"The Odd-yssey" in Latitudes & Attitudes

Of course, as soon as I had given up hope of Latitudes & Attitudes ever publishing my article about our 2008 Odyssey sailing trip, they finally did publish it in their May 2010 issue, along with fourteen of the eighteen photos I submitted. If you missed it at the newstand or at the seafaring.com website, you can still read it in its published format at Capt. John Kretschmer's website: "The Odd-yssey" by John Lichty.

Editor Sue took a few liberties that I wasn't overly happy about, and there are some misspellings in the photo captions, but the article finally made it to print and that's what matters. She even mailed me a check, which went immediately into the "boat fund."

If you would like to read the original article, in its original format, with all eighteen photos, which I posted here back in March when I was sure it would never get published, here's a link to it: "The Odd-yssey".

Circumnavigation Routes, Part 3

In a comment to my first Circumnavigation Routes post from July 23, "Melissa" recommended the book Chasing Sunsets by Lawrence Pane to go along with the book I had written about, World Cruising Routes by Jimmy Cornell. She said, "We used Chasing Sunsets as a reference book for getting ready to cruise and found its real-life information to be invaluable." That was all the convincing I needed, so I filed away the title in the mental checklist I keep for future Amazon.com orders.

As coincidence would have it, this month's Latitudes & Attitudes features a new column entitled "Cruising Tips" by none other than Lawrence Pane. Melissa was right; Mr. Pane knows his stuff. His tips on the timing of a circumnavigation are the natural complement to planning the route itself (and I quote):

• Because of the cyclone season, the South Pacific cannot be entered before March and has to be exited by November.
• Again because of cyclones, the Queensland, Australia coast is not safe to sail between November and March.
• The most favorable conditions to go up the Red Sea are found in February, March and April.
• The winter months, November to March, are bad months to sail in the Mediterranean.
• The best time to cross the Atlantic Ocean is November and December.
• June to October (sometimes November) is the hurricane season in the Atlantic and Caribbean, so sailing in those months is dangerous.

This advice plays well into the idea of the discontinuous voyage that I presented in that first Circumnavigation Routes post. If you find yourself sailing in an area of the world that is about to enter an unfavorable weather pattern, you leave the boat and return later when it is safe to sail again. Of course, you would want to make sure the boat was safe from the weather, which could mean hauling it out and storing it "on the hard," but even that is not a foolproof strategy, as we will see in my next post.

"Searching for epic hero Odysseus in the winds of history"

John Kretschmer's article about our Odyssey sailing trip was published in the Travel section of the Miami Herald today: "Searching for epic hero Odysseus in the winds of history" The Web version included three photos, two by John and one by me. John's are the two embedded in this post. Mine is the one of John in the left sidebar under My Photos.

It was interesting to read John's take on our adventure, which took place more than four months ago. Some of the details were not exactly as Nan and I remembered them, but then embellishment is the writer's prerogative. As John just emailed me, "The piece has a few fictions but not too many."

The article balances the history and mythology of Odysseus with the details of our trip in fanciful ways, as if the Greek gods themselves were behind our misadventures. It is an entertaining read. If you read it online, there is a form at the bottom for submitting comments. I'm sure John would enjoy hearing from you.

My account of our trip is due to be published as a feature article in an upcoming issue of Latitudes & Attitudes. At least that's what Editor Sue has told me. It will be my first published piece, so I'm pretty excited about it. With any luck, it could create opportunities for future writing assignments. I'll keep you posted.

The Odyssey: Preview

In a little over nine weeks, on April 23, Nan and I will begin the sailing adventure of a lifetime, a re-creation of The Odyssey, Homer's epic tale of Ulysses's journey from the Trojan War to his home in Ithaca, Greece. We will join John Kretschmer, with whom I sailed from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas in January 2007, and three other crew members, including Harry and Velinda from that same sailing trip, to sail John's boat Quetzal along the same route taken by author and explorer Tim Severin in his historic 1985 voyage in the replica Greek galley Argo. Mr. Severin documented the voyage in his 1987 book The Ulysses Voyage: Sea Search for the Odyssey, an excellent account filled with photographs, drawings and maps, which will serve as the guidebook for our own voyage.

