Latitude 38 Interview - Mike Harker: Part 5

March 2008

Part 5 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

38: There must have been some things that you didn’t like or that broke on the boat.

Harker: There were three little things. First, Hunter needs a better drain system for the shower. For an expensive boat, you shouldn’t have to get down on your hands and knees after every shower to make sure the pan drains completely. Second, they put two big drawers under the port settee that rob you of about 20 cubic feet of storage space, fall out when the boat heels and, to my mind, are a waste of wood and woodworking skills. Finally, in the forward head they have these cutesy little spotlights over the mirror for women to use when applying makeup. But they’re just below a hatch that you leave open from time to time, allowing a few drops of saltwater in. Anyway, the light fixtures aren’t stainless, and mine have already rusted through and broken apart.

38: That’s it after sailing around the world?

Harker: Yes. And for all I know, Hunter has already corrected these problems in the newer boats. But I have to admit, the shower drain thing really drove me nuts.

38: What about the construction of the hull and interior.

Harker: Structurally, I found the boat to be excellent. In rough weather you don’t hear any creaks or moans, she’s solid. Not a squeak. I was amazed. It wasn’t even a problem in Las Perlas, when a 20-ft drop in the tides grounded my boat for four hours.

38: Didn’t you carry a spare rudder?

Harker: (Laughter.) Yes, after the one broke on my last boat, I wasn’t going to be unprepared again. The new rudders are flexible, but bulletproof. Although pretty much identical to the rudder that broke on my last boat, the new ones are so much more robust that it takes two people to carry one. They now have a stainless shaft and internal stainless cage plus a layer of Kevlar. And now that I carry a spare, I’m confident I’ll never need a replacement rudder again. (Laughter.)

38: Are you careful about locking up your boat everywhere you go, and have you had any stuff stolen over the years?

Harker: I’ve never locked my boat, and in all this time I’ve only had one thing stolen - and that was just the other day in Antigua. While I was at Nelson’s Dockyard to get fuel, somebody stole the gas tank from my dinghy! Oh wait, there was another thing I had stolen right after doing a Baja Bash in ‘01. I finally had my boat back in Marina del Rey, and somebody clipped the cable to my collapsible bike and rode off.

38: Did you get another bike?

Harker: I sure did. For this trip I bought a West Marine Port Runner and, thanks to a coupon, got $100 off. I love that little bike. I bought the protective bag and have ridden it all over South Africa, Australia and Antigua.

38: Were there any issues about being alone?

Harker: Not really. I would listen in on the weather nets, although I would rarely talk on them. For example, when I was in the Galapagos, about 22 boats left the day before me and talked on the Southern Cross Net. I don’t talk much, just listen, but I must have sailed a lot faster, because I got to the Marquesas well before they did. I also stayed in touch with people via SailMail.

38: What about a sat phone?

Harker: I have an Iridium sat phone and bought 500 minutes for $500. In some places, such as South Africa, Australia, and Antigua, the $1/minute Iridium was the least expensive way to call home to the States. They kill you with roaming charges on cell phones. My Iridium always worked and, in fact, played a critical role in my most crucial repairs. For example, I talked for over 60 minutes to Balmar to get my backup alternator to work. The problem is that the back-up had a built-in regulator while the Yanmar has its own. The two regulators had to be sorted out, and we were eventually able to do that over the phone.

38: When is the circumnavigation finished?

Harker: I finished mine in Antigua about a week ago but, depending, on how I make my way back to Miami, the boat will finish her circumnavigation at either Matthew Town, Inagua, or Nassau in the Bahamas.

38: It’s a long sail around the world. Did you enjoy all of it?

Harker: There were a few times I did not. I got extremely frustrated in the Galapagos. The three times that I was totally becalmed and getting my brains rolled out by the swell were torture. And just outside of Antigua, about to finish my personal circumnavigation, I got hit with 40 knots of wind and a tremendous lightning storm. That was pretty scary.

38: But what about day to day?

Harker: Day to day, I really enjoyed it. When I woke up, I’d go, “Ah, here I am again. It sure beats being at home watching the Travel Channel.” I looked forward to each day as an opportunity to see and enjoy something new. And if I had a down day. I’d remember the six years that I was in a bed, unable to move. But I didn’t have to kick myself like that very often.

