Beyond the Horizon: Sailing Around the World

By Werner H. Kraus

The author shares his dream of sailing around the world, first formulated when he was six years old. The outfitting of his boat for the task and the trip itself taking 7 years, starting and ending in Hawaii. Leading him as far north as Alaska, south to New Zealand and into the relatively uncharted waters of the Black Sea, up the Dnieper River in the Ukraine and to Saudi Arabia.
Along the way he encounters high winds to 70 knots and 50 foot waves, equipment breakdowns that have to be diagnosed and fixed without outside help. A boarding by armed vigilantes in Indonesia, the killing of a cruising friend by escaped convicts in Panama and the author holding a Rumanian Marines Uzi hostage, add excitement not normally expected in a sailing venture.
The expected satisfying experiences of natural beauty, the encounters with wildlife and the interaction with wonderful people along the way are not neglected.
The author meets his future wife in Tonga and previously single-handing, he is now able to share his adventures with this lovely Polynesian maiden.
The book is full of helpful information on various technical aspects and explanations to help even non-sailors understand and enjoy, vicariously, the sailing life. Many anecdotes illustrate the challenges and rewards of a life at sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781456822767

Werner H. Kraus

The author retired at age 48, in order to fulfill a life-long dream: To sail around the world. He was able to accomplish this, taking 7 ½ years to do so. At the completion of his circumnavigation he and his wife spent another 2 ½ years cruising the Hawaiian Islands, before sailing his boat again to Alaska and eventually to Washington State where they spend every summer, sailing “Colombine”in Pacific North-West waters. They make their home in southern Arizona.

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Copyright © 2010 by Werner H. Kraus.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2010917572

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4568-2275-0

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4568-2274-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4568-2276-7

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Getting Ready

Chapter 2

Hawaii to Alaska

Chapter 3

Canada to San Diego

Chapter 4

Mexico

Chapter 5

Crossing the Pacific

Chapter 6

Tonga

Chapter 7

Fiji to New Zealand

Chapter 8

New Zealand

Chapter 9

Tasman Sea and Australia

Chapter 10

Indonesia

Chapter 11

Singapore and Malaysia

Chapter 12

Thailand and Sri Lanka

Chapter 13

India, Oman, and Yemen

Chapter 14

Saudi Arabia and Egypt

Chapter 15

The Mediterranean

Chapter 16

Black Sea, Odessa, Ukraine,

Rumania, and Bulgaria

Chapter 17

Turkey, Greece, Crete, and Malta

Chapter 18

Tunisia and Western Mediterranean

Chapter 19

Spain, Baleares, Gibraltar, and Morocco

Chapter 20

Canary Islands, Crossing the Atlantic Ocean and Windward Islands

Chapter 21

Venezuela and Colombia

Chapter 22

San Blas Islands and Panama

Chapter 23

Panama to Costa Rica

Chapter 24

Mexico, Crossing the Pacific to Hawaii

I dedicate this book to my wife, Folau,

my cruising partner and partner in life.

Without her help and encouragement neither

this book would have been written

nor would my travels have been as much fun

and as satisfying.

Introduction

Have you ever gone farther to see what’s around the next bend or over the next hill?

Have you ever looked up at an airplane, wishing you’d be sitting there, regardless of where it was bound for?

Have you ever stood at the edge of a sea and wondered what was beyond the horizon?

Does the whistle of a train fill you with longing to go somewhere, anywhere?

In the German language, there is a word not found in the English vocabulary:

Fernweh. It’s the opposite of homesick. An ache or longing to be or go somewhere else. Luckily I’ve suffered from this affliction most of my life. It’s not constant but seems to sneak up on me from time to time.

If you are able to indulge in this desire to travel, your rewards are great and varied, but foremost, you accumulate memories. Memories to be pulled up at will or that just surprise you, unbidden. Triggered perhaps by a sight, a sound, or a smell.

Science tells us that you can reduce stress or blood pressure simply by imagining yourself in a beautiful place, relaxing on a beach or in a cool glen. How much easier if you can choose from a portfolio of wonderful memories.

