“I don't think the trip is going to be fun, but it does feel like who I am and what I'm doing. I feel fully engaged, which is the best part about living. This is the biggest thing I've ever done, and the boat is just very cool. ...I feel dread, it's true, because this will likely be the most dangerous and grueling and lonely time of my life, but its also my time to step out into the world. A seafarer is who I am. I'm trying to spend only $25,000 for a boat that will sail nonstop around the world, covering twenty-five thousand miles in four months. It will have to sail fast in light air in the equatorial regions and also survive fifty-foot seas and hundred-knot winds in the terrifying Southern Ocean as I sail around Antarctica. And I'm building the boat myself, quickly, in a month or two, so it's flat bottomed, with straight sides, and as skinny and light and simple as possible. ”
