Join Team Maxing Out as they sail around the world on their Privilege 39 catamaran, Exit Only. Team Maxing Out chronicles their exploits during an eleven year circumnavigation. Experience their adventures as they sail through Pirate Alley and up the Red Sea. Find out what it's like to sail through a global tsunami in Thailand. Dodge floating debris with them as they carefully navigate through tsunami debris crossing the Indian Ocean. Sail up the Kumai River in Borneo and visit the endangered Orangutans of Kalimantan. Explore the crystal clear waters of southern Turkey and sail through the Corinth Canal of Greece. Ride out a storm at sea as Exit Only sails from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands. Discover what it's like to sail on the ocean of your dreams.
When Team Maxing Out isn't sailing on the ocean, you can find them exploring planet Earth in their Land Rover Defenders. Visit OverlandUni and join in their adventures.
Captain Dave
What would happen if Exit Only made the final cut and was on Survivor? Who would survive the competition? Look at the contestants and decide for yourself. Would the Conspiracy Theorist relentlessly dominate the competition, or would Joss and her hermit crab army carry the day. Would Donna and her head thumping rock create a reign of terror among the crew? View Maxing Out Survivor and decide who the winner will be!
Galapagos beckons, but doesn't play games with their entry procedures, so we careened the boat on a beach in Panama to clean the boat bottom to perfection. Then things broke, Mom mastered Sudoku, and we got bombarded by a squadron of winged stowaways. Join us in Part 1 of our journey from Panama to the Galapagos.
Join us as we celebrate crossing the equator on our way to the Galapagos by ushering Zoe and Joss from Pollywogs to Shellbacks in an elaborate and time-honored ceremony. It was beyond thrilling to finally sail into the Southern hemisphere the South Pacific! The Galapagos islands await.
Welcome to my positive sailgrams. When I need a little inspiration, this is where I come to recharge my batteries. If you want more inspiration, you can visit my Instagram page which is my meme storage facility.
Captain Dave has written twelve eBooks that are available at the Positive Thinking Bookstore and that can be downloaded from Amazon. While you are out there sailing on the seven seas, push your mind in a positive direction with eBooks from Captain Dave.
I've been sailing around the world for eleven years on Exit Only, and what a trip it has been, full of agony and ecstasy, and everything in between. I nearly died in a car accident in New Zealand, and I reckon that qualifies as agony. In the ecstasy department, I sailed 33,000 miles around the world, and have seen the things sailing dreams are made of. So where did we go? Some people would say nowhere, but I would say, everywhere my heart desired, and everywhere I had the courage to point the bows of my sturdy catamaran. It's all a matter of perspective.
You can strike Pretentious off the list of possible yacht names for any sailboats I get in the future. My net worth would never permit me to join the Pretentious crowd.
I don’t have any oceans to conquer or mountains to climb. I just want to enjoy my life - a life of purpose - until I am all used up. A sailing adventure will accomplish that goal just fine, and if the sailing adventure does not continue, I will take one of my Land Rover Defenders and start a driving trip around the world. Then there is the biggest adventure of all - The Positive Channel and the Positive Thinking Network where I will rock the world.
Although I am the Master of my fate and Captain of my soul, no amount of magical thinking on my part is going to move the universe the slightest in any direction. The universe will do what it wants, and the sooner I get used to that fact, the better off my life will be. Voyage Six of Exit Only is proof positive that plans are just an aiming point and not a final destination.
Immerse yourself in adventure from the crew of Exit Only. During Voyage 6 of Exit Only, Dito spent two years writing an awesome novel. Real Ocean Cruisers have plenty of time to read while sailing to distant shores, and Debunked - Terravenum Chronicles Volume I is an excellent read. You can get Debunked as paperback, hardback or eBook. Debunk your way around the world.
