After Sudan, we were on a whirlwind tour of Egypt, Israel, and Europe. Not much has been posted on the blog site since then. The three of us – myself, Eric and Bryce – plan to rectify that, posting articles recounting more detail than revealed in our postings on Facebook about the many extraordinary adventures of the last 5 months. BTW – if you don’t know, Kandu is down to 3 as Trent returned to California to attend high school. He is living with Uncle Nick Rigney in Calabasas.
August 29, 2018
Dear Sara and family,
I have been thinking of you since we were in Spain wishing I had become more fluent in Spanish like you. Unfortunately, we didn’t spend any time in Spain outside Barcelona, darn it! Just had 90 days to visit the Schengen countries (The Schengen agreement among most of the European Union countries grants visitors a 90 day tourist visa…if not European, then you only qualify for a 90 day visitor’s visa out of 180…3 months within a 6-month period. Turkey, Croatia, Cyprus, England, Gibraltar are not part of Schengen.) It’s just as well, because our bank book is quite depleted. It’s been very expensive traveling and docking the boat in Europe west of Greece. We sailed past the lower boot of Italy bee-lining it to Pompeii – one of my bucket list sights.
Eric and I had never been to Rome or Venice. Having the boys with us, it was a must to make efforts to hit the bigger sites. Maybe another day, we’ll get a chance to explore more of Italy as I really fell in love with that country, full of ancient wealth and history.
Actually Paris this time for us was not as mesmerizing as it has usually been in previous visits and stays. Perhaps it’s because we were generously put up by a friend in the suburbs of Paris and it took almost 90 minutes to get into the city, making early morning and late night strolls a little more challenging. Oh well. Not to mention the hoards and hoards of summer tourists swarming the big sites, and the heat. I don’t remember previously visiting Paris in the summer.
I haven’t had a chance to write on our blog much since making Egypt. Now that we have a bit of time to breath having exited out of the Schengen territories, we can enact repairs on the boat and record more details of our explorations.
Most recently, we had a wonderful 6 weeks with my parents. Via extended invitations from our dear Belgium and French friends, we were able to introduce the boys and my folks to European living in many forms and to visit extraordinary sights and places like the picturesque & unforgettably charming wine villages along the Rhine in the Alsatian province. Eric and I had been to Alsace a couple times before, visiting with friends, but we had never explored the region: Colmar, Strasbourg, nor the wine trail villages. It’s no wonder why this region bordering Germany has been under contention for 100’s of years between France and Germany…it’s rich in valuable resources: hard working “Protestant type work-ethic” people and rich land for agriculture. The Strasbourg Cathedral housed the most incredible astronomical working clock we’d ever seen.
Together, we also had time to visit some bordering areas/towns of Alsace including Baden Baden on the frontier of Germany – extremely wealthy boasting a lovely old fort that we hiked during the rain, and Luxembourg – which is clean clean clean, with a picturesque old town, fort, huge city walls and gorgeous Catholic churches. Of course, all through Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, Monaco and Barcelona, we visited churches, Basilicas, and Cathedrals ad nauseum. I loved it all….the boys were definitely done with the typical city offerings except the most spectacular ones such as St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, The Duomo in Florence, Versaille in France, and The Sagrada Familia by Gaudi in Barcelona. In Chartres Cathedral, France, the inside has recently been painted white to enhance the otherwise dire interior, but most specially the organist played for about 20 minutes, which for me, was magical.
We’ve enjoyed so many other incredible country spectaculars: art museums, Napoleon history, war memorials and museums about WWI and WWII, plus many ancient sites, valuable and palatable history lessons for us all.
Truly truly spectacular traveling which I hope to write about more fully on our blog now that we are moving at a more leisurely pace.
We and Kandu are now in Gibraltar harbored in Queensway Quay Marina. Trent, our youngest at 14 returned to California from Barcelona to live with Uncle Nick and started school August 23rd in Calabasas. Happily, he made the volleyball team. He is thrilled to be back home and excited to get academically serious. He’s extremely motivated. Bryce (16) flew solo to London last Friday night, visiting a good friend that he met in Athens.
