10 Days Gone

I have met up with the skipper of the boat that I am going to be on and I am going to be staying with him tonight at his apartment.

We will be leaving early tomorrow morning (Monday 10/29/07) for San Quintin in Mexico where the boat is currently ported. There will be a total of four of us on the boat which is 28' long. Basically it means tight quarters. As I type, the skipper, Walter, is making phone calls trying to get the motor on the boat fixed. Even if the motor is not working we are still going to be sailing. Should be an interesting experience. According to what Walter is saying, we will be on the boat for a total of 10 days, in which case I will probably not be able to update my blog for a while. At least 10 days, possibly more. I am not sure if I am going to have access to a computer and internet once I get down into Cabo San Lucas.

My main goal once in Cabo is going to be finding a boat that I can crew on that is headed to Puerto Vallarta. PV is where a lot of boats that want to sail into the South Pacific congregate before heading out to sea.

I am having reservations about being disconnected from everything for an extended period of time. I have never been in a situation where I could not pick up the phone to talk to those that I miss. I guess it goes back to that old saying; you never know what you have until it is gone (or something like that).

Slow Boat to China

As most of you know I have officially left for my travels. I am currently in San Diego staying with my cousin Jesse and his wife Kristen along with their cats. I was originally going to be staying with my friend Peggy in San Diego, however, due to the wild fires that are still burning in the area, she departed for LA. She will be coming back tomorrow (Sunday, 10/28/07) and hopefully I will be able to see her before I leave on Monday. Thank you Jesse and Kristen for allowing me to stay with you even at such a late notice.

My flight to San Diego went okay. I flew South West from Oakland to the San Diego Airport. The flight was supposed to be only a little over an hour long but it ended up being about 2 hours and some change due to low lying fog that was covering all of San Diego early Friday morning. We were fortunate though and were able to land safely at San Diego. At first they were going to reroute us to Las Vegas which would have put a little damper on my plans; thankfully, I did not have to deal with that. I was also lucky that my cousin, Will, was also visiting and he was able to pick me up from the airport even at such an ungodly hour. Thanks Will, I appreciate it.

It has been nice staying here visiting family. I actually do not feel like I am doing anything adventurous at all. It simply feels like I am visiting family, which of course I am. I find it hard to fathom that in only a few short hours I will be on a sailboat with 2 possibly 3 people I have never met before in my life. I hope they are nice people.

I am unsure where I will be sleeping tomorrow night. I am gong to be meeting the skipper of the sailboat tomorrow for sure, but I do not know if I am going to then stay with him or what is going to happen. The unknown is surely unnerving, and there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to my trip. I think that is why it is so stressful for me most of the time. A lot of people keep asking me if I am excited for my trip; I will be excited when I know for sure where I am going to be and what I am going to be doing. I find it difficult to be excited about the unknown possibilities that lie ahead. I am excited that I am not at work though. It makes me smile every time I think that right now I could be working.

I await the day when I wake up for work, then smile.

San Diego Pictures

Here is a link to some pictures that I took while in San Diego:

San Diego

I have also recently updated my Color and Black and White albums. Take a look:

Color

Black and White

Insurance Trouble

Now that I know the date I will be leaving the country I can make an insurance policy; I tried to make one with the company that I mentioned before in one of my previous blog posts, but ran into some disturbing difficulties.

After creating a user account with the website they ask for personal information of the policy holder. That is all fine and good and to be expected, however, what I did not expect was that I was going to be sending all this personal information like my full name, date of birth and address over unencrypted internet channels. For an insurance company that resides all online and states that one of their main goals is the security and privacy of users personal information, it is quite unnerving to see that I will be sending vast amounts of personal data for anyone and everyone with the knowhow to read, use and/or sell.

It is coming close to trip time and I need travel insurance. I just hope I do not have to find another company because this one is negligent.

Confirmed Sailboat

I have officially found a boat and a skipper that is willing to take me on their ship down to Cabo San Lucas. I will be traveling, as of right now, with three other people on a somewhat old school sailboat with no "head", as they like to call it.

Instead of leaving straight from the port in San Diego and traveling down with the rest of the fleet, we are going to be driving into Mexico to San Quintin where this sailboat is currently docked. Apparently it is about a five hour drive from San Diego to where the boat currently is.

