Screw you conventional wisdom!
Are you a sailor man or sailor woman? Does the thrill of a stiff wind set your heart soaring? Do you understand the words clew, tack, staysail and jib? Have you unfurled a spinnaker? Well then you’ll appreciate my next ten days.
I’m boarding my best friend, other than Derek Rielly,’s 70 foot sailing yacht tomorrow morning with my child. My best friend will be there with his two children and our other best friend will be there with his two also. No mothers allowed. We’ll be sailing from Newport Beach, California to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with our five children (ranging in age from two to six… averaging out at 4), eighteen hot dogs, three large bags of potato chips, a backpack filled with American Girl Doll accessories and just enough tequila.
Or maybe exactly not enough tequila.
Now, this may not sound like fun but these two best friends and I have been relatively aimless for the past few months. You’ll meet them next year in the book Reports From Hell (Tentative title. Spring 2020 publishing date.) as we spent the better part of two decades playing with radical Islamic fundamentalism in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia etc.
They were fantastic times and we continue to go back, refusing to write the last chapter of this saga, but we also all had kids and what other adventures are possible?
Oh, of course. Sail with them from Newport Beach, California to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in order to prepare for a Panama sail in order to prepare to shoot the Panama Canal and play with Venezuela’s new social order.
Or who really knows? The world will be their oyster on a sailboat. Very ecological as we’ll be using the wind and eating our hot dogs off bamboo plates.
I apologize in advance for my lack of production over the next ten days. I’ll be writing in between cooking hot dogs but who knows what sort of internet connectivity I’ll have.
Until then… so long!
Chris Dixon and Frank: please email [email protected] from the address you'd like your BeachGrit login on.
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
seasickling is caused by resistance to the motion. if you get into enjoying it, u be fine.
https://www.google.be/url?s…
Some years ago–never mind how long precisely –having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. – Moby Dick
Crappy photo shop , the freaking dingy has not got a single indication of movement along it’s chime weak as piss effort
The boat has both a reflection and shadow on the water, if it’s photoshop, it’s pretty good.
Love the photo. Homeboy hurdling instead of diving and his buddy is just gonna holdfast, got it easy. Is that a frame from a video?
I’m just worried about Chas’s safety
if john john is any proof of concept by the time you will come back from sailing this large boat you will have gained the super power of making Brazilians sad
real interesting. is there any more photos taken in the seconds following that little gem. I reckon old mate bailing out is about to get smacked straight back into the boat and lose his thongs. bloke sitting calm at the front will emerge relatively unscathed in the front half of the boat.
It’s a still from a video, but I wouldn’t know what to type in to search it out. I think it can safely be described as a ‘yard sale’.
they both get slayed. truth.
Serious question. What are the US customs protocols for a 70ft pleasure craft? Finetooth top to bottom? A couple of guys with dogs? Anyone have experience with entering the US from the sea?
Or Aus? They were hideous to airflights back in the 80’s when I visited..I imagine arriving by sea would be worse?
Not too bad. You stop in Ensenada on the way down to show some paperwork and then stop into San Diego on the way back. A little more arduous but nothing crazy. They know every boat on the peninsula as the US is flying the whole length constantly. It’s the random boarding by the Mexican Navy that gets interesting.
thanx man…so how do the pangas do it? They always end up out of gas on the channel islands or the northern Santa Barbara coast. Are they too small and fast for the planes? Night running? Seems to have slowed down last few years though, for awhile I was thinkng bales would be washing through the surf down coast!!!
Mex Navy wow, do you have to have some nice iphones handy ready to donate to their cause or are they less bribe oriented now?
I did some stupid stuff when I was a kid in San Diego in 72. Seemed normal at the time. Surfers dumb luck.
Didn’t even stop in SD on way back as we didn’t know we were supposed to and too exhausted to care. Straight to Newp. Zero customs.
Nice. I’ve heard that’s an option, from a “friend” of course.
Panga-style…. Whoop whoop
btw: be sure they’ve all got life jackets, there’s a life raft w/o holes, and yer rescue radio is functional. just because. Dad.
Crewed by four-year-olds, sponsored by Rip Curl!
have fun chester
Sounds like the voyage of the “Good Ship Lolly Pop!” Is their a paid skipper and crew running this 70″ sailing vessel? Or you and two close friends in charge of navigating to Cabo with precious cargo? Not doubting your seaworthiness! Aren’t we approaching hurricane season? Any substantial weather it will be all two of you can do to control the large boat and the third will be keeping the small cargo from mutiny. Red skies at night sailers….
Respect.
Might want to bring along a video of Mick singing shitfaced for when the kids go to bed and the drinks start flowing.
Venezuela . Reminds me always of a British Scholar , who ended up selling Antiques and occasionally food with me ,owing to his Baltic Heritage which kind of disqualified him from the Foreign Office as a diplomat not to mention his Uncle Gunthis phoning up from Moscow during the height of the Cold War . Anyway , he became the British Expert on the late 70s early 80s Venezuelan Economy ( the only one )and while he was there working on his doctoral thesis he was lucky enough to to have obsevered the most beautiful woman he had ever seen from behind with legs to die for, a bottom to launch a thousand ships , slender long arms covered in honey like skin , Black long lustrous hair running down her back and then she turned around and my friend was horrified to see that she had a moustache and stubble on her chin clashing with her gorgeous backless frock .
Yet another challenging wank!
I leave this one to Aznavour and Elvis Costello .
“She may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a Heaven or a Hell
She may be the mirror of my dreams
A smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem
Inside her shell…..”
Go to 3:08 for context.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Can I go ?
Keep em happy , your on the right path there SSD ! My sister is a Child Psychiatrist and recommends highly TV and Chocolate in a crisis . Download as many Paw Patrol Episodes to last the entire trip or Octonauts if his kids want to learn something about what is going on under their feet and don’t forget the Chocolate .
Paw Patrol? Are you kidding me? This voyage has “Moana – on loop” written all over it.
Yep ! Moana is a much better Idea for kids taking on the Pacific . I am not a big fan of the pups but thought they might have been able to save the day (for the dads ) ? Better still ,send the Welshman from Pontypandy by the Sea , Fireman Sam …Great accents in the original non US version and Chas can play Norman Price ?
Jeez Chas , I really thought you had received an A Class Education in the bosom of the American Empire during its glory days ? You didn’t need to go to uni , just stayed at home and watch 60s propaganda TV , and you would have known that any respectable tour on a boat requires ;
A Skipper
A Giligan
A Millionaire and his Wife
A Movie Star
A Professor
And a Mary Anne .
Had no idea but this sounds a bit like the WSL 2019 ?
Happy Sailing .
I”m sure you know where to go…. enjoy the hook.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
The course you’ve set is fraught with perils.
That’s no easy sail by any means, no matter the time of year..