The Call of the South Pacific

It’s one thing to dream about dropping anchor in a faraway tropical bay, and another to actually plan a voyage that will take multiple years. There are hundreds of details to consider: the boat, provisioning, weather patterns, suitable and interesting anchorages, passage times between stops, visa and immigration rules, etc. The list feels endless.

Luckily I’m not the first person to do this, and there is a lot of information available on line and in cursing guides. For my first attempt a planning this journey I starting with “World Voyage Planner” by Jimmy and Ivan Cornell.

Sailing is dictated by the weather and seasons. Passages are planned to take advantage of fair winds and seas, and destinations are planned to maximize good weather and to avoid hurricane and cyclone seasons. Planning a multi-year trip is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle of places, sailing distances and weather patterns.

The first step was to decide on where I wanted to start and end the trip: my plan is to start in Southern California and end in New Zealand, ultimately heading back around the South Pacific, Hawaii and to Southern California in years 3 and 4. So like all good producers, I started with a spreadsheet and Google.

Using Google Earth I created routes between each major destination, and entered each into a spreadsheet along with the time of year, the mileage between stops, along with the estimated time of each passage.

It was interesting to see the time spent at anchor (83%) verses the time spent sailing (17%). The vast majority of passages are less than two days, with a few a bit longer, and the major passage is the three to four weeks it will take to go from Mexico to French Polynesia. Of course this is still a very rough plan, but all plans have to start somewhere, and I find this kind of planning inspiring and motivating!