Circumnavigation Routes, Part 2

One of the major considerations for us in planning a circumnavigation is what to do with our dog Scout. Do we leave him at home or do we take him with us? With our previous dog Charlie, we expected that he might be gone before we started the trip, maybe three or four years from now. But he died prematurely of cancer this past April at the age of ten, creating an overwhelming feeling of loss in our lives. Instead of waiting until after a circumnavigation to start thinking about a new puppy, we brought Scout into our lives in June to help ease the pain. But now what do we do?

When Nan and I attended Lin and Larry Pardey's cruising seminar in Denver back in 2004 ("Lin and Larry Pardey"), that was one of the big questions that came up: Is it possible to sail with your pets? Lin said that it definitely is, that people do it all the time, and that the only limitations are the restrictions some countries place on the importation of animals. Even that, she said, was becoming less of an issue though, as more countries adopted the Pet Travel Scheme (PETS). She referred us to The Basics of Boat Travel with Your Cat or Dog by Diana Jessie. According to Jessie, Great Britain instituted the PETS program to allow pets from specific countries to be exempted from the quarantine period--as long as six months for Australia and other desirable destinations--that prevented many people from traveling with their pets. To qualify, the pet must have proof of a current rabies vaccination, an implanted microchip for identification, and a blood test certified by a veterinarian. Papers must be filed in advance with the destination country, but then the pet is free to travel upon arrival.

Jessie's book carries a 2003 copyright, so it is possible that the situation has changed since it was published, hopefully for the better as far as pet owners are concerned. It would still be a good idea to check each destination country's restrictions before planning a trip, but it is encouraging to know that if we want to take Scout with us, we should be able to. If we find that he is not welcome in certain of the countries we wish to visit, we could use the concept of the discontinuous voyage ("Circumnavigation Routes, Part 1") to return Scout home for those particular legs of the trip. Of course, he would need to fly internationally and that's a serious concern all by itself.

Boat Quest, Part 5

Dan Gold may have been a believer in the MacGregor 26 trailerable sailboat, but that didn't mean he wasn't interested in selling me the one he owned, a 1992 MacGregor 26D. Whenever I ran into him, he would play up the advantages of his boat over the MacGregor 26X that I was dreaming of at that time, back in 1999. He said the 26X was nothing but a powerboat with a set of sails tacked onto it and that it had way too much freeboard, which would make it sail poorly. Dan was equally forthcoming about his own boat, saying it had a significant weather helm problem and that the cabin was cramped and uncomfortable, but he would sell it to me anyway for just $10,000--$5000 less than a new 26X--and that made it an unbeatable deal in his opinion.

Dan kept his sailboat at the Aspen Yacht Club on Ruedi Reservoir, above the town of Basalt and just down the highway from Aspen. It took me until the summer of 2001 to finally make it up there to take a look at it, at Dan's request but without his presence. As coincidence would have it, Steve Parrott was visiting us at that time, so he and his girlfriend went with me. Steve was one of my shipmates from the American Sailing Association class in Bareboat Chartering that I took in October, 2000. (See my "Education" post for details.) And he also owned a MacGregor 26, a late-model 26X. The three of us located the boat on its trailer in the yacht club's yard above the lake and spent about an hour crawling around on it. Steve thought it looked pretty good but that I should offer $9000 to see if Dan would go for it. It turned out that he would, but we continued to negotiate good-naturedly for many more years anyway.

When I started working at Aspen Valley Hospital in 2003, where Dan was the director of the pharmacy and my wife Nan's boss, we would talk frequently about sailing. Dan was the person who told me about Larry and Lin Pardey's cruising seminar in Denver. (See my "Lin and Larry Pardey" post for details.) In return, I asked them to sign his copy of their book, The Self-Sufficient Sailor, for him.

It wasn't until the following April, when Dan and I were both laid off from the hospital during a financial crisis, that we finally got together to sail his boat and commiserate about our shared misfortune. Dan was right, the boat did have a significant weather helm problem, causing it to round up quickly into the wind at every gust. No amount of effort at the tiller would keep it on course. Dan said the problem could be solved with a larger rudder and that there were plans online for how to modify the existing one, but he hadn't gotten around to it.

Dan never did get around to fixing his rudder. He died of a heart attack while skiing with his wife Kathy at Snowmass on February 16, 2006. He was 61. Nan and I attended his funeral the same day that I was rehired at the hospital. As I write this, I am looking at the large toy schooner that sits on my desk behind my flat-screen monitor. It was a recent gift from Kathy, who thought Dan would want me to have it. We never did complete a deal on his MacGregor, but in a smaller way I feel that I finally have Dan's boat. We miss you, Dan.

Lin and Larry Pardey

The Pardeys are one of the most recognized couples in the sailing world. They have written several books on cruising, including the indispensable "Self-Sufficient Sailor". Nan and I attended a two-day seminar they gave in Denver in January, 2004 at the Marriott Inn in West Denver. We were surprised to see more than two hundred people in attendance when we entered the lecture room that Saturday evening. I guess this sailing bug is contagious.

The Pardeys started things out with a slideshow of their adventures on their sailboats, Seraffyn and Taleisin, which Larry the master boat builder had built himself. Their images were so enticing that everyone in attendance was soon longing for the open sea and faraway tropical islands. During intermission both Lin and Larry were available for questions as well as signings of their books, which were on sale in the lobby.

The following day was spent in lectures and question-and-answer sessions on topics important to anyone considering the cruising lifestyle. Larry and Lin said they had been sailing pretty much continuously since 1968 and that during that time they had been around the world four times, twice in each direction. Much of their experience is condensed in their many excellent books, in which the overriding principle is to keep it simple. To that end, they sail without a motor and have just the bare minimum of electronics on board, figuring that these are things upon which it would be too easy to become dependent, only to have them fail when most needed.

For me the most important topics were how to survive a storm and how to handle the paperwork of international boat travel. Larry handled the first topic and Lin the second. Larry said that with the proper equipment and techniques, any storm at sea is survivable. He showed us slides demonstrating heave-to procedures and the use of storm sails and sea anchors. Some of the slides were truly frightening: fifty- to sixty-foot waves towering over their little thirty-foot boat. Lin’s talk was a little more calming. She assured us that with the proper documents it was possible to travel the world, stopping at every place of interest, and never run into trouble with foreign authorities. She also touched on important topics like outfitting a serious first aid kit, getting the necessary immunizations and how to keep life back home manageable in terms of mail, banking and bill paying.

By the end of the day, you could see the dreamy look in many people’s eyes starting to turn alert and calculating as they began to think in concrete terms about giving up their workaday lives for ones of high adventure cruising the world’s oceans. I know I was one of them.