Caribbean

Windward Islands

Tropical rainforests, barrier reefs, secluded anchorages: In the Windward Islands, you’ll get a taste of all that the Caribbean has to offer, and plenty of fine trade-wind sailing to boot. For sailors, there are multiple choices for your Windward Islands adventures, and from any of them, you can choose to make your sailing vacation as laid-back or as challenging as you’d like.

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Leeward Islands

The Leeward Islands are full of cruising hot spots, with much to offer to sailors, making passing through the Caribbean. lush scenery, vibrant reefs and a laid-back vibe make for the ultimate sailing destination.

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Lesser Antilles

The Lesser Antilles, in the Eastern Caribbean, are among the best charter destinations on the planet. Why? Diversity and conditions. The winds, seas and harbors in the Lesser Antilles are nearly ideal 99 percent of the time, and landfalls are perfectly spaced. In many of the most popular chartering waters, destinations are 30 to 40 miles apart — or less. This means you can get up at a reasonable hour, have a thrilling sail, and still manage to clear customs by happy hour.

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Cuba

Cuba is one of those mysterious destinations for US-based cruisers: close, intriguing, but seemingly out of reach. In 2017, when regulations were a bit more relaxed for cruisers, Cruising World hosted a rally to the island nation. The verdict? Cuba is everything we expected, and so much more.

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USA, Canada and Atlantic

Bahamas

The islands of the Bahamas are a cruiser’s playground — clear water, colorful communities and great sailing. The Bahamas offer endless islands to sail between and explore; from the Abacos to the Exumas, each island is unique.

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Intracoastal Waterway

Those with a mast height under 64 feet can also take advantage of the beauty and convenience of the Intracoastal Waterway on their trip north or south through the East Coast. While navigating the ICW requires lots of motoring, when conditions are good, the sailing is spectacular.

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Southern New England

Cruising through Long Island Sound, anchoring in the Great Salt Pond of Block Island, exploring the coast of Cape Cod – there are endless opportunities to enjoy a romp through Southern New England.

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The Great Lakes

Some of the best freshwater cruising in the world, the Great Lakes offer endless opportunities for exploration. Each lake offers unique cruising grounds, ports and conditions, from uncharted rocky inlets on the Canadian shores, to bustling cities.

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Bermuda

For as long as ocean-going sailors have been sailing the North Atlantic, Bermuda has been the crossroads and a popular race destination. But Bermuda is so much more than just a waypoint—it’s also a wonderful cruising destination.

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Nova Scotia

Packed with geologic and cultural history, the beautifully quiet coast of Nova Scotia is a nature lovers dream. Spruce trees, granite, grasses, sea, seals and terns, there is no shortage of excitement here.

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Europe

Greece Isles

The sailing can be challenging, but the landfalls — full of history, diverse towns and tasty cuisine — are worth it. Greece boasts thousands of islands, spread across an enormous geographical area stretching from the Aegean to the Ionian sea. Four of Greece’s five island groups are prime cruising areas: the Cyclades, the Saronic Islands, the Ionian Islands and the Dodecanese. Each group has its own unique character and charm, making each one worth exploring.

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South Pacific

Fiji

Cruising yachts from all over the world come to Fiji to anchor in the crystal-clear waters of the South Pacific. This Pacific crossroads is a refreshing break, with world-class snorkeling, beach combing and hiking.

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Marquesas

Smack dab in the middle of the South Pacific, the remote and untamed Marquesas are an unforgettable sailing stop – if you can get there. The topography of these young islands ­reflects the dawn of time; the exquisite drama of the islands’ violent, volcanic origins has not yet been smoothed and worn, with towering peaks rising above anchorages.

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Tasmania

Tasmania offers world class cruising, friendly, welcoming people, and a rich sailing history. The beautiful anchorages are uncrowded and private, and the sailing is world class. Just ask anyone who has ever sailed a Sydney Hobart Race.

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Whitsunday Islands

Pristine white sand beaches begging for footprints; the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park just waiting to be snorkeled; and our charter catamaran tugging on her mooring lines, ready to set sail. Who could resist such a tempting welcome from the Whitsunday Islands? Not us.

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Southeast Asia

Phang Nga Bay

Towering rock sculptures rise out of the water in Thailand’s Phang Nga Bay, providing a surreal backdrop for cruising. Anchor among the hongs and hope into a dinghy for an unforgettable experience exploring hidden caves and uncovering secrets from the 10,000 year history of the bay.

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Africa

Cape Town

From the blustery southeaster that can blow 45-60 knots for days on end, the “table cloth” on Table Mountain, to the waterfront with all its great seafaring tales and bars and the beaches of the suburb of Clifton, Cape Town has it all. The weather is like Southern California; you can stay active in the great outdoors year round.

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Madagascar

Madagascar is a true cruising gem. Its culture is a delightful convergence of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as evidenced by the gourmet French meals, baked goods, mélange of rum drinks, vibrant materials for both traditional and modern dress, and the combination of French and local Malagasy language.

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South America

Chile

The Cape Horn archipelago conjures images of heroic voyages through inhospitable landscapes and harsh, raw conditions, the true beauty Chile is that it’s remote enough to be pristine, but not isolated enough that you feel completely cut off from the rest of the world.

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Antarctica

Antarctica

Cold, unforgiving and a challenge for even the most seasoned sailor, there isn’t quite any place on earth like Antarctica. Just ask anyone who has been, though, and you’ll find that the journey to the bottom of the world was unforgettable.

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The post Top 20 Cruising Destinations for Your Bucket List appeared first on Cruising World.

At a time of year when cruisers might point their bows south to escape winter in North America, or head to cyclone-free regions across the Pacific, instead they are contending with a wide array of restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic as a new normal has emerged over the summer. § Looking ahead, top health officials expect the pandemic to increase this winter—and that in 2021, the threat of coronavirus will remain. We hope for a vaccine and yet expect that any success will take time to reach far-flung corners of the world. For the cruiser, or hopeful cruiser, is it possible to plan a safe watery adventure?

Despite a world shrunk by globalization, regional and national responses to coronavirus continue to vary dramatically. There is no crystal ball, of course, so to form a view of what cruising might look like in the year ahead, we reached out to sailors around the world to see what might be possible.

North America

If the mainstream traveler rediscovered staycations, American cruisers are reminded that from Penobscot Bay to the Dry Tortugas in the east, and Puget Sound to San Diego in the west—the United States coastline offers extensive cruising for all seasons. The US border never closed to maritime entry, but a number of states had lockdown periods, and several continue to require different degrees of testing or self-quarantine. A pandemic flare-up could limit movement or require isolating. Other cruisers are placing their bets on a new period of slower-paced Caribbean cruising.

Allan and Lavonne Shelton were bound for Panama after several leisurely months in the Bahamas when borders started snapping shut in March. Making a rest stop in Jamaica en route, the crew learned that Panama had closed. They rerouted back to their home waters in Chesapeake Bay. “We were concerned about the possibility of being stranded somewhere with fewer cruising options than we would have by returning to the US, and we didn’t want to be a burden on another country’s health system.” Lavonne says.