Do I want to have it all and take it all with me, or do I want to travel lean and mean? Do I want to spend my resources on my catamaran, or do I want to spend those same resources on actually going somewhere and doing something unforgettable? By modern standards, I have a basic catamaran that can take me anywhere I want to go as long as I don’t need to have it all, and I don’t try to take it all with me. I have decided that it’s not about the yacht, it’s about the adventure. It’s not about replicating a shoreside lifestyle on a floating condominium. Nope. It’s about the adventure. If I want to travel far, I need to travel light. Less is more. Simple is good. Freedom is awesome. I have tasted freedom, and nothing else will do.
I have met many sailors in my life time, and many of them are Real Ocean Cruisers. Sailing is their way of life. It’s who they are and what they do. They live and breathe sailing. Real Ocean Cruisers are a hardy lot, and they can’t be compressed into a mold. They are the closest things yet to true citizens of the world. Real Ocean Cruisers can sail anywhere on Planet Ocean and still feel at home. Their boat is their home and the world is their playground.
You don’t have to get many miles under your keel to meet people who should not be sailing offshore. These individuals lack situational awareness, and they have a deficiency in pattern recognition. When I sailed across the Pacific Ocean, I met sailors who had serious problems over and over again. They had good yachts, but they frequently put themselves in harm's way with bad results.
When we sailed from Galapagos, we were a boat without a country. In the Covid 19 pandemic, we didn’t know for sure whether we would be allowed to check in to another country when we arrived there. French Polynesia did not want sailors arriving across the Pacific. Sailors were personna non grata in Polynesia and in the rest of the Pacific islands as well.
Real Ocean Cruisers who live long and prosper do everything they can to minimize risk. They want to sail where other people rarely go, and they need to have a boat that cannot be immobilized by a lightning strike that destroys Engine Control Modules. When we refit Exit Only, our new engines did not have Engine Control Modules. I would never have ECMs on board Exit Only.
I don't like hulls that have foam cores below the waterline. When the boat runs aground or hits a reef, you only have to penetrate a thin layer of fiberglass to reach the foam core that has zero strength. A hull with a foam core everywhere is lighter, but in an emergency like this one, the hull will not stand up as well to rocks and reefs.
If you want to make your dreams come true, there is only one way to make it happen. You have to be all in. Be all in or get all out. Anything less is a waste of time.
The present moment is all we have, and it’s important to make the best of difficult situations. It may turn out that your stop signs, speed bumps and detours will be some of the best days of your life.
I don’t want a light go fast catamaran. I want a heavy displacement go anywhere catamaran. I also want a catamaran that is safe - safe enough to take my family around the world, and that means it is unsinkable unless you blow it up in an explosion or burn it down in a fire. I want to avoid that sinking feeling.
Success is great when it’s easy, but in my experience, success comes with perseverence and hard work. Lots of people would like to have a Red Sea Adventure sailing from the Bab Al Mandeb to the Suez Canal, but they want it to be easy. When they see what it takes, they say, “No thank you,” and they ship their boat to a less challenging destination.
Lightning strikes are a form of instant time travel where your boat exits the 21st century and transports you to the 15th century. Your weather information and communication with the outside world disappear. Internet is history. You now navigate by the compass, sun, and stars. Your autopilot is dead, and you steer across trackless oceans standing at the helm 24 hours a day.
While Captain Dave and Team Exit Only were sailing around the world, Captain Dave wrote 12 books that you need to have in your mind. The Positive Life Series contains the secrets that made it possible for him to sail on the ocean of his dreams.
For the past seventy-two years I have been doing the sea turtle maneuver. I come up for air every couple of weeks, months, or years - I take a quick look around - and then I dive for the good life down under. My submersible life has taken me around Planet Ocean on Exit Only and across trackless wilderness in my Land Rover Defenders.
