Around the world in three years

AFTER three years and 40,380 miles of sailing, New Quay’s Fergus and Kay Quinlan are settling back into life at home.
The couple took off on the voyage on their boat, Pylades, on June 6, 2009, from Kinvara full of nerves and expectation and arrived home last month. It was a trip Fergus had always wanted to undertake.
“These are dreams that go back. We built this boat between 1995 and 1997, it was a dream and it had to be done. This was the boom time in architecture in Ireland, we made some money so instead of buying extra jeeps and property, we put the money aside. We were leaving anyway and just as we set out, we could hear the crash.”
Their daughter came to visit in South Africa, while Brenda Linnane from New Quay also came to see them but according to Kay, they were fortunate that life didn’t ever force them home. “I think it’s important that we were lucky that there was no event that we had to come home for.”
After leaving Kinvara, they headed for Spain, travelled down its East Coast to the Canaries and then to Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa and from there, they made their first very long journey, a 14-day voyage to Barbados.
They were at Bonaire, just off the coast of Venezuela by Christmas 2009 and after that, they went to the Colombian city of Cartagena, which Fergus enjoyed. “It’s an astonishing city, it’s the biggest Spanish walled city in all of South America. It’s basically why South America speaks Spanish and Portugese, the English couldn’t take it. It’s a magnificent place, it was a very different culture.”
From there, they went to the San Blas islands off Panama, home to the Kuna Indians, a tribe who never came under the influence of Christianity. “They’re very small people but they’re very friendly, beautiful people,” Fergus said.
A lot of bureaucracy had to be negotiated before they could get onto the Panama Canal but they managed and soon they were through to the Pacific Ocean, which would be their home for around 12 months.
They saw extreme poverty in the Las Perlas islands, something that is far too common in the region, Fergus says. “As in a lot of places in Latin America, there are huge discrepancies in wealth there.”
The equator was crossed en route to Galapagos Islands and there was some rough weather to be negotiated. “When you come to the tropics, the two trade winds meet and there’s a very confused area of thunderstorms and confused seas and it usually takes a few days to battle your way through the storms and very heavy rain. Then you come out the other side and you have the trade winds again and trade-wind sailing can be wonderful,” Fergus reflected.
After leaving the Galapagos, there was another huge journey, the longest unbroken spell of the whole three years. “From the Galapagos, we started our longest haul of the trip, which was to be over 3,000 miles to the French Marquesas in the Pacific. That took us about 19 days and they were just beautiful islands,” says Kay.
It was the first time they encountered Polynesian people and Fergus found the French influence quite obvious there. “Education and standards of living are much higher. The French have taken care of their islands.”
They also visited places like Tahiti, Niue and Tonga and Fergus was very impressed with the sea life. “The wonders under the water are just out of this world. I couldn’t identify 95% of the stuff I was seeing, from sea snakes to turtles to sharks to sting rays. I went swimming with sharks and sting rays in Polynesia. They assured us they were harmless but when you see a 6ft shark coming towards you…”
Weather conditions were very poor as they approached New Zealand, where they would remain for several months. “We started in the Bay of Islands, then we went around the coast, going to various little islands. At one stage, a fella gave us his car keys and said he was going away for 10 days. We bought a tent then and kept driving, we didn’t know where we were going, just kept driving inland. We actually got to the Tasman Sea and swum there,” said Fergus.
While conditions were bad when they arrived, they were far worse as they left the country. “We meant to stay for five months but we stayed another one because the weather wouldn’t stop blowing against us. Eventually, we did leave when the wind shifted but it was probably the roughest run we’ve ever done. There was a 1.5m [metre] swell coming down from the old weather system, a 2.5m swell built up behind us and a 6m swell from an old storm was there as well and when the three of them met up, it was terrible.”
After going to Caledonia, they hit Australia, where they travelled much of the east coast and where Kay got injured. “I managed to trip on a pontoon and break two of my fingers and ended up in hospital on our way up the coast but I must say they treated me so well.”
They visited a number of hospitals and even encountered a nurse from West Clare in Darwin, one of the country’s most northerly cities. “I went in to have my final visit to see if the surgeons in Darwin would take off the bandage and there was a Clare nurse from Mullagh there. She took me into the accident and emergency, arranged for me to see the orthopaedic surgeon and did it quickly. In no time, I had the plaster off and they arranged that I should start physio immediately.”
While they had planned to make their way home by a different route, they went around the Cape of Good Hope because of pirate activity farther north in the Indian Ocean. Indeed, they were friends with four people who were killed on board a boat called the SV Quest. This added 7,000 miles to the journey.
Getting to South Africa wasn’t easy but when they arrived there on Christmas morning of 2011, the hardest sailing was done. “What we were terrified of was the Agulhas Current but there were control centres on the radio that were good to us, as to when to go and when not to go. That was the roughest place you’ve ever been but once you get to Cape Town, it’s over. Before that, the winds change very fast, the sea is horrific and an awful lot of boats are lost,” Fergus recalled.
From South Africa, they headed for St Helena in the South Atlantic, then hit Bermuda in the early summer, the Azores and headed for home.
They arrived back in Ireland at Dingle in July, relaxed a little there, went to the Aran Islands and finally got back to Kinvara.
The couple have been home for a few months and Fergus said he saw how things had changed as soon as he was off the boat. “The most dramatic thing was when we first arrived in Dingle, we went into the supermarket and the prices had all dropped dramatically. We were shocked.”
The excitement of the trip is something he recalls fondly. “The tension every time you leave, then the excitement every time you arrive after weeks at sea and the smell coming off the land. The people you meet are fabulous and so are the other sailors.”
He says there are a lot of opportunities for people who want to travel the world on yachts. “There’s huge work opportunities at sea on yachts and there’s ways of going around the world without owning a yacht and we’ve met people who are doing it. Of all the people in the world that they want, the first are the Irish, because we have a sense of fair play, a sense of humour and great cop-on, I think.” Kay agrees with him fully. “It’s true, we’re not just saying that. I asked people why do they go for the Irish in particular and it was more or less what Fergus said.”
Kay also feels she learned a lot about making the most of life on the trip. “Time will just keep going. I could have just been here for the last three years and just working and been happy out but to have taken that bite and done it was a lesson in how to use your time. Sometimes, the hardest thing is to go.”
They hope to go to secondary schools to talk about their experiences and Fergus says there are lots of fantastic experiences young people can enjoy if they make the effort. “A lot of children nowadays might think there are no adventures left in the world but there are astonishing adventures out there,” he said.
For  anyone who would like to see the full day-to-day log and photos from the Quinlan’s trip, see www.pylades.net.