Special Delivery By MichaelVICTORIA, BC

If Jeanne makes it around the world without
stopping, she won't have to use this phone
when she returns. If you don't check into
another country, it is as though you never
left the country you departed, regardless
how far afield you travel. This is one of
the interesting things I learned reading
about Matt Rutherford's recent trip.

The other day, Tom Petty asked me to pick up his guitar at the shop and deliver it to him before a performance he was scheduled to give at the White House.

Yeah okay, that didn’t really happen. But when we were in Port Townsend, Jeanne Socrates asked me to pick up her wind generator blades and deliver them to her in Victoria before she departs on her next solo circumnavigation attempt in a couple weeks.

Ms. Socrates circumnavigated the planet solo already, once via the southern capes. Last year, the Queen invited her to Buckingham Palace. She’s lost a boat on the rocks in Mexico. Her next boat was damaged in a couple knockdowns just this side of Cape Horn. This past week, Sir Robin Knox Johnson interviewed her for British television. Only weeks after arriving in Victoria from her last circumnavigation, Socrates is departing Victoria to try again for another solo circumnavigation via the southern capes, but this time non-stop. She is seventy years old.

Knowing I’d be in Victoria, I got in touch with her and told her that I want to interview her. She is game, but her schedule is extremely tight. I’m eager; we’ll see how it goes. I want to write and sell a story about her that is different than has been written to-date. But first I have to get these wind generator blades to her; her next performance is a pretty big deal.

--MR

At Hasse & Company Port Townsend Sails, Frances got a lesson from a sailmaker.
Interestingly, this well-known loft sits above Brion Toss's rigging shop.