Sailing – Page 5 – On the Horizon Line

north hills behind our house in missoula - bri and rob on the horizon line

How Will I Roam At Sea?

We just spent 2 days in a cabin in the middle of the mountains where Montana meets Idaho with our good friends, Pedro and Janaina. Jana’s mama from Brazil came, too (and rocked her first-ever snowshoe experience!), along with their 9-month-old, Clarice.

We skied in the sun, ate good food, drank nice wine, made merry. And we navigated skillfully around each other in the small space. I kept picturing all of us on a big boat instead of a in wood-fired log cabin, and each time I came back to this conundrum: “I won’t be able to pop on my cross-country skis and spend an hour wandering on my own when things get tight.” Hmmmmmm.

Rob and I drove straight to our respective offices from the cabin this morning, and by the close of the work day I was ready for some quiet time. I debated between hot yoga, a conditioning class or a walk. Easy choice: I’ll be doing a LOT of yoga in sauna-like conditions pretty soon, along with plenty of self-mo tivated conditioning and strength-training routines. One thing I won’t be doing a lot of is walking the hills alone.

As I set out from the backyard into the brisk spring evening, I pondered how much I need these alone moments to roam. For as long as I can remember, I’ve used walking as my way to explore physical landscapes as well as my mental landscape. I let my legs set their own pace as they roam through trees or grass. I let my mind wander freely as it picks through the daily joys or burdens.

How will I roam when we’re at sea?

I have no idea. My mind and body will still need to wander, but they’ll have to figure out how to do it with other people at my elbows and in the tight quarters of a small boat.

The good news: at least we’ll be moving at walking speed most of the time, which — come to think of it — is probably why I’m drawn to sailing as a means to roam.

Sailing

What Should We Read?

Friends, family, loved ones and internet browsers: can you help us stock our library for the next year or so? I’m a voracious reader, and about to have some serious time to consume lots of written words while floating the seas. Rob, too.

Unfortunately, I feel lost and adrift while browsing Amazon, paralyzed by the endless choices. So, this is a call for recommendations. Leave us a comment below or drop us a line to share:

– your favorite book of all time

– a well-loved classic (which are free to download from the Gutenberg Project)

– a good read we shouldn’t miss

– something you simply couldn’t put down

The last book I read was Blue Latitudes, about Captain Cook’s expeditions to the islands we’ll be visiting. But, generally, I’m way more of a fiction girl, as you’ll see from the list of our favorite reads to the left (scroll down a bit in the sidebar). For instance, this Christopher Moore book made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants, which is often something I look for in a book.

My goal is to stock the Kindle this weekend, and then keep a go-to list of books we can add as we travel. Mystery, romance, comedy, drama, history, intrique. We want to take it all with us. And, if you happen to read something spectacular a few months from now, toss the title in the comments below and we’ll have a special treat waiting for us at the next port!

Thanks for your advice, and the gift of good books. Can’t wait to hear from you.

bri with backpack ready to sail away on the horizon line

Sailing, Traveling

Travel Preparations: What to Bring With You

Are you ready for Part 2 of the Travel Prep Mini-Series? We sure are! This entry is much more fun, since it means we’re getting closer to a final packing list and farther from those nagging logistical details of leaving our life behind. (In case you missed Part 1, click here to read “What You Should Leave Behind.”)

Did I mention that Rob had us do a “test pack” on Christmas Eve? Yup, that was 2 full months ago. And that’s how excited he is to get the backpack on his back and get out to explore the South Seas. The test pack weighed in at exactly 50 lbs, which means we should be just under the checked baggage limit (fingers crossed!). I just laid out everything on the floor again this weekend, trying to see how the hell it will all fit.

The goals of this post include: 1) share our preparation research with other wanna-be sailors/explorers/world travelers; 2) inspire you to cast off all bowlines and simplify some; 3) convince you (and us) that we can fit everything we need for 2 years in one giant backpack each. See below for our packing list.

abe in laundry basket - pets scared of packing parents as we get ready to sail - on the horizon line — Our dog, Abe, goes to his “safe place” in the laundry basket when he sees us pack. Wish he could come with us!

And — please — let us know what we’re forgetting! Although, as my grandma just told me on the phone, “I guess you won’t miss what you don’t bring, right?” Hope not.