Like many, the added risk of the virus put a damper on their 2021 plans. “We want to be able to socialize freely while cruising. We love hosting visitors aboard Vinyasa, and enjoy visiting others too. Realistically for us, cruising freely means waiting until a reliable vaccine is widely available and we’ve both received it.” The Vinyasa crew plans to sail between seasonal bases in Florida and Maryland until they feel safe to voyage abroad again.

Vivian Vuong and her husband, Nathan Zahrt, call the Compass 47 Ultima home. And 2020 was meant to be their breakout year, leading offshore training passages with John Kretschmer Sailing, but closures in the Bahamas and Florida Keys put a pall on plans. “By July we were finally able to do a training passage from Solomons, Maryland, to Newport, Rhode Island, and had an epic sail in nice weather, full of wildlife sightings. We saw whales, sharks, and pods of hundreds of dolphins feeding on schools of fish,” Vivian says. But they postponed further training passages, and instead shifted to working on superyachts to afford planned upgrades for Ultima. Vivian speaks for ­many cruisers when she says, “The ­hardest part of this pandemic is the uncertainty that it causes,” and in their case, it’s not just where this ocean-girdling couple can go, but the future of their work as well. Looking ahead, they anticipate this winter that Caribbean islands will offer opportunities for their own cruising and, hopefully, voyages they can share with others seeking a life afloat.

Mediterranean

At peak uncertainty when borders closed throughout the region, boats transited the breadth of the Mediterranean without options for landfall. The region later swung hard in the other direction, with uncomplicated movement between most European Union countries with just a few extra steps for clearance. But crews from nations outside the Schengen Area have more to juggle than just the stay limits in member states. If cases surged, how might countries respond? Uncertainty around the answer to this has encouraged many cruisers to focus on a safe harbor where they can make longer-term plans, saving active cruising for a post-pandemic environment.

“Most folks we talk to have a sense of being in a surreal film,” Shannon Morrelli reports from the catamaran Sweetie. They were spending their second winter in Tunisia when cases of COVID-19 surged, and the Monastir Marina ­provided a friendly haven. “It was treated as a single-family residence; cruisers could walk the docks and the marina’s headland during lockdown.” The lockdown started days after Monastir denizens, the American crew of the catamaran Grateful, flew back to the US for a brief visit in March; they weren’t able to get back to Tunisia until September. “Our circuitous return depended on the fact that Turkey (a non-EU country) was happy to have us and our tourism dollars,” Niki Elenbaas says.

When European countries began to reopen borders to their citizens, EU-based sailors left Tunisia for summertime cruising grounds closer to home. It was about another month before non-EU crews were able to sail north. To mitigate uncertainty ahead, Shannon and her husband, Tony, purchased a yearlong marina contract for Sweetie in Monastir; Niki and Jamie Elenbaas have done the same for Grateful. For 2021, they plan to cruise between Tunisia and other Mediterranean countries as restrictions (and Schengen rules) allow— and they expect ongoing changes.

Complexity’s crew, Barbara and Jim Cole, hail from Puget Sound. They have similarly doubled down to reduce their risk from instability in the Mediterranean with a long-term contract at a Cyprus marina. Barbara recalled the stressful passages they made across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea in the first months of the year. Although overdue for a trip home, they don’t think a flight to the States is viable given the risks of virus exposure coupled with the possibility of being barred from returning to their Hallberg Rassy 36. “Our resources and health could be taken away by careless exposure; it would be terrible to suffer a devastating illness so far from loved ones,” Barbara says. Meanwhile, the couple purchased a car to better travel the island. These experienced cruisers are upbeat; they don’t talk about being stuck but rather about the historic ruins and local delicacies: “As cruisers do, we are all making the best of our situation.”

Friends aboard the Ovni 41 Xamala empathize. “We have not moved much since our arrival in Crete [via the Red Sea] because of the uncertainty with infection clusters and lockdowns,” Anita Farine writes. Fortunately, as holders of Schengen Area passports, they’re able to extend their stay in Greece. “We feel for our international friends who don’t have many places to go to after the three months in Schengen.”

The Griswold family had just returned to Trifecta in Turkey. “From April through June we lived at anchor with very few boats, cruising the Turquoise coast,” Matt says. Family intentions were to continue west in the Med, then cross the Atlantic as the American family’s sabbatical cruise winds down. Then Turkey closed the border with Greece, and they gained empathy for cruisers who had felt trapped by the pandemic. Malta’s decision to open a corridor for EU access was a welcome relief. “In Malta, we filled out an extra check-in paper on arrival for the health department; otherwise no questions were asked. Life returned to ‘cruiser normal’ in an instant.” They’ve since sailed to Italy, Monaco and France, and are organizing an informal rally of boats bound for the Caribbean for the winter.

South Pacific

Island nations and protectorates in the South Pacific were among the first to lock down borders, and most remain closed. With dispersed populations and limited healthcare facilities, they remain conservative about reopening: To date, only Fiji and French Polynesia have a process for yachts to apply for permission to enter. Most cruisers responded by remaining in place; a minority made a move to Fiji when their Blue Lane Initiative—a program offering cruising boats easier entries, although with strict protocols—to enter a country commenced, and a few are choosing extensive passages to more-distant safe havens.

Like many cruisers, the crew of Maple intended to sail west from French Polynesia in 2020 after enjoying over a year in the islands with a long-term visa. With about two years left in their cruising kitty, they planned a winding path of island hops to reach Southeast Asia before wrapping up to go home to Canada. When the coronavirus stymied this plan, they evaluated how best to make the use of their family time left. Given the closed borders (or unpredictable restrictions) in their original plan, they’ve determined that it will be best to sail a loop through the north Pacific back to Canada. They’ll begin in January with a 5,400-nautical-mile passage from Tahiti to Okinawa, Japan.

“This will be our longest single passage, probably will be for the duration of our cruising lives, but we are oddly looking forward to it,” Darryl Lapaire says. The route will carry them close to islands of closed countries: Tuvalu, Kiribati, Federal States of Micronesia, and Guam. “Some of the islands are quite small, so we will need to be watchful and ensure we are zoomed in on our electronic navigation devices for this segment. Cyclonic storms in the equatorial North Pacific breed in the waters around the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, so from this area to Japan will form the area of greatest risk for us.”

Fiji and French Polynesia have created extensive permissions processes to request entry, making those countries possible options for those crossing the Pacific. Kris Adams and David Frost are longtime cruisers aboard the Kaufman 49 Taipan. Moored in Huahine, their attitude models that of many cruisers in French Polynesia: “We are very content here. We were hoping to be home after 19 years,” Kris says, but “the east coast of Australia is still nearly 3,000 nautical miles and then still a Southern Ocean passage away from our hometown in Albany, Western Australia.” This crew has the chops; they’re just choosing, as are most, to appreciate where they are instead. They can migrate to eastern island groups in French Polynesia for relative safety during cyclone season.

These are the difficult options facing cruisers in this region: Either remain in a hurricane zone for the storm season, or sail significant distances like the Maple crew, or hope for the continued generosity of a host country, or go against prevailing conditions to find an open border—all options fraught with uncertainty of future closures.

Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean

Although most countries in Southeast Asia aren’t welcoming arrivals, those within borders already are largely accommodated. The lack of options for landfall halted Indian Ocean transits early on; these are now easing, allowing cruisers already there a path from the region. But cruisers are challenged by bureaucracy here, as well as a lack of understanding for their situation, in countries that feel particularly far from home. Cruisers sheltering in place must juggle this uncertainty; many who can are sailing on.

