Meeting a Solo Circumnavigator

It was a wonderful opportunity for any kind of sailor and especially for me. Being a member of the Ocean Cruising Club, they were celebrating their 50th anniversary with a mid-September (2004) cruise of British Columbia, of the Gulf Islands and north. This gave me new appreciation of my sport, thousands of sailboats in one place.... We had about forty boats and more than 100 participants.

Party here and sail there was the order of the day, the regatta organized by OCC member Liza Copeland of Vancouver and members from the The Royal Vancouver Yacht Club (the club has 9 yachting facilities including 2 Vancouver marinas and 7 Offshore Stations). As a circumnavigator and wonderful writer, she had made arrangements for our pleasure.

jeanneUpon reaching Salt Spring Island, I tied up and walked to take a line from two lady sailors, whom I had not met yet, approaching aft of my Sunsail charter boat. We had sailors from all around the world participating, many meeting each other from the 2000 member club for the first time. The skipper is Jeanne Socrates, aft. We spent time together later that day in a coffee shop, and I was so privileged to hear much of her story.  Subsequently, we have met again at OCC events,and  she shares her stories...

She had lost her cruising husband and partner a few years back to cancer and was committed to sail around the world singlehanded. In context of the OCC event, this was a tough crowd. When they were asked  for raised hands of all the circumnavigators, most all hands always went up. I was humbled. Jeanne invited me to sail Alaska with her, I declined and went to the Grenadines, so much warmer. She was very smart and very independent, strong and hearty. I again felt so insignificant.

We have stayed in touch through e-mail weekly, as she just past Cape Horn and now sails to the Cape of Good Hope. We write of banal things, movies and food, a new book I’ve read... She barely speaks of her voyage other than her blog.

Her daily work is ominous; she is alone, committed to a non-stop passage--the third try in this last decade--and only 68 years young. She will be an icon of our age, and I hope to take a line again one day and hear the cheers of success and the story of the completion of her life’s goal....

~Captain Art Ross