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O Y S TER NEWS


“ The spectacular moun tains of the Sinai desert appear on your beam as you roller coaster over the waves reachin g undreamed of speeds.”


On board Esper are three permanent liveaboards: Jamie (Skipper On Deck), Liz (Skipper Below); and Millie the Cat (Skipper in Charge of Fish).


Aſt er years of preparing for our voyage around the globe we fi nally leſt Turkey in November 2009. Having purchased Esper in Bodrum fi ve years earlier it had been a long, sometimes tortuous, sometimes painful slog to get to this moment. Sell up and sail: four simple words that conceal the huge amount of mental, practical and emotional turmoil involved in striving for your dream.


One of the main questions we had to answer before embarking on our big adventure was in which direction to head. T is sounds like a fairly straightforward conundrum but it took more than four years, hundreds of conversations and much advice (most of which was ignored) before we made up our minds. Right up until the time of departure we continued to waiver. We were overly familiar with the western Mediterranean and the Caribbean; since we were already at the eastern end of the Med it made sense to head in the direction of the more exotic countries to be found beyond the Suez Canal. T e problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia, however, weighed heavily on our minds.


Finally, aſt er endlessly weighing up the pros and cons we went with our gut instincts: it would be an east-about route. It would also start with the Vasco da Gama Rally.


Whichever way we chose, of course, we had to ensure we were as well prepared as possible. T is naturally involved spending all our money, including our meagre savings, on Esper. It’s not until you live


full time on a boat that you really come to understand, not only its advantages but its little foibles. Using most bits of the boat continuously day in and day out soon shows up the areas that need some tlc, especially on a 20-year-old yacht. We agonised long and hard about re-rigging Esper and, as we did not know her maintenance history, decided to err on the side of caution by having all the parts shipped over to Turkey from Oyster. Our water-maker and solar panels give us the freedom to sail wherever we want whenever we want; providing the sun shines we have constant free power and water. T e addition of windvane self-steering has made our lives easier on long passages, we no longer have to watch the batteries drain and dwindle before our eyes when the autopilot is on, neither do we have to rely on hand-steering at all times. T e most recent bit of kit is our AIS transponder, which has


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