The family aboard Dafne has cruised from North America across the Pacific and through Southeast Asia. As cases of COVID-19 surged, they sequestered for months in Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands. But with a teen heading to college and other family tugs to the US, they made plans to cross the Indian Ocean as soon as there were signs of South Africa opening up. “We would have stayed in Asia if we felt positive about being able to move between countries, but that seemed unlikely and now looks even worse,” Lani Bevaqua says. If a family emergency called them home, they’d be stuck: Interisland travel halted, making it impossible to reach a marina where they could safely leave their boat and access an airport, except by sailing Dafne out of the country. “We felt uncomfortable being caught somewhere that we literally couldn’t leave,” she says from their anchorage in Seychelles. They expect to arrive in the Caribbean next spring, and cruise North America in 2021.

In Indonesia, Adamastor’s crew were ­relieved that the state of emergency allowed continued visa extensions in this notoriously bureaucratic destination. But Jess Lloyd-Mostyn was troubled that “once the emergency stay permit amnesty was over, the first thing we were asked was, ‘Why have you not sailed back to England?’ It’s very hard to explain calmly how impossible such a thing (a journey of 13,000 odd miles) would be right now, with three young children, and not feel frustrated.”

Jess, husband James and their little ones intended to leave Indonesia earlier this year to avoid exceeding the three-year cruising permit; with no borders open nearby, they might face a hefty bill to import the boat. Yet Jess remains optimistic as they progress toward a clearance port to demonstrate their intentions to depart when it’s reasonable, and appreciates their relative security. “I think that things are harder for cruisers in Thailand because the immigration laws want foreigners to leave, but the Customs laws state that boats can’t be left unattended. Couple that with all the surrounding borders being closed, and what can you do?”

Interim Models for Cruising

While the options vary by region, there are clear themes. Even under the assumption that 2021 will continue with many countries inaccessible, there will be fluctuating regulations in those that are accessible, and added hurdles for clearance into nearly all locales. Two basic approaches stand out: first, taking longer passages to fewer destinations; second, cruising within a country or region where clearances are easier. More-experienced cruisers are better-prepared for the first, and any can choose the latter.

For most cruisers, the patience born of our adage that plans are made in the sand at low tide is playing out in new approaches. Some are reducing range, or keeping potential passage distances to reach backup-plan harbors in mind when making destination decisions. Others are slowing down, whether forced by quarantine or to enjoy fewer places for longer. And nearly all anticipate more hurdles—for more paperwork, more communications ­requirements and more fees.

What’s gone until the world has a widely available, reliable vaccine is the model for visiting a string of countries in a season or even a year. Bucket listers in search of a circumnavigation can’t count on the access to ports (regulations might change while underway) or access to goods or repairs in a typical fast-track loop.

Starting Under Pandemic

Should those with a long-held dream to go cruising hold off on a 2021 departure? This decision is based on individual circumstances and risk tolerance, just as in any other year. The stakes are just higher now, and the well of patience, perseverance, and skills needed for safe and comfortable cruising tapped further.

On the west coast, the reduced size of a casual rally that annually progresses down the US West Coast highlights this decision. The Coho Ho-Ho is an informal fleet where crews head south from Puget Sound on their own timetable, sharing information and camaraderie along the way. In a typical summer, the fleet is comprised of a few dozen boats; this year, all but two canceled southbound plans. Cruising in Mexico on his Lord Nelson 35 Jean Anne, Steve Olson says: “I was a bit shocked and saddened when I heard that cruisers were opting not to sail down to Mexico due to COVID. Knowing what I now know about Mexico and Mexican cruising, I feel much safer and less at risk of contracting COVID down here than I would in the US.”

Yet for many, the pandemic is motivation to set sail despite the challenges. Yacht brokers report that boat sales are booming. Subscribers to the coaching ­service my husband, Jamie, and I have to help cruisers and potential cruisers ­succeed is running at double pre-­coronavirus levels. One family we’re working with recently flew to Grenada (via a couple of other island hops because there are no direct US flights); they waited out a 14-day quarantine in a beachfront cottage there before moving onto their new-to-them catamaran. Another family flew from the US to Latvia for a 14-day “country cleaning” before heading back across the pond to Martinique to a boat waiting for them. Still others are ­beginning on the US coast, where no international clearance is needed to spread their cruising wings.

While 2021 might not be a good year for new cruisers to strike out across oceans, ranging from a point of ­departure is reasonable. The slower pace and necessity to watch regulations might even facilitate softer landings into the lifestyle, and open experiences missed on a faster track.

Looking Forward

As this issue goes to press, COVID-19 ­cases are rising again in many regions. Lessons from 2020 suggest that advance planning will continue to be difficult, and travel corridors might not emerge. Many common cruising routes—such as exploring the Caribbean chain, sailing coastwise through Latin America, or winding across the South Pacific—include migrations through countries that are more vulnerable to outbreaks, with healthcare systems that sailors might not wish to test. While it is still possible to cruise, it is more complicated.

Cruising now leans on deeper skills and resourcefulness. It requires patience and research, and costs more. But a focus on experiences rather than route schedules can bring fresh perspective into the joys of voyaging. More than ever, cruising will be about sensitivity to the locales hosting our vessels. It will be about taking the time to find empathy for the outlook of the local communities we anchor near.

Aboard Totem, our family’s cruising plans were upended in 2020. Instead of ­departing Mexico to sail to the South Pacific, we self-isolated for months in the Sea of Cortez. As much as we crave a return of passagemaking to faraway places, I expect that 2021 will continue to feature tacos instead of bringing back poisson cru. But for our crew, as for many cruisers, the joy of life afloat stems from experiences within the journey—not chalking up destinations. In the past week, wildlife encounters with a transient pod of orcas, filter-feeding whale sharks, and yipping coyote packs in the moonlight reminded us again that magic exists wherever you choose to seek it, and doesn’t know there’s a pandemic on.

Follow along with Behan Gifford and the rest of the Totem crew at cruisingworld.com/sailing-totem.

New Clearance Requirements

Arriving into a new country just got more complicated. Processes and paperwork vary; this list is based on a common range of requirements among Caribbean islands.

• Have arrival authorization issued prior to departure from a previous port.
• Take a pre-departure COVID-19 test, generally specified to be the RT-PCR (nasal swab).
• Carry proof of health insurance.
• Expect a health check on arrival, including additional COVID-19 testing.
• Expect quarantine days, depending on travel history; some islands credit sea time.
• Carry a supply of approved face masks and a thermometer.
• Use a contact-tracing app while in country.

The post The Outlook for Cruising 2021 appeared first on Cruising World.

You can’t sail away your whole life!” I’ve heard that more than once, and at age 68—with 60 of those years spent afloat—I’m not sure that it’s true. Is bean counting ashore that much better? That much more fulfilling? Is having a loyalty card at Starbucks truly the end-all of ­workaday ­modernity? One thing that such chiding illustrates is the land-centricity of the speaker. I, however, am a sailor. I’m not sailing away from their concrete jungle; I’m sailing toward my own private Nirvana Bay.

