I have a dumb question, but you seem like a cool dude who can probably handle dumb questions so I'm gonna shoot anyway. As a background I've managed to grow a reasonable-sized fear/discomfort of boats/sailing in general (a few years ago we got caught in a storm in the middle of the night as a passenger off the coast of St. Barts, and ever since then I've been very nervous on board especially smaller boats).

Anyway. When I picture what it would be like in the middle of the pacific or atlantic ocean I picture 30ft waves and storms and all kinds of unpredictable stuff, and you posted pictures of sailing across these oceans in vessels that to me seem really small (60ft long or something?). My question is, with modern technology like weather maps, gps and whatever apps are out there, how effectively can you avoid storms or any kind of unwanted weather during an ocean crossing in a small boat like that? If I wanted to sail as a passenger on a boat from LA to Sydney and I had unlimited money and time, could I hire a crew and tell them to just avoid all bad weather (by taking as long detours as needed) and have a guaranteed journey where the weather won't be of concern? Or can you get caught up in really big waves/storms etc because you might not have enough time to get out of the way when bad weather forms?

Like I said it was a dumb question I would really, really love to go sailing around the islands in the middle of pacific ocean and experience those pods of dolphins and all that stuff, but at the same time being trapped in the middle of an ocean is among the scariest things I can think of.

Randall - Breaking the femur that far from anything would have sucked, but ultimately it's just a broken bone. I've broken both arms and both legs before, not a big deal. The boat had ample meds on board and if I needed a re-break re-set, that could have happened in Tahiti. How do I convert your jealously to inspiration? I don't want people to be jealous of me. I want to inspire them to live their dreams.

Watermolonz - I decided to skip the whitebait. I can say it's because I don't want to support an ecologically unsustainable food product, but the truth is I don't like eating bones and guts.

NhlNut - Didn't go near either (there are two) trash gyres. I've always wanted to see one, but they aren't what they used to be, thanks to the evolution of plastic-eating bacteria. That's a good thing. Well, it's good as long as those bacteria stay in the ocean far from land.

Chuck - Not a dumb question at all. A lot of people feel the same way you do. The thing is, being out in the middle of the ocean is far safer than most other places you could be, if only because there's really nothing but water and weather out there. Rarely the odd tanker or cargo vessel, depending on your route. But mostly it's just water. The dangerous places are near things that you can run into, like coastlines. With current technology, you can trust weather pretty well for the next 72 hours. This means that if you have an engine and you aren't a complete moron, you can easily avoid 99% of unwanted weather if you want. I'm not going to tell you that you can have a guaranteed no-concerns journey, but I'll tell you that you can easily have a 99% guarantee. Probably closer to 99.9%. Given the unlimited money and time, 99.999%. Get out there and live your life. You don't want to be sitting around regretting not giving it a shot 40 years from now.


Tonight is the last night in New Zealand. Getting on a plane at 0700 tomorrow to Sydney. One day there, then on to Singapore. One day there, then on to Kuala Lumpur. At least two weeks there. Maybe a month. Then on to Thailand for some undetermined period of time. Should be able to do some good thread catchup in KL.

I always refuse to check this thread unless it's been a few months since I last read it because I instantly get hooked when I do read it. Amazing stuff.

Sorry if this has been asked before but is there any good blogs from others out there sailing around the world that you would recommend? This stuff fascinates me and would love to read others adventures

IDK about blogs, but if you haven't seen Maidentrip I highly recommend it.

Hawk - the best recommendation I have is de captain's "AMA about sailing around the world" thread in this forum. Outside of that, there are a ton of blogs out there from people who either have or are in the process of sailing around the world. No specific recommendations.



So I'm in Kuala Lumpur now. Just found out that the vegan catamaran is going to have a delayed departure, and that now the owner wants everyone to be vegan both on and off the boat. Sent him an email asking about checking out the boat in Langkawi next week, only to find out the above. I don't mind doing the vegan thing while on the boat, but I have no interest in doing it while at various islands. The owner thinks he's going to convert islanders to veganism as he travels through the islands. Having been to a few islands in the South Pacific, I am doubtful of that.

So I'll still hang out in Malaysia for a bit, then likely just head up to Thailand to chill there for a few months. Then probably the standard Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam thing. We'll see if I find an interesting boat that derails that plan or not.