Some memories you keep private, not to be revealed to anybody, or perhaps only to a select few. Others are just too wonderful not to be shared with others. Some of our memories come from a dream we have been fortunate enough to be able to fulfill. As Bloody Mary says in South Pacific, You got to have a dream, if you want a dream come true.

I have had a dream of sailing around the world, ever since I was six years old. I finally was able to make this dream come true; and now I would like to share my memories of this, perhaps the greatest adventure and best times of my life, with you.

Our memory can be very selective. One tends to remember certain, wonderful times and forget about the stressful and less enjoyable moments. Unfortunately, our memory also is less acute as we get older.

Luckily, to be able to present a fairly complete and accurate account of my experiences, I have a lot of documentation to rely on. For instance, my ship’s log documents every day when we were under way, by date, the place we anchored or moored our boat, the distances traveled, comments about the weather, and such information like having caught a fish, even the time the engine was running. The latter information not to entertain someone with but so the machine could be maintained properly and I could determine fuel consumption, etc.

Also, I have kept written and dictated (on a microcassette recorder) notes about my impressions and experiences as they were happening.

I have also taken many photographs and video recordings.

I will endeavor to write an account that is as accurate as my memory and my notes permit, without exaggerating or sensationalizing.

I hope that the reader will find my notes informative and entertaining. This is not a how-to book, but one can learn from other people’s experiences, even if they are not as current as they might be. Some things don’t change or change very little.

When I was sailing in Tahiti, I was using a (new) chart that was annotated: Prepared from sights and soundings (depth measurements) made by Capt. Cook. It included drawings showing the mountains and features of major points of interest, made a few hundred years ago and still valid. Naturally, aids to navigation had been added and updated as had man-made structures.

I’ve sailed and boated for almost fifty years, and we are still spending every summer on Colombine in the Pacific Northwest. This summer, 2010, we circumnavigated Vancouver Island—a challenging, and sometimes rough, trip of over eight hundred miles and taking almost six weeks.

A couple of explanations for landlubbers.

Boating and especially sailing, almost has a language of its own. Some of the words used may not make any sense to the uninitiated. For instance, the word rope is not used for anything on a sailboat. An anchor line (not chain) is called a rode. Lines that adjust sails are called sheets (sheets are not sails, as you might suspect); those that raise the sails are called halyards. The front of the boat is the bow; the middle, amidships; the sides, alongside the rear, stern. The depth of the boat is the draft. The distance from the water surface to the top of the hull is called freeboard. All wires that don’t move but hold up the mast are called standing rigging, with each wire having its own name: forestay, backstay, upper and lower shrouds, bobstay, staysail stay, etc. While die-hard sailors may call left port and right starboard, most don’t, especially when it’s crucial, even the navy doesn’t.

I think that’s enough to absorb for the moment. There will be a test later. Just kidding.

The following notes in this introduction are primarily addressed to those contemplating making a similar voyage or just interested in how one would go about doing so. Or the experienced, trying to find fault.

At any given time, there are many boats out there, doing what we did. Everybody his or her way. Some are trying to keep things simple, like the Pardeys, who had no engine and used a cedar bucket for a toilet. Or W. F. Buckley’s sail across the Atlantic, described in his book Atlantic High, where they had to postpone the departure because of problems with the air-conditioning. Some are trying to be the first doing a circumnavigation, either to be the fastest or by being the youngest or oldest. I consider most of those attempts nothing more than stunts and a way to get your name in print. Sure, those are challenges; but who would want to sail around the world, usually as far south as possible, because it’s the shortest distance there, without stopping or without seeing anything along the way? I don’t want to take anything away from those folks, but it wouldn’t be my cup of tea.

Books are written about those adventures by many people, and I’ve read just about every book and many magazine articles on the subject that I could find. Some are very helpful, even one as old as Slocum’s book about his first recorded single-handed circumnavigation on Spray, a homemade wooden boat, thought unseaworthy by many of his contemporaries. Some are written by very opinionated people that are convinced that only their way is the right way and only their boat is the proper type of vessel for such an undertaking. Then there are those I suspect of stretching the truth a little, to make things more exciting, more life-threatening, or maybe they just had poor judgment or the worst luck.