One of the ways my wife, Carolyn, and I do this is by ­shunning ease. I know that sounds like a worse blasphemy than being against generosity! But bear with me and allow me a second to unroll the dusty chart of an alternative view. We recently cruised many of the 17,508 islands of Indonesia for four months with a totally different objective than most: We sought out cruising inconvenience.

Please don’t misunderstand—we have spent years in Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas, Virgin Islands and Lesser Antilles, not to mention the Med, the Pacific and New Zealand. We know what sailing into a crowded bay with all the water toys feels like. We’re just a bit jaded. We need a new thrill. We no longer want to step into a tourist brochure; we want to leap out of one.

Sailors can still do this, perhaps even for another decade or two. But the window of opportunity is closing, perhaps forever.

In Indonesia, we looked for isolated, small island communities without an airport or commercial port. All the better if there was no power or transportation grid. Any section of planet Earth that doesn’t kowtow to the automobile is relaxing. Also, no internet. And the icing on the cake: no harbor whatsoever. How do you safely anchor without a harbor? Easy—you drop the hook in the lee of an isle in the trade winds, with the breeze pushing you offshore. You either remain in place or you get blown out to the safety of the sea. What’s the big deal?

In such a spot, is there a harbormaster who will guarantee you a good night’s sleep? No, thankfully, there is not. By design, more than half the stops we made in Indonesia fit into this sans-harbor, -road or -airport category, with Pulau Matasirih in the Laut Kecil Islands being our favorite.

Actually, this community exceeded our expectations by having only footpaths and no pier, not even a dinghy dock or floating pontoon to facilitate coming ashore. (There was a dock on the other side of the island, many hours away by foot.)

Is such a destination a lot of work? It is. But your sweat buys you something unique: Nobody tries to sell you anything on any level; you’re a human, not a dollar sign.

In today’s commercial world a-go-go, to sail into a community without oversaturated video screens loudly blaring commercials touting the freedom of credit cards—that’s priceless.

Of course, not only did Ganesh, our 43-foot ketch, have to have good ground tackle intelligently deployed, so did our 12-foot Caribe dinghy. I not only had to get my wife, Carolyn, ashore, but I also had to leave the dinghy so it would not destroy itself on the sharp rocks in the frothing surf.

To say that our appearance created a sensation is an understatement. Waves of running children followed us down the coast as I attempted to find a safe place to scramble ashore. Later, the town fathers told us that they’d seen a number of sailboats over the years, and about five years ago, a two-master had sailed down their lee. But we were the first yachties ever to come ashore.

Do we think we’re like James Cook or Magellan? Not at all. We merely have found, over the decades, that we prefer cruising places like Indonesia more than standing in line to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disney World. Does that make us weird? I hope not. Life is to be lived, not passively watched.

As we stepped ashore on Matasirih, I carried a bundle of used guitar strings I’d collected from Western musicians; Carolyn carried consumable school supplies we’d purchased in bulk. Soon, we split up. I found the local pickers, and Carolyn was escorted to the school with the ladies. Did the community need any used reading glasses? Why, we just happened to have a few pairs that we’d collected from the lost-and-found boxes at willing stateside restaurants.

The problem wasn’t figuring out a way to be invited into a local home, it was how to avoid having to drink tea and dine in every abode, most of which were totally devoid of anything save a pot, a dish and some fire.

There was only one fellow on the island who (sort of) spoke pidgin English. He was the Jakarta-trained nurse/­medical practitioner/surgeon for the island, and his name was Anwar. In one of those crazy out-island moments, he ran up to a local youngster, pulled up his sarong, and proudly showed off the child’s ­still-healing circumcised penis!

No, we weren’t in Kansas anymore.

His clinic consisted of a few ­cardboard cartons in the living room of his ­mother’s house: bottles of aspirin, boxes of Band-Aids and rolls of gauze, mostly. He also proudly showed us four test kits for malaria.

We asked how he liked his job, and he said that he did, except for the time when a massive mudslide buried a third of the village. That wasn’t a good day. Or maybe it was: Seven villagers were still limping around, thanks to him. We never found out how many died. The poor fellow seemed too sad for us to press him for details.

On Matasirih, basically everyone fishes to stay alive. A few female entrepreneurs place canned goods with a price tag in the dirt outside their door when the crew of fishing vessels from other islands visit. One hardworking fellow ships in a 55-gallon drum of diesel fuel on a barge that he then laboriously rolls up the rocky beach once a month or so.

Our favorite craftsman, smithy and machinist made lovely handcrafted knives from broken wrenches (high-­carbon steel) that he collected from passing vessels.

Yes, I brought my guitar to town and played at the school. “Hit the Road Jack” was their favorite, and it seemed as though the whole village would start singing the chorus the moment we stepped into our dinghy to come ashore.

But we also learned to be cautious when dealing with youngsters, who rarely see Western visitors. A couple of times we spoke to young ladies who immediately froze under their headscarves, bug-eyed, then screamed in panic, and finally went running into the bush as if chased by Satan.

RELATED: On Watch: The Two Cover Girls of Borneo

In this part of the world, rice, eating, hospitality, politeness and friendship are all interwoven to the point where many people you encounter ask, “Have you eaten any rice today?” rather than offer a mere hello. Everywhere we went on the island, we were offered food. Even if the family had only one small cooked fish, the husband or father would imperiously demand an additional two plates as we hove into view.

Obviously, as good visitors, we needed to be aware of this. We didn’t want to bankrupt our hosts. So, in a sense, we began to engage in a sort of reverse bartering: The more they gave us, the more we gave them. Carolyn brought trash bags filled with hot popcorn to the schools and playgrounds. Each time we went ashore, she baked a cake and brought a cake knife along so we could slice as needed, depending on how many hospitality visits we partook in.

We always buy fishhooks wholesale by the kilo while passing through Australia. Each hook is worth its weight in gold on the outer isles of Indonesia.

In many ways, being ashore on Matasirih was like being in a time machine, only we could return to the present at any time, with our proud ketch-rigged yacht and its fluttering Stars and Stripes anchored just offshore.

And speaking of Ganesh, we couldn’t let the hospitality flow in only one direction. These people were welcoming us into their homes, their hearths and their hearts; we couldn’t fail to reciprocate. And, hey, the beach was littered with dugout (and I mean dug out using hot coals) canoes.

So, we had an open house (open vessel?) aboard, during which our guests could peer into our private quarters just as we had theirs.

Did this require a bit of thought and planning? Yes, it did. I made sure no irresistible items like Swiss Army knives, can openers and small tools were left in plain sight to tempt the youngsters. While Carolyn remained in the cockpit to entertain the larger group with food and laughter, I’d take individuals or couples down below for a guided tour. Yes, the men were agog at my tool room, and the women were amazed at the compactness of Carolyn’s tiny galley. Visiting seaman were astounded by the efficiency of our anti-roll flopper stoppers, and now understood why we’d kept our flat-cut, fully battened mizzen hoisted to keep the boat’s nose into the wind.

In essence, we became people rather than strangers to one another. We had millions of things in common and only a few at variance. Yes, their culture is older (their ancestors immigrated 4,500 years ago from Taiwan) and in many ways more refined than mine. But we both want the same thing for our children: peace and prosperity.

I now knew in my heart and soul that they wished me well, and after having visited Ganesh, they then knew I wished them well in exactly the same way. We were friends.