The plan calls for us to rendez-vous in Athens, where John has kept Quetzal, a 47-foot Kaufman cutter, for the last few months getting her ready for the voyage. We will then sail across the Aegean Sea to the ruins of ancient Troy, on the northwest coast of Turkey, to begin our Odyssey. About two weeks later, we will arrive at Ithaca, a small island on Greece's west coast. Along the way, we will sail counter-clockwise around the Aegean, then south and east to the southern coast of Crete, and then back north and west to the west coast of Greece before returning to Athens, a round-trip voyage of almost a thousand nautical miles.

John has contracted with the Miami Herald and Cruising World to write articles about the trip, and he has graciously given me his permission to write an article for Latitudes & Attitudes magazine. I pitched the idea to Editor Sue a few months ago in an email message thanking her for publishing my water spout photo, and she was enthusiastic. In addition, the Travel Channel will have a film crew on board for much of the trip producing a documentary for broadcast on TV and elsewhere. It is all very exciting for both of us, and it offers me the opportunity to start a travel writing sideline.

Additional details will be posted here as they become available. And of course, I will have a laptop and a digital camera with me throughout the trip for posting updates as time and Internet access allow.

Correction 3/3/08: I received an email update from John Kretschmer. It turns out that our voyage will end in Corfu, an island off the west coast of Greece at its border with Albania. We will be flying back to Athens instead of sailing. This will knock about 250 nautical miles off the trip, making for a total of about 750 nautical miles.

Fort Lauderdale to Bahamas Sailing Trip

From January 11 to 15, I joined Capt. John Kretschmer and five other crewmembers on a sailing trip from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to the Bahamas and back. John is a long-time delivery captain, author and sailing mentor. His many books include "Flirting with Mermaids", "The Used Boat Notebook" and most recently, "At the Mercy of the Sea". He has been offering sailing adventures for the last few years using the catchphrase, "Need a little time offshore?" I saw his ad in Attitudes & Latitudes magazine, went to his website (http://www.yayablues.com/) and found just what I needed, a trip that combined all the experience elements I was missing: sailing out of sight of shore, sailing overnight, sailing to a different country and celestial navigation. I discussed it with my wife Nan, who had suggested that I get some real-life sailing experience by signing on as delivery crew or something, and she said I should go for it. So go for it I did, along with Harry and Velinda from Houston, Bill also from Houston, Luisa from San Diego and Phil from Durango, Colorado. Here is a slideshow of our adventure (click a pic for the full-size view):

Day 1: "Quetzal", the 1987 47-foot Kaufman cutter-rigged sailboat that was to be our lodging and transportation for the next 5 days, slipped at the Bahia Mar marina. 6'-7" Harry is seen ducking out of the companionway. Fort Lauderdale's famous beaches are beyond the palm trees in the distance.

With the weather not cooperating for a Bahamas passage due to winds directly out of the east at 25 knots, we agree to sail along the coast for a day or two while we wait for conditions to improve. Here is Capt. John at the helm as we motor along the Intracoastal Waterway on our way to open ocean, while Bill checks the available real estate lining the shore.

Approaching the 17th St. Causeway, with the drawbridge opened obligingly for our passage. Beyond the bridge are Lake Mabel and then the Atlantic Ocean. We spent the afternoon sailing down to the Miami Beach Marina, where we spent the night. The next day, we sailed south in the protected waters of Biscayne Bay ("where the Cuban gentlemen sleep all day," according to Steely Dan's song "Dr. Wu"), ending up at the Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove for our second night.

Day 3: Bahamas or bust! We left Coconut Grove before dawn and retraced our route north to Fort Lauderdale in order to get a good southeast tack toward Bimini before heading northeast to Grand Bahama Island.

Heading out into the Gulf Stream, where John promised us the sailing would be "lumpy." Velinda had sailed us under the William M. Powell Bridge and out through the rough waters into the Atlantic. Now she was relaxing but keeping an eye on the water.

Same moment, different angle. Velinda, Harry and Phil hang out in the cockpit on the morning of our Bahamas crossing. Phil appears a little damp from getting "douched" while managing the headsail from the foredeck.

Day 4: We survived the night! Of course we had to make frequent course corrections and dodge all-night cruise ship traffic, but the sun rose just the same. Luisa enjoys her first cup of coffee with an unfortunate flying fish that landed on deck during the night.



