the wind was kickin about 10kts from the west, not too hot or too cold.  When we got to our Sailing Club I asked for a 22' Capri for four hours and was promptly told "Sorry Bro, they're all gone.  I can get you on a 27' or you can try over at Coronado."  Coronado only had 16' and 35'.  I guess no sailing this day, I'm not certified to sail anything larger that 25'.  Yet.  What's worse is that when I sail out of Sea Port Village I park at work and walk a mile over to the marina.  It was a long quiet walk back to the car with Sam.

Then this morning I dropped Sam at school and realized I forgot my work badge.  Headed home for that.  On the way to work, again, I tried to hit the ATM but for some reason all the ATM's were "Out of Order", convenient...  Since I hadn't had breakfast yet I decided to walk over to a local mexican place and get a breakfast burrito, they are so yummy!  For some reason on this day the restaurant wasn't opening till 10am.  I had a conference call with MLB at 10 so that nixed breakfast.

If you know me you know I can get cranky if I miss a feeding.  I wonder how that will play out on a boat...  hmmm...

When I finally went for my lunch walk I was pretty hungry but I wanted to walk while the weather allowed it.  Sometimes I don't feel like walking past the Marina because it feels like a carrot being dangled out in front of me.  Today I went over there anyway.  It's good to clear one's head with some fresh air!  I felt so much better afterwards. I got to daydreaming which is what I usually do when I walk or run or swim.  When I daydream near the ocean well, i'll be daydreaming about crossing that ocean.  It's just my nature.

By the time I'd turned around and headed back I could feel the desire to go over the horizon so bad I could taste it.  Starting to get back to my old self...  I remembered a quote of Abraham Lincoln I read recently:  "...In the end it's not the years in your life that count.  It's the life in your years."  I don't know if I'll ever hear it stated better than that.

Missing a day of sailing, or one meal, or being inconvenienced by ATM failures all really are inconsequential.  A friend of mine from New York described walking in the city there like this:  We just keep moving.  If the light is red, or traffic blocks you, in one direction you turn the corner and go in another direction.  The point is to always keep moving in the direction of your goal.  Seems like that could be a pervasive concept in life.

Yesterday afternoon Maddie, Mandi, and I went down to West Marine to try to find a better fitting PFD for Madison.  Since Mandi agreed to go do this I felt in my mind that it was a tiny moment of validation for my dream.  There is, afterall, only one reason to find a well fitting PFD for Madison.  Then while there I happened by the sailing shoes and pointed out a few to Mandi.  Mandi, like me, is something of a shoe-aholic.  She smilingly tried on a couple pair and then made a comment like: well, if we're really going to do this thing some day then I guess I'll eventually need to get some sailing shoes.  She didn't get any this time but again, a tiny moment of validation...

My dream may never fully come to pass but to paraphrase Abe and my New York buddy - Keep your eye on the prize and fill your years with life.

That's the plan I've got for now.
Seaman Ray 

What a wonderful tool the internets is!  It makes me happy.  Of course we all know that everything on the internet is true too.

Maybe some of you remember the olden days when you had to do research with a book, or even [gasp] go talk to people!  To find books on a given topic you might even have to go to a Libarry! [shudder]

Now, I can sit at any one of my computers [aside - let us not forget I am a computer programmer, and therefore a geek by definition, so I own several, perhaps even a plethora of, computers...] and find all kinds of interesting things about sailing, people who sail, sail boats for sale, where people are sailing, what they are sailing, people's opinions on how to sail and how not to sail, sailing ettiquette, weather and I even found a place where people feel they know more than everyone else and you can't sail unless you sail like them on a boat like them etc etc...  It's nice to learn that the sailing community is just like any other.  Full of both nice helpful people and know-it-all blow hards.  Hey!  Maybe we can call them when the winds are calm!!!

During my surf sessions I've found a few places that I really really like!  I sometimes wonder if these folks are checking their traffic logs and thinking who's this guy driving all my traffic stats up all of a sudden...

I found a website that has been an incredible inspiration to me.   These guys decided that they'd rather go on an epic adventure in their late twenties, before they have too many extraneous elements in their lives, then to wait until their later years.  I've read their entire sets of logs at least three times and have viewed every picture and movie on their site.  I would even buy their boat if I had the money!  They are three friends who met in college and sailed the SV Sohcahtoa around the world in two years.  Their trip was pretty quick as these things go but that didn't diminish any of the epic-tudeness of their adventure!  Particularly inspirational was their collective transformation from relative land-lubbers to trans-oceanic passage makers within a period of a couple years...  Sound familiar?

