**Where is Illusion right now? Newport Beach, California**
The background: At the end of 2012 we began making plans to bring 65-foot sailboat Illusion from Auckland, New Zealand to Vancouver, Canada. llusion had been waiting patiently for a few years in the backwaters of Auckland, visited occasionally by friends who live nearby, after Doug sailed her there from San Francisco, via Mexico and the South Pacific – for more info about some of his past sailing experiences, have a look at the Routes page. The idea of this website was to document the planning, preparation, and the journey – with various members of the crew describing their experiences in the blog. Illusion was in a much worse condition than expected when Doug headed down in March 2013 so there was quite a bit of work to do before they could get moving.
The crew set off right at the end of May – only a few weeks behind schedule, although long enough to get very cold and damp as the weather in New Zealand turned autumnal. They headed to Rapa, through stormy seas, where they settled in to try to fix the engine which broke underway. The next stop was Raivavae, also in the Austral Islands. Having given up on getting the engine mended and with a crew change, Illusion sailed on to Tahiti, then Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, before Doug’s 15 day solo voyage to Hawaii. You can see the route here. We checked in using YOTREPS.
Then what? Delayed by the broken engine, a seriously injured shoulder which needed surgery and recovery, and then by the newest addition to our crew, baby Toby, Illusion was in Hawaii from September 2013 – first at Ko’Olina Marina on the west side of Oahu, and then latterly at Kewalo Basin Harbor, in Honolulu, also on Oahu. Not quite the plan! But we used the time to fix the engine, update some other stuff on the boat, have a few holidays with Toby, and get to know some other Honolulu-based sailors. Illusion eventually set sail from Honolulu on 4th June 2016 with a crew of three (Doug and two friends, John and Ivan) to head up to Vancouver. They reached the Strait of Juan de Fuca on Wednesday 22nd June and anchored in False Creek, Vancouver two days later. See their route here: Yotreps route tracking
What’s next? We’re making our way down the US coast and heading for Mexico for a bit.
Thanks for sharing the adventure with us!