Guru Voyages

What will you do with all that time while cruising around the world?

I remember repeating this question from a friend to myself..."what will I do all day?" We have just "retired" from very busy careers and lives in general and lying around on a beach all day sounds nice enough but how long can one do that before getting bored with doing nothing of consequence? Well, somehow that never was a problem. At first we spent our days "learning" the boat for as perfectly as Stephen and Derek had designed her systems, electrical, plumbing etc. the gremlins did do their work dutifully and maddeningly regularly.

I saw Stephen's bottom sticking out of a hole in the floorboards more often than not (the engine and generator rooms) while at anchorage. I found myself endlessly passing various tools to "the voice" in the hole and cleaning up the unholy mess after yet another Macgyver maneuver in the generator room. Stephen and that generator had a tempestuous relationship at best. It upset me no end...I like order and nothing about greasy tools, upturned floorboards and smelly bilges is orderly. It never occurred to me to try to learn what the "voice" was doing down there, that perhaps even he sometimes felt as despondent, as pissed off...I was convinced that this was an evil plot to drive me crazy...not until much later did I accept that life on a sail boat is just not perfect. They say that with age comes wisdom...unfortunately age and wisdom just did not happen fast enough to prevent me from acting abominably stupid at times.

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How did you make your "sailing / cruising dream" a reality and what advice do you have for people who want to go cruising but cannot decide when to leave?

The answer is simple. If I had started my sailing career today, I don't believe I would have left the dock at all, ever! The more I learned about what a boat should look like, how big it should be, the right gear, the training needed, funds needed, piracy on the high seas, the requisite and endless to-do lists, books, blogs, and seemingly endless advice from the gallery, the more it seems that what we had done when we cast the dock lines off in Cape Town harbor in 1992 was insanity! Looking back now, I am thrilled that this particular "treasure trove" of information was unavailable to us in the third world because had it been, we would still be in Cape Town reading about other people's sailing adventures!

When we left Cape Town, I (Estelle) had no idea how to sail - we did do a sailing course with Hentin Yabeck one weekend but it never sunk in that 'world cruising' is not quite like a day sail...you know...when you can actually get away from the nightmare rocking and sea sickness. Navigation was merely a stack of charts taking up space in my saloon and passage making was never discussed...or was it?

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SAILING AROUND THE WORLD

The date was approximately 1964...the dream was sailing around the world in a 45ft boat...

Stephen knew even from age 10 or so that he would one day live this dream and in 1992 he made it come true when he launched his 45ft Bruce Roberts design sloop called "Royal Salute" in Cape Town harbor. He was newly married to Estelle and it never dawned on her that he would actually go sailing (even though him and his best friend Derek were hard at work building the boat in Derek's back yard). Imagine her surprise when everything they owned was either sold, rented or given away and was told to do the provisioning for the trip!

Stephen has always been the ultimate salesman and he persuaded her that all will be wonderful..." imagine this my-little-reason-for-living" he would say..."imagine beautiful blue skies, fresh sea breezes, white sandy beaches, fresh seafood and tropical fruits...it will be great!" Well, we all dream of running off to live on a tropical island, wasting away the days on the beach, swinging in our hammock between two coconut trees, with a pretty flower bedecked rum cocktail in hand at sunset, right? 

Estelle had never sailed before and had no concept of  such things as navigation (there are no road signs?) and  "making a passage" did not even exist in her vocabulary. She quizzically wanted to know "what we're doing with a ploughshear (ploeg skaar) on the boat?" when at first she encountered the anchor...It left none of their friends in any doubt that Stephen may have made a mistake here...but oh, the dream...and ignorance is bliss after all!

Stephen is a meticulous planner and  had set the date for departure, weather permitting of course. With the test sails done, provisions loaded, goodbyes said, they cast off the lines and happily sailed off into the wide blue yonder. During this trip they did do a lot of that idyllic beach stuff but it was not always smooth sailing and there were some "interesting" encounters along the way!

Read the story of how Stephen took his dream and made it a reality against all odds...with Estelle in the beginning, often protesting (weakly while hurling her guts out over the railing)...how she became the ultimate sea gypsy and fell in love with the ocean...You will learn how they finally made the decision to leave, how they prepared and their "adventures" on the seven seas.

It is often funny, sometimes difficult and a few times down right scary but it is always informative and never dull.

*There will be a weekly post of another part of the trip, so keep tuned to get the full story of their adventures or sign up for our RSS feed to get alerts of new posts.