so tomorrow i will sign off with ferdinand and captain dave and tuesday will head to suva to sign on with zephyr and captain errol. many thanks to dave for the opportunity to sail on ferdinand over the last few months. i greatly appreciate you teaching me to sail and although there is always more to learn, i am now a tolerable sailor. and dave, please develop a little sangfroid for your own sake as well as others! i wish you all the luck in the future...

as for zephyr (a 38' sloop), i will be helping errol finish the last leg of a circumnavigation that he started all the way back in december '07. errol is a retired mechanical engineer who worked on prosthetic limb technology in south africa throughout his career. he seems a fantastic guy - very intelligent with a wicked sense of humor. it's just him and i (and zephyr and the fishes!) to australia, but once we're there we'll be looking for more crew for the indian ocean passages (so any friends of mine who'd like to do some seriously amazingly sailing you'd better get on it in a hurry and get ahold of me).

here is the updated, although still subject to change and weather depending, "flight plan" for the coming months.

august -

suva, fiji to port villa, vanuatu (590 miles)
port villa, vanuatu to cairns, australia (1290 miles)
cairns to gove harbor australia (804 miles)

september/october/november -

gove harbor australia to christmas island (1870 miles)
christmas island to cocos keeling (520 miles)
cocos keeling to seychelles (2525 miles)
seychelles to madagascar (610 miles)
madagascar to richards bay, south africa (1100 miles)

this is a dream. for the first time in my life, there is absolutely nothing i can think of that i would rather be doing. i am exactly where i need to be.

*(to matt and jus and the kids! hopefully i'll at least be on the same continent as you starting in december. i'll then make my way towards kenya! wish me luck...)*