Sailing Bear and Seal

This is my deepest fear. Some people would think I would be most afraid of boat failure, getting eaten by a shark, or falling off the boat in the middle of the ocean. My deepest fear is not living a genuine life and only staying in my comfort zone. I don’t want to exist only in remote isolation; sailing isn’t about that. What I do want to do is be a voyeur. I want to see and learn how people exist in different places. Vacationing somewhere doesn’t immerse me in the culture of my surroundings. Stay in places for weeks, if not months, gives me a decent enought perpective on their lives. We stay only long enough to see the land, become simplistically familiar with food markets and activities without becoming a problem or burden on their society. We try to be good stewards to the ocean and stimulate the local economy without behaving like locusts devouring their limited resources.

That leads me to where I am today. S/V Nanook is over 1,000 nautical miles into our journey into the South Pacific. We left the Galapagos Islands on Sunday, March 17. We are flying our Code Sail for the first time in well over a year. It is special wind conditions that allow us to fly this precious sail. The wind must be light, consistent and coming from behind. I had hoped this sail to be used exclusively during our Pacific Crossing, but conflicting current and wind made for choppy seas.

I aspired to create this blog when we first started sailing Nanook. It only took me almost four years to get to it. I hope you enjoy the documentations of this journey. I hope to look back to this archive of my experience and relive the memories for many years to come.

Welcome to my blog, Sailing Bear and Seal.