And friendship is no small thing in a world increasingly divided.

Cap’n Fatty Goodlander and his wife, Carolyn, are riding out the current global storm aboard their ketch, Ganesh, in Singapore.

The post On Watch: In Search of Nirvana Bay appeared first on Cruising World.

After years of anchoring inside South Pacific atolls—where tropical islands of sand and coral lie just a few feet above shimmering seas, and our tallest companions were rustling coconut palms—we’ve entered a new region, one of imposing scale and grandeur. It feels like we’ve wandered into the mythical world of King Kong.

These rare geographical giants emerged more than 200 million years ago, forced by shifting tectonic plates from below the ocean to rise hundreds of feet above. They are weathered by centuries of driving monsoonal rains, and dripping with great stalactites of calcium deposits hanging the height of Dream Time‘s mast. These pillars stand sentry throughout Southeast Asia, resting gently on emerald waters while towering into wispy skies.

Thailand is unlike any other region my wife, Catherine, and I have explored since sailing from New York’s Long Island Sound 12 years and 40,000 nautical miles ago. The warm tropical waters lying off Phuket’s eastern shoreline is a rich and seductive cruising territory, offering mariners hundreds of impressive limestone karsts to explore, where behind craggy folds and overhangs concealed by tropical jungle, caves, sinkholes and hidden chambers wait to be discovered.

Light winds and distances between these islands of just a few nautical miles have us sailing under only a genoa and often, to shade us from the equatorial heat, the shelter of our canopies. And by early afternoon, Dream Time rests in anchorages where our only company is the island watching over us, and on one occasion, a family of long-tailed macaques foraging for oysters among the rocks at low tide.

And just before the sun disappears into the Indian Ocean, fruit bats emerge, rising by the thousands in a swirling black mass from caves hidden deep within the island. Warm light plays across ancient rock faces that seem fixated on a point far beyond our horizon, and with Dream Time nodding gently in calm waters, these giants of the Andaman Sea, balancing on foundations eroded by time, seem to stir, rocking and swaying with the tide, and it is both humbling and hypnotic to be anchored so very close, resting quietly in their shadows.

The post Anchored in Thailand appeared first on Cruising World.

Burma Boating conducts sailing charters in the Andaman and Mergui island groups in the Andaman Sea aboard its fleet of restored luxury monohulls and multihulls. Situated between Thailand and India, the Andaman group includes 325 tropical islands covered in lush forest. Itineraries of 10 and 12 days for all-inclusive trips aboard crewed sailboats are available annually. Scheduled charters in the Andamans in 2018 include those aboard Meltemi, a Lagoon 500, which run February 10-20, February 23-March 5, March 10-22 and April 1-13. Visas are required, so advance planning is advised.

Burma also offers an eight-day itinerary fall through spring in the Mergui, an archipelago of 800 islands in the southern Andaman Sea off the western shore of the Malay Peninsula. The platform for the all-inclusive trip is Clan VI, a restored 130-foot ketch built by Perini Navi that can take up to 10 guests and six crew. For details, contact Burma Boating at www.burmaboating.com.

Crewed charters in the Andamans and Mergui aboard modern phinisi, modeled after traditional cargo vessels and built of tropic hardwoods, are also available. Silolona, 164 feet, and Si Datu Bua, 132 feet, cruise Andaman waters as well of those off Indonesia year-round. For details, contact Sanderson Yachting at www.sandersonyachting.com.

The post Sail Southeast Asia appeared first on Cruising World.

There’s a consequence to spending 55 years cruising: Life becomes too perfect. When that happens, you’re forced to reassess and refocus on the big picture. And so it was not long ago that I reluctantly decided our lives were becoming too tranquil. We had enough money. The local weather was perfect. Our ketch-rigged Wauquiez Amphitrite 43, Ganesh, floated right on her lines. Thailand was still the Land of Smiles. We had no problems.

“Are you happy?” I asked my wife, Carolyn.

“Absolutely,” she yawned from the other side of the cockpit.

“Me too,” I said. “Damn it!”

We were in the dreaded Paradise Rut, and I sensed trouble. I knew my job as skipper was as much about keeping it fresh as it was about keeping it going. And bliss, in too large a dosage, can be wearisome. So I decided to radically shake things up. First off, I needed an entirely new cruising venue and style, and then I needed some shipboard confusion tossed in for good measure.

The latter was easy; we just had to invite numerous old and new friends aboard. Camaraderie and confusion would surely result. But find a new approach to cruising, after all these years? Was that even possible? What could mix boats and water in an entirely different way for us?

My lifelong friend Dave, whom we call Lovik the Lazy, is like Travis McGee, the protagonist of John D. MacDonald’s paperback thrillers, sprung to life. He lives quietly in the shadows, where danger is high, money loose and life expectancy short. He has no — nor has ever had — a fixed address (well, except for when he was an occasional guest in the big house). Lovik is beyond all borders, outside the law and far in excess of any common sense. He’s raw male adventure personified, regardless of whether he’s at the helm of the motoryacht Foxy Lady in Minnesota, the racing sloop Rocinante in New Orleans, or the schooner Gracie in Cartagena.

He’s the man I’d like to be — if I wasn’t so married, could hold my liquor and didn’t mind shedding a few grams of morality. He’s also currently in poor health and staring the Grim Reaper in the eye. It was time for our last hurrah.

It is only a day’s sail northward from Ao Chalong Harbor in Phuket to Koh Phanak in Phang Nga Bay. The sou’west monsoon was firmly established, and we started out with a brisk westerly breeze that faded away to nothing in the afternoon as we ghosted amid the spire-shaped rocks.

Our first attempt at gaining entrance to a hong — a pool located in the middle of an island and accessible by cave — was a dismal failure. Lovik the Lazy ­occupied the kayak’s co-pilot seat, wheezing heavily. The problem was that our quest was doomed because the tide wasn’t right. Only at midtide was the water low enough at the chamber entrance to pass under it, but high enough to float on in. We were unaware of how small our window of opportunity was. All we knew was that a deserted private lake was hidden inside the mountain before us, and yet open to the sky. Navigating the cave mouth leading to it wasn’t ­difficult. We had light. But the light gradually faded. Still, we kept going in our tippy boat, until Lovik screamed and something hard and sharp hit me in the face. I tasted blood. We’d paddled right into a gigantic stalactite, and almost tipped over into the inky brine.

“Can’t see a thing,” said Lovik the Lazy, obviously rattled at being entombed in the dark. Then we heard the bats and sensed them flittering and flapping above. Hey, bats don’t bite. Not usually. Unless … There was also the sound of dripping water, as if eternity itself were somehow on trial just ahead in the velvet blackness. Something large splashed into the water just astern. “There are no crocs in Phang Nga Bay,” I told Lovik, to reassure him.

“Probably just a water moccasin,” said Lovik.

“I don’t like snakes,” I said steadily, making sure my voice sounded calm.

“Are you sure you know how to navigate back out?” Lovik asked. “We’re not going to be, like, trapped in here, are we?”

“I think the entrance to the cave is over that way.” I pointed into the black ink as the kayak heeled slightly. “Or, perhaps, more to the left.”

