HermanusTimes

This time last year I found myself trying to keep upright in a laser dinghy sailing around Zeekoeivlei in Cape Town. I had a long-term dream and vision: To one day circumnavigate the world in a cruising yacht, with my partner, Ian. We'd sailed together before from Brazil, through the Caribbean to the USA, but I felt I wanted to learn more hands-on sailing.

What better way to do it than to sign up for dinghy lessons, I thought.

I?ve just returned to South Africa and decided to move to Hermanus for a while to write a book, and from reading the Hermanus Times, I learnt that the Hermanus Yacht Club is due to host the World Championships here later this month. What brilliant news.

As luck would have it, my dream came true much sooner than I imagined. Well, a big part of it: I received a call out of the blue in March this year from my relative, Rory, to sail a catamaran across the Pacific Ocean.

I jumped at the chance and a month later Ian and I were booked on flights to Panama City where we?d take the SA built catamaran Sans Souci through the canal and out into the Pacific. Her owner - who was onboard at the time - left the boat and Ian took over as skipper. Rory was the third member onboard.

First stop was the Galapagos Islands. I made my first catch of a 9 kg Spanish mackerel outside Panama. We feasted with glee!

We rescued another yacht in the big blue on the way there as they had wrapped a line around their prop and they had no use of the engine. Our first set of friends were made this way out in the middle of nowhere.

We sailed across the Equator, paid tribute to King Neptune and headed into the Galapagos archipelago. After spending ten days there we set off in a southwesterly direction for the Marquesas Islands, part of French Polynesia.

It took us 24 days and 3 075 nautical miles to reach land there. During that time we saw only one other sailing vessel.

Dolphins, whales and birds were our only visitors for the entire trip. It was a spectacular sail, with the downwind trades and our beautiful blue gennaker (asymmetrical spinnaker for a catamaran) billowed in the wind for most of the passage.

We still had a long way to go to cross the Pacific. It's the remotest and vastest of the world's oceans. The remaining five months took us sailing across French Polynesia, the Cook Islands (where Survivor was filmed on Aitutaki), Niue (the world's smallest independent nation), the Kingdom of Tonga, Fiji and Vanuatu.

Although we didn't circumnavigate this time round, it has kept my dream alive and reminded me that anything is possible in life. · The author is a Life and Business coach and is currently writing her first book of the entire six months across the Pacific. For correspondence with the author please email anita.craig@kings-ley.co.za.