When you look at world cruising by region from Egret’s travel perspectives, all are worthwhile. Some require tremendous effort and years of building skills, such as Greenland or Patagonia, others are easy-peasy. A full circumnavigation under power these days is extremely difficult because of piracy in the traditional Red Sea to the Mediterranean corridor, as well as the traditional route over the top of Australia, connect-the-dot route to South Africa. Piracy in the Mozambique Channel also has eliminated the traditional southern dotted line landfall at the top of Madagascar. This continues with coastal cruising in reasonable weather south down the Channel to Richards Bay or Durban, South Africa before rounding the Cape of Good Hope and heading north from there. To be safe today, you must pass below Madagascar, entering from the east, which requires fuel capacities with reserve beyond the capabilities of only a very few passagemakers.
We’ll take a look, as North Americans, at the regions we are personally familiar with, and which are available to a much larger majority of cruisers than the few who own full displacement passagemakers.
(If you are interested in true world cruising under power, google Voyage of Egret – Captains Log. Voyage of Egret began in Turkey, April 2006 until July 2015. She traveled around the world, completing a five Great Cape circumnavigation beginning with Cape Horn, the first such circumnavigation in a powerboat. Every nautical mile is documented with life aboard and ashore, at-sea conditions, customs and immigration, how-to, as well as photographs. The areas of our travels that we will write about at www.followingseas.media are highlighted versions of those experiences.)
For hard copy information, Voyaging Under Power, Fourth Edition, is well worth your time.
BEFORE WE BEGIN, LET ME JUST SAY, IN THE BIG PICTURE, ALL THAT MATTERS IS KEEPING THE HAPPY METER BOUNCING OFF 10.
There are also several given truths to consider. The longer you spend at it, the more you realize how attitude is the difference between pleasure or ordeal. The Happy Meter is simply how we keep score. Another truth is that it is people who make the experience. It is not difficult destinations or stuff you may think you need. Stuff is for newbies; stuff doesn’t matter. Experiences matter. Pushing your comfort level and learning from it matters. Sharing and helping and laughing with other voyagers matter. Dolphins in the bow wake is for glossy print, not what we’re doing here. Here endth this little rant. I do enjoy rants, stick with us and you'll hear some more.
As I got into this, I realized how broad a subject this will quickly become. I’ll write this as a multi-part, long term series because to short change anything wouldn’t serve our purpose to send you to sea with inspiration and knowledge if cruising is something you wish to pursue. Like the Voyage of Egret blog, this is for you, not for us. We’ve done it, lived it, wallowed in it and now we are sharing. Wouldn’t it be nice if you did at least a portion as well? Unless, of course, you are a sit-at-home couch potato gerbil. If that’s the case you may still sit at home in anonymity and enjoy the ride. In any case, all of you will slowly realize we have a slightly twisted, cup-half-full way of looking at things. You may have noticed in the Island of Ponza article preceding this.
What makes broadening the subject possible is this afternoon I looked into several external hard drives and found numerous older photographs we will use to bring words to life.
So we begin.
The first cruising region will be the Mediterranean. We began documenting cruising the Mediterranean with the Island of Ponza post from November 9th. In the next posting we’ll start with why and how to cruise the Med and go from there. Buckle up. We are going to take you on a water world ride through history.
Scott and Mary
