EXIT ONLY
Over the years. quite a few folks have asked us where we came up
with name "Exit Only" for our catamaran.
This is the way it happened. While I was working in Saudi
Arabia, whenever we went on vacation, we had to obtain an
Exit-Reentry visa in order to make the trip. The Exit visa
got us out of the country, and the Reentry visa got us back in to
resume our work.
There was a special type of visa for people who were leaving the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and not coming back. Those folks
received an Exit Only visa. Once you went Exit Only, your
work in the Magic Kingdom was over, and you were on a one way
ticket to some place other than there.
I worked for eleven years in Arabia, always traveling on my
Exit-Reentry visas. Finally, at the end of the eleventh
year, it was time to sail on the ocean of my dreams, and so I got
an Exit Only visa and went sailing on Exit Only around the world.
Going Exit Only on board Exit Only was a liberating experience.
The scraping, scrounging, and
saving were over, and it was time to live my dreams.
Exit Only proved to be a good name. It constantly reminded
me that my old life was gone, and that I wasn't going back.
It was time to move forward into new territory. I had
a new life, and I was a new person. I was now Captain Dave,
Master and Commander of Exit Only, and it was time for 33,000 miles of
global adventure.
This photo shows Exit Only
sailing in the Timor Sea north of Australia on the way to Bali.
The trade winds should have been blowing us along at a quick pace,
but somebody forgot to tell the trades to show up. Hence,
the light winds and flat seas.
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