IT IS BETTER FOR A MAN TO LOSE HIMSELF INTO HIS PASSION,
THAN TO LOSE HIS PASSION.
-Jacques Mayol-





As time goes by, all the pages in this website will become stories of the past, even if written about what then was future plans and dreams. The actual present - now - is something I do not have technology for. (Maybe one day I will travel with a webcam onboard..) I have so far resisted editing of the stories once they go on the web. They reflect my experience of my life at the time of writing. The following text is written in 2001 while preparing for my first ever cruise to overseas on my first ever yacht.


For background, here are the basics of the vessel that is keeping me alive and taking me on a journey from Australia (Cairns) to PNG, Solomon's, Micronesia, Guam, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand. (All rights reserved to change routes and destinations at any time. With only AUD $500 as a cruising kitty, who knows where I end up...)
'Aliisa' is a John Pugh 'moon wind', designed in Australia. She was backyard-built as a ketch in 1984, but long before I got my hands on it, the mizzen mast gave way to davits and solar panels. She's strong with 4mm steel plate on the lower chines and 3mm on deck. A centre cockpit on a 32 footer means a lot of salt water on the face, but a cosy little aft cabin provides that perfect privacy for the skipper.
Aliisa on CCYS workyard getting the royal treatment in a mad panic
The yacht was originally named 'Tin Tack'. I'm not a big fan of nautical word games and so I had to find a better name. For a while I got caught in the nautical word games myself and being a big fan of Peter Pan, decided to name it Never Land. Then I came to my senses. My mother died on my 30th birthday and left me a warm memory and AUD $20.000. That money came to be half the money to buy my boat. It was only fair to honour my mom's memory and display the sponsor name on the hull.



The vital statistics:

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THE CREW

The Skipper

I was born in Finland to a middle class family as the long awaited son with three older sisters in 1966. I moved out of home at 18 and had a pretty ordinary suburban life with a girlfriend and a steady job in a camera shop for nine years. in 1992 I had had enough of Finland and at the age of 25 I touched a palm tree for the first time in my life. Five years later I had travelled Tonga, Fiji, Singapore, New Zealand, England, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and finally settled in Cairns, Australia with my partner Sonya. I had a passion for travelling and I had decided to do it on my own yacht.

I migrated to Australia in 1996 and in February 1998 I purchased Tin Tack , which I soon renamed 'Aliisa' after my mom. I had saved about AUD $25.000 and inherited about $20.000 when my mom died. Sonya gave me $10.000 to follow my heart. The boat cost me AUD $45.000 and about $10.000 each year to keep her going. For the last 5 years I've been doing 60 hour working weeks to dump all the money in to the boat. It's been all worth every cent. I've sailed about 10000 miles on other people's yachts and about 1000 miles on mine. (Too busy working for that money to spend time sailing...)

First Mate

PhilPhil Nielsen - a 36-year-old Australian hospitality professional who abandoned a prospect of becoming a General Manager of a five star resort to share my adventure. Phil is a keen sailor with large amount of intelligence, common sense and a warm human heart to compensate for lack of experience. I've known Phil for eight months and we will soon get to really know each other. So far so good. I couldn't ask for a better crew.

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THE VOYAGE

For me life is a journey

The voyage begun for me on 24 November 1966. My sailing voyage begun in February 1998 when I drove my first ever boat out from the travel lift slings in Cairns. Since then I have (surprise surprise!) poured every penny I've earned into the boat. I'm getting more relaxed about not having much money. As I'm getting older, I'm getting happier and material wealth is loosing its significance. Whether this is the way I really am, or just a defence mechanism to cope with being poor, I'm not sure. While I like to think that I don't have much, I in fact have a lot. Every cruiser makes a personal decision about the level of equipment and cash that they feel safe with. Here's mine:

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I HAVE:

GPS - one wall mounted, one hand held for a back up
EPIRB - only a coastal 121mhz, which, once outside Australia, relies on over flying aircraft
Radar - About 15 years old. If it weren't there, I wouldn't go and buy one. I hope it keeps working...
Log - VDO, still working
Sounder - Seafarer 700, about 15 years old. I hope it keeps working too...
Charts - All photocopies. Mostly old, some of them go back to 1890. Being only $4 a pop I invested in quantity, not quality.
Ground tackle - 60m of 10mm chain, 10m of spare chain and 250m of 14mm silver rope. Two 35lb CQR anchors, one Danforth and one old rusty admiralty anchor (Thanks Craig!)
Anchor Windlass - old alloy manual windlass. I've never used it yet, as pulling it up by hand is much quicker.
Engine
Sails - one new high cut Yankee. Three old worn out mains and a number of 15 to 20 year old headsails.>
Food - 6kg of macaroni, 7kg of pasta, 12kg of sugar, 15kg of onions, 12kg of rice, 55kg of potatoes (I thought it was 25kg, until I tried to lift the bag up) 50 tins of heat'n'eat stuff, tinned vegies, 3kg of coffee, fishing line and hooks (we'll make our own lures, thank you very much).
Cooking - Three 9kg LPG gas bottles feeding a rusty old campervan stove.
Pressure cooker.
A stereo - Very important, including speakers in the cockpit and plenty of David Grey tapes!
Dinghy - 8ft RFD inflatable rollaway, six years old with a slow leak and numerous patches and repaired seams. Also an old 5ft plastic dinghy that looks really cute, is very unstable and fits on the foredeck. It is really only big enough for one man and his dog. (If the dog is not very big) Phil and I have named her Titanic.
Common sense – A good thing to have in all situations in life
Sense of adventure – Must have when you go without money
Courage – Yes, it takes courage. I have always denied this quality in me before but by definition, feeling the fear and doing it anyway, I must have some courage.

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I DON'T HAVE:

Life raft - Cost too much, never gets used. If all goes down, I'll have to go down with it.
HF - Cost too much.
Wind instruments - I'm 34-years-old. If I can't tell which way the wind blows, then I shouldn't go sailing.
EPIRB (Global 406 MHz) - Cost too much. The whole idea is to be self-sufficient anyway.
Sextant - I haven't been carrying firewood for smoke signals either, in case the telephones stop working. I accept today's technology. (If GPS shuts down, I use dead reckoning out at sea and compass for coastal navigation)
Chart Plotter - Cost too much. Still have to carry paper charts anyway.
Insurance - Cost too much. I like to take responsibility of my own life. (Would you rather be robbed by poverty stricken natives, or by a large insurance company?)
Furling gear - Honestly, I would love to have it for safety but I can't afford it! I would love to have the lines in the cockpit too, but I couldn't even afford the diverter blocks on the deck!
Water maker - Would be good in N Pacific but.the same old story; not enough cash. That reminds me to fix that leak.
Sponsors - I'm doing this for myself, not for someone else.
Courtesy flags – After buying the rice and fishing gear, I hope to have enough left for some material to make my own. Courtesy is a good thing to have and the local shops had none when asking AUD $50 per flag.
Qualifications - I'm yet to be convinced that a piece of paper signed by another human will make me a better sailor. I learn a lot every day.

AND WHERE ARE WE GOING Again?

Our first leg will be from Cairns to Misima, in the Louisiades Archipelago, Papua New Guinea. After using up our two-month visa in PNG, we will head for the Solomon Islands, probably clearing in at Giza. Then comes the first long leg; as the northern winter sets in, we will attempt to reach Guam around January 2002. By the time we get there, if we get there, we should be well and truly in a need for a job to stock up with stores and cash. From Guam we will attempt to head east through Micronesia, Kiribati, Tuvalu and then down to Samoa and Tonga by May - June 2002. From here New Zealand would look
like a good destination. We'll see....

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New Page: Preparing for the trip