Blue Pelican Circumnavigation

[JodyandStephen]

Jody Bedson and husband Stephen Parry complete their double -handed circumnavigation on Blue Pelican, hull number 122, after setting out from Florida 2010 and traversing Bahamas and East coast USA. Spending a few years in east and west Caribbean, ultimately departing Caribbean Sea in 2014 to cross Pacific, Indian oceans [via Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and Meditterenean Sea] and returning to Caribbean Sea [Martinique] Jan 2019. This after meeting many 424 and 422 owners along the way. Great to meet so any of you. Too many to list, but happy to hear back from you. Just now with ‘HiFlight’ in Martinique [and formerly in N.Carolina, USA], and in Malaysia recently with ‘Romance’, in Qld with ‘Woosh’, memories of so many in USA and these waters [now Caribbean Jan 2019]

2 users thanked author for this post.

Discoverie, james meyer

[Bryan Bywalec]

Congrats on going all the way around! I’m in the process of reorganizing some of the static pages on this site and we decided it would be fun to have a 424 Hall of Fame. As the first person to post a circumnavigation announcement, y’all are the first inductee! Hopefully in the future the hall of fame will grow to be more than a list but for now check it out here: https://www.pearson424.org/424-hall-of-fame/

If you want to share more details about your circumnavigation shoot me an e-mail at bryan@iwouldsaygo.com. I’d be happy to interview you for the benefit of the handful of P424 owners currently refitting for extended cruising if you aren’t the blogging / writing type.

Anyone else reading this that has circumnavigated, feel free to drop me a line.

Regards,

Bryan

-----
Bryan Bywalec
S/V Pelican, Hull 209
Siren Engineering, LLC

[Rock Richardson]

congrats, any problems with the pirates in the gulf of Aden, red sea ? curious why you didn’t go to Madagascar instead of Red Sea
well done !!!

[JodyandStephen]

Thanks for your hail,

Jody and I get questioned a lot regarding our route through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Why that route? I like to play it safe. And that route, at that time was the safer route to take over a passage under Africa; in addition more interesting, much easier on the vessel, and a shorter route to those fantastic Greek Islands. But safety was first and foremost in our planning.

Pirates. In reaction to the terrible pirate situation that was occurring in and around the Gulf of Aden , a large coalition of countries supply a network of war ships and planes to provide protection for all craft on a continuing basis. These coalition forces, coupled with pressures on land have wound up pirate activity in that region. We knew this had been the case for quite a number of years. There has been piracy activity on the West coast of Africa, indeed even south east coast of AFrica, but not in Gulf of Aden in the last few years. This seems contrary to most peoples understanding, but is the fact.

Prior to and in the Gulf we received VHF hail from “Coalition Forces Warship/Plane” at least once a day to remind us they were there [ and United Nations accents]. We were registered with UKMTO [as is appropriate] with direct phone contact, and we ran AIS and nav lights [again as is appropriate] so we could be seen. Small boats like us are advised to run in the middle of the traffic separation corridor.

It was this blanket level of air and navy defence security that overwhemingly covered the safety question. If you are considering passaging, then do it whilst the coalition forces are still in place.

regards

Stephen Parry
S.V. Blue Pelican
KJ4YHY

[Author]

Posts