Join Team Maxing Out for their sailing and off-road adventures.  They may be wandering, but they are not lost.  So where did they go?  Some people would say nowhere, but I would say, everywhere their heart desired.  They went everywhere they had the courage to point the bow of their sturdy catamaran Exit Only, and everywhere they turned the wheels of their Land Rover Defenders.  They sailed more than 33,000 miles around the world on their Privilege 39 catamaran including a trip through Pirate Alley and up the Red Sea.  Their Land Rover Defenders took them to Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, New Zealand, and Australia.  Soon the adventures will continue with a driving trip around the world and a sailing voyage back to Australia.

Join Team Maxing Out as they sail around the world on their Privilege 39 catamaran, Exit Only.  Maxingout.com chronicles their adventures during an eleven year circumnavigation of planet earth.  Experience their adventures as they sail through pirate alley and up the Red Sea.  Find out what it like to sail through a global tsunami in Thailand and 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 is like to sail on the ocean of your dreams.

Home Is Where The Heart Is - The first home I ever owned was sailing vessel Exit Only.  The dream of house ownership never appealed to me, and I have steadfastly resisted any passing and weak urges to buy a house.  On the other hand, all of my adult life I have had an overwhelming desire to own and cruise on a small yacht. When I arrived in Phoenix, I couldn't tell whether I was in a 45 caliber zone or a 38 caliber zone.  That made finding a place to live somewhat difficult. If I wanted to be safe working in this section of the world, I would have to buy a tent and live in the desert with the rattlesnakes and coyotes with an hour long commute, or I could buy an over-priced house in a seemingly safe area. The over-priced safe house seems to be working fine.  This must be what it feels like to be living in a witness protection program.

Offshore Dream Machine For Sailing Around The World - Dreams come in different sizes, shapes, and packages.  I had a dream of sailing around the world on a multihull, and I chose a Privilege 39 catamaran, an offshore Dream Machine capable of taking me anywhere in the world that I have the courage to point the bows.  Dream Machines must be honest.  They must deliver the goods when sailing on the high seas.  Our Dream Machine is 39 feet 5 inches long and twenty-one feet wide.  It has a draft of about four feet fully loaded with cruising gear.  It's built for offshore sailing and will take you anywhere you want to go in water world.

Storm Management For Cruisers - What do you do when you are sailing offshore, and you find yourself in a storm?  How can you deal with storms so that you don't break expensive gear and people don't get hurt.  Storm management for cruisers is mostly common sense and is within the ability of ordinary people who venture offshore in seaworthy yachts.  Storm management is all about energy management.  Large storms have lots of energy, and you need to learn how to deal safely with all that energy if you want to stay out of harms way. If the energy in a storm get transferred to your yacht, then you have to safely dissipate all that energy so that nothing bad happens.

Pirates of The Malacca Straits - I didn't intend to sail through the Malacca Straits.  It just happened.  Like everyone else, I knew the Malacca Straits were dangerous because of pirates.  Pirates and terrorists are at the top of my list of things that I want to avoid.  When I talk to non-sailors around the world, they usually ask me two questions.  What about storms and pirates?  Hollywood and the media have convinced everyone that storms and pirates rule the lives of everyone who sails on the seven seas.  Alas, Hollywood and the media have it wrong once again.

The Sea Is So Big And My Ship Is So Small - The last time I visited the Miami boat show, I head a prominent sailing magazine editor say that catamarans are only seaworthy if they are more than forty of feet in length.  That came as a surprise to me, because I had already sailed Exit Only half way around the world, and we were only thirty-nine and a half feet long.  According to his gospel, we were circumnavigating the world in a barely seaworthy vessel.  I have more than 33,000 miles of offshore sailing under my belt, and I can unequivocally say that size has little to do with seaworthiness.  A sturdy small yacht that's sailed well is far more seaworthy that a large vessel sailed poorly by an inexperience crew.

Red Sea Rigors And Rumors - When the class of 2005 sailed through the Bab Al Mandab into the Red Sea, we had to face the rigors and rumors of Red Sea cruising.  As dozens of yachts streamed cautiously north, we all wondered what the next six weeks would bring.  The rumor mill constantly spewed forth piratical fantasies regarding fishing boats that seemed all too curious about passing yachts.  Fortunately, the rumors turned out to be rumors and nothing more.  All of the pirates had moved ashore and now specialized in other things.  The Red Sea rigors are a different story. There are dozens of low lying islands, inlets, and reefs running along the western shore.  These are the stepping stones that make the voyage into an awesome adventure. You can island hop up the Red Sea and enjoy good snorkeling and deserted anchorages all along the way.

Everywhere and Everything - I've been sailing around the world for eleven years on Exit Only, and what it 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 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.

Grand Schemes And Other Important Things - In the grand scheme of things, my grand schemes seem fairly insignificant. In a global sense it's easy to feel as if my life counts for nothing, or at most, counts for little. In the grand scheme of things, my grand schemes are supremely important to me and to me alone.  I have a choice.  I can either live my dreams, not worrying about what other people think, or I can forget my dreams, and let them wither.  If I do that, my spirit will wither as well.  Joy will no longer spring up in my heart, and each step I take will echo the dull thud of dread I feel in my heart that results from not living my dreams. The handwriting is on the wall, and the message is clear.  There is simply nothing more important than living my dreams.  Even if I don't rock the world, I can still rock my world and that's what counts. 

