IT’S TIME

Thank you for venturing into the far flung world of John Kretschmer Sailing. If this is your first time, welcome, otherwise many thanks for dropping by again. This website is best viewed in landscape mode on mobile devices. I am not very reliable when it comes to updating this site, and yes that’s an understatement but my excuse is that we spend most of our time at sea. We just keep sailing – crossing oceans, exploring coasts and islands. 2020 is just over the horizon. It was more than 35 years ago that we beat around Cape Horn in the brave little sloop Gigi, it seems hard to believe. Three summers ago I was able to sail Gigi again in the rugged Outer Hebrides of Scotland. That was a magical experience. Gigi is a time machine. The experience frames the first chapter of my new book, SAILING TO THE EDGE OF TIME: The Promise, the Challenges, and the Freedom of Ocean Voyaging , which was published November 2018. This is the book I’ve been writing my entire life, a memoir that is a mix of sea stories and sailing insights, it’s a deeply personal account of what it means to go to sea.

I have been sailing professionally, if that’s what you call what I do, for all of my adult life. I confess, doing the thing I enjoy most has never felt like a job and I have lost track of how many offshore miles I’ve logged. This summer I completed my 25th and 26th Atlantic crossings. When my sailing odometer ticked over 300,000 I stopped counting. It seems absurd to keep tallying miles, I have nothing to prove and I am not convinced that miles matter very much. They define sailing as the distance between landfalls as if the land’s edge defines the ocean and our relationship with it. That’s crazy, it’s the in-between that matters, the voyage, the journey, the interlude of being “at sea,” that’s where the magic lurks.

What amazes me is that I am more passionate about what I do than ever before. I think I am old enough and maybe wise enough finally, to realize that I have a great gig. I love being aboard Quetzal, driving her through whatever conditions come our way. I am also enjoying the charter passages we organize as we explore some of the most beautiful watery destinations on the planet at a more relaxed pace. But really, it’s all about you. The folks who track me down and sign aboard are always intriguing, they get it, they know that sea time is valuable and we usually end up becoming fast friends and frequent shipmates. I remain devoted to providing unique, honest and challenging sailing and travel opportunities for my clients.

I am also committed to sharing useful information and hard-won opinions about blue water and coastal voyaging, and more to the point in these interesting times, living life on your own terms. Deep ocean sailing in small boats, and at 47 feet, Quetzal still qualifies as a small boat, offers a powerful blend of, as my new book’s subtitle claims, promise, challenge, and freedom. Joseph Conrad titled his sailing ship memoir, “The Mirror of the Ocean,” and I love that phrase. There is nowhere to hide at sea and the image that reflects back at you from the face of a steel blue wave is brutally honest. To thrive at sea you must take stock of who you are, not who you want to be. There’s no pretending out there.

Our offshore passages are rarely easy and at times downright miserable, they’re all too real. And they’re rewarding. The people that sail with me buy, sell, invent, teach, build, cure, protect, in short – they shake the world when ashore. But at sea aboard Quetzal, they feel refreshingly small and profoundly alive. Time slows down at sea and somehow matters more, and what can be more important than managing your allotment of time?

I began my book, Flirting With Mermaids, “I make landfalls for a living.” It’s a good line but as I get older I have come to realize that making landfalls is easy. Making departures, pushing off the dock, unplugging the electronic handcuffs, subverting the shore-side guilt, that’s the hard part. And that’s where I can help. Take a good look at the site: the schedule of training passages, the workshops, the pictures, videos, books and even the poems, then send me an email, let’s communicate. Sailing dreams are too important to leave for another day.

As always, many thanks to you, our shipmates and friends, you make all of our voyages and projects possible. The world of Quetzal is a full-blown, world-wide nautical community and we love sharing it with you. It’s time, time to go sailing, time to go to sea and we look forward to welcoming you aboard.

The 2020 and 2021 Schedules are posted.