Monday, August 22, 2011

Tuesday, August 9, 2011


Sean gathered some footage from the month-long sail home, and put it together in a movie trailer. Fun stuff, enjoy!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Goodbye, for now!

The fellas made it home around 5:30 AM this morning. Their stats on the trip to Channel Islands, CA from Hanalei Bay, Kaua'i:

Nautical miles covered: 3,957

Total transit time: 33 days, 19 hours and 30 minutes

Dry pieces of clothing, pillows, blankets and bedding left aboard: 0

Items containing mold and/or moldy smell: Every damn one of them

So, this is the end of this chapter. We hope one day to continue this blog during another grand adventure as we sail off into nothingness towards another far off island.

Thanks to everybody who took an interest in our journey. Your support and well-wishing means the world.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Thoughts near the end...

The guys are now 140 nautical miles away. They'll either show up late tonight, or very early in the morning. I'm glad that their last 500 miles or so have had excellent wind, and Shenanigans is scooting right along.

Lately, I've been finding myself daydreaming pretty often about being out in the middle of nowhere, sailing peacefully along, just Jonny and I. I tell you, cruising is an addiction. It gets in your head and will always be there. I regret not taking the long trip home with the guys. At the time, I wanted to wash my hands of the situation forever. Yet, these past thirty-something days, I've had time to think about what happened.

I shouldn't let a couple bad experiences ruin an amazing way to see the world. Sure, sailing long distance can be gut-wrenchingly scary at times, or dreadfully monotonous at others. But, just like that old saying, "nothing easily obtained is worth fighting for," it is that journey that makes the payoff so great. When you walk on land for the first time in weeks, realizing that it was you, your partner(s), and vessel alone that got you there...that is a feeling beyond words. Additionally, I cannot even begin to describe the comraderie and goodwill of all the people we were so lucky to meet on our trip. That in itself is worth the seemingly endless days at sea.

I still want to see Mexico and the South Pacific by boat. Of course, that is easy for me to say...I'm not the one who just spent 34 days on the ocean, longing for home and trying to stay positive. We will have to see what the future holds for Shenanigans, Jon and I. For now, I think we will return to our role as "productive" members of society. I know Jon will suffer from my affliction as well: memories of an albatross eyeing us as it lazily glides by on the same puff of air that we ride, the sunshine illuminating monstrous towering cumulus, thousands of miles of open ocean surrounding us, warm rain, freedom.

I'm off to daydream a bit more.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Sail Mail I got from Jonathan Today

Yea I really have to fight hard to figure out what day of the week it is. Not that it matters to much. I still enjoying the sailing aspect of the trip I wouldn't mind to keep sailing around the world. Some days we have great wind and get to sail under the stars/moon light. That's got to be my favorite part. We are all working hard at keeping our hopes up, we all realize there is no good in being upset or down about it. We are on a mission to get home and we are going to complete it!  

Right now I am looking at Thursday/Friday arrival. It might even push back to Sat. We have light winds lately so we have been motoring a lot to keep moving but we are running low on fuel so we are going to just have to wait on the wind. But the good news, the forecast is looking like we will get more wind!

When we get about 24 hours out I will send you another Email letting you know. Then when we are about 3 hours out we should get cell service and I will call you and let you know a better ETA.

Monday, July 18, 2011

July 18th

Good morning follower's! it is 11:19 on July 18th 2011 and we're actually sailing towards home!!!! hopefully we'll be able to hold this till home but its been a good trip. we're all getting along still.... that's a miracle! but we've been doing good. we had movie night last night and took a break from watching "Castle" and watched "Rango" which i watched on the plane but its a good movie. i would like to thank our multimedia director Sean (Baby Doll) Gage for the hours of entertainment and for getting John and I hooked on "Castle" (and if anyone wants to buy me season 3 of Castle so when i get back i can find out what happens since we finished season 2 that'd be great). Now on a more serious note we have very hard news to talk about, its a tragedy and we're all trying our best to cope with this loss but it truly saddens me to inform everyone, in the wake of our delicious breakfast this morning it pains me to say that we've officially run out of Hash Brown's :( we are all doing our best to deal with this loss but i guess its oatmeal and cereal and occasionally biscuits and gravy or pancakes. other then that its going well, we have 880 miles left so its exciting. well its time to nap before my shift so till next blog have a great day! R.I.P Hash Browns 6/25/2011-7/18/2011

-Matt
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