I also hate angle grinders, sand paper and hose clamps. But I love adventure. And I love travelling. But a campervan can only do one continent per drive and flying around in commercial aircraft will force you to have all your personal gear on one 20kg bag. So buying a yacht was the only way to go. After getting a taste of cruising on other people’s boats for a couple of years, I finally decided to buy my own. I have now lived onboard for nearly four years. Although I have learned to tolerate sailing, I would still much rather sit in a nice anchorage and relax in my hammock than go through all the inconvenience of floating a small vessel across the ocean while spilling drinks and getting wet. But the inconvenience of the sailing bit is is paid off by adventure. For me, that’s what life is all about; Adventure! (An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered, while an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.)

I am intimately in love with my boat. In fact so much that Sonya, my wife, walked away one day in late 1999 and I found myself pursuing my dream of sailing around the world without her.

This is my personal story for those who want to get a glimpse of the depths of a young man following his heart. I feel that enough has been written about destinations and weather and not enough about the personal feelings and stories that go with achieving a goal. I’m days away from my first ever overseas cruise in my first ever yacht. I am absolutely terrified. I’m also absolutely broke. In the process of preparing my boat for the trip, I have run almost completely out of money. But the date of the departure has been set. Only need to stock up with rice, onion and spuds.

The only reason I’m now ready for cruising is that I set myself a date. Without a date, I would have never done what I always wanted to do. Yacht clubs all around the world are full of old yachties who keep talking about cruising, but they always have an excuse not to go this year. It doesn’t matter what sort of trip you’re planning for, SET YOURSELF A DATE. It doesn’t matter how far in the future you set the date, but set the date today. Not tomorrow, today! It doesn’t matter if you don’t have much money. I have none.

Without my date, I would not be ready to go cruising. I would tell myself that I still need a global EPIRB, a liferaft, HF radio, a sextant, new sails and more money for running expenses. Today I have none of the above, but I am ready to go because the date has come! Crazy? Maybe, but I’d rather be crazy. At least I’m doing what my heart desires. I let you decide whether I have what it takes. I will soon find out for myself....

"It is better for a man to lose himself into his passionthan to lose his passion"

-Jaques Mayol-

Hundreds of cruising yachts sail around the world every year. Many of them complement their income by writing to a cruising magazine. Most of the writings are boring to read. I really don’t want to know how many knots of wind they had and how many fish they caught. They all have all sorts of winds and they all catch fish. Everyone knows that sometimes wind blows hard and sometimes not. They all pull up anchors and they all arrive somewhere to anchor up again. Information about anchorages and winds belongs to cruising guides as a reference, it doesn’t make good reading.

In these pages I will write about human beings and life. The people in the villages of Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. My feelings as a human being doing something that, for me, is challenging and a little scary. Not scary for all. Scary for me. What I want to share with you is the experience rather than the events.

Right now I don’t have much to write about. Yet. I don’t want to bore you with my pathetic little battles in fitting the boat out and preparing for the trip. All that stuff is all too familiar for those who have done it themselves, and irrelevant to others. It is the game that holds the excitement, not the practice and preparation.

If you want to know something that I’m not writing about, e-mail me or leave a message in this site. I will be happy to provide, as long as you give me some time to find access to the net.