Solo Sailor

Arnold has left Pachuca and the circumnavigation for his home in Seattle.

I thanked him for his good sailing and the help that he gave with work on the boat. I certainly meant it. He was a fast learner, reliable, and blessed with more caution than I am. He also made a great contribution with his electronic and electrical skills. We both have good memories of our experiences in the sails from Fremantle to New Zealand to French Polynesia to Hawaii.

Unfortunately it is well known that the confines and discipline of cruising life can put stresses on relationships that produce bad results between even the best of people. Cruising lore is littered with tales of broken marriages, and fractured friendships, and much much worse. I'll be relating one person's tales in my next blog.

I will be sailing on to Seattle and looking forward to seeing Arnold and his family again and hopefully have their company in sails to Victoria, Vancouver, and the San Juans.

I had an opportunity to have as crew an enthusiastic young man (in his mid-twenties I think) who works for GreenPeace, loves sailing, and is anxious to sail to Seattle as crew. After taking advice from Dieter, who has turned out to be a phenomenally good source of advice to me, and reflecting on the options I recognized that I want to do the sail solo. I am really looking forward to it. Also, I figured that I've got to go solo sometime and I'd rather do the initial solo sail on the relatively easy passage to Seattle than along the coast of Central or South America or, worse, the Horn. Dieter agrees that the sail to Seattle is easy during the right time of year (e.g. no intervening islands, reefs, pirates) although the approaches to and through Puget Sound will require vigilance due to the shipping traffic.

When I think of it, when we were at Hilo, Dieter, Richard, Jeff, and Tim were all single sailors. Arnold and I were the exception.

My departure date is uncertain. I have decided to install a servo-pendulum wind vane self steering system on Pachuca. I would prefer to make the installation here in Hawaii and to that end I am willing to delay my departure until mid-May. Otherwise I will arrange to have the unit delivered to Kingston and depart for Seattle in early April.