Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Søren sails again

I've written here before about the Søren Larsen and the trip we did with her last October. From a casual perusal of the ship's schedule I notice that she's due to set sail from Auckland next Monday on the first stage of the 2004 grand voyage around the Pacific, starting with a 34-day ocean sailing passage to Easter Island followed by a mammoth 49-day run to Tahiti via Pitcairn and the Marquesas. In the rainy, crowded gloom of London it's almost irresistably tempting to take a 40-day sickie, burn my credit card and turn up at the Søren office in Auckland begging them to let me join.

What seems hardest for me to believe is that the crew this year is almost entirely different - of course, most people don't generally stay for more than a year or two and all ships' crews turn over pretty quickly, but in my mind the memories I have of my brief time on Søren are tied up inextricably with the characters and personalities of the crew and voyage crew who I met on board and it's hard to believe that she'll be sailing with a different bunch of people. Good luck to the new crew, and good luck too to last year's crew, whatever they may have all gone on to do...

I guess that the point of this entry is to say that if you find yourself getting the chance to sail on a squarerigger, then take it. Go on, you know you want to. Posted by mpk at February 17, 2004 9:23 PM | TrackBack