From the bottom to the top, 32 degrees south lat. to 32 degrees north lat., that equals around +or- 6000 miles to travel which will take us about 20 days at 12 knots to make the passage from Montevideo, Uruguay to Charleston, South Carolina and the final leg of this trip I departed on last September from Charleston. We headed south for Panama, through the canal, out in to the Pacific, stopped in the Galapagos, turned north for San Diego, loaded up another science crew and slipped south for Rapa Nui, after a visit with the big heads it was down amongst the icebergs of Antartica, then east for the Magellan Passage and on to the South Georgia Islands a few more icebergs and finally Montevideo. Now we are heading home via the Atlantic Ocean with a great sigh of relief, it was a long and hard coarse to steer with many tricky trials to test ones will, but we survived and have only this last leg to go. We now stand at 17south heading north off the coast of Brazil at 12 knots, unlike weeks before, the sun shines bright and warm, the seas are smooth and calm, while the oceans water is blue as a summer sky. It was almost like living in a cave down south, always dark and gray, cold and damp and forever the feeling of riding a bucking bronko! It's good to have color again. In a few weeks Sullivans Island light will rise on the horizon and we will start the transit to our pier where the Ashley and Cooper rivers join to make the Atlantic Ocean.

After that it's home to the wife and kids, a ride in the country to my little hide-a-way in the woods where I,ll crank up the tractor, do a little bush hoggin, plow a nice size garden, do a little work on the man cave and start a new book about sailors who fish!