Neil Groff

0900, May 23, 2014

 

Woke to clear skies, sixty-five degrees. Got down to fifty-five last night. Good sleeping. We needed it after last night’s experience. Gus already on duty along with monkey man.

 

Today’s story is about Neil Groff who came in last night in Full Moon, a twenty-seven foot Cal. A very fine ocean capable boat. A very pleasant man, hailing from Vancouver, BC.

 

I asked him how the heck he got that little boat from Vancouver to Elizabeth City, NC.

 

So he told me, in as nonchalant a manner as if you were talking to me about an afternoon visit with your cousin over the hill.

 

He said he left Vancouver in 2004, after what he called a near death experience. He had hit his head hard on a companion way board on Full Moon and wound up in a coma for a week with a severe concussion and brain swelling. They had to drill holes in his skull to relieve pressure. After he got out of the hospital he decided life was to full of uncertainty to waste any more time so he quit his engineering job and left Vancouver, traveling down the west coast to Sausalito, CA where he teamed up with some other sail boaters and continued traveling south to Mexico, where he lived for a while. Then he took a notion to go to the Galapagos Islands, five hundred miles off the Ecuadorian coast. From there he set off across the southern Pacific Ocean, bound for the French Polynesia (Tahiti and other exotic and remote islands), then from there to New Zealand and Australia.

 

Mind you, this guy is sailing by himself in a twenty-seven foot boat.

 

On he sailed through Indonesia, across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar, then around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, then to Brazil, through the Panama Canal and on to Guatemala where he actually crossed the meridian from which he left, thus circumnavigating the globe, although not crossing his original track.

 

Then back through the Panama Canal, on to Cuba and the Caribbean Sea and all its richness and finally entering the ICW in Florida, and after some short “hops” out to the Atlantic, came to be in Elizabeth City parked beside out boat.

 

Now he is bound for Nova Scotia and plans to cross the North Atlantic and check out the Scandinavian Countries, the United Kingdom and Europe.  

 

Any questions?

 

Neil Goff, from Vancouver, BC with ancestors in Lancaster County, PA he says.

 

 

 

Full Moon

Neil Groff's boat

 

A beautiful man, easy to talk to. Seems not the least bit lonely, although he is alone a lot. He keeps a journal and says maybe someday he will write a book. I told him I wanted to reserve a copy.

 

He just smiled.

 

Her Highness and I walked over to the market and bought some fresh produce, sour dough bread and a small loaf of pumpkin bread for tonight’s desert. Took that stuff back to the boat and walked up town to look about. Back at 1600 for dinner and planned our day tomorrow. An early start up the Dismal Swamp Canal to Norfolk, VA. Planning on traveling, more or less, with Neil.

 

 

Episcopal Cemetery in Elizabeth, NC

 

 

Namaste