Sailing Dreams

20 years ago, I started dreaming about sailing the Inside Passage along the west coast of Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. I wanted to do an extended sailing adventure with my father and experience life aboard a sailboat for 3 to 5 months...all while seeing one of the wildest and most remote parts of North America. The plans were loose, and I revisited them over time; however, in 2022 with my father turning 70 and my life seemingly ready for change, I got serious and embarked on the prep, planning, and visioning around this trip. When I started, none of us had a boat that would be appropriate for such a trip, and I wasn't even sure we had the right skills to complete such a trip. My father was a lifetime sailboat racer and my partner and I had spent time in the Navy and casually sailing. I felt like I had good planning, navigation, and logistics capabilities and, well, lets say rudimentary sailing skills - I grew up sailing and had a sailboat that I'd take out on and off. My dad was an expert sailor and sailboat tinkerer. My partner had similar military experience and some mechanic skills. Together, I thought we just might be able to pull the trip off. With a lot of planning, equipment procurement - including a better boat (!), and time, we finally set off in mid-April 2023. I documented the trip on a dedicated Instagram - so, you can see that we "made" it, but there is so much more nuance to the story. I'll endeavor to embark on the storytelling here...

Original "charts" (ahem maps) I used to plan potential routes and stops. A lot changed in 20 years. Some of the flags are 10+ years old on this map...I couldn't even remember when I did all this work!