With the news about hurricanes in Mexico, especially Patricia’s near miss of Puerto Vallarta, where I was based for months while cruising around Mexico’s Pacific coast, I’ve been reminiscing about Illusion‘s early years and my first cruising experiences.
I found some old photos of a friendly cruiser “rally” around the anchorage in Neiafu, Vava’u, Tonga.
A group of us, mostly friends we met in Mexico, with whom we’d sailed for many miles, decided to enter into the race with Illusion… we had a lot of fun! Check out our matching Illusion t-shirts.
As Illusion finishes her 20th year with me, I began thinking about some of the old video footage we took during the trip from California to New Zealand in the late 1990s. I had a new-at-the-time hand-held Hi-8 video tape recorder and a few tapes. I think we filled all the tapes, and for years they stayed in my collection of stuff while I was living in New Zealand. Finally, it was time to let the “system” go, so I transferred all the video from the tapes through a video capture card into disk files. Only one file survived the years and it contains footage from Mexico through the South Pacific to Tahiti.
My sailing partner from that journey reminded me that today is the 16 year anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand, so Sara and I went through that file and made this video. I hope you enjoy it!
And if you’re interested, the Routes page has a time-line of Illusion‘s various travels and the places she’s been.