When we last left off, the sailboat was sailing into Fatu Hiva after 23 days at sea.


The island was ruggedly exotic and verdant:




There's only one real road, and almost no cars on it. Walking down the road looks like this:




you're surrounded by infinite vegetation and spiky volcanic cliffs. Lots of chickens running around. Tons of fruit trees with far more fruit than the island can eat, which means a bunch of limes, mangoes, etc just fall on the ground and rot because even the animals already have more than enough to eat.

Not long after we arrived, the locals took us and the folks from two other sailboats hiking out to a huge waterfall near the village:



That shows the bottom third or so of the waterfall. It was enormous. As you can see, the thing to do there is climb up one of the rock faces and jump into the pool below. What you can't see is that you need to be a pretty good jumper, because the rock face comes out at the bottom (well, I guess you can kind of see it) and you don't want to not clear that. One of the locals was climbing up under the waterfall itself and jumping down. I have no idea how he did that as the rocks there were slippery as a mother****er.

Life on the island is much different than life elsewhere. The locals are mostly self sufficient, and they generate the bulk of their own food. Here's a drying rack for fish:



what you see inside are fillets of fish. The clear cover on top is to prevent the flies from getting on the fish. The holes in the sides are covered in mesh to allow air flow. They also had something similar for coconuts, but without the fly covering.

As self sufficient as the locals are, they do have a store:



which is stocked about once every three weeks by a supply ship. That photo was taken a few days before the supply ship showed up, so things were getting pretty sparse.

Here's what the supply ship looked like:



and here are some tourists coming onshore from the supply ship:



The company that owns the supply ship supplements its income by taking on paying passengers. I almost did it myself. Glad I didn't, after seeing that cattle car motor by. The supply ship is constantly on the move, doing a three week circuit among the Marquesan islands and Tahiti, loading up copra (coconut) and delivering finished goods. That's why it only shows up at Fatu Hiva every 3 weeks.

The tourists get off and walk around the island for a couple of hours, buy some souvenirs, then get back on the supply ship and head to the next island.

Speaking of souvenirs, I broke my no-souvenir rule at Fatu Hiva to pick up this sweet tapa cloth art:



due to its awesomeness, lack of weight, and the fact that I had a folder I could protect it in.


After a few days at Fatu Hiva, it was time to head on to Hiva Oa and officially check in to French Polynesia. Technically we weren't allowed to be at Fatu Hiva without having checked in first, but we decided to just run the risk of a fine. Lots of sailboats do this because due to the winds, it's a real pain in the ass to get to Fatu Hiva from Hiva Oa.

Here we are sailing into Hiva Oa:

How would the boat captain know if you were being vegan off the ship? Would he analyze your poop? Does fish count for being vegan?

Fatu Hiva has electricity? They have a power plant, or individual generators?

Fish would definitely count. This guy is a little... enthusiastic.. about the vegan lifestyle. Hence his desire to try and convert islanders to being vegans. He's never been to the South Pacific before. I think he has no clue how much his conversion plan is going to fail. I wouldn't put it past him to want to do a poop inspection.

Fatu Hiva has electricity. There is a small hydroelectric turbine near one of the villages, but the bulk of the power comes from diesel generators. That's another thing that the supply ship delivers. There is a large shared generator in Omoa, which is one of the villages. There are also individual generators spread around.


Note to self - tell them the anchor alarm story with the next update, as well as about the rae raes.

Superb thread, really fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to write it

This thread is amazing! Thanks for sharing your adventures with us Chop.
I just discovered it recently and have read it from the beginning over the past several days.
Really cool reading about your travels, and I'm looking forward to the next update.

When you are sailing across oceans and on the boat for more than ~2 weeks without making landfall, do you rely on catching fish for protein? Or do you always have other meat (frozen?) that is available onboard? Obv not on the vegan captain's boat, but just in general when sailing.

Chop - Which do you think is more likely -
Captain V converting Islanders to Vegan or
Islanders converting Captain V to longpig?

Enjoying the updates, I read them all eventually. Its cool when I visit and there are several updates to read at once.

Keep it up!!

Thanks guys, always good to hear people are enjoying the thread. Definitely motivates me to keep updating it.