38: So after this fast circumnavigation can we assume you’ll have had your fill of sailing for awhile?

Harker: Not at all. After my boat is displayed by Hunter at the Miami Boat Show in February, the month of March is just for me. And I’ll be spending it cruising in the Bahamas. In April, my boat will be hauled to get checked over and I’ll be speaking at Strictly Sail Pacific in Oakland CA. From June to October, I’ll be doing presentations at yacht clubs or Hunter dealerships every two weeks all the way up the East Coast. My last one will be the Annapolis Boat Show in October. This November I’ll enter the Caribbean 1500 Rally from Virginia to Tortola in the British Virgins, and spend the winter in the Caribbean. That should be wonderful. In fact, I won’t have anything scheduled until Antigua Sailing Week at the end of April, and I can’t wait to get back to St. Barth.

38: That’s quite a schedule for a 60-year-old after a fast and mostly singlehanded circumnavigation. What then - lots of rest?

Harker: Oh no. After Antigua Sailing Week a year from April. I’ll head to the Azores and across the Atlantic. My main destination is Thailand but along the way, I very much want to visit Croatia and spend some time in Turkey and the Black Sea. But after going down the Red Sea and across the Indian Ocean to Thailand, I’ll continue on to Japan, where I’m sort of famous because I flew a hang-glider off Mt. Fuji many years ago. In Japan, they revere people even if they accomplished things many years before. Then I’ll sail across the North Pacific to California, and hang out in San Diego until the start of the Ha-Ha. That will be three years from now.

38: Do you think most people could do what you did?

Harker: Oh sure. You have many couples who are retiring in their 50s, and who have put the kids through college. They can not only sail around the world, but they can do it cheaply. Of course, they may not want to do it as fast as I did.

38: How much sailing experience do you think they need?

Harker: I didn’t know how to sail at all when I started with my boat in the Ha-Ha, but I’ve sailed 60,000 ocean miles now, almost all of them singlehanded, and I learned by doing. You are going to make some mistakes, just learn from them and try not to make those same mistakes again. I think anybody who knows the basics of sailing, is in good health, and has common sense could do the same thing I did. And by the way, legally I’m a paraplegic, so no excuses. Prepare well, watch the weather and go out and ‘Just Do It’!


TheSailingChannel thanks Latitude 38 Magazine for allowing us to republish this article and share it with our readers.

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Latitude 38 Interview - Mike Harker: Part 3

March 2008

Part 3 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

38: Was any stop particularly expensive?

Harker: Tahiti would have been, but I bypassed it because I’d been there before and knew it would be expensive. But, no, I don’t consider any of the places I stopped to have been expensive.

"The circumanavigation cost
me almost nothing because
I’m a cheapo!"

38: Speaking of money, how much did this circumnavigation cost you?

Harker: Almost nothing because I’m a cheapo! (Laughter.) Plus, if you’re out at sea, where are you going to spend money? And I’m not a big spender in ports. If I’ve been out at sea for awhile, the first thing I’ll do in port is order a big salad, because you can’t keep the makings for salads fresh for very long on the ocean. So I’ll get a salad at a restaurant for my first couple of meals ashore, and then maybe a breakfast omelet. But after that, I’ll eat all my meals aboard my boat. If I’m in port for a while and want to socialize, I may go to a restaurant, but I’ll order just a cappuccino or something like that rather than a full meal. And I don’t drink alcohol which saves a lot. Right: Kayo Hollandaise in the San Blas Islands on the way to Panama

38: What do you eat when you’re at sea?

Harker: Everything I eat comes from Costco because, like I said, I’m a cheapo. (Laughter.) But Costco - which has a store in Panama, by the way - actually has the best canned chicken breast and you get eight cans of them for just $7. I’m also big on Kirkland and Star-Kist brands of tuna. I make lots of pasta dishes at sea. For example, I’ll do a chicken or tuna with noodles, or maybe a spaghetti carbonara, but I’ll always add a second portion of unflavored noodles. I do this to ‘stretch’ whatever I’m making from just a lunch or dinner to a lunch or dinner plus leftovers for a next meal. I probably eat chicken or tuna with noodles four times a week. And every morning I have Quaker Old-Fashioned Oats - from Costco, of course. But I mix in some dry muesli, plus dried cranberries or blueberries. When you add hot water, the berries, which come in three-pound bags from Costco, open right up and taste great. I also throw in a few almonds and walnuts I’ve bought in bulk containers, at you-know-where. (Laughter.) Diet is very important for good health. Even though I’m legally a paraplegic as a result of my hang gliding accident, before I started this trip, my doctor told me that I had the constitution of a 40-year-old, 20 years younger than my chronological age. My blood pressure is perfect, and my cholesterol is 150. Those are the kinds of numbers I had when I was on the rowing team in college.

