2017 Life Logs, Day 12: Windbird’s Top 10 Sailing Destinations
Date: Thursday, January 12, 2017
Weather: Wonderfully Warm for January; High 54, Low 45 degrees
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
What a wonderful day! The weather was very uncharacteristic for January, sunny with a high in the 50’s. It was glorious. I presented Windbird’s Top 10 Sailing Destinations at the Falmouth Newcomers meeting and that went well.
I had time this afternoon to catch up on the blogs of good friends and found that yesterday Windbird arrived in Fernandina Beach in Florida after a great off-shore passage from Charleston, SC, and that my biking friends, Mike and Linda, arrived in the Galapagos for a cruise through the islands. So I’m sitting here tonight feeling good about life.
I want to thank Jane Woodin for inviting me to speak to the Falmouth Newscomers Club today. Preparing for the presentation gave me the incentive to focus on the circumnavigation and make decisions about what is most important to share with others. The process has given me renewed energy to actually write that book I have been threatening to write for the past six years. Thank you, Jane! Jane was not there today as she is in New York City this week visiting with a friend. But Bruce was there to make sure that the technology worked for the presentation and good friend Olivia White introduced me. 
The group was obviously engaged in the presentation and afterwards so many came up to thank me. What a gracious group of people.
Since I finally forced myself to answer the question everyone asks about our sail around the world—What was our favorite place?—I figure I should share that with you. I had to remove New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa from the line-up as it would have taken the entire time allowed to present each of those. So I focused mostly on the smaller island destinations. Here’s Windbird’s ‘Trip Advisor’ for your next cruise around the world.
#10 Kingdom of Tonga—Meeting a New King and Incredible Blow Holes
# 9 Vanuatu—Volcanic Fireworks and a History Lesson
# 8 New Caledonia—Beautiful Beaches
# 7 Fiji—Friendliest People and Great Snorkeling
# 6 Thailand’s Magical Phang Nga Bay—Limestone Karsts and Long Tails
# 5 Indonesia—Komodo Dragons, Bali Fantasy, Borneo Orangutans
# 4 French Polynesia—Beautiful People
# 3 Galapagos Islands, Ecuador—All About the Wildlife
# 2 Chagos—Indian Ocean Robinson Crusoe Experience
# 1 Madagascar—A Land Like No Other
I’m already second guessing my choices, so if I redid this list tonight I might change one or two of my choices. And if I had to include New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa, that might change a few things as well. So if I ever come up with the top 20, things might shift a bit, but the top seven would probably stay.
