Full Circle

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I sailed around the world.

It was a circuitous route, with starts and stops, leaps and bounds, boat hopping, island hopping, land leave, and bits and pieces done by plane.

But in the last four and a half years I sailed 35000nm/65000km, sailed across three oceans, sailed across the equator twice, and sailed across every latitude from Grenada and back (except for 19* of latitude along the coast of Australia, which technically means I didn’t circumnavigate, but I’m rounding up just this once).

It’s less perilous than you think. I was blessed to sail on three beautiful, strong sloops with three capable captains surrounded by supportive buddy boats. We never sailed in the storm zones during storm season; we used expert weather routers and learned a thing or two about GRIB files and pilot charts along the way; we reefed early, hove to when necessary, and hid out in our cockpit enclosures through the very worst of it. We never shredded a sail, lost a rudder, or sprung a leak. (Ok, we ran aground here and there, but any sailor that claims to have never run aground is either lying or fated to do so soon.) I rarely got wet, never got scared, and always trusted we’d make it safely.

I didn’t sail alone like the famous circumnavigators whose books I read and reread, dog-eared and margin-noted along the way – Tania Aebi, Jonathan Slocum and Bernard Moitessier. I didn’t suffer horrendous weather or grave boat damage like the tragedies I read and relived in nightmares along the way – the 1998 Sydney-Hobart race, whaleships in the 1800s, the 1969 Golden Globe race. As far as circumnavigations go, I had it pretty easy.

“Wracked by the growing awareness that I must soon decide that whether or not I can go on in the face of the actual situation. By going on, my chances of survival would be less than 50/50.” Donald Crowhurst in the 1969 Golden Globe race

“Hope was all that stood between them and death.” Captain George Pollard Jr. on the whaleship Essex

“Larry Ellison was lying in his bunk, calculating the likelihood that he would die…. Going up felt like riding an elevator during an earthquake; going down felt as though the elevator’s cable had snapped…. This, he kept saying to himself, would be a stupid way to die.” the 1998 Sydney-Hobart race

Four and a half years later, never having dreamed of it, not initially intending to do so, just following my heart south from New York and the sun and the moon west from the Caribbean, I’ve proven that the world is round, and that if you just set your sails, the wind and current will bring you back eventually.

“Leaving from Plymouth and returning to Plymouth now seems like leaving from nowhere to go nowhere.”

The Long Way, Bernard Moitessier

It doesn’t feel like leaving from nowhere to go nowhere.

It feels like leaving the big job in the big city to live a more meaningful, sustainable life in beautiful places. It feels like seeing 30000nm, 24 countries and 15 overseas territories of the world in a slow, intimate way, learning languages, trying cuisines, meeting people. It feels like hundreds of days at sea out of the sight of land, studying the water, the waves, the wind, the clouds, the stars. It feels like four and a half years of life lessons earned with blood, sweat and tears.

I’m stronger and stabler, happier and healthier, older and (maybe) wiser. I’m a sailor, a shellback, and an oceancrosser. I’m a circumnavigator.