“This is impossible without light,” Lovik said. “I thought the caves were short. It’s noon outside. I thought we’d see the light of the interior hong before we’d lose the light of the entrance.” “Me too,” I sighed.

Poor Lovik the Lazy. He’d flown halfway around the world, and fate, it turned out, would dictate that he never saw the interior of a hong before flying  home.

I’d known him since I repaired his boat’s engine with a beer can and a pair of tin snips in 1970, along the banks of the mighty Mississippi — in other words, a long time ago. But before he left Ganesh at the conclusion of this latest visit, he told Carolyn and me that he’d read one of my stories — it was about ditty bags — with great interest. Then he shyly regifted us the intricate ditty bag Carolyn had hand-made for him 45 years ago.

“I’ve cherished it every day since,” he said with a smile, “but now it’s time to return the bag to active duty on behalf of its rightful owners.”

“Is that a bullet hole?” I asked, sticking a finger through the frayed fabric.

Lovik the Lazy shrugged noncommittally.

Old friends are the best.

A few weeks later I sat bolt upright in my bunk and said, “Google Earth!”

“Go back to sleep,” Carolyn said groggily. “You’re crazy!”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said, and slipped out of our bunk in search of my cellular-connected iPad Air. As I suspected, Google Earth clearly showed where the hongs were via satellite imagery, so I had them all at my fingertips — but not their entrances. I was closer in my quest to see them all, but not yet confident I could find my way into every one.

Later that day I was ashore in Ban Kho En, a tiny village awash in a sea of Thai Buddhists, and asked a fisherman about the hongs.

“You going to deserted, rarely visited hongs first,” he said. “No good. Go James Bond first, then follow tourist cookie crumbs into busy hongs. Easy!” James Bond?

“It’s a tiny vertical island in Phang Nga,” Carolyn told me later. “Some call it a nail. Anyway, The Man with a Golden Gun was filmed there. Remember the dueling scene on the beach with Roger Moore?”

“Not really. I’m more a Sean Connery kind of guy,” I replied.

Still, we did as we were told, and soon discovered numerous large excursion boats filled with white-skinned farangs and multicolored kayaks. These dispersed to nearby isles, launched their kayaks, and loaded them with said tourists, and then everyone disappeared into the side of the mountain, like a magic trick.

We anchored next to an empty excursion boat late that afternoon, and noted the nearly invisible hole in the mountain that its crew and passengers emerged from. Once the head boat was gone, we had the area to ourselves. Carolyn chose the front seat of the kayak. This time we both wore headlamps. Light made it far less scary. Bats covered the cave’s ceiling like fluttering, slumbering fur. This entrance was narrow; often it was difficult to paddle without hitting the cave walls. We fended off frantically with paddles, as the rock was razor-sharp. Crabs scurried. Water bugs slithered. Fish jumped. We paddled deeper and deeper, and then made a 90-degree turn to the left. Both of us nearly jumped out of our skins as a congress of startled monkeys laughed at our clumsiness.

Then, with another turn to port, we emerged from the gloom into bright sunlight overhead, and the strange and wonderful world within the near-­vertical walls of the hong.

“Holy moly,” whispered Carolyn in  awe.

“I’ll be damned,” I said, attempting to gulp it all down at once. “It’s our own personal Jurassic Park!”

Over the next few days we fell head over heels in love with hongs, blown away by their beauty. There’s a strange eeriness that cloaks them, as if raucous mankind rarely intrudes. The air has a strange quality to it: fungal and moist. Since the sides of the mini-canyons are almost vertical, the floors don’t get much sun except at midday. Thus ­lichens and slimy, creepy-crawly things abound. Inside, there’s almost perfect silence, save for the occasional noisy monkeys and birds. Clouds of butterflies swirl.

We barely managed to squeeze into one cave by lying back in our kayak. Once inside, we discovered to our chagrin that we could have come in its eastern entrance with a dozen 43-foot ketches rafted together.

Whatever our expectations were, they were always both shattered and exceeded. I couldn’t get enough. I had to see more, and knew just the person to call.

Paddl’n Sue Chaplin was born to great wealth in Philadelphia, and threw it away at her debutante party when she realized her parents already had her husband picked out. She balked and walked. Then she asked the first man she met who smelled like a billy goat to marry her. He said yes, she said I do, and her parents fainted while redrafting their will.

Susan felt she’d been too coddled and too entitled. Since her new hubby smelled like a mountain goat, Sue decided to become one. She climbed the 13,766-foot north face of Grand Teton in Wyoming with Irene Ortenberger; they were the first pair of females to do so, and they’re still casting bronze plaques to celebrate the accomplishment. (Susan came off the mountain, fell, and ended up dangling from a swinging rope in free space twice ­during the arduous climb, much to the dismay of Irene, her belaying partner.)

Next, Susan fell in love with surfing. Then, as she aged, she slid into being an endurance athlete via Ironman events. Her chosen method of insanity is now offshore paddleboarding, using solely her hands. (“Paddles make it too easy,” she claims.)

I met her when she was paddling, on her stomach, down the Lesser Antilles.

“Do I smell like a goat?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Thanks,” she replied.

It was love at first whiff.

Perhaps I’m not being clear. Susan is a tough ol’ broad. Carolyn calls her the “70-year-old, 120-pound muscle.” Nothing stands in her way — not mountains, caves or hongs. She’s notoriously fearless. “Just make sure you’re always aware of what the tide is doing,” I told her as we headed off from Ganesh, bound for her first hong.

“Why?” she asked.

“There’s a 6- to 9-foot tide here in Thailand,” I explained. “If you paddle into a low cave at dead-low water and linger too long, you can’t get out. You’re trapped, perhaps with limited air or perhaps with no air at all.”

“But you’d have found a new, way-cool spot, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Good enough,” she replied.

Susan is one of those people who live totally on the edge. She firmly believes the idea isn’t to escape injury but rather to live life fully, and has a body full of pins, posts and other stainless-steel parts to prove it. She was completely gobsmacked by the hongs. “They’re like whole new private worlds,” she reverently whispered. “Totally awe-inspiring!”

After our first visit to one, she never allowed an opportunity to see another hong to slip by, regardless of how long the paddle or how dark the cave.

One day we were amid a crowd of idle men in a small Muslim coastal village, and they were watching us intently at the village water pump. Carolyn filled our jugs. I held our inflatable just off the beach. Susan, 70 years young, swung one of the heavy jugs onto a shoulder of her diminutive frame, to the utter astonishment of all.

The men’s mouths were agape.

Susan stopped to chat, just to show them her load was insignificant.

“Keep moving!” I shouted to Susan as I lounged on the dinghy tube while inspecting my nails. “Especially if you’re going to be so lazy as to only carry one jug at a time.”

“Well, aren’t you the gentleman,” Susan huffed, but I could tell she loved being the macho-muscled one on ­Ganesh.

The good news is that I can earn my living anywhere I go. Enough pennies drip out of my pen to buy jasmine rice by the kilo, we catch plenty of rainwater, and the sea is filled with fish. There’s a downside, of course: Wherever I go, I do indeed have to earn my living. I’m never on vacation, especially while in the middle of yet another cruising adventure.

“Goddamn it!” I shouted, while punching the send button on my Mac Air. “Why won’t this book manuscript leave?”

“Outta cellular range,” said Carolyn, adding, “Don’t have a cow, OK?”

