Circumnavigation of the Globe
In October of 1997 we cast off our dock lines and got underway from Waterford Harbor Marina in Kemah, Texas to embark upon a lifestyle of cruising on our sailboat Rainbow Chaser. It took slightly over 10 years of preparation. A circumnavigation was always part of the goal, but the primary objective was to experience the highest level of freedom and self-sufficiency possible in our time. Eleven plus years later we are nearing the completion of the circumnavigation.
After leaving Kemah we sailed down the Texas Coast to the Corpus Christi area to bid farewell to our friends there. The idea of using an early cold front to cross the Gulf of Mexico to Isla Mujeras, Mexico provided us with about the worst weather we have ever experienced. We were hove to under storm trysail for 36 hours right in the middle of a loop of Gulf Stream current that shoved us over 30 miles into the eye of gale force winds creating huge breaking seas.
Isla Mujeras was a great place to R&R. That’s Recover and Re-complete not Rest and Relaxation! We saw our first anchorage full of cruising boats and were introduced into the cruising community. Some folks were beginning their cruise like us. Other Americans were about to return to the USA to resume their shore side lives. I was most impressed with the handful of hardened veterans who had many years of experience, countless sea miles under their keels and no apparent intentions of ever stopping.
Over the next few months we cruised down the Northwest Caribbean. We sailed south along the Mexican Coast. We fought the north flowing current by sailing during the day as close as possible to shore. A stones throw off the reef it was not as strong. We stopped in remote anchorages, ate lobster, drank coconuts and experienced the adventure of narrow entrances, shallow water, coral hazards, squalls in the night and always being ready 24 hours a day to jump into action.
Pam and James enjoying the good life
When we made it to Belize we found out that the water depths for the entire Northern part of the country seemed to be only 1 inch deeper than Rainbow Chaser’s draft of about 6 feet. It was nervous sailing to be crossing open bays in such shallow water but the water clarity was fantastic. We enjoyed many fine anchorages and the water got deeper as we sailed south to Guatemala.
Crossing the bar into the Rio Dulce is a right-of-passage for many sailors. The bar is constantly shifting, quite shallow and people are always getting stuck. We saw all kinds of tricks used to get across like pumping water tanks dry and hanging the dinghy on the side full of fuel jerry cans to heel the boat and reduce draft. One guy drawing 7 feet sheeted in a flying spinnaker with the wind on the beam to increase his heel. The reward for getting into the river is a dramatic ascent up through jungle clad canyons to a system of lakes, anchorages and the cruising community around the town of Fronteras, Guatemala. This area is considered to be a hurricane hole for this part of the Caribbean and some folks never leave! We next sailed over to the Bay Islands of Honduras enjoying a bit of time exploring Utila, Roatan, Cayos Cachinos and Guanaja. As the hurricane season of 1998 was coming on we wanted to continue on and head south to safety. First, we had to sail 180 nautical miles (NM) directly into strong Caribbean trade winds to gain enough easting to round Cabo Gracias A Dios. We could then sail south along the Honduras Coast in the Mosquito Channel with a fair wind. The windward leg proved to be quite the drama shipping tons of water over the boat as we thrashed Rainbow Chaser using the engine as necessary to gain each mile to windward.
We ended up spending the first part of that hurricane season at the delightful Columbian Island of San Andreas. The wonderful yacht club there treated us like royalty and we shared the anchorage for months with only one other cruising boat. Next, we sailed south to the San Blas Islands of Panama which is still one of our favorite spots. The anchorages were great and the Kuna Indian culture was fascinating with their dugout canoes and colorful handcrafted molas.
Alas, we made it to the Panama Canal Zone and crossed into the mighty Pacific Ocean in early 1999. Little did we know at the time that we would not exit the other side of this cruising paradise until 2008! Rainbow Chaser was loaded to the gills with provisions and food as we embarked on the 900 NM voyage to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. We burned a lot of fuel on that leg but soon enjoyed all the wonders of the Galapagos.
When sailing straight down wind the pole goes up...
The next passage to the Marquesas took 25 days and covered 3,000 NM of ocean. That is the longest passage for most folks sailing around the world. We enjoyed all of French Polynesia sailing through the Marquesas, Tuamotu and Society Islands. We anchored at all the places that fire up your imagination like Fatu Hiva, Nuku Hiva, Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora.
We tore ourselves away to continue our journey to the west, stopping at the remote atoll of Suvorov, Cook Islands before carrying on to Pago Pago, American Samoa. The hurricane season of 1999-2000 for the Southern Hemisphere was coming on fast and we chose to sail north out of the hurricane belt to relative safety. We provisioned up with a full season of supplies to be totally self-sufficient and sailed 700 NM north to the remote atoll of Canton in the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati for the season. We brought in the new Millennium with only two other cruising boats at this isolated atoll in the middle of the Pacific.
Next season we carried on our journey by sailing back to Pago Pago to pick up where we left off. We made the short hop to Western Samoa, and then sailed south to Tonga where we enjoyed wonderful anchorages in the Vava’u and Ha’apai Groups. By the time we sailed west to Fiji we needed to prepare ourselves for the 1,000 nautical mile voyage down to New Zealand to avoid the 2000-2001 hurricane season. We sailed south into more serious latitudes and were rewarded by the sight of New Zealand’s spectacular rugged mountains when we made landfall after 11 days at sea.
