We have a 44' Kelly Peterson, cutter-rigged sailboat. It was built in 1981, purchased by us on January 16, 2001. Back to the top.

The easy answer is that we don't know. The longer answer is that we're fortunate to be in a position where we can stay out as long as we're having a good time. We want to spend a season each in New Zealand, Australia, the Mediterranean Sea, and Europe. The only restrictions we have are seasons, weather, and tides. We think, at this point, that it will be somewhere around 5 or 6 years. Back to the top.

There was some planned cutting-out-of-normal society as far back as when Abe and I met. We knew we wanted to have a reduced work load so that we could live a simpler life and not be tied to our job. While be both enjoyed what we were doing, we thought it would be more fulfilling to make our own schedules and pressures. But the boat, sailing-around-the-world idea didn't come into being until a whim July 4, 2000 while visiting Monterey, CA. Back to the top.

Amy read loads and loads of books. The two she thought had the most useful and complete information in preparation were Beth Leonard's The Voyager's Handbook and Hal Sutphen's Advanced Blue Water Cruising. Other additional books that are kept onboard as reference are: World Cruising Routes and the World Cruising Handbook by Jimmy Cornell, Heavy Weather Sailing by Adlard Coles, Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook, and MexWx by John Rains. Amy read countless others that gave useful information about preparing for life afloat (The Intricate Art of Living Afloat by Claire Allcard, The Cruising Woman's Advisor by Diana Jessie, and Optimizing Your Cruising Sailboat by John Roberts). One of Abe's learning resources was working at West Marine. He learned immensely by helping customers and hearing recommendations of liked or disliked products. We also took a couple of classes to include Diesel Engine Care, Emergency Medicine at Sea, sailing lessons and Celestial Navigation. Our biggest preparation came, however, from living on board, and fixing or installing equipment. Each project taught us something new about the boat, her limits or benefits. Back to the top.

There's an open invitation to our family and friends to come visit us wherever we may be. They can choose the time or the place, but not both. There aren't many folks that are invited with us on passages, though, simply because of the tight quarters with no hope of getting off once we've pushed off the dock. All passages over 2 or 3 days will be just Abe & Amy. Back to the top.

Carefully. One of us will always be awake (we hope) on passages so that we can watch for traffic, keep tabs on the sail trim or health of the engine. Traffic is the biggest of these concerns. Our radar has an effective range of 20 - 25 miles. If a container ship were to appear on the horizon on a collision course, we have less than 30 minutes to steer clear. That's not a lot of time if both of us are sleeping. Our radar has a sleep mode where it will turn on, scan and turn off every 15 minutes. We set our watch alarm to coincide with the radar, so that if we do happen to doze off, the alarm will wake us. We don't have any set schedules for being on or off watch. One of us normally can't sleep much for the first day and a half of a passage. The other person sleeps all that he or she can while the other person takes watches. We generally fall into a routine around day 2 that works out to be 2 or 3, sometimes 4 hours on, and the same amount of time off watch. It's a very fluid schedule that we keep. Back to the top.

Try to avoid it to begin with. If that's not possible, reduce sail and maneuver to be in it for the shortest amount of time possible. We can also heave-to, or stop the boat from making forward progress. Heaving-to generally makes the waves more comfortable, allows the storm to pass overhead much quicker (versus us moving in the same direction). The last thing is to hang on tight, knowing that the situation isn't permanent! The majority of our time will be spent in winds less than 15 knots (based on others' experiences and reports who traveled similar routes at similar times). That's quite light. We expect (again, based on others' experiences) to have 35+ knot winds only 10% of the time. During hurricane or cyclone season, we plan to be out of the normal zones where they hit. Our biggest defense against bad weather is to be prepared by knowing the weather conditions around us or heading our way. Back to the top.

