B
achué Explores
the
South ” ! o G l l ’ u o Y es c a l P e h t , h “O Accompanying quotes used in the title and as section headings are from Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss, published by Random House in 1990. by Renée Athey
M
Y HUSBAND AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED HOW WE PLAN FOR LONG SAILING VOYAGES. It is a difficult question to answer. Tito (FLA) and I definitely do NOT have the same style of going about anything, let alone planning a trip on a sailboat from Florida to the South Pacific and beyond. But somehow, our sojourns all come together.
I can say that our voyage of this year, in 2019, was a long time in formulation—perhaps even decades. From all reports (of a time before I knew him), aside from a wacky captain, Tito’s first passage across the Pacific Ocean as a 20-something crew was the adventure he’d always dreamed about. The weather was warm, the wind was predictable, the sails were set and hardly adjusted for weeks at a time, and French Polynesia was idyllic: full of music and pretty girls. For a long time, he’d wanted to do the trip again, but in his own boat this time. He finally found the perfect boat for the task, and the plan was put into motion while the two of us are still healthy and energetic! A few years ago, we took this same boat, a dark-blue, 54-foot Hanse named Bachué, to Panama, and extensively explored both the Atlantic and Pacific sides, as we used to do when we were younger. The boat proved to be strong, dry, comfortable, and reasonably quick. We decided that 2019 was the year we could sail Bachué to Panama again and then keep going on the path that so many sailors take, to the South Pacific. 10
voyages