This site: The Hacking Family is another that I get inspiration from.  They share a wealth of honestly earned knowledge that would help any cruiser.  From power consumption analysis to provisioning to how long various supplies last in the tropics on a sail boat.  What draws me to this site even more is the fact that these folks cruised with their kids and boat schooled them.  This is a topic close to my heart so reading about how others manage these issues is a definite interest pique'r.

A similar site of a family that circumnavigated: Northern Magic has a bit of a sad note but I enjoyed their site none-the-less.

A website more about living on a boat with children is JC McDowell's.  I just love his pictures and stories.  Good stuff.

This site Long Passages falls under the Very Helpful heading for the most part, although they have great entertaining content too.  Their website has a lot of insightful info on provisioning, boat outfitting, good locations for boat maintenance and the like.  I wrote to these guys and they have since traded their sail boat for a land yacht and are now RV'ing around the US.

The final website I'll share today is the Cruisers Forum. A pretty good resource for general cruising info, and if you have questions about sailing, especially boat maintenance, it's a great place to do some searching or even just ask questions.  They are a pretty friendly group and there are thousands of collective miles of sailing experience to draw from.

I did find a common thread in a few sites that chronicle circumnavigations or long lasting adventures.  One of the three college friends on Sohcahtoa lost a brother to cancer much much too young.  The mother on Northern Magic was diagnosed with cancer prompting the family to cast off their mooring lines.  A few other sites I have read have a similar story.  I guess my take away on this is that I hope I don't have to wait for a potential tragedy to be my ultimate motivation to attain a dream.  These folks have taken tragedy and turned it into a defining moment in their lives.  If that isn't motivational I don't know what is.

Ciao,
Seaman Ray

I don't want to tiptoe through life just to arrive at death safely
-Anonymous

I got to thinking about what motivates a person to sail around the world.  So I asked myself, Ray, why do you want to sail around the world?

Interesting question, Ray, and thank you for asking.  First of all, I'm not totally sure I want to sail around the world.  I mean sure it sounds exciting to me, but there are elements that concern me.  The Cape of Good Hope and the Panama Canal being only two.  What I want to do for certain, again stars aligning synergistic matter forming etc. etc., is to sail to and around the South Pacific.  I would love to see places like the Tuamotus, Cook Islands, The Marquesas, Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga, Roratonga, Australia, perhaps even New Zealand.

Sure I can fly to these places a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a boat and sailing there.  So maybe the visiting of these places isn't necessarily it.  The folks at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon have a saying - The journey is the reward.  I think that really hits closer to the heart of the matter.  There is something for me in the visualizing, some would say day-dreaming, of this journey.  I can picture the open ocean extending to the oh so slightly curved horizon, which can hardly be seen due to our minimal distance from the water itself.

Some days I can picture the deep deep blue water with wind whipped white caps spread across it's surface.  White caps which top swells that give the boat a shove and a toss.  I can see the big billowy clouds that are perpetually in the sky in the tropics.  I can see the darker clouds on the horizon that will soon bring the rain and powerful gusts of a temporary squall.  I can picture myself rushing to shower in that squall hoping to get the shampoo rinsed before the rain stops.  I can hear Mandi yelling at me from below because I got my shower stuff instead of closing the ports before the squall hit.  I can see the smile on my face...

Other days I can see the same ocean only more calmed.  Trade winds blowing from the east at 15 knots as they have been doing for the last three days.  I can feel the wind on my face and sense it blowing past the wind-vane that hasn't been adjusted in days as it keeps us on our westerly course.  I can see myself in the cockpit with a cup of coffee on the 03 to 06 watch with my family below sleeping peacefully. My eyes locked to the east as the sun slowly rises through the clouds effortlessly casting nearly all the colors of the rainbow five at a time.  I can hear the water gurgling past the hull as we glide along at six knots.  I can feel the deck slowly pitching up and down in time with the swell.  I can hear the porpoises, who've accompanied us since two days out, splashing and whistling along side.

Hmmm, I wonder if I just want to cross oceans...

When I'm in the mountains the high I get from topping out or finishing a tough section of trail or completing a trip often gives me a feeling of invincible aliveness.  I'm not sure how else to explain it.  I can hardly remember another time when I felt more alive then after I completed my first long solo when I was flying.  Lucky for me I was alone because after I landed at my home airport I let loose a hell of whoop!  I picture making land-fall after a long passage being similar.