Everyone is different when it comes to provisioning planning. I'd say in general that most people don't rely on it, but it's always nice. If you have achieved Grandmaster rank in fishing like de captain, you have a lot more flexibility than if it's your first time out there. We arrived in Fatu Hiva after 23 days at sea having barely touched the meat in the freezer. I think we ate maybe 4-6 provisioned meat meals total. For the Fiji -> Oz run, we ate pretty much all the meat we brought, due to a combination of not many fish and Oz being super strict about importing meat products. Oh, and of course we caught all the enormous fish the day before arriving in Oz. They let us keep those, though! Score!

Tinned meat is also popular. Mostly tins of sardines, but I'm partial to cans of chicken as it doesn't take up cold storage and is different from fish.


Captain V is in for a rude awakening when he gets into the South Pacific islands and starts trying to convert people to veganism. If he actually would try longpig, he'd instantly be converted because longpig. My guess is that he holds out, though. He's pretty strident, even moreso than the standard vegan. Here's part of the email he sent me when I contacted him to confirm schedules & vegan requirements:

Only the first sentence was necessary to convey that they now want to only have people who will adhere to a vegan conduct both on and off the boat. He still decided to include the second and third sentences anyway, I guess because lolvegans.

I guess if you aren't a vegan, you are violent. lol

My response was simply "thanks for the update".





On an entirely unrelated note, **** Airbnb.

I've been in Kuala Lumpur about 2 weeks now, in an apartment hotel right next to Bukit Bintang. BB is the main party district. I'm not a partier, but there is also a ton of great street food in the area, and I'm down with that. Unfortunately, the hotel is right next to a bunch of clubs, and the music starts at 2100 and doesn't end until 0400. Every single night.

Given that I'm an old and enjoy sleeping, I decided not to extend at the current location. Found an option on Airbnb that I tried to book but Airbnb demanded additional verification for my account in the form of either Facebook, Gmail, or Linkedin. Of course, this has nothing to do with verification, and everything to do with harvesting your contacts.

When I clicked the Gmail link, Google told me that Airbnb wanted access to view my email address, profile, and contacts. I declined that. The Airbnb verbiage says they want to verify you have an account. I use my Gmail address for Airbnb, so they already know I have a Google account.

Ended up calling their customer service and getting a CSR who could only read off a script. I pointed out that being registered with Airbnb using my Gmail address already proves that I have a Google account, so why did they need my contacts list? She just kept repeating the script. Not her fault, she's just a tier 1 CSR. They do have an option to upload a 5 second video where you say your name and where you are from, lol.

It irritates me when companies pull this crap. This is a marketing ploy to get a list of your contacts disguised as a security measure to give it an air of legitimacy. Such deceptive bull****.

I enjoy that a gmail account is suppose to be some sort of mark of authenticity.

I'm pretty sure I have like 10 different accounts, including a couple used to register gimmicks here on 2+2.

So catching a fish he would prob consider violent. Well I consider plants my friends, so as far as I'm concerned he's a violent bastard.

Yeah, all those friggin sites are exceedingly invasive. I registered on Linkedin only to join a discussion group on one of the programming languages I use. I put nothing in my profile, didn't upload a resume, nothing. Then I start getting emails from Linkedin asking me to designate certain members as contacts. These are people I knew from previous jobs. They must have crawled other sites and found old resumes and matched up previous employers with these other people. I refuse to put any more info into Linkedin other than my name, and my stock trading buddies continue to short the stock.

I think the way that Linkedin works is that when they ask you for access to your contacts, they then scour their profiles for anyone who used an email address that you have in your contacts, and suggest that you link to them. This means that even if you put no information in, as long as you register with an email address that someone else has used, they can most likely find you. Guessing there is also an algorithm to connect people based on that and an additional metric, like employer name. That would allow people who don't have your Linkedin email address but who have worked at the same place to find you via the Linkedin "do you know so and so" suggestions garbage.

Linkedin is the devil and I'm glad their share price just tanked.



So anyway, on to the two things I noted to myself to share next time.

First up is rae raes / mahu.

In French Polynesia (and other places in the South Pacific), men dressing as women is no big deal. It's fairly common. There is a long regional history of boy being raised as girls. In some cultures, they are considered a third gender, with the best qualities of both. Most work in the hospitality industry. I had read about this before arriving in the Marquesas, so I was not surprised when the first waitstaff who helped us was one. The female crew had not read up on this and she was somewhat surprised. This was an interesting contrast to pretty much anywhere else I've ever been, where such a thing would be a big deal and cause for hand wringing and consternation. I say more power to these folks.



