Welcome to The Rise Up Ride!

4 January 2023 Update

My friend Mark's posting last August for "crew needed", offering the chance at a new adventure, couldn’t have come at a better or, frankly, darker moment. Mark was looking for someone to help him sail his 57’ cutter-rigged ketch, the Jean-Marie, from Abu Dhabi to the Maldives, leaving on New Year’s Eve. In an instant, as I sat motionless in my recliner with the deadly combination of COVID-19 and broken ribs, under doctor's instructions not to move or cough, suddenly that light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t a train, but something to sustain me; a new focus. A new adventure! 

Weeks before I had punched my ticket back home to @paminnyc and our place in the Bronx by crashing just outside of Skagway, Alaska while descending White Pass. I'd been working for Sockeye Cycle guiding bicycle tours from Haines, Alaska through the Yukon, and was only kilometers away from completing a month-long adventure to the Arctic Ocean and back. It had been a fantastic scouting trip, camping and pedaling up the Klondike Highway along the Yukon River to Dawson, and back from Tuktoyaktuk on the Bering Sea in a failed attempt to ride the Dempster Highway. Somehow, in one of the most remote stretches of road from Whitehorse to Carcross, the virus had found me. It attacked my inner ear while on the 1000 meter descent crossing the border between Northern British Columbia and Alaska, causing me to steer my loaded bicycle straight into the ground. Now, evacuated by Alaska Seaplanes through Juneau, my prescribed opiates exhausted, I was trying not to cough while nursing, a “non-displaced fracture of the lateral aspect of the sixth rib and possibly the fifth ribs." The combination of a busted chest and COVID cough was evil. I was getting depressed, immobilized, feeling my fitness slip away, day after day, focused on knitting bone between the fractured rib ends. 

I wrote back to Mark on the spot, committed myself to sailing with him at the end of December and then I spent the next two months in the recliner focused on healing for the adventure to come. 

On 7 December, Pam and I shared a ride to Newark Airport. She was flying to Tokyo to lecture and then off to the Convention on Biodiversity meeting in Montreal, and I was bound for Dubai to begin preparing the boat. Our twenty-nine years of marriage had always been punctuated by spaces in our togetherness, but never for this long. She is, in her own words, a "very understanding wife who agrees to let him go off on these journeys and hopes that he comes home without any new broken bones, etc." We'd see each other when I return from the Maldives in March.

The Jean-Marie is a lovely 57' cutter-rigged ketch, designed and used for the last forty three years as a live-aboard cruising vessel. Formerly owned by a Swiss-South African couple who sailed her around the world, Mark Sorensen, the captain, bought her in Malaysia and has been living on the Jean-Marie for the past three years in the Abu Dhabi Marina. Mark, who has a background in landscape and regional planning has worked in the region since 1986, applying GIS technology in developing and post-conflict areas. Together with his son, Chris, and David Critchley, a British expat doing satellite-based environmental mapping services throughout the GCC, we are a four person crew.

For the last three weeks we've been putting in provisions, updating aging systems such as the freshwater maker, replacing the dinghy's outboard motor, refurbished the engine, upgrading the electrical system to lithium batteries, preparing the safety equipment and ditch gear, as well as setting up the new communications and weather mapping system. We will be using a combination of the Predictwind software and the Iridium Go satellite transceiver system to download weather information, relying on Artificial Intelligence systems back in New Zealand to crunch the forecast models, providing us with the best routing and departure data. 

Our plan, thwarted by New Year's holiday work schedules in the UAE and the USA, was to leave on Saturday, 31 December, heading north along the eastern coast of the Arabian Gulf and through the Straits of Hormuz. However, three days later we're currently tied up at the Zayed Port Customs Dock, still in Abu Dhabi. We are waiting for offices to open in California after the long New Year holiday to complete our reflagging process as a US vessel, and the issuance of a No Objection Certificate (NOC) by the UAE government for our exit from the Emirates. As soon as we are cleared to depart, hopefully on Wednesday, 4 January, we will start our voyage. 

We expect the voyage will take three weeks, depending of course on the winds. Predictwind uses several weather forecast models, which can project the transit time from the Emirates to our port of entry into the Maldives. If we are to believe the AI gods, we'll hit land in 18-24 days. We've contracted an agent in Uligan, the most northern entry port, who is handling all of the paperwork. Once in-country we'll take our time in February, working our way from one island mooring and small community dock to the next making our way to the start of the Maldives Yacht Rally, which begins on 1 March. https://maldivesyachtrally.com/ 

The Maldives tourism model has focused on high input, low volume, high dollar luxury resorts. Some rich guests have an inauthentic but gorgeous vacation, but the money they spend infrequently benefits the local island communities. We'll be sailing past these glamorous resorts since yachties are prohibited from stopping by to mix with the $1000+ a night guests.