So I think the getting there appeals to me too.  The knowledge that I've crossed millions of square miles of open ocean and managed to find a relatively tiny speck of land in that ocean.  Man, just the thought of it gives me a rush right now.

Well, I still don't know what the motivation is but I sure do like to day-dream.

My head is all over the place.  Ever feel like there is so much information on a topic that you don't know, yet can find, that you can't figure out where to look?  If I were Rummy I might think that I know there are things that I know I don't know and there are things I don't know that I don't know...  Yeah, that's about how I've been feeling lately.

I've decided that if all the stars were to align and every other element of matter were to coalesce into a synergistic structure that would affect fate in such a way as to allow for the possibility, I would like to sail around the world.  I understand there is a lot standing in my way, not the least of which is the fact that I don't know how to sail, nor does anyone in my home.  My father-in-law sails...  I'm feeling some FIL ass kissing in my future...  But that in the face of all else in my way seems trivial, and perhaps the easiest to overcome.

Lets consider what else could be in my way:

Does my wife want to go around the world in a tiny sailboat?  Living in it for anywhere from 2 to 5 years?  Only having brief visits home in that time and mostly living near third world countries, or at least the third world elements of many modern countries.  Does she want to spend upwards of 25 days at sea when crossing an ocean in possibly lumpy, or worse, seas?  Cook in a house that's rolling at 20^o to each side?  Stand watches outside in the rain in the middle of the night? Truthfully I think I can overcome this one.  It's all in the presentation... :D

Does my son want to go with, perhaps delaying college a few years, and be crew for anywhere from 2 to 5 years while he sails around the world with his family?  Hell yes he does!  That's my boy!

Does my daughter, all of one month old, want to begin her schooling on a boat, forsaking any friendships she's developed by the time we depart?  Bah!  I'll be Captain Ray by then and Seaman Recruit Madison will simply deal with the realities of her existence!  Wow!  I'm really feeling better about this whole thing already!

Okay, this is big one.  How would I finance this whole she-bang?  Not only would I have to purchase a well found and safe blue water capable boat; Nay, that alone would be easy!  I am currently buried under a house and mortgage that has been ravaged in value by the current recession, as are a majority of home owners in the US right now.  But if only that were the completeness of the financial challenges, still I would feel reasonably confident.  No...  Ray Ray has been a little cavalier in his spending habits over the years so the hole has been dug quite a bit deeper...  Does this discourage me to the point of not dreaming?  Hardly!  Not only Where there's a will there's a way but Necessity is the mother of invention.  And that is something I have truly believed for a long time!  I mean I never even thought about creating a dropdown list with color coded entries until a user requested it.  Sounded assinine to me at the time, but I built that sucker!  I have had a use for it exactly once but that's not the point!

And finally what could quite possibily be the biggest obstacle to this whole nutty dream:  What to do with all the shit I've accumulated over the past 42 years!

So here I am with a dream and little else.  Far greater things have been built on less...

Ciao,
The Future Capt. Ray

Backpacking Sailing-Ray

So here we are.  Let me introduce myself.  My name is Ray Ebert and I live in San Diego, California.

Originally this site was going to be my backpacking blog.  While I still enjoy backpacking, in fact I'm taking my son out this summer for his first time, I've found another passion to drive my family nuts with.  Sailing...

How did this start you ask?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  Last summer my father-in-law was preparing for a trans-pacific race from San Francisco bay to Oahu, Hawaii called the Pacific Cup.  I got interested in the race and the concept of sailing across the ocean.  I have sailed across a few oceans and seas in my life but I did that on a big gray ship so it was a different experience than what interests me now.  

I followed the Pacific Cup race updates and waited with anticipation as the boat positions came in every four hours via satelite tracking.  I poured through the bio's of the sailors, many of whom have their own websites and blogs.  As I can do on occasion I sorta went nuts on the internet, geeked out at home driving my wife slightly more nuts - after marrying me she's obviously at least somewhat nuts already - subscribed to every sailing magazine out there and hit the bookstore every time I got a Borders Books coupon in my email.

I now have far more sailing books then i've ever had backpaking books. 

Initially my interest was two-fold.  First, I was interested in sailing to Hawaii.  Second, for some reason I was interested in going through the Panama Canal.  The Sailing To Hawaii research left me a little disappointed.  For a number of reasons Hawaii isn't exactly a prime location for cruising.  The Sailing Through the Panama Canal research led me down a completely different path that I am still following.

For now I'll just say that I have a 50" wide map of the world in my living room that is full of colored push pins... 

Capt. Ray