Second item was the anchor alarm.

So when you stop your sailboat somewhere, you generally want a way to keep it in that spot. There is no way to do this in the middle of the ocean other than using your engine. Near the coast, it's much easier. You either drop an anchor, tie up to a mooring ball, or go find a dock to tie off to. All of these options keep you near or directly on one spot.

Anchoring is not what most land lubbers think it is. You are not using the anchor to keep you in place. You're using the weight of the chain that is attached to the anchor. There are some exceptions to this, and some anchors are attached by something other than chain, but generally it's chain. The idea is that you hook the anchor into something that will make it stay put, like thick mud, rocks, sand, etc. Then you drop a bunch of chain. The weight of the chain keeps you generally in the area of the anchor, and if for some reason the chain stretches out and you are being blown along, the anchor will stay dug in and act as a final failsafe, keeping you in place.

The thing is, the boat is floating on the top of the water, and the anchor is resting on the bottom. The chain is mostly sitting on the bottom as well, but as the wind blows the boat around on the surface, the chain gets stretched out, dragged around, etc. This means that the boat tends to move all around a certain area above and near the anchor, depending on the wind.

Sometimes the wind really kicks up, or the anchor wasn't set well. When this happens and the chain straightens out so that none of it is laying on the bottom, the anchor can start skipping along the bottom, which of course means that the boat starts moving much farther than planned, because it's not really being held in place.

One way to deal with this is to use an anchor alarm. This is a fancy pants term for a GPS device that marks a given position, then sets off an alarm if it deviates more than X distance from that position. You usually activate it standing right over the anchor, right when you drop the anchor. The idea is that you've now marked the GPS coordinates of the anchor drop. You then set up an allowable range of fluctuation. If the unit detects it is outside of that range, it assumes that the anchor is dragging, and it starts beeping or texting you so you know to go check the anchor.

We didn't use an anchor alarm on the trip to the Marquesas. I have one on my phone, but didn't set it because I just automatically assumed the captain was using one. You can probably tell where this story is going.

We had been anchored in the northern bay at Fatu Hiva for a couple of days when the supply ship showed up. It is far too large to use the dock facilities, so it anchors a few hundred meters out, and then sends uses skiffs to ferry stuff back and forth. It had dropped anchor way behind us on arrival, probably a good 300-400 meters. So if you imagine the bay as a big "C", we were anchored in fairly close to the shore, maybe 100 meters, and the supply ship was directly behind us, but further out by another 300-400 meters or so.

One night, around 0200 or so, we awoke to a lot of yelling. We ran up on deck and saw one of the other sailboats flashing their lights at us and waving their arms around. we had no clue wtf they were going on about, then we looked behind us. The supply ship was like 75-100 meters away. That sounds far, but it's very, very close. Especially given that the supply ship is a lot larger than us, and made out of metal. It probably wouldn't have completely shredded us, but as we're made of fibreglass, it would have done a fair amount of damage and I wouldn't be surprised if we had sank. That would be a bummer as there are a bunch of very large sharks in the Marquesas.

What had happened was that our anchor had lost its grip and we were steadily sliding backwards. It had been raining all day, and we were anchored in a shallow bay not far from the mouth of a small river that had been flooding for the last 18 hours due to the rain. This made the bay a lot less stable of an anchoring spot. We had no idea we started slipping because we didn't have an anchor alarm set and everyone was asleep because you don't have night watches when anchored.

The captain handled it quickly and without panic. We immediately raised the anchor, fired up the engine, and moved back to our original spot to re-drop the anchor. He also set his anchor alarm, and I set mine as well. Yet another lesson to never assume anything.

If the other boat hadn't noticed us slipping back and caught our attention, I'm pretty sure we would have crashed into the supply boat. It seems kind of odd that the supply boat didn't flash lights at us or use their horn, I figured they would have someone on watch at all times. Guess not.

Jesus, that's scary. Very odd that the Capt. wouldn't automatically set an alarm.