Bryce is staying the 6 days with a dear friend of ours who is working on the next Spiderman movie currently filming in London. Bryce is exploring the city historical sites, skateboarding along the way.
Once Bryce returns, we’ll finish the remaining maintenance and repairs and sail off to Morocco, a two day sail, leaving Sept 3 to Mohammedia to visit Casablanca, Morocco. Then we’ll sail further south to Agadir to work on the boat a bit more and hopefully find some good surf for Bryce after almost a year of circumstantial abstinence. We plan to depart Agadir on Oct 1st for a two day sail to the Canary Islands (7-day stop, Columbus’s last before setting off to our New World), the Cape Verde Islands to restock (8-day sail), find a bit more surfing for Bryce – and then when the weather is good sometime around October 31st we plan to take off to sail the 18 days across the Atlantic .
After that – things are still undecided. If all goes well we’ll head straight to French Guiana, then Surinam, Guyana and north to visit a couple of the French Caribbean Islands, then west to the A, B, C’s of Dutch Antilles and Columbia to get ready to transit the Panama Canal around my birthday in February 2019. In the Eastern Pacific, we make our way north through Costa Rica and Mexico, skipping the less secure countries in between. It’s reported that there are pirates along the Central American coastline from Nicaragua through to Guatemala. Our plan is to return to Ventura end of May, early June 2019. Our McCool house has re-rented under a two-year lease. We are not beholden to any specific place to live in Southern California until we both land employment.
We’re getting close to the bottom of our cruising funds. From here on out, we’ve gotta be careful. Hopefully we won’t have big expenditures with the boat. We’ve already replaced so much!!!
Sending you big virtual hugs my dear girlfriend!
Leslie
You seem to find the beauty and the good in the world. Very encouraging as we need people to become world citizens — a global family! Most Americans have seen little of the world and buy into the delusion that the USA is “exceptional” compared to other countries, unaware that the US ranks toward the bottom of developed nations in health care, economic inequality, child poverty, press freedom (43rd!), and student debt. We are at the top when it comes to violent deaths and incarceration rates.
Americans are largely unaware of what we can learn from other countries which could help us be a better country.
Thanks for keeping us up to date on your travels.
— cousin Roger
All of your writings draw me in and take me along on your journey with you!! so exciting to read and see where you’ve been where you’re going and what your plans are! so pleased that Trent is being able to make a nice transition into a school but he spent 4 years making transitions so this is nothing new for him- continued safe travels and more Amazing Adventures and letting us go along for the ride🤗😍
Hello Roger – There are moments when I find the unbeauty of the world. I have a post that I’ve been vacillating about as it is quite negative. We’ll see if I dare. Generally, I find the people we meet lovely and kind. There are moments though, while never ever life threatening or even closely physically dangerous, when I become sorely disappointed with the circumstances of the moment. Yes indeed, the world is full of wonder and good. We thoroughly enjoyed our world wind tour of Europe and the mediterranean. We are also finding much of Morocco charming. Having been forced to stay longer in Agadir due to waiting for an intake water pump for the engine my opinion of this country has changed and I’m glad. The pump arrived finally yesterday evening. Once that is installed we will head off again – to the Canary Islands, quickly to Cape Verde and then across the Atlantic by mid-November. 7 months to go and then we’ll be home. Thanks for reading and posting your thoughts. I would argue that while the US has its problems, it is exceptional in many many things – one of those is the educational system. We find that people all over the world feel stuck in their careers or that they missed their chance and have no hope of regaining ground due or changing, self-improving. That is definitely not the case in the US. Child poverty is an issue for sure. However, if an advocate for a child strives, much can be accomplished. We are considered below poverty right now and after a bit of due diligence, Trent is getting school breakfasts and lunches for free along with free health and dental. Such is helping us financially very much until we get re-established in jobs – of which will be different than what we left – of course. Big hugs to you, Shari and Jenny, Leslie
Always a pleasure to receive your comments…especially from another experienced world traveler! Leslie