The Packing List:

BAGS. One giant 115-liter waterproof backpack, and one small daypack each. A small purse/travel wallet for the items in #2. Several different dry sacks/ditty bags to organize the stuff in the giant 115-liter backpack.
WALLET & DOCS. Passport, credit cards, ATM cards, license, health insurance cards, scuba certification cards, cash. We also made electronic and paper copies of all of important travel docs to bring with us and leave with our parents.
ELECTRONICS. MacBook Air laptop, LaCie hard drive, iPhone (complete with Navionics charts and Bad Elf GPS plugin, and its own life jacket), camera, GoPro Hero 2, recording mic, mini-speaker, iTouch, plus a Joos solar charger to keep ’em all alive and waterproof/durable cases to keep ’em all dry. *Stay tuned for a Travel Prep post on our communication plan while at sea.
CLOTHES. 3-4 of each of these items: lightweight pants, shorts/skirts, long-sleeved shirts, tank-top or t-shirts, sarongs, underwear, visors/hats, bathing suits. Rubber rain gear and a lightweight windbreaker. Small, lightweight puffy jacket. For Bri: 1 dress and 1 long skirt. Shoes: Crocs, Vibram 5-Fingers, flip-flops.
SAFETY. Delorme In-Reach for emergency tracking and rescue (you’re welcome, moms!),
inflatable Coast Guard-certified life jackets with harness attachments, headlamps, a UV SteriPen to filter drinking water, mosquito net, dive + rigging knives, and a bomber medical kit. *Stay tuned for a Travel Prep post detailing our medical supplies and vaccinations.
TOILETRIES. Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap (doubles as shampoo), toothpaste, toothbrush, comb, hair bands, sunscreen, all-purpose lotion, bug repellent (Rob made natural bug goop), chapstick and towel.
FUN STUFF. Snorkel and mask, rash guard, fins, books and Kindle, jump rope, yoga mat, fly fishing rod and saltwater flies.
SLEEPING GEAR. Fleece sleeping bag liners, small travel pillow and silk liner for Bri, a sarong and folded-up-sweatshirt pillow for Rob.
NOVELTY ITEM. Bri: travel backpacking guitar. Rob: pole spear.

Click here to read more “Travel Prep” posts!

Llyr under sail - on the horizon line with rob and bri

Sailing

“Where, exactly, are you going?”

We leave one month from tomorrow. Whoa. As the departure date approaches, the main question we hear (aside from “are you getting excited?!”) is “where, exactly, are you guys going?” Here’s the answer:

On March 26th, we fly from Missoula, Montana to Cabo San Lucas in Baja California. We’re hoping to meet up with our friends, Katie and Mark, on their boat, Selkie, in La Paz. The goal is to spend a couple of weeks decompressing from work, packing, and leaving our way of life. We plan to leave Mexico refreshed and ready for a big adventure.

On April 10th, we fly from Cabo to Panama City, where we’ll make our way to Colon to meet Llyr in the Caribbean Sea. We’ve signed up to crew on this 53-foot steel ketch, and are excited to help Janis and Brooks, and their teenage boys, Connor, Rowan and Gavin sail her across the Pacific. We’ll have to wait in line for a week or two to squeeze Llyr between mega-tankers, cruise ships and other yachts for her trip through the Panama Canal. We’ll likely head through the Canal by the end of April. Once through the Canal, we’ll provision with food, water, diesel and other supplies while we wait for a good weather window to begin our “Pacific Puddlejump.”

By the beginning of May, we’ll start our 40-day journey across the Pacific Ocean, heading south over the equator and (hopefully) catching a smooth ride on southeast trade winds as we sail west. We should reach our first landfall in French Polynesia’s easternmost island chain, the Marquesas, by early June.

Rob and I may continue with Llyr to Tahiti, the capital of French Polynesia. Tahiti is kind of like the “transit station” for the South Pacific, where we’ll find lots and lots of sailboats from all over the world heading to different islands. We plan to find one to crew on to the next island stop. From here, plans get fuzzy (which we like).

Our goal is to hitchhike on sailboats from July through November. The sailing season in the South Pacific typically ends in November as the summer months mark the start of hurricane season in the southern hemisphere. Most folks head to Australia and New Zealand, but Rob and I are hoping to spend the summer in either the Soloman Islands, or north of the equator in Micronesia. Below is a map of our potential route, though it’s all up for grabs post-June.

