PORT TOWNSEND — Jeanne Socrates is preparing to sail around the world nonstop, and many people don’t understand what that really means.
“When I say I am making a nonstop trip, people still think I’m going to pull into port, eat dinner, sleep and move on,” she said.
In fact, when she leaves Vancouver, B.C., in the middle of October, she does not expect to walk on solid ground until she returns there sometime in May.
Socrates, 68, was at the Port Townsend Boat Haven earlier this week, where her 38-foot yacht, the Nereida, is being prepared for a long journey, with tasks written on lists and whiteboards throughout the boat’s small cabin.
Socrates worked in England as a mathematician, teaching secondary school and college students.
She and her husband, George, had two children. They retired in 1997 and took up sailing as a serious hobby until George died of cancer in 2003.
Socrates continued sailing on her own.
She has maintained a website, www.svnereida.com, and can post her observations directly to her blog through an e-mail address. She said she has no access to the Internet since full service is too expensive.
Her page also has links to a cancer charity, which provides the funds for terminally ill patients to die at home.
Otherwise, she maintains her lifestyle with her pension and rental income from her property in England.
“When you are out sailing, there are a lot of ‘no money’ days when it doesn’t cost anything,” she said,
She has lived a life of “slow cruising,” traveling between ports and cultivating her widening circle of friends who have met her through her blog.
She decided to take a shot at solo circumnavigation in 2005 because “time doesn’t stand still and bodies don’t get younger, so I felt that it was the right time for me to ‘sail around the world’ in a reasonably short time, as a challenge.”
The planned October voyage is her second shot, as a trip beginning in March 2007 was plagued with delays and repairs before she lost the boat just 60 miles short of the goal.
She replaced the boat and named it for the one she had lost. Nereida is a mythical water nymph.
The new boat is equipped with a full galley, a control panel, a toilet, a computer and solar and wind collectors to provide cabin power.
A diesel generator provides heat and backup power when the sun and the wind are not adequate.
Two water tanks, hot and cold, are filled through an on-board desalinator.
Socrates will have a limited amount of fresh food for the first segment of the trip, and will do some fishing.
But much of her food — enough to last the entire year — is dehydrated and “some of it is pretty tasty,” she said.
On her last trip to New Zealand, she heard about a company that sold high-quality dehydrated food and, mindful of her circumnavigation plans, she bought four extra boxes of the really good stuff.
She doesn’t drink a great amount of liquor while piloting the boat, but does carry a few bottles of wine onboard.
She also has a small bottle of brandy and a portion of freeze-dried Christmas pudding that she will break out for the holidays, when she expects to be alone.
This trip will begin in Vancouver and sail south until turning east at Cape Horn, the tip of South America.
She will sail due east, around South Africa, Australia and back to Vancouver across the Pacific.
She is determined to make the solo voyage, but not at the expense of her own life and safety.
In the first place, she has the lives of her children and three grandchildren — ages 5, 7 and 9 — to consider.
Won’t take chances
Additionally, taking chances endangers more than just herself.
“I will stop if it becomes too dangerous,” she said.
“Completing the journey isn’t worth sacrificing my life, and if I am careless it endangers the people who would attempt to rescue me.”
After working in a responsible job and raising a family, Socrates sees no other logical option for the rest of her life.
“I’ve met so many people and had fantastic experiences,” she said.
“It is a privilege, and if I ever sink I will go down with a smile on my face, because of these wonderful times I have had on the boat.”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
