planning and sailing around the world!

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Random questions: Would you do the Panama Canal, or wrap around Cape Horn? Does the Panama Canal have exorbitant fees for personal crafts, like letting through 50 at a time for megabucks?

Dude, starting from either the Bahamas or FL, I'm going through the Canal. It costs about $1-2K and takes about 24 hours from start to finish from what I understand (includes getting into the lake area to wait as well).

[lukethedrifter]

Random questions: Would you do the Panama Canal, or wrap around Cape Horn? Does the Panama Canal have exorbitant fees for personal crafts, like letting through 50 at a time for megabucks?

Dude, starting from either the Bahamas or FL, I'm going through the Canal. It costs about $1-2K and takes about 24 hours from start to finish from what I understand (includes getting into the lake area to wait as well).

Dude. The Drake Passage is awesome and you could zip down to Antarctica. I actually saw a personal sailboat anchored down on the Antarctic Peninsula.

[Fat_Bulldog]

"It's not far to never never land, at least it's not for me. And if the wind is right you can the joy of peace and tranquility."

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Random questions: Would you do the Panama Canal, or wrap around Cape Horn? Does the Panama Canal have exorbitant fees for personal crafts, like letting through 50 at a time for megabucks?

Dude, starting from either the Bahamas or FL, I'm going through the Canal. It costs about $1-2K and takes about 24 hours from start to finish from what I understand (includes getting into the lake area to wait as well).

Dude. The Drake Passage is awesome and you could zip down to Antarctica. I actually saw a personal sailboat anchored down on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Hah. Yeah, not to discount how awesome Cape Horn is. Rounding it is one of if not the holy grail of sailing. And sailing the southern ocean is another one. But, being completely honest, I don't want the first leg of the trip to be the hardest most intense sailing, especially going east to west. Going against the current and against the wind in the most unstable part of the ocean and unstable atmosphere on earth? Let me get my feet wet first... Plus it's cold. I'm looking forward to not needing much more than a sweatshirt for years on end with the exception of New Zealand. and so is my future wife which is what allows me to do this. And, really, for as cool as I think it would be to sail down in the southern ocean and do exactly what you're saying and sail up to an iceberg and all that....I'm not the only person here.

[SHOW]

Credit to this guy: http://www.sailfeed.com/glossary-cold-country

To further address things that kind of suck...going through the suez canal up through the Red Sea then to the Mediterranean Sea and Europe (Greek Islands, Italy, backpacking) sounds especially awesome. But, that means no Chagos islands and no Cape of Good Hope and no Southern Africa.

Going through the suez canal kind of makes me sad, going around the world without ever getting below 40 degrees or into the southern ocean. Well, maybe for a second or two in New Zealand. But, yeah....I'm getting way ahead of myself.

[lukethedrifter]

But you could get attacked by Somali pirates so there's that.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

True. I'm reading Joshua Slocums Sailing around the World Alone and it's pretty entertaining. It takes a while to get used to his 1900 style of writing. But, whatever.

He went through the Straight of MAgellan, twice actually because once he made it through, the winds blew him back around the Cape. But there were a ton of pirates in that area back in the day. Now, I thinkyou're pretty safe. Times change. In 15-20 years, a lot can cahnge.