We ended up staying in New Zealand for 2 ½ years! During this time we did a major refit of Rainbow Chaser and visited the USA to spend time with parents. We toured the South Island of New Zealand by car and cruised the North Island on Rainbow Chaser trying out all the new systems from the refit.
You never get tired of tropical views like this...
In May 2003 we sailed north again on a wonderful continuous cruise that lasted for the next 12 months. We went back to Fiji and gunkholed extensively, sailing and working our way into some of the more remote areas. We experienced generous Fijian hospitality in villages that we visited. As the next hurricane season approached we sailed north to Funafuti, Tuvalu and then Tarawa, Kiribati near the equator. We crossed into the Northern Hemisphere, leaving the hurricane season behind, and cruised the Marshall Islands enjoying some fantastic remote atolls. The people in the remote areas were great. We enjoyed watching the traditional outrigger sailing craft going by us while we were at anchor. The whole family would oftentimes be on board, usually with pigs, coconuts and pandanus nuts as cargo.
The cruising went on hold when we sailed into Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands and found some work. We both got jobs at the US Military Base there which is the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, called “Kwaj” for short. The 2 ½ years we spent there turned out to be a much needed rest from the continuous cruising lifestyle. Working only 40ish hour weeks and eating in the Army chow hall was almost like a vacation. A lot of good things happened there for us including getting married after being together for almost 12 years! It was not easy to pull ourselves away from this little America in the middle of the Pacific but we finally left in November 2006 to sail non-stop for 24 days, about 2,400 miles, to Bundaberg, Australia.
Australia turned out to be a fantastic place for us. Bundaberg Port Marina became our base of operations. We hauled out Rainbow Chaser to apply some much needed antifouling paint after being in the water for about four years and re-launched. After looking around a bit we quickly added another year to our plans. We bought and outfitted a great 4wd. We hauled Rainbow Chaser back out of the water again for safe storage and took off for a 5 ½ month tour all around Australia. James had worked as a Boat Captain in Kwaj and had been on the water virtually every day. The Great Australian Outback was just the ticket to
balance all that sea time!
Taking refuge from the steady trade winds behind Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia...
Before we re-launched, Rainbow Chaser got 8 ½ months of our labor in another mini-refit upgrading systems and getting ahead on the continual maintenance required by the cruising lifestyle. After almost 18 years of ownership she was in the best shape ever. We finally got underway in May 2008 and sailed over 1,000 NM up behind the Great Barrier Reef to Cape York at the very top of the continent. The trade winds blew hard the whole way with 20 plus knots of wind being the norm. We sailed west across the Gulf of Carpentaria to Darwin where we made final preparations to cross the Indian Ocean.
In July 2008 we started the big voyage across the Indian Ocean. The first 1,500 NM was to Christmas Island which was still part of Australia. It was great to be sailing almost due west crossing all that longitude and time zones. For a couple of sailors that have been trying to sail around the world it seems we spend a lot of time sailing north and south! When we dropped off the continental shelf the big long ocean swell made itself known with long periods of 12 seconds between the crests. The Indian Ocean was beginning to live up to its reputation among sailors as a very rough and choppy ocean. We often had wave trains coming from two different directions with the underlying swell from yet another direction. From Christmas Island we sailed another 500 NM in high winds and big seas to Cocos (Keeling) Islands which were yet again still part of Australia. It was a comfortable stop and great anchorage in a fantastic lagoon with clear water and white sand.
Spectacular seclusion, Chagos proved to have many moods...
We finally said goodbye to Australia for good and made another long 1,500 NM voyage to the Chagos Archipelago, British Indian Ocean Territory. This is truly one of the more remote spots on the globe and we had Salomon Atoll all to ourselves for about 5 days before another cruising boat came in. We had all manner of adventure here before we left including secluded beachcombing, exploring old ruins from one of the island’s past, the near loss of Rainbow Chaser in an unexpected gale and the actual loss and subsequent unsuccessful salvage efforts to re-float the French cruising vessel Isis.
The distances between stops in the Indian Ocean are great and the next leg of our journey proved to be no exception. We sailed about 1,750 NM from Chagos over the top of Madagascar to the French Island of Mayotte in the Comoros Group. We gave the notorious northern tip of Madagascar a wide berth of about 180 NM but still had high winds and converging current tossing us about for a day or so while in that area.
Mayotte was a great place to R&R from many months of continuous voyaging. Cruisers always love the French Possession stops for fresh baguettes from the bakeries. They usually leave a trail of crumbs behind and the bread rarely makes it back to the boat! We were brought back to reality when we were hit by the remnants of a very early Tropical Storm, Asma, in late October and knew we had to keep moving. The 1,200 NM sail down the Mozambique Channel was quite challenging as we fought variable winds and strong currents. As we got further South the weather got more serious encouraging us to take refuge in a marginal anchorage off Mozambique for a couple of days. We were quite happy to arrive in Richards Bay, South Africa in November 2008 to await better weather before continuing down the South African coast to round the Cape of Good Hope and enter the South Atlantic Ocean.
I will have to come back and fill in the detail here later but will summarize as follows: We had a harrowing voyage across the South Atlantic with heavy winds and big seas. A broken windvane took about one week to jury rig while at sea whereby it sailed us into St. Helena. We carried on, then diverted to Ascension Island when we found out Pam's Mom had passed away. From there, we sailed nonstop to Trinidad in the Carribean, about 31 days at sea. In Trinidad we regrouped, watched the weather, and made a straight shot back to Kemah, Texas in about 21 days at sea completing our circumnavigation of the World.
