The world is too big...is so!!

[jemsea]

So I reclining here studying a National Geographic Map of the World. Got it at a garage sale and its a 5' x 4' beauty, I'm actually going to frame it soon as I get a round toit.

Charlie's thread about where you would go if you had it 'all together' got me to thinking and planning ...OK, imagining & wishing.

Well sh*t, you just can't get to every place ya want to go when you start at retirement age!!

We all hear about how small the world is getting in this day and age. That may be true as far as the news is concerned but just try and plan to go to all the places "you've alway's wanted to go to" while looking at a map of the world - with the time you have left to sail while your health holds.

Do a good job now, pick ones on each circumnavigation you could actually get to....How many times around would it take?

I'm betting that, liked me, you can't get there from here!! I would guess you have to pick well because if you miss it this time around you won't get there.

What are the HighLifes.. uh I mean Highlights??

Just a thought...carry on

John

[PBzeer]

Starting out at 56, I figure if I'm lucky, I've got 20 years on the boat. Though I had always thought about circumnavigating, the deeper I got into planning, the more I realized that the expense of doing so, was prohibative. Instead, I decided to just cruise US waters and some of the Carribean. I doubt I'll see all there is to see, even with staying in that area.

I don't think you have to go long distances, or even blue water, to cruise. You just have to get out there and go where you can.

[Pura Vida]

After several years I found my leasure dreaming was always compromised by my professional success (or simple dumb luck.) I've got some loose plans for a year long holiday and cruise in a couple of years but for today, with some time off, my destination highlights look like this: Getting to the marina after breakfast, getting out into the bay, sailing into the upper bay or maybe the east bay or maybe the gulf, find a nice anchorage for tonight and getting there before the afternoon thunderstorms hit. So I guess what I am saying is that I still like reading the charts but the only destination I care about any longer is the little ship and where ever she might be.

[Weyalan]

I hope to be starting the big trip at 45 (I couldn't wait until 65) so, hopefully, I will manage to take in all the spots I have dreamed about, before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

[Charlie]

I was lying on my sons bed last night and rather than read him a story I pulled out the atlas and started showing him all the different places he has been. Born Montana, moved to Kalifornia (his Dad's mistake), travelled to Illinois for a family reunion, Seattle, and then he started asking about the trips we made to charter a boat -- How far is it to Florida? I showed him how we stopped in Houston and then flew to Ft. Meyers, FL. "no Dad the real Florida," By which he meant the Florida Keys.

Canada where our boat is now is another trip he wanted me to show him on the map. I started showing him where Vancouver BC was and where we were going to keep the boat on Vancouver Island. From there he said, "It's not to far away." So I opened up my cruising guide to BC and showed him how there was a whole book on just this little section of Canada and while I was very excited he fell asleep.

I've been reading cruising guides lately and studying maps like Jemsea but I tell you there is so much more blue stuff out there than there is time to see it. When I was young I thought that I'd like to sail around the world by which I meant a circumnavigation but now I think I'd like to sail around the world by which I mean -- keep the boat somewhere around this world and sail it.

[Gallivanters]

We had the pleasure of meeting a remarkable fellow named Harry Heckel while sharing a dock, way up the Kuching River, in the heart of Borneo.

Harry was on his second solo circumnavigation at the tender age of 85.

This time around he was going eastabout because he wanted to see some of the places he'd missed on his earlier tradewind voyages. He connected the dots two years ago in Jacksonville at 89 years of age.

Robin Lee Graham did it on Dove while he was a teenager. Harry Heckel did it aboard Idle Queen at an age of when most people are living in nursing homes... or already dead.

(Where's that quote by Mark Twain, about regretting only the things one had not done, when I need it!?)

If you really want to go cruising and see the world - then, by all means, go cruising and see the world!

Kirk