“Well,” I said in exasperation, “do something! And, hey, don’t forget to order those self-steering blocks from Budget Marine as well.”

A few weeks later, Shai and his wife, Lorraine, were welcomed aboard. Shai is an Israeli marine electronics technician who owns The Wired Sailor service company in Dutch Sint Maarten, and who also just happens to live aboard an identical Wauquiez Amphitrite 43. This is fortunate, as it saved time on crew training when he and Lorraine joined us for a hong adventure of their  own.

Lorraine sits on the bored (sic!) of Budget Marine, but that’s a whole other story. The important thing is that she dutifully toted down the high-tech Harken blocks I requested for my Monitor windvane. Later that day, I grinned as I heard Shai happily click together his wire crimpers and say, “Perfect. Your coax measurements were spot on.”

He’d designed and built an entire Wi-Fi and cellular system in his workshop back home at the Simpson Bay Yacht Club, and it had taken only 20 minutes to install it aboard Ganesh. It consists of a wide-band Bullet antenna and a 12V Pepwave (Max BR1) router. With these, I could grab distant Wi-Fi signals and occasionally get blistering Internet speeds from 20 miles offshore via a SIM card. “The installation went well,” I agreed. “Technically, we didn’t get hong up once!”

“That’s what I’ll do if a bill collector rings up,” Carolyn chimed in. “I’ll just hong up on him!”

“Our flight was a long one,” said Shai, who knows how to go with the flow. “Now Lorraine and I are ready to get hong over!”

Lorraine is a business and accounting whiz. She has many employees and 160 clients besides Budget Marine. This means she is sharp as a tack, and able to converse on any and all topics, including James Bond movies, which she adores. So we decided to take her to the island set of The Man with the Golden Gun. Before going in search of the hong, she and Shai would be able to re-enact the dueling-on-the-beach scene with our flare guns.

But it was difficult to get close to where we wanted to land on said island — impossible, actually, with 6 feet of draft. So we anchored 2 miles away, with a submerged rock to port and a shoal to starboard. The current was strong between the countless ­vertical-sided rocks, almost 5 knots at full ebb. Navigational dangers were everywhere. None of this overly concerned me, though, as I have good anchor gear and the knowledge to deploy it.

In fact, I wasn’t even concerned when Carolyn (who was bailing the dinghy astern) pointed forward and said, “White squall!”

As the 38-knot gusts hit us and visibility dropped to zero, I stood in the middle of my deck just forward of the mainmast and surveyed my whole world. It looked good despite the zooming currents and serrated dangers that surrounded us.

The white squall receded and the wind dropped back to 20 knots. Visibility returned, and I puffed up my chest just a tiny bit, proud of my boat and its gear. “Fatty!” shouted Carolyn from the dinghy. “The padded backrest from the kayak washed overboard! I can still see it in the current. Can I go?” “Sure,” I said automatically.

Lorraine stood next to me as Carolyn cast off, cranked up our 5-horsepower outboard and roared away.

“Bastard!” said Lorraine, as she pretended to slap my head. “Sending your wife into danger for a cushion!”

“Danger is her middle name,” I said dryly. “Besides, she’s a sailor as much as a wife, and that backrest is worth 20  bucks!”

At that point, everything was perfect. I was master of my universe, my ­vessel and my marriage. Then, in a moment of panic, I saw that the squall line was coming back, and more intense than  ever.

What happened next occurred in freeze frame: Carolyn zoomed for the backrest, waves building, winds gusting. The bow of Carolyn’s dinghy ­pointed up and began to fly away. There was Carolyn with her long hair. And there was the spinning prop and the over-revving airborne engine. It was spinning, spinning, spinning, and then disappeared upside down into the white wall of the squall.

I dived into the cockpit and hit Ganesh’s starter button. The Perkins M92B sprang to life.

“Do not let her out of your sight!” I shouted at Lorraine. She later told me she couldn’t see the kayak 10 feet away, let alone Carolyn 200 yards astern. “Shai,” I said while dashing forward, “I’ll need you to grab a boat hook and make sure my anchor chain doesn’t  pile.”

“Aye-aye,” he replied, already in ­motion.

Because of the strong current and 40-knot gusts, Ganesh reared wildly at the end of the anchor rode. I had to be careful not to get a windlass jam. Every second was precious. Carolyn’s life was in danger. I had zero visibility, and there was no time to find a chart.

Beset by dangers, I risked it all, without even making the decision to do so.

“The anchor’s off the bottom,” I screamed to Shai, as we were pelted by rain that felt heavy as hail. “You finish!”

Back aft, I snatched off the compass cover as I rammed the Perkins into gear. The wind howled too loud for me to hear the engine, but the tach read 2,000 rpm.

The trick was to find Carolyn amid the white murk before we ran aground. Ahead I saw circular ringlets of water emerging, and threw the helm over to starboard. The tip of a razor-sharp rock slithered by to port, and I shivered.

“There!” shouted Lorraine. “I see the upturned prop. It’s white, right?”

“Carolyn?” I asked.

“No,” Lorraine said. “The prop.”

I zigged and zagged, and tried to form a logical search pattern, but with ­visibility at only yards ahead, a strong current, and severe gusts, it was ­impossible.

“There she is!” screamed both Shai and Lorraine at the same instant, pointing off the port bow.

Carolyn had on only her panties and bra, and sat atop the overturned dinghy, calmly scraping the barnacles off its bottom with an oar — never one to sit idle while work was about. I smiled. “That’s my girl!”

“Shai,” I said briskly, “I’ll take her on my leeward side. You concentrate on getting Carolyn aboard, but be careful not to slip on the varnished cap rail. Lorraine, you focus on the dinghy. If I get that painter or dinghy cover wrapped in my prop, we’re doomed.”

I managed to fully stop just to windward of Carolyn, and took Ganesh out of gear so the propeller couldn’t cut her if she came in contact with it. Shai lifted her aboard, but when she grabbed for the lifelines, she missed and started to fall backward, as if pole-axed. Lorraine grabbed her and wrestled her on deck.

Then, instantly, there was giddy camaraderie, the sort that only real danger, survived, can birth. Each of us bear-hugged a dripping Carolyn, then hugged each other, all while jabbering away excitedly, going over each detail of the rescue again and again and again.

We weren’t just friends any longer; we were a crew forged in fire.

Later that evening, Carolyn and I lay on our backs in the warm sands of a dark hong. We stared straight up at the star-studded night sky and said little. Eventually, there was a ghostly glow on the eastern ridge of the hong, and then a fat full moon peered over the edge of the crater and light poured down on us.

We held our breath. Then Carolyn smiled in the darkness and said, “Thanks for rescuing me.”

“Us,” I said. “I rescued us.”

Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn can’t seem to get enough of Asia, and have decided to stay another year. “The beauty of having no plan is you don’t have to change it,” quipped Carolyn.

The post Hung Up on Thailand appeared first on Cruising World.

I love ocean sailing. There is nothing I like better than an empty sea before me and an exotic port 6,000 miles away. Our 53-day passage across the Atlantic, from Cape Town to St. Barts in 2004, was picture-perfect. It almost seemed as if my wife, Carolyn, and I weren’t sailing so much as allowing the earth to rotate under us. And in 2013, when a five-day passage to Ecuador seemed like it would end in the arms of too-greedy shore officials, we merely turned the helm westward for a lovely 48-day jaunt to Tahiti. And why not? The trade winds were free and our calendar was clear.

