Tiffany and Greg Around the World
Jindabyne, NSW, AU
So why again did we (literally) take a crash course in boat anchors and bungee and their varied use in alpine ascents?
Well, do you have a snowboard video with a didgeridoo soundtrack? ‘Cause we do!
Continue reading “Snowboards and Didgeridoos”
Travel is all about learning about other cultures right? How other people do things differently from us and how that works out for them.
Like snow…in August.
For example, Australians don’t really believe in chairlifts at their ski resorts and when Americans show up it provides a source of much amusement to them.
So then we worked for a few months at an Australian ski resort.
Disembodied audience voice: Wait, it snows in Australia?
Living for free as volunteer crew on someone else’s yacht sounds all well and good while you’ve got a boat to live on but we are often asked what we do when we’re between yachts.
Our first few months in Australia are a good example. After we left our work with the racing stable there was about a month before we found a job “sailing” in New Zealand and after that about another month before we decided the best way to celebrate the 4th of July was to get trapped in a genuine Australian blizzard. Both of these situations were the same: too short a time to find a temporary position but too long to want to pay for a hotel in a country with a high cost of living. So we had to answer the question –
What does a sailor do for a cheap night’s rest down under?
Yes, you read that right:
And now for a taste of things to come –
Continue reading “Kung Fu Preview”
You want the real secret we used to find ships to travel around the world with? How we were able to find a ride in Tahiti before we even pulled into port? Well, here it is:
Find a fleet. Travel with it. Make friends.
That’s it.
Wait, find a fleet? What the heck does that mean? Are we joining the Spanish Armada here or going for a vacation?
Continue reading “Find a fleet”
Ok so after deciding the cruising thing is for you,
Testing it out and finding you like it
And deciding that you, for starters at least, will grab a ride with a costal cruiser
You’re oh so patiently waiting for us to tell you how to find your first freaking boat!
Ah, but if you’ve done everything we suggested so far you already have started looking!
Yeah, how’s that for a little sailor-Yodaism?
Continue reading “Getting your first crew gig”
Up until now we have been talking about a successive series of experiences to build up your sailing experience before taking “the big leap”. We talked about how to test out sailing, how to build experience in your local area and how to work your way up to costal cruising. Now we want to make it clear that there are a lot of people spend their entire sailing lives doing costal cruising and are quite happy, with good reason. We know sailors who have spent the past 5 years doing nothing more than exploring the Pacific Coast of Mexico and have new experiences each and every day. Using that as a base, how long you reckon it would take to explore the entire cost of North and South America? Ok, now after that you can hit up the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and with a flight or two, South East Asia and Australia. Overall, it’d take a while. There are plenty of adventures to be had and cultures to be explored in costal cruising because, well, there is a lot of coast out there.
But then, there’s a lot of ocean out there as well…and that’s the rub. Yes, there are many places you can explore with costal cruising but there also a couple of good sized seas and, of course, two oceans. Two very big oceans…
and way out there in the deep, that’s the domain of the bluewater cruisers
One of several murals over the urinals in Oktoberfest beer tents.
Who do these people think they are, Kiwis!?
We did our very best to have as authentic an experience as we could at Oktoberfest
Continue reading “Lederhosen!”
