I’ve been travelling around the world since July 2008 and I’ve visited twenty-two countries along the way and cycled over 25,000 kilometers.  I was in Mexico when I was contacted by an old friend who asked me if I wanted to sail with him from Vancouver, Canada, back to Ireland. 


Before I had time to think about it, my fingers typed yes.  And here I am in Vancouver on the above boat in the middle of a big storm about to embark on an amazing adventure that will take me down the West Coast of America, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and through the Panama Canal then onto the Lee Ward Islands in the Caribbean and then across the Atlantic Ocean to the Azores and then Ireland.  Maybe I should change the name of my website to Acoustic Sailing Boat, as I’ll be spending the next couple of months on water instead of land.


Did I mention that I get seasick as soon as I look at a boat?

Acoustic Motorbike.

I’ve know Alan since we were young kids,  we were born in the same month of the same year and went to the same primary school.  Having said all that we hadn’t actually seen each other for nearly ten years and only got in touch again when he read an article about my trip in one of the Irish newspapers.


The boat is Saskie and she is a 35’ Chris Craft (doesn’t mean much to me either...) and she is three years younger than us, so we’re all in or around the same age bracket.


I flew to Vancouver from Mexico on 18th February and Alan arrived at the airport a couple of hours later.  This being British Columbia, Canada, it was impossible to buy a drink at the airport, so I had a boring couple of hours hanging around. 

We’ve spent the time since then buying various bit’s and pieces for the boat and getting her ready for our voyage.  We have at least one other crew member, who is flying in tonight from Ireland and he seems to be bringing the Irish weather with him.  It’s been lovely, clear and calm, albeit cold, since we got here, but there are winds of 176 kilometers and hour on Vancouver Island at the moment and rain is lashing against the boat.  Hopefully it will have cleared by the time we set sail.


I’ve no idea how often I’ll be able to update the website as I go along, but we should be making a few stops on the way down to Panama and the Caribbean although it’ll be pretty difficult to get a wi-fi signal from the middle of the Atlantic!


Well it’s funny what life throws at you.  Alan had to end his trip in San Francisco and return to Ireland.  I had psyched myself up to get back there in the late summer, so I thought it was too early to return and I did what any sane person would do and got a plane to Beijing, China.  I had hoped to cycle across China and into Tibet and then onto Nepal, but all the indications I got were that it was not possible to do that without hiring a guide and driver, which is not only expensive but it would be no fun to have them two ride behind me for the duration.


I sent my bicycle back to Dublin and now I’ve joined the lowest form of travellers and swapped my panniers for a backpack.  Oh, to be reduced to this...


Aidan

7th June 2011