Former Vancouver couple sets off on sailing adventure

• Who: Wayne Seitz and Dana Greyson

• Hailing Port: Vancouver via Everett via Jacksonville, Fla.

In her blog, Galley Wench Tales, Greyson says her title is “chief bottlewasher, first mate and explorer at GalleyWenchTales.” Her husband, Wayne Seitz, a retired Boeing aircraft mechanic, is the captain.

The sailboat

• Boat name: Journey

• Vessel make/model: Pearson 365 ketch (36.5 foot) sailboat

• Purchase price: $30,000

• Interior space: 150 square feet

The trip

• Distance: 8,000 nautical miles

• Time span: Two years

• Set sail: December 2014 in Jacksonville, Fla.

• 2015 destination: New Zealand before cyclone season begins in November.

• 2017 destination: Australia.

• Current leg: 3,000 nautical miles from Galapagos, Ecuador, to French Marquesas.

• Monthly expenses: About $1,500

Did you know?

A statute mile is 5,280 feet.

A nautical mile is 6,076.11549 feet.

More information

• Galley Wench Tales blog: Follow the South Pacific sailing adventure of former Vancouver couple Dana Greyson and Wayne Seitz at www.galleywenchtales.com/

• Listen to Greyson’s Nov. 7 interview on National Public Radio’s “Closing the Loop.”

• Read an article about the couple downsizing to their sailboat’s 150-square-foot cabin.

Dana Greyson and Wayne Seitz celebrated their eighth anniversary last week with cranberry mimosas, bacon and buckwheat pancakes with maple syrup. Although it sounds ordinary, it was hardly a common celebration.

Later, they marveled at leaping dolphins and multiple rainbows as they sailed in the Pacific Ocean toward their next port-of-call, 3,000 miles away.

Greyson and Seitz are following their dreams all the way to the South Pacific. The former Vancouver residents, both 53, have cast off for a two-year sailing adventure from Florida to Australia.

A windsurfer, Greyson had been sailing a few times when a mutual friend introduced them in 2005. Since then, saltwater and sailing have seasoned their relationship. On one of their first dates, Seitz asked her to accompany him on a charter sailboat in the San Juan Islands. Later, at their wedding on a Hawaiian beach, they danced barefoot in the sand.

One day, Seitz came home from work and asked his wife: “What do you think about chucking everything, buying a boat and sailing around the world?”

They decided to make the trip sooner rather than later, while both of them are healthy. The challenge: sail 8,000 miles from Jacksonville, Fla., to Australia over two years.

Preparing for life at sea

To practice for the journey, they sailed in Puget Sound and through the San Juan Islands on a 26-foot O’Day sailboat they shared with another couple. But to sail 8,000 miles, they needed a bigger boat.

Eventually, they quit their jobs, sold most of their possessions and bought Journey, a 36.5-foot Pearson sailboat they found in St. Lucia in the Caribbean.

Journey needed work before she’d be ready for the voyage. They sailed her from St. Lucia to Jacksonville, Fla., to make repairs. While making Jacksonville their temporary base, Seitz found a contract job as an aircraft mechanic. Greyson did freelance writing and was hired at a marina, which allowed the couple to buy needed supplies at discounted prices.

After they made repairs, they tested Journey in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and other points.

They purchased a scuba tank and gear so they can do underwater maintenance and repairs when they’re out to sea and nowhere near a port.

“As we venture out into deeper anchorages and more isolated areas, becoming more self-sufficient is paramount,” Greyson wrote in her blog.

While planning for the two-year cruise, they purchased as much nonperishable food “as we can possibly cram into our boat and not sink it,” Greyson wrote.

Small living space

They winnowed their possessions down to what would fit in Journey’s cabin. The remainder of their possessions, five boxes of photo albums and high school yearbooks, are stored in a relative’s home.

About a month before they set sail, Greyson wrote in her blog: “We’re busy with the Rubik’s cube of how to fit everything at once into our 150 square feet of living space on the boat.”

Although living in such small quarters presents challenges, Journey is well-equipped. Their bathroom is outfitted with the same fixtures found in landlubber’s homes: toilet, sink, shower and medicine cabinet, though on a smaller scale.

Greyson prepares their meals in their galley with a deep chest refrigerator/freezer, a sink and a small stove with an oven. The gimbaled stove swings back and forth on two pivot points so that it is level even when the boat is not. She has prepared an array of seafood dishes including conch salad, chowder and lobster grits.

“We’re pretty squeamish about beheading, bleeding, gutting, scaling and filleting, not to mention the gore involved in preparing conch,” Greyson wrote via e-mail.

When they anchor at a port, they supplement dried staples with fresh papaya, mango and other local produce. At some ports, small boats selling fresh produce anchor dockside for the cruisers.

Their sailboat is the perfect size for drinks for six, dinner for four and sleeping for two, said Greyson.

The couple sleeps in the cabin’s v-berth, which is twin beds angled at a “v” shape and tucked into the extreme end of the hull.

“Our toes mingle where it narrows down to 18 inches wide,” Greyson wrote.

Many adventures

Although Journey roiled behind a car carrier while navigating the Panama’s Canal’s locks, so far the couple has experienced many more amazing than scary adventures, Greyson said.

They celebrated their most magical New Year’s Eve yet while eating and dancing with a family in their rooftop garden in Havana, Cuba. At midnight, they joined in the custom of “casting water off the rooftop into the street, amid cheers and sloshing from neighbors, fireworks streaking brightly across the Havana skyline,” Greyson wrote.

Also in Havana, they witnessed a myriad of classic 1950s cars still being driven and mototaxis, which are odd, coconut-shaped, banana-colored, three-wheeled, fiberglass auto rickshaws.

On St. Martin, they explored nude beaches. There are six.

They’ve had serendipitous encounters with unusual creatures: sea lions sleeping on the ferry dock’s benches in the Galapagos and a small octopus slithering from an abandoned conch shell in the boat’s cabin. They’ve been kayaking very near a pelican nest, swimming with spotted eagle rays and marveling at the sight of gargantuan Galapagos tortoises.

In Panama’s Rio Chagres near the Panama Canal, “the day unfolds with howler monkeys, an amazing tapestry of bird song amid a verdant yet bug-free jungle,” Greyson wrote.

And in every port, they mingle with other cruisers — including “Naked Pete” — sharing meals and stories about the slow-paced, surprising life aboard a sailboat.

Currently, Greyson and Seitz are sailing a 3,000-mile leg to their next port, Nuku Hiva, one of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. After exploring the atolls, they’ll also drop anchor at the islands of Tahiti, Niue and Tonga. Before cyclone season begins in November, the couple plans to be safely anchored in New Zealand.

Who knows what adventures lie ahead for sailors Greyson and Seitz?

“Wish us luck and don’t forget about us while we sail the big blue ocean,” Greyson wrote.