For us, the beauty of this trip is our freedom — we aren’t sure where we’ll be in a few months, and we like it that way.

View On the Horizon Line – Adventure Route in a larger map

Off the Rack in Missoula dance bodypaint brianna randall

Dance and Yoga, Sailing

Exercise on a Boat

I’m sitting in the grungy hallway of a junior high school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The buzzing fluorescent lights highlight the 1970s avocado-green tiles, and illuminate Rob and his brother, Brent, playing volleyball in the gym a few yards ahead of me.

We’re visiting Rob’s family for a week before we head off next month. I’m quickly realizing it’s a good test case for how I’ll cope with transitioning to a boat, at least in terms of exercise. The bad news: it’s been 24 hours and I already feel antsy.

The good news: I just found the girls locker room and danced like a crazy woman to music blasting from my laptop, which made me feel much better.

One thing I’m most anxious about as we embark on our voyage is that I’ll become a bitchy and unhappy person if I can’t get enough exercise. Other people seem slightly concerned, too: for instance, my friend Heather turned to me during an Oula Dance class last week in sudden alarm, asking, “Bri! How are you going to dance on a boat?” Great question, and one that I’ve spent a lot of time pondering.

If you know me at all, you know I don’t sit. I have a standing desk, I bike to work, I do yoga, dance, and strength training. And that’s often all in a single day (thank you, Downtown Dance Collective). Then there’s the outdoor activities that keep me sane and peaceful: hiking, mountain biking, backpacking, cross-country skiing.

Movement is a huge part of who I am and how I relate to the world. I’ve been reading Zero to Cruising and other blogs to learn how other cruisers deal. I know that sailing is active, and that I’ll use my body plenty onboard.

But I’m still anticipating that I’ll need to learn to let go of the antsy feeling that wells up when I stay put.

I’ll need to learn to breathe through the frustration of not being able to hop on my bike and ride hard uphill. Most importantly, I’ll need to be creative in the small, confined space. Pushups, lunges and sit-ups will get boring fast.

That’s why I’m planning on dancing my way across the Pacific. I might not get to make big turns or long leaps. And I won’t look nearly as cool as I did in the performance picture to the left (note: this is how I picture myself when I dance … even in grungy junior high locker rooms). But that won’t stop me from dancing on the bow — even if I have to wear a life jacket and strap myself to the mast.

Stay tuned for videos and posts on how I stay fit, sane and (hopefully) pleasant during our Pacific crossing. Meanwhile, I’m going to do a set of jumping jacks to stay pleasant here in Pennsylvania while I wait for Rob.

Sailing, Videos

Limitless Exploration

A fellow Montanan — and friend of our friends — Tyler Bradt is about to set sail across the Pacific on a similar voyage to our own. Only difference is that he has a boat already, while we’re crewing on other people’s boats. Oh, and also the fact that he has high-profile sponsors and partners 😉

Tyler is a famous whitewater kayaker and adventurer extraordinaire from Stevensville, Mont-ucky. Check out his recent interview on the National Geographic Adventure Blog, and the video below that explains his newest adventure: sailing the world over the next 5 years. Tyler’s answer to this question is almost exactly the same as ours would be:

Nat Geo. How did you pick your course? Are there places in particular that you are most eager to explore?

T.B. This is the hardest part for people to grasp. We don’t have a course! The idea of this expedition is to let it take its own course. By having predetermined destinations and exact ideas of what we are going to do only limits us and what our experiences will be. The idea is to allow this journey to find its own flow, its own route, and what we do and where we do it will be determined by decisions we make in the right moment and not before. This will help keep the boat and crew safe and allow our explorations to be limitless.

Hope to catch up with you in Tahiti or beyond, Tyler. It’d be a blast to sail on Wizard’s Eye and swap tales of Montana rivers while we cruise distant shores.

Sailing, Traveling

Travel Preparations: What You Should Leave Behind

Last week, I had coffee with my friend, Kim. She and her family are planning to take a year off to sail soon (go, Kim!), and I talked her ear off about how to prepare. Kim madly scribbled down notes as I rattled off websites, resources and advice about the logistics of leaving. After 30 minutes of so, I caught myself marveling at the sheer amount of stuff we’ve checked off lists in the last six months.