Bill and I pulled the first and last watch shifts, so neither of us got much sleep. Here a tired Bill mans the helm--thank goodness for autohelm--while Harry and Phil anticipate breakfast.

Land ho! After almost 30 hours under sail, we spot The Settlement at the west end of Grand Bahama Island.

The marina at Old Bahama Bay Resort & Yacht Harbour (http://www.oldbahamabay.com/). The water was a brilliant turquoise blue. Here is a Compac 25 sloop we shared the dock with during our brief overnight visit. Note the classic Caribbean architecture and pastel colors of the resort.

Group shot on the pier in front of Bonefish Folley's restaurant. We dined on conch fritters and other seafood specialties, washed down with local Kalik beer. Left to right are me, Velinda, Bill, Harry, Luisa, Phil and Capt. John.

Day 5: The voyage home took only eight hours on a smooth broad reach. Capt. John had us rig up a whisker pole on the jib and a preventer on the mainsail for performance and safety. And we finally had a chance to practice with a sextant, correctly calculating our latitude to the degree and minute. Here I am at the helm for the last time.

Latitudes & Attitudes

I have read various sailing magazines, like Cruising World and Sail, over the years, but I never subscribed to one until I discovered Latitudes & Attitudes. The other mags were a little hoity-toity, with their emphasis on super-expensive racing yachts and the promotion of an ultra-rich lifestyle I knew I would never be a part of. But Lats & Atts is the sailing magazine for the rest of us, the people who dream of cashing in our workaday lives for a used, fixer-upper sailboat and adventure on the high seas.

It has been a few years, but I think I was surfing the Internet when I found the Latitudes & Attitudes website (latsandatts.net), which offers a free trial issue right on the front page. The rest of the website contained just the kind of sailing information I was looking for, so I requested my free trial issue. I read it from cover to cover, gleaning useful sailing tips and smiling at the mishap stories. I became an immediate fan of the regular columnists, Bob Bitchin, who is also the publisher, Tania Aebi, who is the first American woman to sail around the world alone (at age seventeen!), and Captain Woody, who I relate to most closely, a guy who just wants to be out there sailing as much as possible.

Most of the other articles in Latitudes & Attitudes are submitted by readers just like me. So after Nan's and my ill-fated sailing adventure in the British Virgin Islands two years ago, I thought I would write an article and submit it with some pictures to see if I could get it published. The result was "Where's the Dinghy?", which I serialized here in the Whispering Jesse weblog (2005-04-01 whisperingjesse archive, scroll to the bottom of the page). I sent it off to Lats & Atts on a CD-ROM last August and waited for their reply.

A month went by with no response, so I sent an email inquiry. Editor Sue emailed back that she hadn't had time to read it yet because she was under deadline for their biggest issue of the year. A few days later, Editor Sue emailed me again that she had read my article and enjoyed it but that it was too long and the pictures were too small and too low-resolution. She invited me to trim it down to 1500-2000 words, redo the pictures and resubmit it for possible publication. She finished her message with, "We do appreciate the time you've taken and hope to hear from you again."

I was encouraged, so I started editing the article with the idea of making it more concise, but it's difficult to condense more than 7000 words down to just 2000 without some drastic cuts. I tried to tighten up some of the narrative and managed to get it down to about 6000 words, way short of the goal. My sister Jane is a freelance editor, so I emailed her a copy and let her work her magic with it. It came back heavily marked up, which was a bit of a blow to my writing ego, but when I talked with her about it, she said her goal was not to criticize my writing but rather to make the article shorter. She had marked whole paragraphs as probably not necessary, so I used that idea to eliminate complete sections, like the crazy night at the Bomba Shack and the explanation of how we freed ourselves from a tangled anchor line. It's now just under 4000 words and I'm afraid it would become almost a Cliff Notes version of the original if I kept hacking away at it, so I think I'm going to let it go for now.

Nan and I are planning another sailing trip for next May, to the BVI again with maybe a side trip to Anegada. If we have a "less complicated" adventure than last time, maybe I could write an article that captures everything in 1500-2000 words right from the outset and see if Latitudes & Attitudes would publish it. I'll keep you posted.