WELCOME to worldwidewaterz

A bit more about us (by Nick)

 

From the time we met, travel and exploring was a major part of our relationship. Fran, originally from Germany, had backpacked around Australia in her early 20’s, then moved to Canada where she met me a over decade ago. I had traveled a great deal on business as well as on vacation. Although we both felt we wanted "travel" to be a significant part of our future, the concept of sailing was always in my head. What I couldn’t get over about Fran was how supportive of the idea she was. Fran had always had a deep connection to the water as many of us do, it didn’t matter how small the room was or how basic, but if she could hear water she would always be delighted with it. As we discussed having a family, this never deterred her from the idea of us all sailing around the world and she constantly thought of the positive impacts it could have on us all and in particular on our offspring. Fast forward to 2019 and our son Ben was born. 18 months later we packed all our belongings and moved to the US since I was offered a new job in Orange County, California, a place Fran always dreamed about living. Before we settled on the West Coast we needed to get the boat from Florida across and organized it to be shipped through the Panama Canal to Mexico where we then sailed her up north to San Pedro where Malilia currently resides.

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We took her out sailing one day and witnessed the start of the Transpac Race to Hawaii in June of 2021 and the idea of participating was born. Fast forward and we have signed up for the race in 2023. As I am writing this we are 4 weeks away from the start. A crew of 11 will be on on the boat including myself and good friend Dave who will join us with his wife Kay to sail around the world. Our objective is to understand what it means to cross an ocean and to be at sea for more than 10 days and obviously to win in our class. My friend Nigel, who owns a well established Marketing company in New York will also be on board capturing our endeavors. 

 

As we embark on this journey to race to Hawaii and eventually to sail around the world and call our boat our home we decided to also explore social media and use this to achieve a few objectives, each quite distinctive in themselves, but all connected by our desire to sail around the world. These are:

 

Where we are and what we are doing:

 

- Charting our adventure as it unfolds

- Participating in the Transpac Race to Hawaii!

 

Sailing the boat and everything on board:

 

- Outline the steps we took as we tried to make this dream a reality

- Provide a resource, where someone with the same idea could turn to & find what they were looking for 

•         Why did we choose the boat we did?

•         What is the process involved in buying a boat?

•         Review equipment on the boat as well as items that we use as we travel

 

Travel and our way around: 

 

- Places to go and what to see, trying to combine David Attenborough with National geographic (I know we won’t be able to compete, but hopefully you get the idea)

- Weather, route planning, events not to miss and things that might influence where you go and when

 

Raise awareness:

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         - Raise awareness to some of the issues affecting our oceans and the planet as a whole

         - Stay tuned for our Sustainability project!

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A boy on a boat: 

 

- Ben, our son just turned 6 months old as we surveyed our boat, living on a boat and sailing around the world will be his education (this includes home schooling and promote social interaction whenever possible with others). Accepting this is not conventional, we think this could be one of the best ways to bring up a responsible, well educated and well rounded young man. We will start the story, but hopefully Ben himself will pick this up later on. 

 

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