Western - Eastern - Northern- Southern

And...we are now back in the Western Hemisphere once again.  

Once when we were in Puerta la Cruz, Venezuela, another sailor asked Bill where we were headed next.  His answer was that we were going to "go west until west becomes east" and that is exactly what we did.  And then continued onward farther west until east again became west.  

We are back in the west once again.  Thus far in our around-the-world adventure we have crossed through 297.5 degrees of longitude, leaving only 62.5 remaining.

We started this little global adventure at Latitude 18.23.1224N  Longitude 064.42.1171W when we moved aboard to cruise full-time on 1 May 2006.  Since then we have moved through parts of all 4 hemispheres.  We did sail farther eastward as we progressed twice down the Leeward and Windward island chain of the Eastern Caribbean, and our farthest easternmost point was also farther southward when we anchored off St. Anne's on the southeastern tip of the island of Martinique.

Our journey first crossed the equator on 23 April 2008 during the passage from Panama to the Galapagos Islands.  That took us from the Northern Hemisphere into the Southern Hemisphere.  And obviously still continuing westward in the Western Hemisphere.

Next hemisphere change was when on 6 November 2008 during the passage from Tonga to New Zealand.  That took us from the Western Hemisphere into the Eastern Hemisphere.

Next up was on 16 October 2009 during a passage in Indonesia closing in on Singapore. That took us from the Southern Hemisphere back into the Northern Hemisphere, where we will remain.  No plans to cross the equator again.

And the final hemisphere change was from the Eastern Hemisphere back into the Western Hemisphere where we started 9 years and almost 5 months ago.  We crossed back into the Western Hemisphere during the passage today from Moraira to Alicante, Spain.  

The remaining of our sailing or cruising days will be north of the equator in the Western Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere.  We have sailed more than 30,000 nautical miles thus far.  

And still have that Atlantic crossing to go.  When we reach St. Anne's near Le Marin, Martinique, our circle will be complete.  Actually, since we have sailed the eastern Caribbean north to south (twice), anywhere we land in the Caribbean will complete our circle.  Plan is for that destination to be Le Marin, Martinique.

As for our Spain update this week, it was an overnight motor-sail from Barcelona to the northern part of Ibiza in the Balearic Islands.  The bay where we had planned to anchor was far too small for our comfort level.  In fact, all the anchorages were quite small that we saw there except for where we ended up.  We anchored slightly north of the city of Sant Antonio on the NW tip of Ibiza.  (Hey!  Now I know where the name for that Texas city west of Houston came from!)  This anchorage was exposed to the west but winds were not predicted to come from the west during the 2 nights we stayed anchored there.  Next, we motor-sailed west to a small bay near Moraira on the Spanish mainland.  This anchorage was a bit rolly but was fine for one night.  Better that than to have to check into the marina there.  It was a beautiful small cove.  Today we motored south to Alicante Marina.  We will stay here 2 nights and then move on to Cartagena on Monday, if weather forecast remains good.  Tomorrow is predicted to have very strong winds from the south, backing to the east. We are not in such a hurry that we have to endure that nasty weather, so instead we will enjoy lovely Alicante Marina for a couple of nights.