I May Be Wandering, But I'm Not Lost - My global adventures have sometimes been a source of confusion to my family and friends.   Some of them have even suggested that I have wasted large segments of my life. After all, if I had gone mainstream professionally, I could have been rich - maybe even famous.  They are probably right. I could have been rich and famous, but I also would have been miserable, maybe even depressed, because I would not have been living my dreams.

Top Ten Cruising Disasters That Never Happened - To those of you who are making plans to go cruising on your own boat, I want to assure you that I was afraid of everything you are afraid of today, and I worried about everything that you worry about.  I could list fifty things I was afraid of, but I will limit myself to talking about the top ten things I was afraid of and tell you what really happened.

Kissing Cobras - I am not afraid of snakes - I respect them.  In the same way, I'm not afraid of the ocean, but I respect it.  When you respect something that is potentially dangerous, you increase the odds of survival if problems happen. In Thailand, I watched a snake handler kiss a lethal King Cobra.  Not in a thousand years would I have ever expected to see anyone kiss a King Cobra.  To me it seemed impossibly dangerous and foolish, but to the cobra handler, it was all in a days work.  If I had asked the Cobra Kisser to sail my yacht across the Indian Ocean, he would have said, "No way mate. It's simply too dangerous to sail in a small boat across such a big ocean. I'll stay here at the snake farm where I have financial security, and I know that I'll be safe."

Don't Listen To The Voice Of Negativity - You are never safe from negation.  Unchecked negativity can rapidly flush the achievements of a lifetime down the drain.  Negativity is an ever present and unwanted companion that eternal invites you to abandon your dreams.  If you ever reach your dreams, it will be because you stopped listening to the voice of fear and negation.  You stopped looking at your limitations and stopped constructing barriers that exist only in your mind. Negativity is a dream stealer.  Don't listen to the voice of negativity. Instead, listen to the sound of your dreams.

How Exit Only Got Its Name - Over the years, many people ask where we came up with the name "Exit Only" for our catamaran.  In Arabia there was a special visa for people who were leaving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and not coming back. Those folks received an Exit Only visa, and they were now on a one way ticket to some place other than there.  Exit Only proved to be a good name. It constantly reminded me that my old life was gone, and that I wasn't going back.  It was time to move forward into new territory.

Positive Thinking Handbook -  When everything goes wrong, you discover who you are.  You have a defining moment.  If you don't face challenges, and if things don't go wrong frequently, something is wrong.  You are not really living.  You are drifting.  You are alive in name only.  It's time to get in the arena and engage life head on.  It's time for things to go wrong so you can discover what you are made of and who you are.  It's time to have a defining moment.  The Positive Thinking  Handbook will help you win the battle of the mind during the defining moments of life.  It's your handbook to a positive mind.  If you like the Positive Thinking Handbook, you will also love Positive Thinker's Handbook and Dr. Dave's Positive Handbook.

Sudanese Boatyard - Traditional boat building is alive and well in Sudan.  As we toured the waterfront in Suakin, we visited a boat yard where craftsmen build wooden fishing vessels.  They used an adze to shape tree limbs to the curvature of the hull to create ribs for their  boat.  Next, they attach rough sawn planks to the vertical ribs.
 

Cruising Sudan - When cruising sailors visit Sudan, they all stop at Suakin.  This modest port is a much better stopover than Port Sudan which is the main commercial port in the country.  Suakin has a large well protected harbor with good holding in relatively shallow water.  You could sit out a real blow in this harbor without much risk of dragging anchor.  The ruins of old Suakin occupy a small peninsula north of the anchorage.  This town was reputed to be the last place in the Red Sea where there was an active slave market.  On a more positive note, the town is unique because its  white buildings were constructed out of coral.

Sudanese Children - Someone once said that the birth of a child proves that God hasn't given up on the world yet, and I'm inclined to agree.  After living outside the USA for twenty-eight years and traveling twice around the world, I find that children are my greatest reason for hope.  I can see it in their eyes and hearts.  They have no axes to grind, they ignore hardship, and they love life.
 

Orangutans of Borneo - Travel with Team Maxing Out as they visit the Orangutans of Kalimantan.  Borneo is off the beaten path and sailing there on your own yacht is a big deal.  It's not around the corner and up the street.  It's your reward for a long hot passage across the Java Sea. In order to see the endangered Orangutans, you must sail  up the Kumai river which takes the better part of a day if all goes well.  Sometimes things don't go well, and you run aground.  That's exactly what happened to the sailboat that traveled with us up the Kumai river.

Exit Only Survives Global Tsunami - In Thailand, Exit Only survived the most destructive tsunami of modern times without a scratch, but we didn't escape scot-free.  The arm of the tsunami was very long, and out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the tsunami made a lasting impression on Exit Only's starboard bow.

34 Things I've Learned in 33,000 Miles - Find out the lessons learned by Team Maxing Out as they sailed around the world on Exit Only.  You find what you’re looking for. The cruises who talk about the dangers lurking in each location are invariably the ones who find trouble. Cruisers who make smart decisions and keep a positive attitude somehow manage to find good stuff in the same places and enjoy themselves much more.

Follow Expeditionary Headquarters on Facebook.