Finally, the most dangerous group of people are those that seem to glorify the fact that they were totally ignorant and unprepared for such a venture and just bumbled and stumbled along. Good luck and the help and sacrifice of many others may have made their trips possible.

While everybody starts out inexperienced on that first offshore voyage, one should be as prepared as one can possibly get, and the boat should be prepared as well.

There are, of course, extremes going the other way. The sailors that keep preparing and never actually leave on a trip.

We met an interesting young man in Hawaii that fit that profile. He bought a, not particularly seaworthy, boat for blue water sailing. It was light with an open transom and had very minimal tankage for fuel and water. But he was going to make the boat work by adding lots of gear. For instance, he added a used, heavy wind self-steering system, built for a boat much larger than his. This dropped the stern of his boat to where water was just about even with his cockpit sole. Any forward motion by the boat would have dropped the stern even further. He asked my opinion on many points but never followed any advice I gave him, telling me that he had discussed the matter further with God, and God had told him something different. Can’t argue with God, can you?

One advise I kept repeating, Why don’t you take the boat out for a sail for a few days to see if you can live on the boat, if this or that works as you hope it will. He never did, until he was ready (about three years and many dollars later), he thought.

As soon as he passed Diamond Head Light on Oahu and started experiencing the brisk trade winds and rough waves, he became violently seasick, returned to the Ala Wai Marina, and put the boat up for sale and never returned to it.

My boat neighbor in Washington State built a seaworthy steel sloop of about fifty feet, spent years equipping it, even installed a gimbaled radar mount. I have never seen the boat out of the marina. Perhaps he just enjoys working on the boat. Everybody has an opinion on what type of boat is best for blue water cruising; in fact, most boats will do just fine, provided they are in good repair and generally seaworthy. While the trend is for ever lighter and faster boats, I prefer a heavily built, easy-to-maintain boat. Every other year there is an Around Hawaii boat race, and every year a good percentage of those ultralight boats with fractional rig and whippy-masted boats are dismasted and eliminated.

A heavier boat may be a little slower, but it sure is more comfortable in heavy winds and seas and safer too. Tankage is important, both for fuel and water.

People underestimate the times they have to motor. Hey, this is a sailboat, meant to be sailed. There are times when there is no wind for days, and it could be in an area where current could set you in a dangerous spot.

A guy I met in Hawaii had a small sailboat with an outboard motor in an inboard well. He decided with all the wind in the islands he didn’t need a motor and he could make good use of the extra space. Sailing to the island of Lanai, he was becalmed close to the harbor entrance for an entire night. Instead of a good night’s sleep in Manele Bay, he had to make sure that he didn’t wind up on the rocks.

A more extreme example: A man and his two sons left California for Hawaii on an ill-equipped boat. About a week out of Hawaii, they ran out of wind, out of fuel, and out of water and provisions. Up to now the trip had taken only about ten days longer than they had anticipated. Luckily they were able to reach the coast guard and were rescued, but their boat had to be sunk, as a potential hazard to navigation.

Even a boat that is well-equipped and in good shape, when you leave, can and probably will develop problems. You should be prepared for the most common issues with spares and a basic knowledge on how to fix things. The skippers with two left thumbs will learn hard and expensive lessons.

Finally, before actually setting out, you have to do a lot of planning: where to go, when to go, and how to get there. Even the milk runs can be challenging, especially when you go at any other than the best time to go. An excellent book for route planning and for best and worst times to make the crossing is Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes. I planned my entire circumnavigation using primarily recommendations from this book.

There are hurricane seasons to consider, different for the Northern and the Southern Hemisphere. Politics and bureaucratic considerations that can change from year to year or even quicker. For some countries, you need a visa before you arrive; in some, you can buy one when you get there. In some places (like Indonesia), you will need a cruising permit before you get there. In order to be granted a visa, many countries require that you show financial stability. Usually a credit card will do. Few countries, besides the United States, will issue a credit card without investigating the person’s credit worthiness.

How will you support yourself and handle unexpected expenses (you will have those)? How will you handle your finances? We always carried a minimum of one thousand US dollars cash and handled everything with credit cards. For cash, we’d use ATMs with a debit card. You get the best exchange rate that way. My credit cards and any recurring expenses were paid by my bank automatically. Any income went directly to my checking account.

