Dan and Jeanne introduced the idea of an ocean passage on Okisollo to me a few years back, while Tangi and I were visiting with them in Loreto, Baja California Sur Mexico. When the actual opportunity came up in 2026, I had mixed emotions honestly and started exploring excuses for why I wouldn't be a good fit for the Okisollo team. For instance, I had a full ankle replacement in February and needed to commit to the trip while still in my recovery phase. I contacted my surgeon

By day six, the three of us were well into the groove of sailing. Sleep schedules were established, routines had developed, and life at sea was becoming our new normal. Apparently, humans can adapt to just about anything, including living inside a washing machine for two weeks. Picture three guys living on a 52-foot sailboat in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where the floor never stops moving, walking is a full-body workout, and making a cup of coffee requires balance, coo

Five days into our Indian Ocean crossing, and life aboard Okisollo has been a delightful mix of spectacular sailing, fresh fish, questionable plumbing, mechanical mysteries, and a little Hollywood entertainment. Just another week in paradise! Stormy weather leading up to departure from Mauritius Sunday – Preparing for the big crossing. Sunday was all about getting Okisollo ready for 2,400 miles of open ocean. The hull was cleaned, rigging checked, kayak packed away, and every

Saturday morning, Andrea and I pointed the bow west and set off on the 550-mile sail to Cocos (Keeling), hopefully arriving in time to meet my cousin John, who is joining us for the next leg....

Leaving Dan behind in Lombok was hard to do! He has ~8 weeks crossing the Indian Ocean and I'll be comfortably sleeping in a non moving bed, with hot showers on demand and other conveniences of non-boat life. Already, I'm looking forward to meeting him at Richards Bay in November. Getting ready to board the Ekajaya fast ferry that goes between Lombok and Bali. Typical architecture throughout Bali Before heading home to the US, I decided that it was worth a few extra days t

In Lombok, I welcomed Andrea aboard, commonly known within our sailing group as "one of the Italians". Tom and Andrea who have been with the ARC since Saint Lucia have crewed on several of the boats. Andrea settling in with dinner at sea The following day, we set off on the 625-nautical-mile passage from Lombok, Indonesia, to Christmas Island, a small dot of land sitting rather conveniently in the Indian Ocean. To Current or Not to Current As we set sail, and by “set sail,”

We departed the locks at Cullen Bay Marina with no drama. The morning was glassy calm and the path to the start line was several miles against a 2 knot current. So when we realized our ETA to the start line was 20 minutes past the start time, we decided to save an hour worth of fuel and just proceed on our 900+ nautical mile journey to Indonesia. Onboard we had our friend Josh (this was his second leg with us) and his mom Jonell. Jonell hadn’t crossed an ocean before. I

After 11 days and 1,250 nautical miles, we finally dropped the anchor in Fannie Bay, just outside Darwin. We had officially covered a lot of Australia and somehow managed to see almost none of it. That’s the funny thing about sailing Australia. You can travel hundreds of miles and your sightseeing consists primarily of watching the same piece of ocean move past the bow. We made only a couple of stops along the way, and one of those was for a luxurious eight hours. Plenty of t

From Cairns we set off for Darwin just a mere 1200 nm away. After one week of long days, and several overnight passages we are still about 200 nautical miles from Darwin. We now have come to realize the enormity of Australia the country/continent. We've passed a thousand miles of lowland shores with small trees, brush, mixed with amazing white sand beaches and rolling sand dunes. Interesting rock islands north of Cairns We've meandered through the great barrier reef -- bu

After a brief trip back to the US for me, and an epic final pacific leg for Dan, we were ready to take on everything 'down under'. We were both remarking at how cold it was in Queensland Australia at this time of year. I was bringing out my long puffy jackets and amazingly Dan was wearing jeans and sweatshirt. It was only getting as warm as 75 F during the day and quite chilly in the evening. Hundreds of lounging Kangaroos at the Lone Pine Koala Refuge, just soaking up th

1200 nm from Vanuatu to Mackay, Departure day is still one of my favorite parts of any passage....

We were excited to see what the next island had in store for us. Dillon's Bay on Erromango, was just a day away.

The three day passage from Fiji was easy and mostly pleasant. We arrived in at Tanna Island, Vanuatu on a dark night about midnight. We had been advised to keep an eye out for signs of the volcano, but we think there might have been some cloud cover and... we didn't really know where to look--nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We did however, occasionally, get the whiff of sulphur in the air but it didn't seem bothersome. In the morning we woke up to a lovely bay. The he

From Taveuni we headed to the town of Savusavu, a delightful town in NE Fiji on Vanua Levu. We stayed at the luxurious Nawi Island Marina, complete with spa, kava bar, pool, Mexican, Italian and Indian restaurants, chandlery, market and water taxi to the main town. It was a luxurious vacation! We used this stop to fill up with fresh food (it had been almost 2 weeks since our last store), hunt for a replacement vacuum and celebrate my birthday. We said farewell to several o

In our week at Vanua Balavu we had limited interactions with the local community. Aside from the lovely authentic kava ceremony there just weren't any locals in the Bay of Islands. Our next stop was a fairly exposed mooring on the south end of Tavenui Island. Tavenui is "the garden isle". True to its name the hillsides were lush with greenery and the air fresh and sweet. Standing with one foot in today and one foot in yesterday. The mooring was provided 'free' from the

We departed Tonga on a lovely afternoon. We had about a 44 hour trip to Fiji and we were expecting the passage to be moderately rough, with a good steady wind the entire way. I spent the day before we departed cooking several meals that would be easy to pop in the oven/microwave and would limit our needing to cook if required. The sea state definitely met those expectations. With in an hour or so of leaving we had some rolly seas making it difficult to do much other than

You can never have too many feasts can you? Well perhaps you can! In Tonga, it is tradition to gather with your family over a meal on Sunday afternoon. If there is a roast suckling pig then it is - officially - a feast. We are hoping the WorldARC rally doesn't make the local piglets extinct on the islands as there have been plenty sacrificed for our good eating. With the pork as the primary meat staple, the other elements of the feast are locally sourced products such as

Tonga. It is not by mistake that these are called the Happy Isles. We had loved it 26 years ago, and we still love it today. One of our first days in Neiafu, we visited the local municipal market. We were a little late in the day for the market, but a few of the stalls were still open. Betty, manager of one of t the stalls was impressed with my rudimentary ability to speak Tongan and was eager to teach me more. We chatted a bit about our trip to Neiafu 26 years ago and

After crossing the start line in Bora Bora we had a slow first day. Winds were light, but eventually they built up and we had some good winds but really uncomfortable swell on the beam making for rolly conditions. Pleasant conditions for the start line for Leg 5 We didn’t do much those first few rolly days and I was mostly useless. The side to side motion made things uncomfortable and I was a queasy. Our new crew mates were troopers and while they too were getting their s

Bora Bora is the place of mystical beauty and may embody what many people imagine when they dream of the South Pacific. I couldn’t stop thinking of the songs & lyrics from musical Bali Hai as I wandered down the streets. Compared to the other islands we'd been to in French Polynesia, Bora Bora has a more ‘American’ vibe. More people spoke English and it just felt less ‘French’. (Je ne sai quoi?) Tourists seemed to be more predominately from the US. We supposed that w