Ladner's Jim Poirier is on a grand sailing adventure.
He left the Ladner Yacht Club in August and has so far been to Morro Bay, California, La Paz, Mexico, the Galapagos Islands and, most recently, Easter Island.
The rest of his itinerary includes venturing on to the Pitcairn Islands, the Marquesas Islands, Hawaii and then back to Ladner.
"This is something he's wanted to do," said his wife Donna, noting he is "quite a follower" of Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl. "I'm proud to be part of his dream. When the end comes and your toes are tipping up you don't want
to say, 'Gee I wished I woulda.' You want to say, 'Man it was a great ride and I enjoyed it all.'" He'd previously made a voyage to Hawaii in the mid 1990s that took close to 30 days.
The couple is retired now but used to run the Repair Man shop in Ladner.
Donna visited him in La Paz, where Jim spent time waiting out the weather, and plans to meet him in Hawaii as well.
The idea is for Jim, who's making the trek in a Corbin 39 sailboat, equipped with solar panels, a water maker and single-sideband radio, to return to Ladner by the middle of September.
The longtime boater has had a few different crew members with him along the way and is currently sailing with his daughter Karmin, 30.
Donna has been keeping track of their progress via a website called Pacific seafarer's net. Boaters check in to the net master in the evening and report with their longitude, latitude, sea conditions and other information. You can tune in and listen to them making their report, Donna said.
"Since he's left I've probably only missed four or five nights."
An "immense" amount of preparation went into the trip, she said.
"It was a lot of planning but I think he did a good job. I'm very confident of his sailing abilities."