Sailing from Fatu Hiva to Hiva Oa was a piece of cake. The islands are relatively close, so we woke up very early one morning and managed to make it over to Hiva Oa by the late afternoon. That was to be my last sailing for a while, and it was a nice, easy ride.

When most people enter a new country, they do it at the airport. They usually pass through passport control, customs, and immigration very smoothly, and all in one place.

That's not how it works with entering by sea. Especially when it comes to islands. Usually the captain has to research in advance what the procedures are and where the customs, immigration, and other offices are. They are rarely in the same place.

When you sail in to a new country, you raise two flags. The first is a yellow flag that is known as the quarantine flag aka the q flag. It's just a yellow rectangle. Vessels flying that flag have not cleared immigration and customs yet. Once you have, you lower that flag and raise up the flag of the country you are in, as a courtesy to that country. You also always have your own flag flying at all times.

After you sail to your point of entry, the procedures vary. Sometimes the immigration, customs, quarantine, etc folks will come out on their own boat to meet you. Sometimes you have to go to their office on shore. Sometimes it is both. It always depends on the country, and everyone has different rules.

For French Polynesia, it is even more complicated because there are a bunch of island chains (Marquesas is one of them) and only a few of the islands have clearance facilities. This means that you are required to go directly to one of those islands. For the Marquesas, it's Hiva Oa (or Nuka Hiva). We took a chance and went to Fatu Hiva first for a few days because it's much easier to stop there first and then go on to Hiva Oa. A lot of sailboats do this, and it's something like a $300USD fine if you get caught. We didn't get caught.

When we arrived at Hiva Oa, the place that they clear you was closed:



and the upcoming Monday was a bank holiday, so we had a few days to kill waiting to check in. I had to leave ASAP due to some family stuff that I found out about when we arrived at Fatu Hiva, so I was a little anxious to get moving. Unlike Fatu Hiva, a fair number of people (just over 2k) live on Hiva Oa, and they have a one lane airstrip there.

There were also a lot more sailboats there:



Probably around 13-15 where we were. In Fatu Hiva, there had never been more than 4 of us at any time.

This also meant that there was more than one store, and even a bakery. The French influence was clear:



as were the French Polynesian prices:



The exchange rate was roughly 100 francs to a USD, so just move the decimal over twice to calculate prices. Yes, a little thing of imported ice cream was $14USD.

That price was nothing compared to the alcohol:



$68USD for 700ml! Of terrible Absolut!

That's the first time I'd ever seen that Orient Apple flavor.

The non-imports were of course far less expensive, and it was nice to stop in an actual restaurant and enjoy a drink in paradise:



That's a VHF handheld radio on the left. You take them on shore so you can still talk with whoever is back on the boat. Think of it as a walkie talkie.

Tried poisson cru for the first time in the Marquesas. First in Fatu Hiva, then again in Hiva Oa. Poisson cru translates roughly as "raw fish":



but it's not really raw. It's kind of like ceviche (they use lime), except it is served in a bowl of coconut milk with veggies. If you like sushi, you'd probably like it. The contrast of the fish protein with the fattiness of the coconut milk and the tang of the lime is really, really good.

Great, now I want poisson cru.

God, that place looks amazing. Someday....

Not "someday", Rich. Start planning it now! Preferably with a fixed date or range of dates in mind. You never know what is going to happen in life, something may well happen that prevents you from ever going, or from being able to enjoy it when you do go. It's far too easy to sit back and think about that kind of place and never ever make it there. I know a lot of people like that, I was almost one of them.



Hiva Oa was the place where the rest of the Australian family was planning to fly to and rejoin the boat. The owner's father was going to stay on for a few days, but the female crew and I were always going to get off once we arrived. My plan (and hers) had been to look for another sailboat, and we had both found tentative spots already. Unfortunately, the family stuff that came up for me necessitated that I fly directly back to USA#1 instead of sailing onward. I bought a plane ticket for a truly loltastic price not long after arrival, and was ready to fly out pretty much right after we arrived. If you think flying between USA#1 and French Polynesia is expensive in general, just try doing it with a plane ticket that you buy a day or two in advance of flying to really make your wallet cry.

