Hello, and welcome to the Fellow Traveler website. My name is Doug, and I am the owner and captain of Fellow Traveler. This site exists for numerous reasons. Perhaps you are a friend who wants to follow my travels, read about where I have been recently. Perhaps you are interested in crewing on Fellow Traveler and want more information. Maybe you are considering cruising and/or bluewater sailing and are looking for information on boats, gear, and places to visit. All are welcome, and I hope you enjoy the site.

Like many people in our modern world, I have traveled a good bit: driven through much of Mexico and parts of Central America, rode the big bird across the Pacific to explore parts of Asia, hiked, skied, and paddled a lot of the US, et cetera. I enjoyed these trips,  enjoyed the cultures, but always, I knew that this was not how I wanted to see the world. I have been a sailor all my life.  I have always been drawn to the sea and knew that someday I would travel on my own sailboat. Frequently in my travels, I have been in a place I liked along a remote coast, but all I could think of was how great it would be to be sailing there: to go beyond where the road ends, to visit those islands just visible on the horizon.

Twelve years ago I bought my first cruising sailboat and took off for the Bahamas. A winter of sailing the remote islands there and I knew there was no turning back. Since that time I have traveled extensively by small boat, visiting places in North America, South America, Africa, and Europe by sea. My favorite destinations are the islands of the world: the Azores, Grenadines, Cape Verdes, Barbuda, los Testigos. Some of these islands are only reachable by small boat. And all are made that much more special by sailing to them on a yacht. Sure, you can fly to most (but not all) of the world. Stay in a resort hotel. Meet the local people (they are the maid who cleans the room each day, the guy who drives the taxi). If that is what you desire in a vacation, you can stop reading my website now. The type of traveling I do is not likely to interest you. For the rest of us, read on, because there are still those places where there are no resorts and no airports. Sometimes, there is nothing but sand and palm trees. Sometimes there is a village. And to get there, you have to cross an ocean by small boat, which makes the arrival all that much sweeter. For those of us who choose to live in the real world rather than the virtual world, who choose to travel in harmony with the environment rather than by cars and jets, there is still the sea and small boats: mankind’s first means of exploring the world, and still the best way to my mind. 

Crossing oceans by small boat is not for those who want life easy, who want to be pampered. Rather, it is for those who revel in the beauty and challenges of the sea: the tranquility of a moonlit night on calm waters, or the crash of the waves and roar of the wind in a gale. Crossing an ocean on a yacht is for the adventurous, who chose to work with the natural elements to accomplish their goals and desire self-sufficiency, for on the sea, if you err, help is at best days away. Sailing on Fellow Traveler is not just about sailing the seas. There is time spent in some of the great ports of the world, such as Horta, in Faial, Azores with it’s historic architecture and green fields climbing the volcanic mountains. Visits to remote islands such as the San Blas off Panama or the atolls of Micronesia. It is about opportunities to snorkel the reefs of Tonga, or dance to the music of Olodum in Bahia, Brazil. 

Every year the world becomes smaller, more homogenous. I am an American, but I do not like American mall culture, and hate to see it spread to the rest of the world. My goal, as I travel, is to seek out those special places which tenaciously cling to their traditions, those islands yet discovered by the developers, the villages where people still live the way their grandparents did, those cities which still dance to their own beat. And I find, with few exceptions, that if you show an interest in the traditions of where you visit without any desire to exploit them, then you are welcomed with open arms. Most of the places I visit, the inhabitants live simple, traditional lives. So do I. Yes, Fellow Traveler and I have benefited from technology, and where useful, it is found aboard (you are, after all, reading this over the internet). But, unlike much of modern Western culture, I make a concerted effort to minimize my impact on the environment, eschewing the trappings of consumerism, and instead, whenever possible, I embark on adventures, seeking, and finding communion with those from other parts of our planet.



Often in my travels, I meet people who assume I am wealthy. I am not...in fact, monetarily, I am rather poor. Fellow Traveler is my home, on which I live rather frugally, earning my income as a captain, bartender, or occasionally chartering Fellow Traveler. When I have some money saved up I take off on sailing adventures to places I want to go to that my limited resources allow me to reach. In the past I traveled on a much smaller boat and sailed singlehanded. While that was great for many years, I eventually grew tired of the very spartan existence on my small boat: no fridge, limited water, limited fuel for when the wind dies, and worst of all: no room for others. So, I bought Fellow Traveler. Whenever possible, I get my friends to come sailing with me, but some people worry more than I about retirement, have families, or even (No!) don’t like sailing. So, when my friends do not come along I have room for others to come enjoy the experience.


So, now you know a little more about Fellow Traveler, her captain, and my outlook on life. If you want to learn more, continue on through the pages of this website. The next page provides the details of Fellow Traveler herself. The CREW page provides information for those interested in crewing aboard Fellow Traveler. For those interested in reading about the adventures so far, the TRAVELS page is the ongoing travelogue which I try to update regularly. Finally, in the interest of supporting well-run businesses and providing information about the gear that equips Fellow Traveler, the GEAR page provides my take on what has worked and what has not.