We welcome Rich Jablonski and Elaine Cashar to our monthly cruising social to share their breadth of knowledge on distance cruising – specifically addressing the perceptions vs the realities of cruising aboard a sail boat.

Rich and Elaine are former Boeing Engineers. They raced and cruised our local waters before buying their Stevens 47 and heading off to Mexico with their two teenage kids in 2001. They did the Baja Ha-Ha then crossed the South Pacific from Mexico bound for New Zealand in 2002. After a cyclone season in NZ, they went directly to Australia, as they told the kids, it would keep them in better internet access. Even their cat didn’t have to go to Kitty Jail.  In 2004, they shipped their boat home via Dockwise and Jesse was sent off to college.

They gave a talk at a Friday CYC Social in 2015 about cruising with kids and shipping home on Dockwise. They were liveaboards at Shilshole until 2010 when they cruised to Ketchikan before heading south to San Francisco for a stop and on to Mexico in 2011. Since that time they have been working their way around South America via Cape Horn.  WINDARRA is currently in Trinidad.