36mmthick

countries, entered 547 ports and anchorages, and lived onboard 1,173 days. Wemet countless people of many backgrounds and made many friends. Doing it inan Oyster made it pleasurable and easy. Even more importantly, we are totallyconfident of Escapade’s ability to deliver us safely and comfortably through all theworld’s oceans and seas.A circumnavigation may seem overwhelming when first considering it, or evenafter you have a capable boat; but when you break it down into individualpassages and cruising areas, it becomes manageable and the ease of doing itbecomes apparent. Jimmy Corrnell’s World Cruising Routes was our basicresource to plan the timing of all major passages and then fit the cruising sectionsinto the overall plan. We kept to our plan, often within a few days, for the wholetrip. Escapade was up on the hard each November/December so we could gohome to be with family and friends, and we made at least two other trips homeeach year. Also, we included side trips by air to places near where Escapade waslocated. This included Machu Picchu when Escapade was in Ecuador andCambodia when Escapade was in Thailand. We attempted to maintain a goodbalance between the cruising lifestyle and home and family.We had crew with us the whole way, supplemental crew for passages, and friendsalong for the cruising fun. Paul Fenn, a Kiwi, was onboard for the wholecircumnavigation. His presence made the trip much more pleasurable and providedflexibility for us when the boat could not be left on its own. For all major passages,we had either five or six persons onboard so we could handle a three-watch systemwith ease and assure that all were rested at all times. Passages this way arepleasurable with no strain on anyone. When cruising we had friends and family joinin all areas of the world. Day sailing this way made it enjoyable. One plan thatworked well on the east coast of the United States was that we had another crewmember drive our car between marinas each day. Thus when we pulled into amarina, our car was waiting for us. She slept on Escapade every night.Cruising involves many more aspects than sailing. In fact, sailing is probably theeasiest part of the whole adventure. Detailed planning in all other aspects madethe whole experience pleasurable with minimum hassle. I did as much researchas possible in advance: such as the legal requirements for all the countries to bevisited including immigration, customs, quarantine, and cruising permits. Weobtained all of the charts, electronic and paper, which we needed for the plannedroute plus any alternatives. There are pilot books or other sources of informationfor nearly every area of the world. Some are better than others, but we obtainedevery possible source of information we could lay our hands on. Of course, wealways supplemented our data bank with local knowledge whenever we could.www.oystermarine.com 11