For anyone not dealing in US dollars, be sure to carry some. Many countries ask that harbor fees, canal fees, pilot fees, etc., be paid in this currency. They won’t take local money or your country’s money.

In Sri Lanka, an Australian sailor was asked to leave the harbor because he could not pay the harbor dues in US dollars. Offers to pay in local money or AUS dollars were in vain.

A very basic question, how much will it cost?

That depends on several things: your boat, its condition, your expectations when you get there, your habits, and your ability to be self-sufficient.

The larger the boat, the more it’s going to cost to maintain, for marina and port fees, for fuel.

If you need lots of repairs, and you will need some, you may face many unexpected expenses. A recent engine rebuild in Canada cost me $13,000. In Istanbul in 1992, it cost me $5,000. The older your boat and its equipment, the more likely it’s going to need repairs or replacement.

When you make your landfalls or while cruising near land, do you expect to eat out a lot? Will you want stuff that you’re used to, or can you adapt your taste to local offerings? Will you rent a car or a scooter, visit entrance-fee-required sights, attend theater performances? A big one, do you plan to stay in marinas or anchor out whenever you can? The list is endless, and the chances to spend money are limitless. Are you a do it yourself person, or do you pay a yard to paint your boat’s bottom? Can you make repairs? Fix your fridge, you will have to, at some point! Make sail repairs.

We have met people that got by on about $500 a month. That factors in living in cheap countries. We found Southeast Asia and South and Central America pretty cheap, also to some degree Mexico, as long as you stick to local goods.

French Polynesia and Europe are pretty expensive as is Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

We were fortunate not to have to adhere to a budget. That is not to say that we didn’t watch our money. I wouldn’t buy an ice cream cone for $3 or spend $8 for a drink in a pub. (Although I regularly spent $10 for a 10 oz. bottle of Hinano beer in Tahiti. That’s as cheap as it gets there, and when you are single, you tend to spend more money for your entertainment than a couple would.)

We knew a couple that would never eat out and spent very little on entertainment, simply because their budget wouldn’t allow it. That does not mean they didn’t have any fun. It’s all what your expectations are.

If you are traveling on a finite budget, you will be surprised at how quickly the money disappears. A steady income, even if it’s fairly small, is much better. We’ve seen several people that had to cut their cruise short because they ran out of money.

Of course, there are ways to add to your budget or cruising kitty. If you have a skill and the equipment to ply it. For instance, reefer repair, engine repair, sail and canvas sewing, or are willing to hire yourself out for maintenance work, but you’ll have to compete with local talent. We’ve even heard of people coming back with more money than they left with. Pretty rare though. In New Zealand, quite a few of our strapped cruising friends were able to (legally) find work because they possessed skills in demand, like computer repairs and programming.

A general rule as to cost: expect to spend more money than you thought you would!

I have changed the names of a few persons to protect their privacy and prevent embarrassment to them and a lawsuit against me.

A word about provisioning. You don’t always have much choice. The smaller the place, the less choice. Often you have to make do with what’s available. A few cans of outdated stuff, cereal for $8 for a very small box, with weevils in it (in Polynesian villages) where most people live off their land. In some small islands, there were community freezers where the villagers kept their frozen foods until a supply ship came again, a few months later. Nothing to buy here. On the other end of the spectrum, there were the hypermarkets. Here is where you go crazy, stocking up as if it was your last chance to shop, and it might be, for some time. Some so-called supermarkets weren’t that super. Given a choice, we would buy vegetables and fruits that would keep awhile. If we bought meat, I’d generally pick out the best and leanest-looking portions (in many places they don’t have the cuts we are used to, it’s all the same and costs the same, beef is beef) and have it ground up into hamburger meat. Chicken would be our first choice. Seafood we’d try to catch ourselves. You can’t beat fish straight out of the water into the pot.

Although we always had canned stuff for backup, we were generally able to live on fresh foods exclusively. The occasionally fresh-caught fish helped a lot. When I was single-handing, especially in rough weather, I almost exclusively lived on microwave meals. I even baked microwave cakes. They come as a kit, a baking pan and two plastic pouches. One for the cake mix and one for the frosting. You squish the cake-mix pouch around, before opening it, to mix the batter, then put it in the pan and bake it; after which you apply the frosting. I dazzled quite a few fellow cruisers with my accomplishment at potlucks.