Our world should not be called Planet Earth. It should be called Planet Ocean. 71% of our planet is covered by water which is what makes life possible on our planet. It feeds us, slakes our thirst, and has a massive effect on our weather. Oceans are something we traditionally exploit rather than preserve and protect. Although the oceans appear extremely large, their bounty is not infinite. If we destroy life in the oceans, it could result in human extinction. Aquageddon may be our planetary fate.
Just to cover our bases, we have made signs in the sand on the beach notifying the government that we don’t want to be rescued, and there is no need to send help. When you fly by in your Sikorsky helicopter, just keep going. Don’t land. We don’t need your help or your viruses.
The unexpected side effect of our Arabian adventures was that I achieved escape velocity. Without even trying and without knowing what was happening, I no longer felt the pull of cultural gravity. I achieved escape velocity, I was free, and I made my life into what I wanted it to be. I was now a citizen of the world, and cultures were something to be experienced and enjoyed, but not something that controlled my existence.
In the Sea of Cortez, I saw alien life forms I had never seen before. That is some weird looking stuff, and I declined to touch any of it. I saw the movie ALIEN, and I am not touching stuff if I don't know what it is. No doubt about it. Alien Life Forms are among us.
Imagine how you will impress other sailors at the beach when you strap on Captain Dave's Stingray Shoes and fearlessly walk across the sandbars of paradise. People will instantly recognize you as a Real Ocean Cruiser. Tread among the stingrays with confidence knowing you will never be stung with a stingray barb again. Captain Dave's worldwide money back guarantee will return your money and pay your hospital bill if you ever get stung by a stingray.
Most seasteaders have modest vessels on which they make magnificent voyages. Their lifestyle is not a fashion statement, and whether anyone else knows about it is unimportant.
The problems with sailing is it takes a long time to sail to the far side of fear.
The Grumpy Sea Turtle looks grumpy because of the bony structure of his skull. He has a grumpy skull that puts a scowl on his face. The scowl is not his fault.
The good thing about fear is if you immerse yourself in adventure, when problems happen, you don’t have time for fear. You get on with what needs to be done to deal with the challenges at hand, and when the problems are over, you realize you were never afraid.
Personal freedom is near the top of my list of highest values. That doesn’t mean I behave in a socially irresponsible manner. It means I don’t let the world compress me into its mold and tell me how to think and what to do, and that’s where freedom begins. I live in a parallel universe where dreams actually come true. I am the invisible man.
I am not afraid of the darkness. I will be a light, and I will do everything in my power to make the darkness afraid of me.
If you get stung while swimming or floating, you may get stung anywhere from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. Stings in the neck, chest and abdomen are particularly serious and may be life threatening. Stings to your private parts is an unforgettable and possibly life changing experience. I saw a picture of a male suffering from an ignominious sting to his parts down under, and I am willing to bet he now suffers from Stingray PTSD.
I have a few regrets, but none of them have anything to do with money. Those regrets are wasted time and missed opportunities to go where I could have gone, to do what I could have done, and to become all that was possible for me to be
Exit Only was made to cruise the ocean without treading lightly. She was constructed strong to last long. Exit Only is a GO SAFE catamaran with a balanced sail plan that keeps us out of trouble. A balanced rig makes it easy for the autopilot to steer and keeps things under control.
I am really good at recognizing adversity when it stares me in the face. I am less skilled at recognizing opportunities masquerading as adversity. Sometimes opportunity has to whack me over the head and beat me up before I see that it’s there.
The South Pacific Convergence Zone presents similar risks as the doldrums - lightning, squalls, and downbursts. The SPCZ changes on a weekly and daily basis. It gets bigger and smaller, moves east and west, and if you are patient and willing to wait for a few days, you may avoid the worst of the SPCZ as it moves and fades away.
In order to get the most information from satellite imagery, you need to combine the visible and infrared images. Visible imagery helps you separate thick from thin clouds, and infrared imagery helps you distinguish between high and low clouds. Together they give you a better understanding of what is happening in the atmosphere. You don’t need a PhD in meteorology to extract useful information from satellite imagery. With just a few principles, you can understand enough of what is happening in your small patch of ocean to make informed decisions that keep you and your boat safe.
