Glad you guys are still enjoying this. To answer a few questions & comments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wiper
ever thought of making a digital book with all your stories/pics?
writing up Vegas would be cool if only to see how your interests/schedule changes when you're at "homebase".
Book - people tell me to write a book, but I see three problems with that. The first is that I doubt more than a few people would want to read it. The second is that if I were to write one, I'd want it to be good, which means I'd put a lot of effort into it with way more details and photos than I put into these updates, which means it would take a lot of time, which is not appealing given the first problem. The third problem is that I'm pretty lazy and would rather spend that time traveling.
Vegas - writing about Vegas doesn't seem like it would be interesting. It's easy to go to Vegas and lots of people have and do. I figure people are more interested in the less common stuff like sailing and international travel. If I wrote about Vegas, I think it would look like a lot of the trip reports you see over in LVL, along with a bunch of boring stuff about equities analysis & valuation. I'll give it a shot if more people express interest, but I don't want to bore people.
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Originally Posted by NhlNut
Good stuff Chop.
If you happen to be bored, spent part of a summer vacation at a vacation house in Alaro.
Went by there, as close as Soller, while doing a full circuit of Mallorca. Went into a bunch of small towns for lunch and stuff but nothing really memorable. They all start to look the same after doing it a few times.
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Originally Posted by PokerDharma
What is the one place or one trek you would absoutely never sail to or through?
What is the one place or one trek that you would love to sail if you haven't already or what is your absolute favorite?
There isn't any place I wouldn't sail if I was properly prepared. The least likely places are in/around the coast of Somalia & Venezuela due to piracy. I previously would stick the Indian Ocean in there but piracy has dropped there significantly over the last few years. Piracy is a very real threat. Most people think of piracy in terms of tankers and container ships being boarded like in the Captain Phillips movie, but it's also a danger for small pleasure craft like sailboats.
Here are a bunch of recent piracy reports from cruisers. I have a story about that when I get around to telling you guys about the Pacific crossing I did earlier this year.
No favorites. Different places hold different appeals. It's like trying to choose between filet mignon and lobster. Sailing across the Pacific over huge rolling waves with the spinnaker out is completely different than bobbing along in 45 feet of crystal clear water off an island in the Bahamas which is different than hunting lobsters in Bayahibe with a Hawaiian sling. Looking forward to checking out the Maldives one day, and I'm headed over to SE Asia next week.
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Originally Posted by jjshabado
What was the alcohol situation like on the container ship? I guess I always assumed off duty crew spent most of their time drinking - since that seems to be fairly standard for remote jobs with not a lot of options during down time.
They would drink, but not to excess. There was a bunch of Filipino beer on board that was always available in the crew rec room, but everyone was mostly disciplined when it came to drinking. I never saw anyone get more than heavily buzzed. They also spent a lot of time hanging out in each other's cabins playing guitar and just chilling out.
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Originally Posted by RichGangi
Obv grunch- Chop, what do(did?) you do for a living? Your life seems pretty awesome. Well done.
Worked my ass off doing boring IT/internet stuff in my 20s in a few fields, then moved into management, then finance. Currently semi retired but I do some finance stuff now and then for myself and the occasional corporate strategy consulting gig for others (if it's interesting enough) every now and then. The corp strat gigs are fun because you get to be the guy that tells the emperor he is not wearing any clothes, and get paid to do it.
Life is confirmed awesome. I can die at any time with no regrets whatsoever.
In current news, I've decided I'm going to head to SE Asia instead of getting on another sailboat crossing the Atlantic. I land in Singapore on Wednesday. I did get a pretty nice sailing offer the day after I bought my plane ticket, but it's not good enough to change my mind.
Was originally thinking of heading to SE Asia from Europe overland through either Iran or Aremenia & the 'stans, but visas are a royal pain in the ass for both routes. Also looked into going through Saudi and taking a ferry from Oman to Pakistan, but same visa difficulties with Saudi. One thing I've learned in the last few weeks is that transit visas are mostly geared toward people traveling by air in the mid east region. Land transit visas are either non-existent or extremely difficult to come by. Could always go for regular visas, but the processing times are longer than I feel like waiting having been stuck in Mallorca as long as I've been. I've got cabin fever and want some spicy noodles.
So the current plan is to head over to Singapore on Wednesday, then spend the next 3-6 months exploring Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, India, Mynamar, and possibly Japan (already spent a month backpacking there once) and South Korea. May also head over to Micronesia / Palau as well.
Right now all I know is that I'll be in Singapore come Wednesday.