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Lexington - Captain Bob: over half way???



I started this venture January, 2017. I am a little over half way around the world and about 9 months into a 15 month circumnavigation. Actually I started the deciding and planning more than two years before the actual starting date. It is about time for me to try to make some sense out of my madness and reflect some.
First of all I will repeat my odd true feeling. If I had known how much trouble and how expensive this trip was going to be, I would have never done it!!! I am too tight with my money! That being said, I have truly widened my prospective, continued to see areas of the world I had never visited before and I have been perplexed by trying to make sense of how the world interacts. As far as the expense is concerned, I did not want to be fixing my boat in exotic places. For that reason, I took my boat to Annapolis for help. I ended up doing a major refit. I opened my wallet to the boat industry which makes a habit of pealing the onion down to the last dollar. I could have been much smarted. I have learned who and what to avoid. It has been an expensive lesson.
I have observed a lot but I do not know how much I have learned.
I have developed a marked admiration for the other participants in the World Arc. Most of the people could buy and sell me without blinking once. With that being said most of the people would do most anything to help a fellow sailor for a payment of a cold beer and good conversation. There is a vast amount of expertise and experience in the World Arc participants. One boat was unfortunate enough to have a list of misfortunes on one leg but still came in first by continuing to make adjustments. Their list of problems included not being able to run the engine very much at all, breaking the attachment of their boom to the mast, blowing out one asymmetrical spinnaker, loosing their GPS, loosing their autopilot and loosing their chart plotter. In my mind that is a real accomplishment. We lost the function of our autopilot. Within 30 minutes we had three people giving us advice from their experiences and one boat stopping to wait for us so they could toss us a liter of autopilot f
luid that solved our problem.
I have seen an amazing amount of different cultures and ways of life. My father-In-law, Dr. Howard Dorton landed in Port Resolution, Vanuatu almost 80 years ago. He landed there with his military hospital unit during WWII. My impression is that there has been very little change in the local way of life over the time I landed and he landed. We had a very short visit to Sydney, Australia. In the same amount of time, Sydney has advanced by leaps and bounds. What has caused the marked difference in the cultures of the two places? Which of the two different peoples are better off? What is advancement? How can we help other people without imposing our values upon them? Sometimes is takes up to 15 Boy Scouts to help a single old lady across the street.........when she does not want to go.
I think I have developed an appreciation for those societies that do not work as many hours as the average American. I have come to admire people who have traveled extensively. I greatly admire the people I have met that speak more than one language. There are two children on the Arc who are 8 years and 6 years old. These two children speak three languages. When I was their age back home in Kentucky, I was just learning how to cuss.
The last thing I would conclude is that my trip is much too fast. I just get a glance at other cultures. It would be nice to have time to mingle into their way of life. There are many sailing couples that take 3-10 years to sail around the world but they must give up a lot of family time. This is at least a good sampling for someone like me.
May fair winds fill your sails with diversity and an open mind
Bob

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