Also, married couples: be very aware that twenty-four-hour togetherness for extended periods can be very injurious to a relationship. We’ve seen quite a few fail. Remedy: take breaks, from each other and from the boat, bring in outside crew to help out on a crossing or instead of your mate.

I have tried not to make this account too businesslike. My usual motto—Get in, do the job, and get out—makes for a pretty brief rendition. Not as much to the point as the student asked to write an essay covering Royalty, Religion, Sex and Mystery, who wrote, Oh God, said the Queen, I’m pregnant and don’t know who the father is. Neither could I write a tome of five hundred pages: What I did last weekend. Well, that’s about it for warning you. On to the story:

Ever since I was six years old, I knew I wanted to sail around the world. It was then that I saw my first globe, a huge, almost as tall as I was, floor stand globe that better illustrated what the world looked like than any maps I had seen before could. I would spin the globe and look at all the different continents and countries and the waterways that separated them. Of course I had no knowledge of currents, prevailing winds, and sailing routes. In my imagination, I chose the shortest routes between the landmasses.

My favorite movies involved the swashbucklers of Errol Flynn and usually took place on the high seas or in exotic places. I could see myself climbing the rigging of multimasted square riggers and shout land ho after weeks or months at sea. What a life. This was for me!

When I was fourteen years old, my parents took me on a vacation where we visited Saint Tropez in Southern France, then the stomping grounds of Brigitte Bardot and other bikini-clad lasses and jet-setters.

In the old harbor lay several long and lean wooden sailing yachts flying American flags. I told my parents, One day, I will have my boat moored here, and many years later I would.

It would be a while. I had some growing up to do and a life and a living to make. But water, boating, and sailing never left my system.

A ski boat was my first boat, a San Juan 21, my first sailboat, but not until after first completing a coast guard sailing course and private sailing lessons and then chartering a sailboat in Washington’s San Juan Islands. Any dormant sailing dreams were quickly rejuvenated, and when I had an opportunity to transfer my work to Hawaii, I did so for the potential sailing. I purchased a new Lancer 29 there, in which we sailed to all the islands and got hands-on experience in rough water sailing. While vacationing in Vancouver, BC, with my girlfriend, I strolled the for sale boats on Granville Island while my companion was shopping for kids’ stuff. When she returned, I showed her the kind of boat I was going to buy when I would sail around the world.

There was Colombine, a Union 36 cutter, a couple of years old. Stout and capable-looking. Designed by Bob Perry and built in Taiwan. It had a traditional look, with lots of teak woodwork. A stout masthead cutter rig. Teak decks protected by about ten-inch bulwarks and sturdy lifelines. A canoe stern, heavy bronze opening port lights with fly screens, six dorade vents and hatches that would keep the boat well ventilated. The inside had lots of solid teak joinery work, a teak and holly sole. It had a warm but not claustrophobic feel to it. A gimbaled propane range and deep double stainless steel sink close amidships. Lots of stowage.

Jane was as impressed as I was and said, Buy her. I pointed out that (a) I was not ready to go cruising yet, (b) I already had a boat in Hawaii, and (c) most importantly, I had no place to put her.

At her urging I made an offer, less than the asking price. After rejecting the offer and another bump, we returned to Hawaii, there to receive a call that a few dollars more would seal the deal. I pointed out the folly of the whole undertaking, only to learn after a couple of more phone calls that I now was the proud owner of my world cruiser.

After returning to Canada for sea trials and to have her surveyed, both passed with flying colors. I had yet to make another trip to Vancouver to sail her home.

Since none of my friends had the time to crew for me, I had the broker place an ad for crew in two of Vancouver’s papers for one day. After two hundred calls, I quit counting. I monitored my answering machine and only picked up or returned the calls that sounded promising.

I eventually picked a young lady and a gentleman, who probably were among the worst crew members I could have chosen. The girl had exaggerated her sailing experiences and just would not take no for an answer; she was scared to death the whole trip. The guy, who had a dream also of sailing around