However the Maldives are pivoting towards a model of sustainable tourism and ecosystem services. They're in the second year of expanding their tourism sector in a new and innovative direction, making it easier for visitors to get out and see the country, rather than isolating them in luxury hotel rooms on stilts above the azure seas. Recently they have eliminated the restrictions for foreign yachts, hoping to grow their cruising industry. Now, rather than sailing past this incredible archipelago, boats are encouraged to dock or anchor throughout the islands to spend their dollars, marks, pounds, and the local rufiyaa, nourishing the local economies. The Rally, now in its second year and expecting several dozen vessels from around the world, will feature local village celebrations, welcoming our little flotilla like an aquatic progressive dinner from island to island. We'll be greeting some new crew, and joining in the fun. The Maldives is actively implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, and I'm hoping to document some of their best practices in implementing the "Samoa Pathway" actions on Sustainable Tourism (see below) and the SDGs. And, also spreading some aloha from the Hawaiian Islands, where I was born, while learning from the locals the essence of being Dhivehin. 

Onwards! 

A/RES/69/15 - SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/samoapathway.html

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16 September 2022 Update: While off-grid, cycling from Skagway to Tuktoyaktuk and returning, I left the website unattended, focusing on posting Facebook and Instagram content.
But my plans took a sudden left turn in late July. While returning from Whitehorse, cycling through the Southern Lakes District in the middle of nowhere, I somehow picked up COVID. The virus’ onset happened at the worst time. As I was descending White Pass (3000 meters) to Skagway, I started to feel woozy and couldn’t control my bicycle. I stopped, fearing hypothermia, and waited for two hours to warm up. When I got back on the bicycle and started to pick up speed, I crashed, as I later discovered that the virus had attacked my semi-circular canals, which control balance. Subsequently, I learned that I had sustained “a nondisplaced fracture of the lateral aspect of the sixth rib and possibly the fifth ribs.” I was rescued on the side of the road by two US Customs and Border Protection officers and brought to the Sockeye Cycle bunkhouse in Skagway, where I tested positive for COVID. After isolating myself for ten days, I flew home to Pam in the Bronx to see my Sports Medicine physician, Lauren Borowski, at NYU Sports Medicine Center, who has been treating me as I recover. The combination of COVID-cough and fractured rib(s) is awful, I have learned. Now, six weeks later, I’m still not back to 100%, unable to ride outdoors or do much physical activity while the callus forms at the site of the rib fracture(s). During this interval, I’ve been both professionally and self-medicated to keep still and allow bone knitting. Feeling better, I’m back to writing and working on creating new content, learning some new tricks in digital publishing, and looking to get back online soon.
17 June Update: I’ll be leaving Skagway today by van to Marsh Lake (one day’s ride from Whitehorse) to compete (read “complete” rather than “compete”) in the Southern Lakes Yukon GranFondo. Everything else on the above graphic is correct except for the “Train Skagway to Carcross” segments since the train is not crossing the border into Canada this year. I’ll leave Whitehorse on 21 June by kayak, bound for Dawson.

Here is my Garmin InReach map: https://share.garmin.com/theriseupride

After attending the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik, here is the plan for heading back south to Dawson:

Tuk to Dawson 

Day 1 Tuk to Inuvik https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39810421 

      153 km - 1914 m

Day 2 Inuvik to MacKenzie River https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39810447 

      128 km - 823 m

Day 3 MacKenzie River to Fort Macpherson https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39810480 

      59 km - 1073 m

Day 4 Fort Macpherson to Rock River https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39849150 

      105 km 2838 m

Day 5 Rock River to Eagle Plains https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39849178 

      76 km 2438 m

Day 6-7 Eagle Plains to Engineer Creek https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39849355 (Two days)

      174 km 3423 m

Day 8-9 Engineer Creek to Tombstone https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39849414 (Two days)

      123 km 2494 m

Day 10 Tombstone to Klondike River Campground https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39849450 

      93 km 754 m

Day 11 Klondike River Campground to Dawson https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39850134 

      18 km 128 m 

The first year of this cycling adventure began on 23 April 2021 in St Paul, Minnesota, and ended on 13 September 2021 at home in New York City. The second year began 21 April 2022 in NYC

Please visit my Instagram or Facebook pages, as I'm posting 2022 content there, at https://www.facebook.com/theriseupride and on the Instagram feed @TheRiseUpRide

In 2021, after crossing the US (and unable to enter Canada) I took ferries to Alaska, rode into Denali National Park, cycled down the Alcan Highway into Canada, across the Yukon, and down to Haines. After taking the ferry to Bellingham, I took Amtrak home to NYC.

In 2022 I have returning to Alaska by way of California, Oregon, and Washington and have just finished guiding a ten-day cycling tour through the Yukon and Northern British Columbia for @sockeyecycleco.

Now, in early 2023 I'm in Abu Dhabi, just returned from exploring in Oman and spending several weeks preparing the Jean-Marie for a transit thr the Straits of Hormuz and across the Arabian Sea to the Maldives.

You may want to read about this adventure’s origins in The Underpinnings and The Rebuild. Take a look at The Route and The Gear.

Catch up on The Blog below.