Every now and then a story comes along at the right time and it stops you in your tracks. That story’s a wake up call that your life is in a rut, and you’re in dire need of an adventure. Every bro has a little wanderlust in him, some more so than others. This story of a dude who quit his job, sold everything he owned to buy a boat and sail it from Washington to Chilean Patagonia is about to unlock that wanderlust from within and make you take a good hard look at your life.
My buddy Kyle just IM’d me this post from Imgur. It chronicles the travels of Dwyer C. Haney, who goes by Captain Dwayne. At the age of 25 Dwyer quit his job, sold/donated everything he owned, and sailed a boat from Bellingham, Washington down the Pacific Coast all the way to Puerto Montt, Chile. He’s got a full blog over on VoyageOfTheRascal.com, but he put together a post on Imgur that’s a brief overview of his adventure.
From erupting volcanoes to sailfish, hot chicks to hurricanes, and everything in between..Here’s his story (via Imgur):
Two years ago, at the age of 25, I quit my job, sold / donated all my belongings, bought an old 30ft sailboat, taught myself how to sail it, and sailed 12,000 miles from Washington State to Chilean Patagonia.
The goal of my voyage was to ski directly from the boat in the fjords of Chile, but I had a long way to go before I got there.
I started in Bellingham, Washington and worked my way down the Oregon and California coasts to Mexico. I spent hurricane season in the Sea of Cortez and eventually sailed from southern Mexico to the Galapagos Islands. The final leg of the voyage from the Galapagos to Puerto Montt, Chile was a 37 day non-stop, single-handed sail and I only saw one other boat that entire time. I’ve been exploring Patagonia ever since.
It has been a wild ride with everything from hurricanes to volcanic eruptions along the way. My life has gotten infinitely simpler and I’m completely and totally free to do whatever I want, whenever I want. The wind costs me nothing and drives me wherever I want to go.
I sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Bay a couple of months after learning to sail. I threw a big party on the boat and there were so many people aboard that the boat nearly sank!
I still didn’t have much sailing experience at this point, but I tried to be conservative and I was lucky to avoid any major mishaps along the way.
The sea is full of mysterious, beautiful creatures. A pod of playful dolphins surrounded the boat to escort me into Mexico. They frolicked in front of the bow for nearly an hour!
Lots of folks from the US came to visit me during my time in Mexico. It felt great to be able to share my new life, and the days I spent with friends were some of the richest of the voyage.
It wasn’t all margaritas on the beach once I got to Mexico – there were some pretty stout storms and I got saltier and more competent as time went on.
A couple months into my jaunt through of the Sea of Cortez, I had to fly back to the states for a family reunion. A good friend offered to look after the boat in La Paz while I was gone. The Sea of Cortez is generally considered a safe haven from hurricanes (something like the risk of being hit by a hurricane in New Hampshire), but I made sure it was carefully anchored and prepared before I left.
While I was in the states, a major hurricane swept up from Central America and rammed directly into La Paz in the middle of the night. My friend rode out the hurricane at anchor through 125 knot winds and I communicated back and forth with her via text message through the height of the storm. The anchor chain eventually broke off and the boat was swept onto the beach. At 2:36am, I got one last text message followed by radio silence.
The hours that followed were the most horrifying of my life. I wasn’t sure if she had just lost cell service or if something had gone horribly wrong. I eventually got a call from the Air Force that my emergency transponder had been activated. My friend had been swept from the bow of the boat by a massive wave and had spent 8 hours clinging to the mangroves, battling hypothermia, and waiting for dawn and rescue.
Hurricane Odile claimed the lives of three other sailors that night, but miraculously my friend was OK. The boat was totally fine – just a little bit of scratched paint from being beached.
Though they’re sometimes hard to find, there are still little bits of land out there that aren’t covered in condos and strip malls. I found some incredible slices of paradise along the way and I’ve developed a much deeper appreciation for this beautiful planet we live on.
(photo: Wade Fellin)
I tried to live off the sea as much as possible and in Mexico, that accounted for 40-50% of my meals – sushi, ceviche, fish tacos, etc.
I managed to wrangle this sailfish onto the boat with a light hand line one afternoon. I decided to name him Don Rodrigo the Magnificent and he was by far the largest fish I caught. Without any refrigeration onboard, I knew I’d never be able to eat him before he spoiled, so I decided to throw Don Rodrigo back to the sea.
(photo: Autumn Foushee)
I made it my goal to try and catch every sunset and sunrise during the voyage and Mexico delivered some absolutely spectacular sunsets during the 6 months I spent there.
I passed through a lot of charming little beach towns along the coast and drank more than my fair share of Pacificos and Tecates on the beach.
The sail from southern Mexico to the Galapagos took me almost two weeks, with an engine failure thrown in for good measure. It was my first substantial passage and it felt like a major accomplishment when I made landfall on Isla Isabella.
I spent about three weeks in the Galapagos. The animals and landscapes there were absolutely staggering. I ran into this old curmudgeon of a tortoise on a dusty trail in the woods. He didn’t seem to notice me and just kept lumbering along to the next watering hole.
The 37 day, 3500 nautical mile sail from the Galapagos to Chile was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was totally and completely alone – literally a thousand miles from the nearest land and I didn’t have any human contact for more than a month. Before the passage, I vaguely wondered if I’d go crazy, but I managed to adjust to the rhythm of the sea and keep my sanity.
After a couple weeks of sailing into high winds and big waves, I caught a whiff of an odd electronic-y smell. I started searching around the boat, but couldn’t find the source for quite a while. Eventually I lifted the cover to the engine compartment, and smoke billowed out with flames leaping up at me. I managed to put the fire out with an extinguisher and cut the power from the batteries. I’m normally a pretty cool cucumber, but I was literally shaking at the time. It was the scariest moment of my life.
It turned out that a slow leak from the engine had dripped on one of the wires to the starter motor. It shorted out and started the fire. I managed to rewire the engine at sea and continue towards Chile.
His adventure keeps going and going and going…but I don’t want to rip the entire thing from Imgur, so you can either scroll through it in the gallery below, or you can follow the link below and click on over to his website…because there’s some AWESOME pics that he took upon arriving in Patagonia:
It’s stories like this that make me sit back and wonder if life’s got me on the right path. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got the best job in the world getting paid to blog for you bros, and I love my wife and dog…but holy shit! This bro is LIVING THE DREAM….So excuse me while I click on over to his blog, VoyageOfTheRascal.com, and continue to read up on his adventures for the rest of the week…