Remember that Little Red Bible? It’s a serious masterpiece now. We have pages full of cross-referenced lists, organized by month and category.

Then there’s all the sticky notes and half-crossed out to-do lists littering our offices and house. I’ve even started emailing myself reminders, since I think of details when the Little Red Bible is not close at hand.

Since we decided not to buy our own sailboat (yet), I’m surprised by all these details. I mean, how hard can it really be to fill up a backpack and go play on the ocean for a year or two?

Kinda complicated, it turns out. Sailing away takes some serious organization. I’m proud of how organized we’ve been, and how much we’ve taught ourselves about sailing, traveling and life-maintenance in preparation to head off.

Now we want to share our lessons in preparation here, in case you’re planning your own adventure (and we encourage you to do so!). This is the start of a little mini-series on how to cast off your bowlines and head into the sunset.

What You Should Leave Behind (and hopefully not worry about):

Taxes. Do ’em before you go.
Jury duty and voting. Tell the county elections office and courts that you’re leaving the country for a spell. They can forward ballots if you know where you’ll be (we sure don’t!).
Your address. Set up a forwarding address for U.S. mail and change all relevant billing/contact information.
Typical health insurance. Buy international travel insurance, including emergency flight evacuations — it’s actually cheaper than U.S. plans.
“Will and Testament.” Write one, get it notarized and file it with your county.
A home safe or bank safe deposit box filled with copies of passport, birth certificate, marriage license, house/car titles, bank account info, and wills. Give copies or safe access to a trusted friend or family member, too.
Your house and car(s). Lease it, sell it, and get it in tip-top shape to avoid disasters while you’re a world away (stay tuned for a future post on how to do this).
Financial complications. Cancel all but one credit card, and open a new checking account and credit card that don’t charge fees out the wazoo (like Schwab or Capitol One).
99% of your clothes: only bring what fits in a 2-cubic-foot sack. Yup: that’s all you get.
Furniture, gear, dishes, books, odds and ends. Give ’em to Goodwill, sell on Craigslist, Amazon or eBay, or have a white elephant party.
Subscriptions. No more newspapers and magazines, unless they get e-delivered to your Kindle or tablet.
Storage area. If you can’t get rid of everything, build a storage space (we put up a wall with a locking door to use half of our garage as storage) or rent one.
Pets. So sad they can’t come with us on our adventures! Luckily, our doggie Abe already has 2 sets of parents and gets to stay and chase turkeys and deer in Montana. Our chickens found an excellent retirement home, too. We’ll miss them all.

Next up in the Travel Prep Mini-Series: What to Bring With You. Give us a shout with questions — we’d love to help you get out and explore! (And, if you want detailed logistics info and a good laugh, we’ll lend you our Little Red Bible.)

Sailing

Crew on a Sailboat or Buy Our Own?

Lately, we’ve been asked often by our friends and family: “Why are you going to crew on someone else’s sailboat instead of just buying your own?” (Check out our Panama Canal post to read more about who we’re crewing with across the Pacific Ocean.)

Great question. Here are several answers.

1) It’s cheaper. Crewing means that we will either: a) pay enough per day to cover our share of food and diesel (which we’d pay anyway if we had our own boat), b) get free passage in return for helping sail these boats, or c) maybe eventually get paid a little bit. Plus, once we crew our way west, we just might find a better deal on a used blue-water-capable boat in Thailand or Bali than in the U.S.

2) It’s safer. We aren’t experienced blue-water cruisers … yet. Sure, we’re both capable sailors and fast learners. But neither of us have sailed long passages, anchored near coral reef, or navigated complicated shipping channels. The best way to get up to speed and become experts on sailing in tropical waters or offshore is to learn the ropes first-hand from experienced captains.

3) It’s smarter. As our neighbor said when we explained the rationale for crewing the other night, “It’s basically like being engaged to make sure you want to get married.” Exactly. Why spend thousands of dollars on our own sailboat without making sure we really, really like being at sea for months on end first? Plus, this way we can test drive lots of sailboats to see what type fits us best. Basically, we’re planning to date boats for the next year or so.