38: How do you exercise on board?

Harker: Exercise, of course, is just as much a key component to good health as is diet. So besides all the exercise I get singlehanding the boat, I have a Mini-Stepper onboard that I use regularly while at sea, hanging onto the dodger for balance. In addition, I do push-ups and arched back pull-ups on the dodger. Push-ups and pull-ups are opposing exercises that are very good for you. My exercise goal is not to be muscular, but to be fit. It’s important for me to keep working the joints in my arms, legs, shoulders - everywhere. So I usually do about half an hour of exercise each morning, then shower up. Many times I’ll get my exercise in while boiling the water and otherwise preparing my oatmeal. Through diet and exercise, my goal has been to maintain the health of a person 20 years younger.

38: We’re surprised to see how luxurious your Hunter 49 is; Granite-like countertops, nice woodwork everywhere, shades for all the hatches and ports, and even mosquito screens for all the hatches. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Harker: Hunter offers different versions of the 49. The normal Sail-Away package comes in at under $300,000, and includes sails, instruments, and a long list of standard luxury items - plus a five-year warranty extension. Then there’s the Mariner-Package, which includes $33,000 worth of gear for just $21,000. That gear includes a Bose surround sound system, a 15-inch flat screen for the double berth forward, and a 26-inch flat screen in the salon - although I bought a 32-inch flat screen with built-in DVD to replace the 15-incher in the bow, and a 40-incher for the salon. I have to admit that I love movies. In fact, I have 2,000 movies aboard - none of them pirated. I can have the same movie playing at three places on my boat at the same time - the third being on my chartplotter in the cockpit. I can’t get sound on the chartplotter, though.

38: (Laughter.) You must be the only cruiser who doesn’t have a pirated movie.

Harker: My Hunter 49 has added extras from the options list. It has the deep keel, a 5 ft. taller mast and includes a bow thruster, an HRO watermaker, F-P genset, 3 solar panels and lots of other stuff too, and it goes for just under $400,000.

38: How are they selling?

Harker: Hunter tells me that they sold almost 80 of them in one year.

38: Your boat is loaded with extras. Any favorites?

Harker: My favorite thing on the boat, my buddy, is my Lewmar Mamba autopilot. This is a beefed-up version of the Raymarine autopilot motor, and mine was the first on any boat. I haven’t had a hiccup or squawk, and I do 90% of my sailing on autopilot. You might remember that I burned up three autopilot motors on my 466. Actually, the whole steering system is a Lewmar Mamba, which consists of gear boxes and rods. It works really well, and is all but maintenance free.

38: We actually have the same Mambo system on our catamaran and have been very pleased, too.

Harker: The heavy-duty autopilot motor and stronger U-joints in the steering system now come standard.

38: What other gear do you have aboard?

Harker: I added things for two reasons, 1) for safety or better sailing and 2) for comfort. The safety items include the Viking RescYou 8 SOLAS Liferaft, ICOM SSB &VHF radios with DSC and Pactor digital modem, a drogue and extra emergency gear, a Flex-O-Fold 3 blade prop and Interphase Forward-Looking Sonar. This really helps when entering shallows or reef areas. Absolutely essential are the RayMarine instruments and chart plotter with the Navionics world charts on CF memory cards for the E120. I also have Nobeltec World Charts on a DVD for the laptop and I carry two extra handheld GPSs, one reading the Navionics charts for a backup. Both electronic charts were right on.

The most modern safety feature I have on board is RayMarine’s AIS (Automatic Identification System) that receives signals from all ships larger than 200 tons. I had 24 ships on screen when traversing the Torres Straits and never got close enough to a ship to set off the alarm. AIS is a true life-saver on the open ocean. For comfort I added a custom Dodger/Bimini/Dingy Davit Cage that the Hunter stainless shop built for me, a Walker Bay RIB ‘Genesis’ dingy with a 20 hp and a blow-up dingy with a 4 hp, a Cobra kayak & a blow-up kayak and even the “Sea-Breathe” HUKA for underwater exploring.