Tensions between the female crew and the boat owner had gone through the roof the last few days, and they pretty much hated each other by the time we arrived at Hiva Oa. For some reason (I'm guessing she wanted an ally) she decided that I was OK again. This was after hating me for a good chunk of the way over to Fatu Hiva. So I was in a spot where I was being nice to everyone and just trying to keep things calm until I flew out. This ended up not being too tough, as they mostly avoided each other. She quickly moved on to another boat right after we arrived at Hiva Oa, and that smoothed things over considerably.

She and the owner did have one pretty lol final argument before she got off the boat. When we left Ecuador, we went to the grocery store and provisioned a bunch of food, which is completely standard. We had also done a provision in Panama as well, and had some food left from that. Everyone contributed toward the cost of the provisions in an even division, and everyone had a say in what we provisioned. All of this is standard and fair.

However, since we caught infinite fish on the way to the Marquesas, we arrived there with a bunch of food that we hadn't eaten yet. OK, whatever. No big deal, right? Well, not to her. She wanted to take her share of the uneaten food with her to the next boat. I thought this was pretty lol, considering that the bulk of that food was purchased for eating in the event of not catching any fish. I also definitely didn't care because I was flying out to USA#1 shortly and not joining another boat.

That said, even if I was joining another boat, I would never ask the owner (or tell the owner, in her case) that I wanted to take "my share" of the remaining provisioned food with me. That's just super nitty. Maybe if I had purchased something specific that I really liked and knew I couldn't get elsewhere (Pringles!), I might ask if it was OK. But I'd never demand to take "my share" like she did.

Oh, did they ever get into it on that one. They were yelling back and forth. The owner's father and I were just looking at each other like "is this really happening?" and keeping our mouths shut.

Eventually the owner said she could take some stuff, as long as he could see what she was taking and have some limited veto power. She reluctantly agreed. They ended up going with that, though I later found out that she had also taken a bunch of other food that she never disclosed. Absolutely crazy.

So she and her new boat rented a car right before I left and went driving around the island one day. They invited me, and it was pretty sweet. Three french dudes who all spoke excellent English. We all piled into this pickup truck:



and spent a day driving all over Hiva Oa. That's a bunch of bananas in the back that we stopped the car and cut down from a tree at one point. There were infinite bananas everywhere, and it really was as simple as stopping the truck, walking 3 feet, and chopping off a bunch. The weird purple thing on the end is a seed pod.

We stopped midway through the day at someone's house which also doubled as a restaurant:



(note the birds of paradise flowers just randomly growing in the yard)

and enjoyed some fine Polynesian food:



including some super tasty homemade lemonade, which I was very happy to discover is popular in the Marquesas. The food there in general is heavy on fish and root veggies with a strong French influence in the form of various sauces.

We stopped at a few of these areas:



and checked out a lot of tiki statutes. Also explored a good chunk of the coastline and spent a lot of time dodging the wild goats that are all over the island. I took a ton of photos but they mostly all look the same - dramatic coastlines, jagged little mountains, lots of jungle, etc.

Hiva Oa was great and I wish I could have stayed longer. Unfortunately, I had to head out ASAP. I ended up flying out on the same flight that brought the Australian family in, so I got to say a quick hello & goodbye to them again.

The airport was a standard island one strip place. What was not standard was that they had zero security of any kind. You just got in line, then got on the plane. No walking through an xray machine, no pat downs, no getting your bags scanned. They did weigh the bags, but that was it.

After a short layover in Nuka Hiva, we were westbound to Tahiti for a switch to an international flight. I was bummed when we passed over the Tuamotus:



they are a huge (the size of Western Europe) chain of islands and coral atolls. I had really been looking forward to sailing around in them and getting my snorkel on. At least I got to see them, if only from a plane window. I'll be back.

Tahiti was a minor culture shock for me after spending the last month on the boat and on those tiny islands. It's very developed due to tourism, and it took me a moment to adjust to all of the cars, people, and businesses. Without a long layover, I stayed near the airport and hung out with an Australian I knew who just happened to be there at the same time, getting ready to fly to Australia. It was his boat that I had been most likely to get on at Hiva Oa, c'est la vie. I later found out that the couple that he already had on the boat had some serious personal interaction issues later on, with the older german dude having a nervous breakdown and his much younger south american gf leaving him on the spot. Perhaps it is a good thing I wasn't around for that after all. So much drama on sailboats sometimes.

