Another great adventure, and I don’t mean the flights.
Yesterday was one of those long travel days. Departing mid afternoon from St. Thomas, Rebecca and I began the four-leg journey to Grenada via Liat. Some people make fun of this small Caribbean airline by saying that their name is an acronym for Leave Island Any Time, or Luggage In Any Terminal, but we made out perfectly. Each of the four flights that we had to take left on time, and the plane we were on for the last three flights had more legroom than most of the jets we’ve been on!
Continuing our theme of being taken care of by good friends, we found our buddies Chris and Chrystal, owners of LTD Sailing School, waiting outside the arrivals gate in Grenada with a cold beverage for each of us. It doesn’t get much better than that! We continue to be reminded of how fortunate we truly are.
Back to boat stuff, some of our longterm readers may remember that our “dream” boat when we were first starting out was an Antares 44. Before we purchased ZTC, we would buy one lottery ticket each week and we called them Antares tickets. Well, we never did hit the big one and with that boat way out of our reach financially, we opted for the much smaller PDQ. The rest is history but it does look as if we’ll finally have the chance to sail on one anyway!
You’ll get to hear a lot more about this boat!
Our friends Jason and Gale, owners of the Antares 44 Two Fish, have kindly asked us to crew with them from Panama to the Galapagos Islands early next year. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Jason has already listed us as crew for the Panama Canal transit. This is a fantastic opportunity for us as, in order to reach Chile from the west, we’ll basically be duplicating this passage on our own boat sometime after that. As you might imagine, we are very excited!
Right on! You guys rock. Such awesome role models.
Had a shitty day sailing our new (to us) Lagoon 410 yesterday – Ripped the head bat car off the mast track. Completely exploded. Back to anchorage…mope… crawl under the covers.. See your posts… Get inspired and figure out a solution. Reef the main and use the bottom most bat car for the top!
Thanks for the inspiration!
Ben
There you go, that’s a solution. 🙂
Hi Mike,
I don’t post much, but have been following your blog for a couple of years and have read it from the begining a few times. I am caught up in the rat race, but dream of doing what you have with my wife starting in the next few years.
There are a few posts that have really caused me to respond and re-think my beleifs, one of which was the discussion a while ago on the difference between a charter and a crew. While you feel the two are miles apart, and in most peoples mind you are correct. There is also a small group of us (maybe a large group that follow your blogs!) that are looking for something in between. We just want to go sailing, and try it, not as pampered guests, but as friends (that are willing to pay for the priviledge). You mentioned in the last reply that sometimes you need to pay the bills, and that makes complete sense. Why not use ZTC take out couples for the week and try the lifestyle and learn some things, while charging for the experience? It would obviously be less expensive than a pampered charter, we could help share responsibilites for cooking, and could help replace the water maker (or whatever other maintence needed to be performed, including washing the boat, etc). We want to experience the lifestyle, including all that goes with it. It would be easily worth $1000 or more for the week, plus all the expenses. We wouldn’t need to be ‘entertained’, just do the fun things that you guys normally do, as often as you normally would. If you are planning to move the boat to xxx island, we are willing and could fly in to one place and fly home from another a week or 10 days later. Maybe it’s too soon to even bring this up, but please keep it in the back of your head that it’s an option between One Love and sailing on your own dime.
I think the base of willing participants is bigger than you think, and the skillset is broad. Engine mechanics, electricians, audio/video, carpenters, etc. are all at your service, we just want to live your life for a week or two until we can get up the nerve to pull the plug on our desk jobs.
We have been brainstorming a number of things, Steve, something like this amount them. Thanks for your input!
Pretty much have had the identical experience of Steve and would like to second the idea! I would be interested in this type of product.
In Patagonia? 😉
I have always had the same thought as Steve. Wife and I took an ASA live aboard course for a week in the Keys. It was a little north of $3k. Looking for an opportunity to jump on a boat for 7-10 days and try out the lifestyle for around a thousand bucks or so. I don’t need to be pampered, quite the opposite in fact I would rather make my own sandwich and twist up my own drink. Just some more food for thought… Cheers.
Thanks for the input.
I like it Andy! I know several that would entertain that idea in a heart beat. We are planning a BVI charter in Dec.-Jan. and a friend wants to get his bareboat cert. before. I would send him your way if you did something always those lines.
I’m sure you could stay busy with that type of idea if that’s something you opted to do. Less work and still giving those with a desire to experience a taste at the same time.
Best of luck to you both in whatever direction the wind takes you!!!
Really enjoy reading about your travels over the last several years!
Chris
Thanks, Chris.
Soooooo glad you are back to blogging. The One Love thing was great but left us in a lurch. I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. Cant wait to see what happens next.
We can’t wait either. 😉
I would have to check on flights to Patagonia, but sure!
Actually, I would love to join for a leg of the journey from Grenada down! Now that would be an experience.
Well, I have to admit, I’ve followed you guys a little bit over the years but not so much in the last year or so since we’ve been so busy getting our own adventure underway. So when I was cruising through Red Hook today in search of a place to pick up a ball or drop the hook, I was kind-of excited to see One Love – I immediately asked my son if he recognized the boat – then revealed to him that it was Zero to Cruising’s charter boat that they operate. Well, that’s what I get for not keeping up and now, having just caught up a bit on your blog, I realized that you no longer operate that boat….even though, it was kind-of cool to see it in person having known about you guys for awhile. Good luck in your future adventures and maybe we’ll run into you guys another time – on another boat.
Hi Kevin. If you’re heading south for the windy season, please look us up!
Re: Steve’s post: Bringing guests along who will ‘share’ the expenses and who want to find out what cruising is about is exactly what we having been thinking of doing with our new to us Seawind 1000 catamaran. Doing just that is what made us decide a catamaran was the way to go for our next boat (we had joined a couple for a week in the Bahamas and ‘shared’ expenses). A luxury vacation on a crewed cat was and still is out of our budget. I am hoping we will be able to fund at least a bit of the cruising/maintenance expenses this way.
Looking forward to hearing about what you think of the Antares as it too is our dream cat. Still buying those tickets at times and hoping:)
Hope you have better luck with those tickets than we did. 🙂
wow. Mike and rebecca.. big changes.. been thinking after all my cappy course that wanted a gig like yours on one love but seeing the responses here . maybe just better to head out and circumnavigate and share the sail on the way.. all i really want to do anyway.. the other was just a thought on how to afford the trip. maybe you guys have just nailed the method.. all the best and good luck, steve
Thanks, Steve. If you make it down island this summer look us up.