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THE CHRONICLES

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Prologue:

a Bit of Background (March 5)

It all started for me about four years ago, in the Nova. 

I picked up a Swedish backpacker from a hostel in Pacific Beach to drive to San Francisco with me in the Nova.  His name was Klas, and during our three day adventure I introduced him to Devo, pre-energy crisis automobiles and the California coast.  In return he paid for the fuel, played some Swedish death metal on my guitar, and told me about how he had made his way from Sweden to Spain to Morocco and eventually to the New World by hitchhiking on sailboats.

Wow, what a romantic dream, right?  By this point in my young life I had already determined that travel would be an obsession I would never shake.  I had thus resigned to the idea that I would lead a rather nomadic existence far into my late years.  Once you have this sort of resolve, the standard question isn't "Will I travel?", "When will I travel?" or even "Where will I travel?"...but "How will I travel?"

And of all the possible answers to that question, SAILING is certainly an exciting concept.  The O.G.-riginal way to wander the earth!

So thus began the seed that Klas planted in my head.  I was on the verge of taking a cubicle-bound corporate career-style job while this bright eyed 20-year-old kid was out there living my dream.  "Someday I'll do that..."

Incidentally the idea of sailing wasn't the only way Klas's travels sowed seeds of adventure in my brain.  The last I saw of him was when I dropped him off at SFO, bound for Lima.  After the subsequent emails of his adventures in South America, I found myself exploring Peru less than half a year later....

So I should have known something was up when I ran into Klaas.

I came across Klaas in 2003 in very much the same way I met Klas.  He joined me on a drive south from San Francisco (as well as a spunky young lesbian named Adrian and her bicycle on their way to explore New Zealand).  Klaas was a German on his own 6-week odyssey of self-discovery around North America.  Like Klas, he was young and adventurous and played in a metal band back home in Europe.  It was as if the re-embodied spirit of Klas had earned an extra A for adventure and come back to prod me along, to encourage me to pursue my own A.

I took Klaas out for his first surfing lesson down by Scripps Pier and the tide of random events led us afterward to the renowned Scripps Friday happy hour, a periodic ritual of scientists and grad students, summing up the week's research with cold barley soup.  It was here that I ran into Jim Cleaves, a friend from college.  He had recently bought a sailboat, a Cal 20, and over frothy beers we made plans to go sailing the following weekend.

Jim's intention in buying that boat was ambitious: to cruise down the coast of Mexico and Central America, through the Canal and up to Cuba.  I couldn't resist, and within a month we were making plans.  Eventually research and self-preservation led us to a different itinerary:  Avoid the dangerous Pacific coast of Mexico, buy a bigger boat in Florida, and start right off by cruising the Caribbean.

So there you have it.  That is how the ball started rolling and over the next several months I will attempt to bring you into the world of this first-time sailor's adventure...