A microclimate is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas. The Sea of Cortez is Microclimate Land, and the microclimate varies significantly with the seasons of the year.
I sailed entirely around the world without understanding the difference between wall clouds, shelf clouds and roll clouds, but I knew enough to avoid them like the plague. Before I started my circumnavigation, I remember watching a menacing roll cloud sweep across Chesapeake Bay, and in my heart of hearts, I was afraid. I didn't know how to the read the clouds. I knew the roll cloud was bad news, but I didn't know how bad it would get. Many roll clouds later, I am no longer afraid. When I see a roll cloud approaching, I am concerned, but I no longer quake in fear.
After Joshua Slocum circumnavigated in his 36 foot sloop in 1895, the world realized it was possible to make a singlehanded sailing voyage around the world. Solo circumnavigations started out as a trickle, and by the 1960s, the trickle turned into a torrent.
Big boats are extremely hungry. They eat dollars at an fantastic rate. They don’t nibble at your wallet. They swallow the whole thing.
The offshore sailor now has weather information available by satellite download on Iridium Go. Find out how we used Iridium Go and Predict Wind to sail from Panama to the Galapagos Islands in six days.
Some of the fallen rainforest trees continue to thrive on Escudo de Veraguas in Panama. These are trees with attitude. I call them the NEVER QUIT TREES of Escudo de Veraguas
The Hawksbill sea turtle has been beating the odds for millions of years, and with a little help from humans, they will continue to beat the odds. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, you should avoid being a sea turtle if you want to live long and prosper. When sea turtles hatch and begin their march into the sea, they don’t know that the odds of survival are massively stacked against them.
Kissing cobras is an exercise in denial and is pushing the limits of staying out of harm's way. No amount of money would ever tempt me to kiss a king cobra. It's disgusing, stupid and dangerous. The King Cobras in an offshore sailor's life are thunderstorms, and I do everything in my power to stay away them.
On our passage from the Bahamas to Panama, I saw more logs in the water than I had seen on our entire circumnavigation - if you exclude the logs dumped in the water by the global tsunami.
Don't let a digital disaster happen to you. Understand the limitations of your chart plotter and your digital charts. Your eyes don't lie, and if your eyes don't know, you don't go. That's my navigational strategy, and I am sticking with it.
Positive lightning constitutes 5-10% of lightning strikes and typically has 1,000,000,000 volts and 300,000 amps. A positive lightning bolt last ten times longer than a negative one, and positive lightning is ten times more powerful than its negative counterpart. Negative lightning will knock your socks off, and positive lightning will kill you.
Death by AIS is a stupid way to die. Don't let it happen to you.
Selecting a yacht for a circumnavigation is not that difficult. Finding a yacht that is circumnavigation ready is much harder. Circumnavigation ready yachts don’t grow on trees.
Calmness comes in two types. One type of calm comes in dealing with Mother Nature. The other type of calm comes in dealing with people. I don't know if it's just me, but calmness in dealing with Mother nature is relatively easy. Calmness in dealing with the human species is an entirely different matter.
I still don’t like roll clouds, tsunamis, pirates, and storms at sea. They are simply the dues I pay to live my dreams. When you live your dreams, you don’t need to look for danger, because danger will find you. That’s how you know you are living your dreams.
Captain Ardell Lien is one of my heroes. At age 71, he completed a singlehanded circumnavigation in a 27 foot sailboat after undergoing a double organ transplant. He had a combined kidney and heart transplant, and after he recovered, he set sail on a Nor’sea 27 sailboat on a circumnavigation.
Jon Sanders did eleven solo circumnavigations completing his last circumnavigation at age 81. On his last sailing voyage, he collected water samples to detect microplastics in all of the southern oceans.
