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As I was leaving Seattle on this great adventure I was encouraged to start a website and keep a blog. Ken Williams was a great inspiration as I read his blog regularly and his voyages inspired me so I used his hosting program, talkspot.com. I chose to not maek the Furthur site a cruising information place, as there are so much better sites for cruisers to get needed details. I made the gamgle to make my site much more of the personal experiences and of the people i have met. It is a gamble that seems to have paid out. I am getting steady encouragement to turn the blog into a book and will start that project soon.
Soon I began getting emails from around the world from people who were inspired like I was before I departed the real official peering around the outside of the boat. Yikes what have I done now? Knowing I had followed all the rules I was curious and stuck my head out the door. “Is this Furthur, the middle aged uniformed gentleman asked?” I said yes and a huge grim came over his face. “I follow your blog!” and he started asking questions only someone who had read the whole thing would ask.
Amazed that this chap would have heard of me I added a hit counter to the sight, wow 50,000 hits in just over a year. I watched as the numbers grew, about 1000 a week on good weeks. Yikes I had better get to work! I was reaching allot of people and had better do a good job.
Today we get 1500 or more hits a week, 500 a day on some days. I get mail from all over the world. People who will someday cruise and those that just like thinking about it. I hear from families who often send pictures of their kids in the family boat. I always tell them not to wait and tell of the wonderful families and kids cruising, Totem is my poster family boat and I pass on their blog.
Apparently there is a group of guys who get together for coffee to read my postings once a week. They are sure there is a hidden blog with the “real juicy stuff” password protected. They want the password. I had to chuckle as no such thing exists, but mmm it is an idea, hahaha.
It gives me great joy to know that so many follow my adventures and that I might inspire some to “make their dream their story”.
The second milestone today was Furthur crossed the equator for the fourth time. We crossed just south of Singapore at the same place as last year. Last year I had a larger crew and a companion boat, Sea Hog. Seeing a unique opportunity some of us swam naked across the equator,now how many people do you know that can say they did that?
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