The Forthcoming Peregrination

I'm terrible at goodbyes — I always much prefer hello-agains — but I can no longer avoid starting this goodbye process.

Starting in April I will be embarking on a sailing trip across the Pacific — destinations to be determined and return date unknown.  I'll be leaving Seattle by the end of March, under nine weeks away and almost exactly four years from when I arrived here.

Matthew Blair and I will be setting sail on his 32' boat Windwalker, currently docked in San Diego.  We're still working on route planning so much of this is speculative, but so far the initial 6 month season (April to November or so) will take us to Tahiti, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia among other places.  In the next 6 months, which will be the off-season for sailing, we'll be tooling around Australia and New Zealand with more time spent in ports than sailing.  After that Matthew and his current crew will be tackling the Indian Ocean and I hope to have an independent adventure through Southeast Asia while I'm in the neighborhood.

Currently it looks like Matthew and I will be the only crew for the initial Pacific crossing. There will be a rotating cast of friends and family who will be joining us for various lengths of time.  Some people may just fly to one of our destinations and hang out with us in port, while others will be signing on for the indefinite option as I'm doing.

So, time to sell my stuff and revive this blog.  One of my personal goals for the trip is to get much better at staying in touch, and I think posting here will be an efficient way to do it.  It will also allow me to answer some of the more common questions just once. I quipped today that I've spent more time this week explaining the trip to people than I have preparing for it.

There will also be a lot of time without internet access, so I'm going to try my hand at pen-and-paper correspondence.  If you'd like to be a penpal of mine, let me know and make sure that I have your address before I go.