The longest passage will be between Galapagos to Marquesas. It will be between 25 and 30 days. Following closely will be the passage from the tip of India to the entrance to the Red Sea. Most passages will be between 3 and 10 days once we get out of Mexico. Currently we are doing mostly 1 to 2 night passages, coastal hopping through Mexico. Back to the top.

We have many ways to keep in touch. For long range, we use our Single sideband/Ham radio. This is a high frequency transceiver that can send and receive voice transmissions as well as data (e-mail) across great distances. This also provides us with weather fax data. We can communicate with groups or "nets" through scheduled daily "meetings." This is a nice way to find our what other boats are doing, where they are, what kind of weather is out there, etc. By having both a Ham and SSB (in one unit) we have the capability of telephone patches and a wide and varied list of frequencies to communicate worldwide.

The VHF radios is line of sight and the range is about 20 - 30 miles. While in the States, VHF is used to contact Coast Guard, marinas, to hail other vessels, and for weather forecasts. In Mexico and other countries, you can hail marinas, but mostly are used as communications between cruisers. We use the VHF to find details of a local anchorage, what's to be found in town, or to make dinner dates or appointments to walk into town.

When in port, we use our laptop to update our website, check our Eleytheria e-mail account. We have been using phone cards to contact home. The cheapest we've found so far is $.32/minute (USD). Mom and Dad can call us in Mexico for $.12/minute so when possible, I try to call them, give them a phone number to contact us back. It's worked out okay so far with the only issue being some poor phone connections from pay phones. Back to the top.

We have 3 GPS handheld units on board along with charts for every place that we plan to visit. On passages, we plot our location on our paper charts every hour to 3 hours depending on the magnification of the chart. We also have a sextant on board along with the knowledge of how to calculate our position by celestial navigation. Not only is it a good backup for the GPS, it also gives us something to do on passages. It's good brain work with all the match and calculations required. Back to the top.

We have a battery bank of 582 amp hours. We can drain the batteries to half their capacity before needing a recharge. The battery bank provides power for lights, radios, communications, autopilot, radar, refrigerator and inverters (used mostly for our laptop). We can recharge the batteries by solar panels, running the engine or running our generator. We don't like to run the engine just to recharge batteries since it doesn't provide enough of a load on the diesel. Our solar panels will keep up with the refrigerator demand, but not everything else. We generally have to run the genset every second or third day to recharge fully. If we are underway using the engine, the engine is used for recharging. Back to the top.

We hope to be mostly self-sufficient in this area. We took an Emergency Medicine at Sea class in May 2004 to gain knowledge of how to handle most injuries or emergencies that we might encounter. Dr. Dickie Hill has been giving this class for nearly 20 years and knows what range of medicines will be most needed along the way. He wrote the prescriptions for the first stocking of our medicine chest, and is available if we need assistance along the way. He has been contacted in the past by former students via telephone patch (via Ham radio) asking for help in diagnosing a problem. Since we'll be in places where we will be our only medical treatment, we have to be self-sufficient at those times. We have also heard from other experienced cruisers that many countries have well trained doctors, but not well equipped. That is where our medical kit should be a good resource. Back to the top.

On board entertainment consists of two guitars (one for Abe to play, one for Amy to learn), CDs for music entertainment, lots of books, brain teaser books, crossword and logic puzzles, DVDs for a bi-weekly movie night, language CDs (Spanish, French and Sign Language) and crocheting or knitting for Amy. We also have a large number of computer games ranging from simulation to card games. For off the boat entertainment we have SCUBA gear, inflatable kayaks, swimming, running, and exploring new places. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. We're finding that while we thought that being without jobs would provide us ample time to do all the things we'd wanted to, there still isn't enough time. There's more, certainly. But time still flies by! Back to the top.

Abe speaks Spanish fluently. Amy is learning. Amy took French in high school and college, and while she can't remember any of it at this point, hopes that it will come flooding back with the French CDs. Speaking three languages should get us through most places with relative ease. Abe also speaks a bit of German (from his time stationed there) and a smaller bit of Italian. We are trying very hard to go to each country with at least a working knowledge of their language. We believe it's a matter of respect to not go expecting them to speak English to us in their country. Back to the top.