Eventually that decision brought us to the tiny isle of Lazarus, located, literally, in the shadow of Singapore’s financial district. Isolated it is not. Lazarus is surrounded by 700 or so anchored freighters in one of the busiest ports on the planet, and there were never fewer than 200 targets on my AIS when we were anchored there. A number of ferry companies run hourly trips. On the weekends, the island is awash with fishermen, yachties, jet skiers, swimmers, sand sculptors, windsurfers, shell collectors, kite surfers, scuba divers and day-charter headboats.

In many ways, being on Lazarus is just like being ashore in Singapore. But Lazarus is not Singapore. It is an island. And islands, well, they have their own internal rhythms, their own steel-pan logic. There’s a moat between you and reality. Worrying becomes taboo. Time slows. Yawning is allowed, napping encouraged. And nothing seems like it must be done right now, because tomorrow, surely, will be soon enough.

Every few months for the past year that we spent in Singapore, we packed up all our cares and woes and sailed our 43-foot ketch, Ganesh, 25 miles to this tiny isle, waving at the giant skyscrapers that house our hardworking daughter, Roma Orion, her fast-track husband, Christian, and their two children, 5-year-old Sokù Orion and 2-year-old Tessa Maria, as we tacked by.

The water in the harbor at Lazarus is relatively clear, and Carolyn and I usually took advantage of it and scrubbed our bottom of marine growth (we haven’t hauled out for more than two years) while waiting for the kids to arrive. I checked the zincs, monitored the slop in our cutlass bearing, and polished the eye of our depth transducer.

Is the water clearer in the Bahamas, Chagos, the Red Sea, St. Helena and the Lesser Antilles? Sure, but everything is relative. We were surrounded by palm trees. Seagulls cawed. Fish jumped. It was almost heaven, especially for a sailor. The Eton International School lets out at midafternoon, and during these island visits, Aye Myo, our daughter’s Burmese helper, picked up the kids and took the ferry out to meet us soon thereafter. The kids love the boat. They would pile aboard and were soon asking us to do everything at once: take them rowing, swimming, sailing and beachcombing as soon as possible.

“Can I swing on the halyard, Grandpa?” Sokù would ask.

“Dunking chair, dunking chair!” Tessa would scream with delight, referring to the bosun’s chair suspended on a line at the end of the spinnaker pole. It’s a big hit with all kids under 12 years — and I’ve even had Carolyn dip me for a splash on hot equatorial days. Carolyn is Italian and loves to cook. As long as company is aboard, she’s happily talking and laughing, and an endless array of gourmet goodies flows from her spicy galley. “Mangia, mangia” are her two favorite words.

I don’t drink alcohol anymore, and thus Carolyn was always eager during our stay to share a glass of wine with Roma. It is strange that a party animal such as myself wound up with a wife whose drinking buddy is her own daughter.

Around 5-ish, Roma Orion would arrive from work at a multinational corporation that does something so complicated with Chinese students in America that I have never been able to precisely ­figure out what her job is, other than ­earning obscene amounts of money. But this was Singapore, where you have to “make money or die,” as one ancient crone in the financial district, known locally as the CBD, once croaked to us.

Just before the sun went down, we’d hear an approaching engine and both kids suddenly would erupt with calls of “Daddy, Daddy!”

Christian, usually immaculately dressed in his corporate armor by Brooks Brothers, would arrive with tales of wrestling mega-bucks, slewing business dragons, and bringing home the bacon in large quantities.

On the island, our little family was complete.

“Put up the table, Fatty,” Carolyn would say to me. It was a ritual. Sokù and Tessa got on one side of the cockpit, I on the other. We’d all slowly recite the words together: “Abracadabra, cadabra-­­do, this table’s good for me and for you!” Each part of the table unfolded in a process metered perfectly in the rhythm of the words. Once the table was up and its leaves unfolded, we broke into spontaneous applause at how clever we were. (If we were in a hurry to eat and attempted to skip this step, the kids went nuts with disappointment.) You can’t do such a family ritual over Skype — it comes off hollow. Facebook can’t capture it. Twitter is useless.

We adults made a point of tiring out the kids ashore and in the water. Often they would both fall asleep in the cockpit during our mammoth multicourse shrimp-fish-pasta feasts. Then the stars would come out, and the palm fronds would shuffle in familiar tropical harmony. The fishbats flitted while we adults took out hopes and dreams from our inner pockets, turned them to and fro in the blue-white moonlight, and reviewed our week.

“I finished the lead-up to the climax of my novel,” I said. “I figure another 20,000 words on top of the 80 grand should do it.”

“Mom, can you babysit on Wednesday?” asked Roma. “I want to attend a fundraiser for adoptees.”

“Fatty, how’s the new wireless Furuno radar working out?” asked Christian.

If an iPhone rang, I’d react with mock displeasure. In my best Capt. Bligh voice, I’d intone, “And why, exactly, didn’t I install mobile phone holders in the cockpit table?” “OK, OK,” Roma Orion would reply. “I know: Shut off the phone!”

By 9 o’clock we’d all be tucked into our berths. I’d fluff my pillow and whisper to the darkness, “Sweet dreams.” Then, the most important people in my universe would whisper back, “Sweet dreams!”

In the morning, Carolyn took Sokù kayaking while I fished off the transom with the younger Tessa. She never tired of catching the same squeeze-toy plastic fish, I guess because she got to squeeze it and make it noisily honk every time.

Sometimes the whole fam-dam-ily came with us on the four-hour sail home. Other times, they were too rushed by business and had to opt for the high-speed ferry.

Carolyn and I seldom hoisted the mainsail on these trips; the full genoa and the mizzen, set jib and jigger, gave us plenty of maneuverability as we swooped under the counters of the sleeping freighters and nearly kissed their vertical anchor chains with our topsides. Timing played an important part: S’pore has 9-foot tides and swift tidal currents. If we hit it just right, both the trip along the south coast and the northward duck into the Johor Bahru Channel were in a favorable current. If we hit it wrong, two hours were added to our trip. Navigating the coastal waters of Singapore is relatively easy, but navigating its strict maritime laws is not. There are a number of off-limit areas we had to avoid, or loud speakers connected to security computers would warn us away with increasing shrillness. I don’t understand how the government knows if I tack 5 feet too late while 2 miles offshore, but it does, and is never in a mood to be trifled with!

On these trips, we usually picked up our mooring at the Changi Sailing Club around dusk on Sunday, happy to be back while paradoxically regretting our return.

In a sense, nothing had happened. We were in the same place and were the same people. Yet our souls were somehow washed by the sea miles. We felt rejuvenated. The sailing breeze had blown the cobwebs out of our hair. We were ready to go and eager to kiss life full on the lips again.

Yes, Carolyn and I like the long, empty sea passages, but there is also joy in the short coastal ones. Mother Ocean truly works her magic regardless. Sailing isn’t about miles; it’s about smiles. Besides my family, all I need to know that I’m the luckiest man in the universe is a well-used tiller in my hand.

Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander are wandering westward across the Indian Ocean, sailing far and short distances at a whim.

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