I have lots to catch-up on. lots, I tell ya. stories of Venice. stories of England. loads of interviews for the friday cinco. life. grubcrawling™. the-girl-with-the-great-name. and how I managed to lose a boat.

but all I can think about is the big trip. if I believed in writing in capital letters, the big trip would be capitalized. it’s going to be a very, very big trip.

now, yes. any scan through this little site of my hopes-and-dreams and what happens when I plan will tell you it ain’t gonna end up like this – but keep in mind, that was before. I was young. misguided. unaware. without direction. and without boat.

at least now I have a boat.

see, this time next year, I’ll be a few months into the big trip [seriously, feel free to capitalize it in your mind]. and brother, what a trip it will be.

can I at least list the highlights?

thanks.

may-ish, we take off – I say ‘we’ because I’ll be following Mel-and-Nick’s journey. pretty much crashing their party. but hey, when you squat in their homes for the better part of a decade, what’s one more annoyance? they did front me the money for the boat – it’s the least I can do to thank them.

okay, yes – the path. the plan. the Bi… ah, see how excited I am? damn near went against all of my grammatical beliefs there.

the big trip.

[may-ish. but I've said that. I'm on fire.]

- leave the UK for France [Mt. St. Michel - maybe?! have been trying for years]; spend a month or so making our way down the coast to…

- the Bay of Biscay; hopefully stopping in/around San Sebastian, which is one of my favorite cities in the world.

- from there, it’s down around to Portugal, where hopefully someone can tell me what my tattoo means.

- and then across to The Azores. I’d never even heard of these islands before, but the fact that a large number of ‘scholars’ think it to be part of Atlantis is enough for me. and they’re gorgeous.

- then, the second-to-longest stretch, down to The Canaries. have a peek. good stuff.

- Mel and Nick will stay here for a few months, I’m going to grab a flight [not a sail, mind you - have been warned] to Morocco for a month or so.

- …and then. the Atlantic Crossing. 40+ days at sea*. just me and my little red boat.

- ending up in The Caribbean. not sure exactly where, but I’m not fussy when it comes to The Caribbean.

… and that’s it, the big trip. the very big trip. should be about 13-15 months in total. a lot needs to be done by then, saving some pennies [shockingly cheap, when you consider everything - 6 grand for the whole year], fixing up the boat [she's getting prettier by the day. except for the day when I had her tied up against a big stone wall and a storm came and slapped her around. but we're not talking about my negligent parenting right now]. and oh yeah, learning how to properly sail. I’m slowly getting better at that as well… slowly.

so – I leave the U.K. around the middle of September. head home for a few weeks to see the fam and my brand-new nephew. and then back to Oregon, as I miss my closest friends, the O’Sisneys. and they’re going to speak to the entire city about finding me some work. this is also the time when the book will be completed [tired of hearing that? me too. thus - a real deadline. more on that in a bit]. I’ll stay there until late winter/early spring, when I’ll come back here and have a few months to work on Absurdity and then…

well…

away we go.

-

*I could talk ad nauseum about how much a 40-day solo voyage excites me. in all seriousness, there’s not a lot of sailing, per say, going on. the Trade Winds blow you and, funnily enough, the people I’ve spoken to who’ve done the trip say ‘boredom’ is the biggest challenge. that, and having to wake up every 15 minutes to check the horizon. but I’ll be taking no booze, no ciggies, no Facebook [!], no music, no one. on a very tiny boat. they psychology of this entire thing fascinates me. of course, I say this, but have never been alone for so long, not to mention with no vices. might get out there and find some stuff out I don’t want to. which would be funny… in time. but I want to do stuff – fish. read. shoot off messages in bottles with my information and then promise to visit whoever finds it. and find the humor in making twosies in a bucket. etc.

[I'm also going to try and find a sponsor who'll foot the bill for a satellite phone so I can send little Twitter updates along the way - I think that'd be a good read.]

so, you know. stuff like this.

adventure is out there!

or… so I hear.