All our mail is being delivered to my folks' place in Tennessee. All our bills, what is left of them, are paid by us via on-line banking. The only bills we have are credits cards - if used (we have American Express, Visa, and a Master Card because different business in different countries accept different cards), and an insurance bill once a year. We try to use cash as often as we can. It keeps us better on our budget, a lot businesses are cash only, and we don't incur service charges. If we have any issues or need help from the States Dad has power of attorney for us and can act as an agent for us. We don't foresee that happening, but if it does, we think we're prepared for all contingencies. Back to the top.

Absolutely. We plan to visit family once a year for 3 or 4 weeks at a time. Abe, being retired military has the benefit of inexpensive military flights back to the States allowing us this luxury. While we enjoy visiting other places, it's always nice to be back in the greatest country on earth. Back to the top.

We're not sure. It's hard to imagine how we will change as a result of this adventure. The plan at this point is to settle somewhere in the Southeast or perhaps Texas. We think we might sell the boat, buy a small piece of land and build a small home. Who needs a lot of space after living aboard a 44' sailboat for what will be over 10 years. Or we may decide we liked it so much that we'll go again! Back to the top.

It depends on how much we have to do. So far, it has been very easy and sort-of cheap to use laundromats. However, we haven't found any that will let you do your own laundry. So we've been paying $30 to $40 pesos per load to have our laundry washed, dried and folded. That's less than $4 USD per load, which is less than we were paying to do our own laundry in SFO. It's certainly nice to take your dirty clothes and pick them up cleaned and folded. I would like to pay less and do it myself, but so far no luck. My backup plan is to use our WonderWash. This is a hand-cranked washing machine that uses warm or hot water to create pressure and therefore cleans clothes. It works quite well, but it uses boat water which can be a problem. It's a small thing (it will hold one sheet or a couple of t-shirts and shorts), and useful to take with us. If I don't have many real-sized loads it's a nice way to have some clean T-shirts Presently, it's not too hard to find somewhere close to take clothes so that we don't have to use our boat water. But down the road, we may be using our WonderWash more and more as Laundromats become harder to find. Back to the top.

I've been mentioning in our Journals that land-showers are a luxury. This is because we don't have showers like we used to know showers. Our biggest concern for showers is water conservation. We carry 175 gallons of water on board. While we do have a watermaker, it can only do so much. Our capacity has to cover dishwashing, showers, drinking water, WonderWash water, etc. There may be months in between fills depending on where we are. 175 gallons over a couple of months doesn't go too far. We have two "showers" on board that consist of a drain in each bathroom floor. The bathroom becomes our shower. Taking a shower is a great way to clean the bathroom! Our showers range from taking quick 1 or 2 gallon showers, turning off the water while washing, to jumping in the ocean, lathering up with the campers soap from REI, rinsing in the ocean and then a final rinse with fresh water. Those are the extremes. While at anchorage, generally we'll take showers in the cockpit using our Sun Shower (another REI purchase. It warms the water through solar). And when it rains, there are always showers in the rain - some of the best!! Back to the top.

The answer most heard to this question is "whatever you have to spend." What a vague answer. The reason for the extreme range is that there are all kinds of boats out there. We did quite a bit of research and found that a reasonable cost for a boat our size, with the equipment that we have (we have to figure that it will all break along the way and need to be fixed), how much we plan to eat out/go out for entertainment, etc. is about $1500 per month for the two of us. This is actually a little on the high side of the estimate. We're spending close to that each month now, as we expected to from all accounts. Most cruisers spend more the first year as they move into the lifestyle, spending less each year (unless there is a big boat expense) settling around $1000 to $1200 per month. There are people out here spending less than $500 USD a month, there are folks spending three times what we do. We all see the same sunsets, we all swim in the same ocean. It can be done on whatever you have! Back to the top