4) It’s easier. Leaving our home, jobs and family for years is tough enough to prepare for. If we had to find a boat, outfit it, and learn all its ins and outs on top of that … well, let’s just say we’d be on the 10-year plan instead of the 2-year plan. Plus, getting our own boat means we’d have to sail across the largest ocean on the planet straight away, which seems like an overwhelming task to plan and execute right now. This way, we can get out of dodge faster and with a LOT less stuff to cart around the globe.

5) It’s an adventure. We like leaving room for flexibility in our travel schedule, both for meeting new people and for seizing opportunities as they arise. Neither of us are wedded to a set agenda, and crewing will give us the chance to let fate determine where we end up.

We’re still hoping to buy our own (used) boat one day. Meanwhile, we plan to enjoy the heck out of other people’s spiffy sailboats as we hop, skip and skim around the South Pacific.

Sailing

Panama Canal, here we come!

We did it! We found a boat to hop on for the long sail across the Pacific Ocean. Rob and I officially signed on as crew for Llyr, a 53-foot steel ketch sailboat making the crossing from Panama to the Marquesa Islands this April.

Turns out that the McCutchen family liked Rob’s random repertoire of skills and my passion for making the crossing, even though we don’t have offshore sailing experience. Here’s what sold Rob: 8-foot headroom in the cabin. He’s still got scars from banging his head in our 26-foot boat on the lake all summer.

Just kidding. We’re thrilled to make the 30-day crossing with this family of 5, because they have a lot to teach us. Rob and I love meeting new people, and we think we’ll fit right in with Janis, Brooks, and their 3 teenage sons, Gavin, Connor, and Rowan.

We can’t wait to learn more about how they run their maple syrup farm in western Massachusetts, and share ideas on how to make the most of the reef research operation they are launching from Llyr in the South Pacific this year. Llyr has a 13-foot dive boat and is fully set up for scuba diving. We both bought new dive knives for Christmas, and Rob’s ready to unleash his Hawaiian spear into the watery depths. I’m ready to clean, cook and eat whatever’s on the end of the spear.

Our current plan is to meet Katie and Mark in La Paz, Mexico for a couple of weeks in late March, and then fly to Panama to meet theMcCutchens in Colon. We’ll help them take Llyr across the Canal (definitely on my “bucket list!”), and then head southwest for a month-long voyage on the open ocean. Hopefully, we’ll reach the Marquesas in French Polynesia by late May, just in time for the prime cruising season in the South Pacific.

Less than 3 months to go. Woo hoo!

Sailing

A Letter to Llyr – From Rob

I emailed the following letter to the owners of Llyr. In April, this family will embark on an ocean expedition to research bio-cultural diversity from their 53′ steel sailboat. We’ve been communicating about crewing on their boat from Panama to the Marquesas — a 30+ day crossing of the Pacific Ocean.

Read more about Bri’s background in her letter to Llyr here.

Hi, Janis and Brooks-

My turn…..

Basic background: I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and then got a BA in Psychology from Wake Forest University. Since then, I have lived in New Zealand, London, Madagascar, Colorado, Washington DC and now Missoula where I have been for 8 years working as a stream restoration director for Trout Unlimited. Mostly, I develop projects that restore abandoned mining areas. Bri and I have been together for 3-4 years and just recently got married this July.

A traditional watercraft with some of my friends in St Augustin in Madagascar.

So in terms of sailing, I’ll be perfectly honest. At this point in my life I have done a lot of things and consider myself to be a pretty capable person in many ways. But, I do not consider myself to be a super competent sailor. I first started sailing in Madagascar. From 1999 to 2001, I lived in a small coastal town in southwest Madagascar during Peace Corps, where I bought a 14 foot wooden outrigger canoe (hand crafted, no metal parts) with a mangrove mast and canvas sail that I sailed in the Mozambique Channel and nearby river delta. Trolling for tuna with handlines and snorkeling from that boat with my Malagasy friends are some of the most memorable, feel-good moments of my life. My more traditional sailing background is limited to our time on the 26 foot Canadian built (Paceship) sloop that Bri described. We were primarily navigating by sight and anchoring in rocky bays of 10 to 30 feet in depth. Bri and I spent two weeks in the Sea of Cortez last November with friends on a 22 foot Catalina sailing the Loreto Bay National Marine Park (I had to fix the outboard pull start with a rope I usually use for hanging our food in griz country) and, in March, we will be spending several weeks in the La Paz area with the same couple on their 1968 28 foot Pearson Triton that they bought this June. I also made the crossing from Florida to the Bahamas with a friend in a twin engine powerboat during college, and am a very experienced backcountry traveler in remote wilderness areas using map and compass.