38: Be straight with us, Mike, are you still claiming that you don’t really know how to sail?

Harker: Well, all I know about sail trim is what I learned from my hang gliding days. And all I know about navigation is that I point the arrow on my GPS to my destination and push GO/TO. Then I adjust sails and sit back and have the boat take me where I want to go. I’m sorry, but that’s how I sailed around the world. I’m not proud of it, but that’s how I did it.

38: We think there’s a little more to it than that, for example, you flew a gennaker, didn’t you?

Harker: I flew the gennaker from my old 466, but it blew out in strong winds near Vanuatu. But I also flew my new Parasailor2, which is a rather unique spinnaker from Germany that has a full-width opening about two-thirds of the way up, and an ‘air batten’ wing that helps keep it from collapsing. It’s a beautiful concept. It means you don’t have to sail as precise a course or, thanks to the inflatable wing, worry about the chute collapsing as much. Plus the elastic bands on a vented flap spill the wind when it starts blowing hard, so you have more or less the same pressure on the sail in 30 knots as you do in 12 knots. While crossing the Indian Ocean, I had my Parasailor2 up for more than a week without taking it down, and I flew it in the South Atlantic all the way across the Equator to the doldrums. It costs about 25% more than standard spinnakers, but I love mine and think it’s worth it. Oddly enough, you never see them in the States, but more than 40 boats carried them in the last Atlantic Rally for Cruisers.

38: What was typical weather for your trip?

Harker: Most of the time the wind was under 18 knots, and about 50% of that time it was 12 to 15 knots. It rarely blew under 12 knots, but when it did, it seemed to be very light for days on end. That happened three times, and was the least fun of all, as the boat rolled like crazy. Three days south of Indonesia in the Timor Sea was the worst of all. The water was like glass - in fact, it would have been perfect for the barefoot waterskiing that I did in my younger days.

38: How many hours did you put on the engine?

Harker: I’ve got 1,200 hours on the main engine, but some of those are only because my Fisher-Panda genset got water into it and stopped running. That meant I had to charge my batteries using the alternator on the engine until I fixed the gen.

WATCH FOR PART IV OF V

TheSailingChannel.TV True Wind Father's Day Special

Latitude 38 Interview: Part 1

March 2008
Part 1 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

Mike Harker
As a result of a horrible hang-gliding accident off Grenada decades ago that left him under water and unconscious, Mike Harker spent six years in a bed, all but unable to move, and being assured by doctors that he’d never walk again. Although he’s paralyzed from the top of his “butt bone” down - except for the insides of his thighs - he’s managed, through relentless effort, to resume a normal life. And, to make remarkable passages with his boats.Harker started sailing at 52 by entering the ‘00 Baja Ha-Ha, learning as he went along. The following year he singlehanded across the Atlantic, then sailed back across to Panama and the South Pacific. After returning to California, he had planned a circumnavigation that was, for reasons he’ll explain, delayed for more than a year. His goal, now that he’s 60, is to complete a 26,000-mile trip around the world in 11 months, sailing half the time and enjoying stops in ports the other half.

This interview was conducted in St. Barth when he had 1,000 miles left to go. By the time it was over; and. before this was published, he’d actually covered 27,800 miles in 10 months, three weeks - the greater distance a result of doing an unplanned additional 2,000 miles on the east coast of Australia just for the fun of it.

Harker’s worst scare of the trip? When he mistook some wicked hot sauce for ketchup at Cheeseburgers in Paradise in St. Barth. He was choking so badly and. in such genuine pain that we were seconds from summoning professional medical help before he began to recover. While making his circumnavigation, Harker’s home at Lake Arrowhead burned to the ground. He’ll not rebuild. When he’s through sailing - which isn’t going to be anytime soon, as you’ll soon learn - he’ll move into one of the units in his triplex on the water in Manhattan Beach.

Harker: Let me start off by saying that you’re the first person who speaks ‘American’ that I’ve talked to in over 10 months.

38: Cool. Well, tell us, how did this very rapid and mostly singlehanded circumnavigation come about?