Marvin Creamer was 66 years old when he set out in his steel hulled 36 foot boat to perform a circumnavigation without using navigational instruments. He is proof that a GPS does not make you a navigator any more than a boat makes you a sailor.
Jeanne Socrates started serious ocean sailing at age 48, and at age 77, she completed a solo non-stop circumnavigation spending 339 days at sea. She sailed in a 39 foot sailboat south of all the great southern capes.
A tiny fish changed our destiny. If that fish had not created a leak in our head, we would have been anchor down in Chalong Bay when the tsunami struck.That tiny fish probably saved Exit Only. I don't know if providence played a part in our survival, but a tiny fish changed the course of our lives. When seemingly bad things happen, sometimes those bad things turn out to be good. I love it when a plan comes together.
During our circumnavigation of Planet Ocean, we never saw a Mola Mola Sunfish which is probably a good thing. The sunfish has big bones and a heavy body, and if you collide with it at sea, it can sink your boat. On our catamaran, the sunfish would be a threat to our balanced rudders. A collision with the rudder could bend the rudder, and if we were extremely unlucky, the rudder damage could create a hole in the boat. A rudder colliding with a 4000 pound fish could be catastrophic.
Dodge City, Kansas was a town in the wild west that attracted cowboys, gunslingers, and ner-do-wells. When things got out of control in Dodge City, and all hell broke lose, people said it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Real Ocean Cruisers can recognize a Dodge City Anchorage, and they know when to get out of Dodge. Escudo De Veraguas in Panama is a Dodge City Anchorage.
Nobody knows exactly why the North East Pacific Cauldron generates so many cyclones, but it’s clear that winds collide and converge there. Zones of convergence create lots of convection, and if the upper level winds are favorable, rotating storms develop in the cauldron.
Capture the essence of what it's like to sail offshore in a catamaran around the world when conditions are less than perfect. Listen to "Captain - Save Our Souls" and "The Red Sea Blues" perfomed by Too Many Drummers. Experience our Red Sea adventures watching excerpts from the Red Sea Chronicles. Trade wind sailing is over when you start the 1500 mile slog up the Red Sea. Just because it isn't easy doesn't mean it's not worth it - as long as you survive! Enjoy.
Every cruise begins with a dream, and once that dream takes hold, the course is set for the rest of your life. Cruising dreams are dangerous because they are contagious. I caught my cruising dream from Robin Lee Graham when he sailed tiny Dove single-handed around the world at age sixteen. After reading about his adventures in National Geographic, I instantly knew that one day I would sail around the world on my own sailboat. It was only a matter of time before I set sail with my fellow dreamers on our catamaran Exit Only. We became Unstoppable, Consistently Positive, Endlessly Persistent Doers of Dreams.
We started our circumnavigation as novices and finished as experts. We are living proof that good seamanship can make up for a lack of experience. Before we started, we had never sailed offshore at night, and we had never made a passage of more than fifty miles. We had never been in a storm at sea, and we only sailed our catamaran six times before we cast off our docklines. We had a massive amount to learn about cruising and sailing offshore, and you can learn those lessons here in Cruising 101.
Fear prevents thousands of people from setting sail. Fear did not stop Team Maxing Out. If you are afraid to venture offshore, you need to read the "Top Ten Cruising Disasters That Never Happened." Follow that up with "Thirty-Four Lessons That I Learned In 33,000 Miles." When you drop your dock lines and raise your sails, you don't drop off the edge of the world. Things pretty much continue just as before except that THEY ARE BETTER!
Tsunamis destroy everything in their path. Although we experienced tsunami warnings as we sailed across the Pacific Ocean, disaster never happened. It was not until we arrived in Thailand that we got our graduate degree in tsunamis. We were in Phuket when the global tsunami killed more than 100,000 people along the perimeter of the Indian Ocean. We now have profound respect for the power of tsunamis, and we have strategies to protect ourselves when cruising in Tsunamiland.
