Setting out from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 2018, Jeff Bolster and his wife, Molly, hoped to circum-navigate on their Valiant 40. After port-calls in the Caribbean, Panama, Galapagos, French Polynesia, Cook Islands and the Kingdom of Tonga, they were in New Zealand waiting for South Pacific cyclone season to end when Covid-19 broke out, interrupting their voyage. Dealt lemons, they made lemonade, cruising New Zealand’s northern coast for 19 months, until leaving their boat and flying back to the States. Jeff and Molly plan to return to the boat in November 2022. Jeff’s thoughts on pulling off the voyage will appear in a few installments. This is the first.
By the time we untied our snow-covered dock lines in November