Harker: As some readers might remember, I started sailing by doing the '00 Ha-Ha with a used Hunter 34 WanderLust. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about sailing. After doing a singlehanded Baja Bash back to Southern California, I bought a new Hunter 466 in Miami. Although I intended to have crew, I ended up singlehanding Wanderlust II across the Atlantic. I then cruised the Med for 8 months, and that winter came back across the Atlantic and ultimately to French Polynesia via the Galapagos. Then, while on the way to Hawaii, the rudder broke. After getting a replacement rudder from Hunter, my plan was to sail back to San Francisco, do the Ha-Ha again, do the Puddle Jump to the South Pacific, then continue on to Australia and around the world.

But the folks at Hunter liked what I was doing. They invited me to their booth at the show in Miami and suggested that I trade my 466 in for one of their new H-49s - which wasn’t even completely designed at that point - and do my circumnavigation with one of those. They made me a hard-to-refuse offer, and had me come to the factory to get my ‘non-sailor’ input on the boat. Having accepted their offer, I had to postpone my circumnavigation for a year in order to sell my 466 and for them to finish designing and building the H-49. Right: New H-49 launch and rigging in St. Augustine Feb 2007

38: We've gotten to know you over the years, so we expect that you put that year of waiting to good use.

Harker: I went to Sea School in Fort Lauderdale to get my Captain’s license, then I went to school in Pensacola to get a Masters upgrade, and finally I went to Orange Coast College’s School of Sailing and Seamanship for my offshore and sailing endorsements. I now have all the certificates. Right: Looking down on 'WanderLust 3' from the new Selden mast

38: Were the classes helpful or did they basically teach you what you already knew?

Harker: There was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know, the classes were helpful. Among the most useful stuff I learned is a lot of sailing and nautical terminology that I wasn’t familiar with. You have to remember that I learned almost all my sailing in the Ha-Ha with German friends, and we only spoke German. And since I’ve singlehanded more than 90% ever since, I haven’t learned the English terms from subsequent crew.

38: So you mostly sail alone?

Harker: The only crew I’ve had for a long distance passage was from the Canaries to the Caribbean with my 466. I don’t think anyone has sailed more than a couple of hundred miles with me on my current boat. I only need crew for coastal waters where there is a lot of local traffic because, with someone else watching, I can safely go to sleep. Right: Sea Trial from Miami to Atlantis Marina in Nassau Bahamas

"I’m a guy who likes to move around,
and I discovered it was possible to
circumnavigate in 11 months."

38: What was the concept behind such a rapid circumnavigation?

Harker: While waiting for my boat to be done, I spent a lot of time planning a circumnavigation. I studied Jimmy Cornell's ‘World Cruising Routes’ for the best times to be in the places I wanted to pass through. The primary determinants of the best times are avoiding hurricane and tropical cyclone seasons. For example, you don’t want to leave Mexico for the South Pacific in the summer or fall, nor do you want to be crossing the Indian Ocean after October of any given year. I know that most cruisers typically take three to five years, but I’m a guy who likes to move along, so I found that the hurricane seasons would also allow me to do a circumnavigation in either 18 months or two years. But after doing some more studying, I realized that I could actually do it in just 11 months. Right: Alone to Matthew Town, Inagua

Cornell’s book was my bible. Not only did I spend a year planning my route with it, but I visited with him at the Annapolis Boat Show. In fact, I had two $5O/hour consultations with him about my route. When I showed my plan to him, he said, “I’ve never seen anyone with a plan like this, but it looks perfect!” Jimmy has been around the world something like 5 times and really knows his stuff. But don’t get him started talking, because he can go on and on. (Laughter.) 38: What were you figuring for an average speed or distance covered in a week? Right: The 'Windward Passage' between Cuba and Haiti

38: What were you figuring for an average speed or distance covered in a week?

Harker: The distance of the circumnavigation was about 26,000 miles, and there are 52 weeks in a year. I wanted to average 1,000 miles a week, so if I sailed at an average of 6.5 knots, I could be sailing half the time and resting or exploring ashore the other half of the time, and still make it around in 11 months. But as it turns out, I did nearly 2,000 more miles on the east coast of Australia for the fun of it.

38: But we all know about the inevitable breakdowns, new boat teething problems, and schedules going all to hell.

Harker: I don’t know what to tell you except that, as I’m here now talking to you, I’ve completed 26,900 miles of what will actually be a 28.000-mile circumnavigation, and that I’m currently just one week behind schedule. Had I wanted to, I could easily have been right on schedule.Right: The Errol Flynn Island in Port Antonio, Jamaica

38: That's pretty remarkable.

