What in the world are we doing?
Trip Start
May 07, 2007
1
28
Trip End
Jun 15, 2007
North Palm Beach,
Florida,
United States
Monday, April 30, 2007
Let me share with you a little background on this event. First, a year ago this would been one of the last things on our mind. Sue and I were sitting here at one of our Condos in North Palm Beach, FL in May 2006. Just 7 week earlier I had completed a hip replacement and was doing very well. Eight weeks earlier, we had returned from our 4 month round-the- world trip that we still call "the big one". With 16 countries, 3 cruises, 4 land segments and over 40,000, it will likely remain the biggest travel venture in our lives. It was an eye opening, mind expanding journey we would likely never top....or would we?
So in May 2006, we were hardly thinking of buying a boat, but we sure wanted to sell one: our 2000 Tartan 35. To make a long story short, I was able to find a great deal to trade my sailboat for a 1999 Nordhavn 40' trawler. Sue and I had been looking at Nordhavns for a couple years and I was thrilled to be able to swap my boat for one of the leading boats in its class. It was only a few months earlier, we had met a blue water cruser named Larry Rick on his Nordhavn 40 called "Done Dreaming" in Tasmania, Australia after his trip from Oregon through Polynesia. Its a great boat. The Nordhavn 40 (or N40 for short) is a beefy, heavy vessel Larry Rick called "one tough little boat" after taking her all the way across the Pacific. Indeed, a crew of Nordhavn people sailed one of them around the world in a continuous circumnavigation in 2004.
I had a vision of being able to do longer cruises with overnight voyages....maybe even out of the country. The Nordhavn called "First Forty" because it was the first 40' hull made by Nordhavn seemed a perfect choice.
Over last summer my new hip proved to be sound and so was the "First Forty". We cruised her up the Atlantic coast to southern Georgia and then up the inter-coastal to Chesapeake Bay. It was a great trip and we learned a lot. One of our leaning vehicles was to attend a boating event called "Trawler Fest" in Maryland. It featured several days of seminars, boat shows and social events. It was at this boating event we were able to meet many other owners and in particular a number of other Nordhavn owners including several who had taken these sea worthy vessels to Europe of the South Pacific. We met Dave and Kathy C. who owned a Nordhavn 62 called "Adventure". Dave had taken his vessel across the pacific to New Zealand, Australia, Japan and back to the US before returning it to his home near Sarasota Fl. Instead of his being one tough little boat, his was one tough big boat. It is about 10 times the size of ours! He had it there and we were able to see it and how well he had it equipped.
Over dinner one night Dave ask if we would want to crew for them during their trip to take Adventure to the med in summer of 07. Sue and I could hardly decide who would say "yes" first. Of course we would!
Over the next few weeks, Sue and I cruised our vessel on down to Norfolk, VA and by November 1 we put her up for winter storage. We continued to wonder if the invitation we received would fade or if it was for real.
By the time we returned home to Arizona in December, we had heard from Dave again and not only was he continuing to make plans, but we also understood that this trip was an organized 'rally' to include several other vessels of this class. Things started to sound more interesting and Sue and I began to look at each other as if to say "okay, he wasn't kidding....do we want to really do this?"
We were quite familiar with the highly successfull factory organized Nordhavn transatlantic rally held in 2004 where around 18 vessels made the whole trip without major incident. We had seen the video. It looked engaging. But having read the "sea stories" found in Sail Magazine for years, I felt well aware of the risks of doing an Ocean crossing. This was no "love boat cruise" and was surely not for wimps. And, once you start there is no turning back. Still the idea continued to call us and turning down the offer would be a sure way to admit that our boating dreams would go no farther. There would be no better offer: seasoned vessel, proven captain and all we had to pay was our return transport. We were at a cross roads. So after lots of discussion after many glasses of wine, Sue and I called Dave and confirmed that we were "signed up". We would crew for him on the adventure of a lifetime.
Now we had 6 months to make ourselves ready. Later posts will give you more info about us, the vessel and our planned journey. Departure is scheduled for 10 May.