I have never been in Mexico before, and I do not much like the idea of driving through Mexico after some of the stories I have heard. The skipper of the boat is fluent in Spanish though. Hopefully if we run into any trouble he will be able to talk our way out of it.

I am excited that I have found a boat and this will give me time to see friends and family while I am in San Diego in the days prior to leaving for Mexico on the 29th.

Possible Sailboat to Cabo

I may have caught a break and found someone who might be willing to take me on their sailboat. I hesitate to make this blog post because I feel I may be jumping the gun a little bit and in doing so may shoot myself in the foot. I have a good feeling about it though, and hopefully all should work out.

His boat does not sound to be the greatest of accommodations, however, this does not bother me. If it floats, and it gets me down to Cabo then I should be fine; I do know how to swim after all. I will post once I know for sure that I have secured passage aboard. For now I am hopeful.

Packing & Relief

I am very pleased to say that I have packed relatively everything into my backpack! The thought of packing has been a stress on my mind and I am very glad to have it completed.

I thought I was over packing way to much and it was stressing me out to no end. I thought that with the amount that I wanted to take there was not going to be any way I was going to be be able to get it into my pack; and even if I did I was going to be breaking my back trying to lug the thing around. I thought that my pack was going to be coming in somewhere around 50 lbs. I am pleased that now that I have pretty much everything packed I am only hitting 35 lbs. This is a great relief.

I will be adding a few more pounds, though, because I have not received my water bottle. It is on order and has not arrived yet. My filled water bottle should probably add on another 3 pounds or so. I also do not have any food in the pack currently, but who needs food.

I am also very relieved with regards to what is in my pack. It seemed like every day there was something new that would come to my mind that I wanted to take. I think today is the first day in a very long time that I have not thought of something else that I needed to remember to take.

I feel very comfortable with what I am bringing currently. As long as I do not hit any snow, I should be okay. If I do hit snow I just better be close to a place where I can buy a very heavy coat otherwise I might be raiding houses for warmth.

Things finally feel like they are coming together. The next big task is San Diego and actually finding a boat that will let me crew with them. Actually, no, I take that back. The next big thing I have left is to read the last Harry Potter book, but that is no chore.

Mexico?

Well, it seems that finding a sail boat that is headed directly towards the South Pacific is highly unlikely at the present time.

Apparently, right now most sail boats that reside on the West Coast are making their way down south to areas like Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. From here they can sail up and down the coast of Mexico for a few months until it is safe to make the passage across the ocean into the South Pacific.

There is a boat race that leaves San Diego on October 29th called the Baja HaHa. I am hoping to find a boat that will take me as crew in this race even though I have very little experience. Once I make my way down to Cabo San Lucas I can hopefully find a boat that is continuing on to Puerto Vallarta and from there eventually make my way into the South Pacific.

Mexico was not really on my travel itinerary from the start of my plans, but I guess it is now. I do like the idea of learning and honing my sailing skills before I head out to the Pacific though, and Puerto Vallarta could be the perfect way to do just that. This could be a great opportunity to learn a lot.

Crewing and Sailing

After speaking with Frank Deggman (professor of sailing at Cal State Monterey Bay), I have determined that in order to find passage aboard a sailing ship I really need to start learning about sailing, in general, since I have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about it. I also need to go down to ports, docks, and marinas to talk to people in person. Develop relationships with the people that deal with sailing first had. The likely-hood of me being able to travel on a boat when I have no experience an no connections is very slim. Even if I did find a boat that was willing to take me, it might not be the best idea considering they are probably taking me simply because they are very desperate. Traversing a large body of open sea with a desperate skipper is probably not the best idea; especially if I know nothing about the crew.

Right now I think I will take a 3 pronged approach to tackle this problem:
1. Learn as much as I can about sailing via online resources
2. Find classes that can teach me a base of knowledge to work off of with regards to sailing
3. Try to find people who are willing to teach me about sailing
a. Contact known individuals who know about sailing
b. Travel to the ports, docks and marinas in order to find knowledgeable individuals and develop working relationships with them.

Unfortunately, this may take time. I always have my backup plan to fall back on; I can rent a room aboard a cargo ship for fairly cheap. Certainly not as fun, and I would not be learning anything, whereas this sailing thing fulfills 3 of the TREK goals: People, Culture, Knowledge.