After a very long flight on Tahiti Air, the president greeted me on arrival in LA:



and after a bit of a panic there when my iPhone appeared to be completely bricked for some reason and refused to work, everything was back to good old USA#1 normal. Another flight to the DC area, and I was done traveling for a while.

Gotta say, it's a sadface to go from catching mahi every day off the back of a sailboat to going into the supermarket and seeing this:



wild caught, indeed.

Quick shout out to Malaysia for selling these little bags of limeade at pretty much every restaurant. You can get them to go, about $0.70 USD for just over half a liter.



They make them on the spot and they are ridic good. Yes those are little limes floating around in there.

Seriously considering changing my plans and just staying here the full 90 days I'm allowed to stay due to these things existing.

I'm confused. Is this present tense or a flashback? Are you back in the U.S. on a family emergency now?

Currently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Have been here a month, and will likely head up to Thailand next. Would love to find a sailboat heading back to the USA from here, but those are far and few between, most boats travel east to west. There are some options I'm looking at, and I have a few offers on the table.

The Marquesas stuff happened last Spring/Summer. I flew back to the USA from French Polynesia in May 2015, was there for a few months helping with the family stuff, then flew over to Eastern Europe for a few weeks of exploration before making my way down to Greece for a sail across the Med. That will be the next part coming up.

I'm slowly catching up to present day, then will try to keep the thread relatively current once I do, assuming people are still interested in the thread and want it to continue.

Here's a rough timeline:

2008 - December: Try a one week sailing liveaboard, fall in love with sailing.
2009 - full year: Figure out I want to start sailing around the world before 2013
2012 - December: Sell / donate / give away most everything I own. Lease ends.
2013 - January: Head down to the US Virgin Islands to learn to sail
2013 - June: First long sailing passage. USVI -> Bermuda -> Atlantic City (!)
2013 - Summer: Second passage. Miami -> Bahamas -> T&Cs -> Dominican Republic
2013 - Late Summer: Drive from Miami, FL -> Prudhoe Bay, AK
2013 - Fall: Fly from Anchorage, AK, to Kauai, HI. Visit 50 states achievement unlocked.
2013 - Late Fall: Sail Dominican Republic -> Puerto Rico -> USVI
2014 - January-March: Vegas
2014 - April: Sail Annapolis, MD -> Bermuda -> Azores -> Portugal -> French Riviera
2014 - Late Summer: Train London -> Moscow -> Ulan Bator -> Beijing -> Hong Kong
2014 - Fall: Container ship from Hong Kong -> Taiwan -> Los Angeles
2014 - Late Fall: Drive Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles -> San Francisco
2014 - Late Fall: Train San Francisco -> Denver -> Chicago -> DC
2014 - Early winter: Sail Charleston, SC -> USVI
2015 - January-March: Vegas
2015 - March: Sail Panama -> Ecuador
2015 - April: Lose passport in Ecuador. Very sad.
2015 - April: Sail Ecuador -> French Polynesia
2015 - June-July: Head back to DC to help with family stuff
2015 - August: Fly to Czech Republic. Train to Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania
2015 - September: Meet with sailboat in Greece
2015 - September-October: Sail to Malta, Sardinia, Sicily, Mallorca
2015 - October: Fly to Singapore
2015 - November: Fly to Australia, spend a month driving around most of it
2015 - December: Fly to New Zealand, spend a month driving around all of South Island
2016 - January: Fly to Malaysia

I think that's mostly accurate. I'm probably forgetting something and the dates are definitely squishy.

Left Kuala Lumpur a little over a week ago. Flew to the Maldives to join a 17m / 50ft catamaran sailing to Sri Lanka for a visa renewal. Passage went smoothly with dolphins, turtles, etc. No fish, though. About 4.5 days of sailing.

Project Fi stopped working in Sri Lanka so I'm kind of ****ed at the moment unless I start using local SIM cards. Of course, the entire reason I switched to Fi was so I wouldn't have to do that.

We sail back to the Maldives tomorrow. Should be an easier run with better current. From there, I'll likely fly to Bangkok and chill in Thailand for a month, then Vietnam. Need to be in the Solomons in June to join another sailboat.

When or if my phone data access starts working again I'll post a photo of a table in a shady Sri Lankan restaurant covered with an enormous mound of roti. Gotta be at least 20kg of roti there.