Harker: It’s not to say that I didn’t have delays or spend more time than I planned in some places. For example, I ended up spending three weeks in the Galapagos waiting for the people at customs in Quito, Ecuador, to release an alternator that I needed. I’m normally a very patient person, especially on boats, but that was the first time I got really frustrated. As a result, I had to make up three weeks crossing the Pacific. So while I did have delays, there was enough leeway in my schedule that I could make up for it.

WATCH FOR PART II.

Wanderlust3 up on-the-hard for new bottom paint, zincs, and rigging inspection. Selden wanted to inspect the mast after 28,000 miles of sailing in 11 months. This was the first H-49 fitted with Selden's Tall Mast and they wanted
to study the whole rig.

Mike Harker and Wanderlust3

N. Atlantic: Circumnavigation!

Sunday Feb 3 2008 4 pm (FL) 20* 57' 45" N X 073* 40' 73" W

On March 15, 2007 I left the little 200ft x 200ft harbor of Matthew Town on Great Inagua Bahamas for Jamaica, San Blas and Panama.

This afternoon I arrived back in the same bay I left 11 months ago, or exactly 10 months and 23 days to circumnavigate the world!

The new Hunter 49 "WanderLust 3" and I are officially "CIRCUMNAVIGATORS" having been one lap around our globe.

With the advantage of constant trade winds and a fast boat, I am about one week ahead of schedule into Miami.

The Miami Boat Show starts on Thursday 14 Feb. I will be in the Mia Marina on Feb 7 or 8.

I will leave here tomorrow for the 450 miles into Miami via the "Old Bahama Channel" along the north edge of Cuba

Since San Juan Puerto Rico I have been receiving Sirius Sat Radio and 'MargaritaVille with 'Super Bowl Sunday'.

Mike Harker
'WanderLust 3'
Hunter 49 BOTY

Atlantic: Crossing the Equator

00* 00' S/N Latitude, the Equator. This afternoon at 30* 00' W Longitude, I crossed the equator.

That ends 10 months of Southern Hemisphere cruising.

I originally crossed from N to S near Ecuador in South America. I then sailed in the South Pacific, Tasman Sea, Coral Sea, Timor Sea, Southern Indian Ocean, South Africa and finally the South Atlantic.

I am now back in the North Atlantic Ocean from where I started, March 15, in the Miami.

My next waypoint is 2200 miles in the Caribbean Sea, Antigua. I have sailed to Antigua 3 different times.

When I anchor in English Harbor again, I will have crossed my own route on the world map for my own personal circumnavigation!

That was half with the Hunter 46, 'WanderLust 2", and this half with the new Hunter 49, 'WanderLust 3'.

When I get the H-49 back to Miami in 3 weeks, We will both celebrate our "Around-the-Globe" circumnavigation!

I am making good time despite the fact that I am sailing and motoring VERY cautiously so as not to damage my provisional repairs.

In just under one week I made the 1100 mile voyage from Ascension to my waypoint on the equator, which keeps my yearly average above 1000 miles a sailing week.

6 - knots average speed
x 24 - hours in a day = (144 miles)
x 7 - days in a week = (1008 miles)

I have been averaging over 7 knots a week = (168 x 7 = 1176 miles)

I once averaged 1398 miles in a week = 200 miles a day!

The wind is a constant 8 - 12 knots from SE. I am sailing at 300 degrees NW, so that is exactly 'downwind'.

I have been sailing with the Parasailor for 4 straight days and nights, only adjusting to wind direction once or twice a day.

I expect -0- wind for a few hundred miles when I get into the "Doldrums".

They lie around 3 - 6 degrees N latitude, so I will run the engine and the main sail at second reef to keep the boat from rolling so much.

As a celebration when I crossed the equator, I showered on the stern step, then shaved my beard and head with the electric razor trimmer at position #1.

It will all grow back in a couple of weeks.

My schedule looks good. 2200 miles to Antigua puts me there 24 Jan, St Barts 28 Jan. 1200 miles to Miami puts me in Miami Feb 9 or 10. The boat show starts Feb 12.

Mike Harker
WanderLust 3
Hunter 49
www.H-TV.com