Cruising around the world isn't all work and no play. Plenty of awesome adventures happen that are not a threat to life and limb. Sailing up the Kumai River in Borneo to observe the endangered orangutans of Kalimantan ranks high on the bucklist of real ocean cruisers. Snorkling in the crashed airplane of a Colombian drug lord is a once in a lifetime experience. Island critters have their own stories to tell. If you are lucky, you might even meet the Master and Commander of Anegada.
People who sail around the world are different. They don't do the same things as everyone else, and they are guilty of living their dreams. They experience a type of freedom known only to real ocean cruisers. They are willing to take the risk and accept the consequences of sailing on the ocean of their dreams. When adversity pays a visit, they modify their plans, stick to their purpose, and never surrender their dreams.
Cruising connects you with the universe in a uniquely powerful way. You become one with your yacht and the sea, and you immediately sense changes in the wind and waves. Even the clouds have a story to tell. You get to know the sea in all its moods, and you learn how to survive. It's not long before you establish your seastead, and the ocean becomes your home.
The good, the bad, and the ugly accompany you on your voyage around the world. The good is simply amazing, and you want it to continue forever. The bad usally doesn't last long, and it doesn't get ugly very often. You learn to not trust blonde boa constrictors, and you don't let the jaws of fear devour your dreams. You focus on the good times and forget the bad times. You don't worry too much about the future, and instead you focus on where to take the next step.
You only get one life, and you should make it into an unforgettable adventure. Point your bow west and become addicted to downwind sailing. It won't be long before trade wind dreams take over your life, and you develop Sailing Addiction Disorder for which there is no known cure. The only treatment is to sail downwind around the world.
When dreams are born, they are weak and vulnerable and easily die from neglect. The only way for your dreams to survive is put them into the intensive care unit of your mind. If you keep your dreams alive, they will keep you alive and make your life worth living. Your dreams become the center around which you organize your life. Dreams do come true. When you drop your dock lines and set sail for distant horizons, your life will never be the same.
Dave Abbott - Captain Dave sailed around the world with his family on his Privilege 39 catamaran, Exit Only. Captain Dave has owned six Land Rover Defender expeditionary vehicles and one FJ 40 that he has driven through Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, New Zealand, and Australia. He is planning a driving trip around the world in a Defender 110 Land Rover.
Donna Abbott - First Mate - Donna earned her stripes the old fashioned way by enduring the rigors of passage making for the thrill of exploring exotic ports across the globe. If Donna could travel full time, she would. There's no place on planet earth that she does not want to visit. She has explored more countries than two people could count on all their fingers and toes. Air travel is her least favorite method of travel. But if you put her on board Exit Only or behind the wheel of a Defender 110, she will go anywhere.
Wendy Abbott - Mate - Wendy is a veteran of dozens of adventures around the world. She sailed halfway around the world on board Exit Only from Florida to New Zealand. She drives Defender 110 Land Rovers like a professional and has tens of thousand of miles under her belt on her adventures on land and sea. When not adventuring, she works as a doctor.
David Abbott - Mate - David shot over 170 hours of footage on the voyage from Australia to Florida. He then produced the Red Sea Chronicles. In addition to the narrating the film, David scored, performed, and recorded the soundtrack for the project. David sails catamarans like a mad man, and drives Defender 110 Land Rovers until the wheels fall off or he is out of gas. He is a good mate on land and sea.
Sarah Abbott - Mate - Sarah is an adventurer and offshore sailor with a trip from Australia to the Med under her belt. She sailed through Pirate Alley, up the Red Sea, and into cinematic glory in the Red Sea Chronicles. She loves life on the high seas, and is ready for another sailing voyage with Team Maxing Out. Her fresh and enthusiastic perspective on cruising helped make the Red Sea Chronicles so special. Sarah grew up in France and is fluent in French. When not adventuring, she works as a physician's assistant.