That said… learning better seamanship, navigation skills and a return to life by the ocean are a huge part of the reason we are undertaking this adventure. Bri and I both know its where we belong. I’ve been practicing the Navy Seals underwater knot tying test, researching various light, durable navigation/electronic schemes for us and am currently pursuing my Tech and General Ham radio license. At this point, my plan is for Bri and I to leave with a Macbook Air (solid state drive, no fan to suck in salty air) laptop downloaded with Maxsea software (free) and vector charts for the Pacific and Southeast Asia. We will also have a Bad Elf GPS attachment for our Iphone (waterproof case) and be downloading the Navionics App charts for marine navigation. I believe we will also get the new Delorme InReach for its global SOS coverage so that we don’t have to rely on anyone else’s EPIRB, Spot Tracker or other emergency devices. That should be a relatively inexpensive setup that weighs about 6 pounds total and keeps us in the know. (I’ve read some about celestial navigation but I think I’ll do better when I’m on the water and have some time on my hands). In the more hands-on realm, I also have a really cool Myerchin rigging knife and with marlinspike and Mako travel polespear that I’m pretty excited about getting wet. I would love to hear about other skills you are looking for and resources/training that you recommend. We’re trying to learn as much as we can. In effort to be prepared and very mobile, we’re trying to focus on bringing sturdy dependable marine safety, communication and recreational gear with us, while happily forsaking other novelty items that other people may think they want or need (like fluffy pillows and fancy clothes).

In other words, I am not the best hand you will find for sailing and navigation right now. But I will get there and very quickly. I am a quick learner and I’m a very handy person in many other ways – and have a lot of skills to offer. In terms of medical training, I am Wilderness First Responder certified and have taken CPR/First Aid. I have also been assembling a pretty mean first aid kit for our trip so that we are self sufficient. I have been scuba diving for 15 years with an Advanced Open Water certification and have logged dives in the US, Madagascar, Costa Rica, Mexico, Belize, Fiji, Honduras and most recently this past January in Cuba. In my varied past, I have taken night courses in welding, kept a 1975 Volkswagen bus running, worked in a frozen food warehouse, designed the installation of an 30’ by 10’ outdoor mural, taught beekeeping, and started a weeklong youth conservation camp. I also speak French, Malagasy and passable Spanish. In the past eight years owning our house, I built a storage shed, wood fired sauna, outdoor rock fireplace, concrete patio, timber framed bike shelter, rock wall and raised garden, and knocked out our kitchen wall and replaced it with a bar made of locally harvested, beetle killed ponderosa pine.

I completely remodeled our downstairs bath this year...kind of like refitting a boat. — I completely remodeled our downstairs bath this year…kind of like refitting a boat.

And ironically (because its sort of like refitting a boat on land), I have also remodeled many of the systems in our house in the last year in preparation for renting it out for an undetermined amount of time. I painted the whole exterior, installed new doors, built a metal railing on the steps leading to the house, built and installed a new cabinet, sink, toilet and plumbing in our downstairs bathroom, and created a storage space by building a new wall in our garage. I contracted out replacing the roof, windows, furnace and hot water heater because prices are actually real good these days. My current interests include film making, kickboxing, building anything, and of course preparing for a long and varied journey. I am also a certified paraglider, and I’m pretty sure you can count on me to catch a fish or two as well (fly fishing or spin).

Finally, should we join you, I would definitely want to help you cross the Panama Canal and paint/outfit the boat in the Panama City area. For me, the work is part of the fun and learning. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I hope you will excuse our verbosity. We’re just super excited about the next few months of preparing and are generally curious and energetic people. Like Bri said, it has been fun communicating with you all. I think your plan and general ethos are commendable. However it works out, I wish you guys the best and I expect our paths will cross somehow or another. Talk to you soon.

– Rob