Two years and two months after leaving the friendly waters of the British Virgin Islands, current and former University of Wisconsin Hoofer Sailing Club members returned home this past July after circumnavigating the globe on the Ladybug, a 37-foot schooner.

Their voyage brought them to 23 countries, including Australia, Fiji, South Africa, Brazil and Ecuador and followed a historically traveled route. Dave Hess, 37, Stacy Cohan, 33, Laurie Kestel, 28, and Marajo (Torpedo Jo) Reis, 37, set sail in April 2000. Beginning in the Caribbean, they embarked on a course that took them through the southern tropics.

“There is what they call the Rum Run,” said Reis, a UW graduate who joined Hoofers in 1985. “It is a well-traveled path across the southern tropics, following the same path all the time. It used trade winds, so 95 percent was sailing downwind.”

Their departure came after several years of planning and saving money.

“Dave and Jo planned to do the trip a long time ago,” Cohan said.

Tossing around the idea for years, the group decided to make a break for it and begin serious planning.

“We had talked about it for five or six years, and one day [Hess] said, ‘I’m tired of working’,” Reis said. “Once we were committed to the entire thing it was about a year [long] process.”

The first and most tedious part of the planning was finding and paying for a boat.

“We knew how much money we had and wanted to spend,” Reis said. “We found we needed more money and worked for a year. Once you buy the boat, everything falls into place.”

The budget for the trip included $90,000 for the boat, $10,000 per person per year, plane tickets, car rentals and a few other items.

The majority of the group’s meals consisted of local foods such as grain and other dry goods purchased while ashore, supplemented by the fish they caught.

“We ate what the locals ate, and we were in Third World countries, so it was obviously not expensive,” Reis said.

Planning their trip and its path involved weather forecasting as well as purchasing navigational equipment.

“Our schedule to finish the trip in two years was a bit stressful, as we had a lot of deadlines to meet with respect to hurricane seasons,” Cohan said. “Every arrival, we were already planning our departure.”

Weather-wise, the group did not run into anything too formidable, making sure to avoid tropical storms. They ran into a few big squalls, but the storms never intensified to dangerous levels.

One helpful asset was the communication between the Ladybug and other passing boats.

“There is a tremendous cruising community,” Reis said. “You always have information as you get closer to a place.”

While sailing, volunteer radio operators worked every day from the shore to report boat positions and weather forecasts, as well as to offer assistance.

“Usually, it was a land-based operator who takes it up by themself to make sure it happens every day, year by year,” Reis said.

In addition to radio communication, the members of the Ladybug also used their Global Positioning System to keep track of their location and course.

“That’s the one thing that really changed the game,” Reis said of GPS. “Charts are not that accurate.”

Knowing exactly where they were located was important because they had two very long stretches of oceans to pass.

First, after leaving the Galapagos Islands early on, the crew set sail for French Polynesia, 3,000 miles away. The trip across the Pacific Ocean took 21 days.

Later, they sailed 4,000 miles across the Indian Ocean, from Cocos Island, Australia, to Port Louis, Mauritius, off the coast of Madagascar.

The crew was careful to divide responsibilities, including who was in charge of the vessel.

“We’d have 24 hours of sailing, so we would always have someone awake,” Reis said.

The crew took turns with shifts, sailing as well as watching for other boats.

When the time came close for them to port in a new country, they would have to abandon their own schedule during entry proceedings.

“Typically, its a time-consuming process,” Reis said of entering customs.

With their proper documentation of boat papers and passports, the crew went first to immigration, then to customs.

Once finished with the business side of entering a new country, the pleasure opportunities were mixed in. For the crew, traveling to new countries meant getting in with the locals and experiencing what their lives were like.

“We called it ‘going up the hill’,” Reis explained, as the geography of fishing towns places the popular vacation spots close to the water and the locals farther away.

“It makes a real big difference if you’re a traveler–you get a feel for culture. Otherwise we might as well get on a plane. But [we were able] to get a feel for the culture and to see what people are all about.”

Their willingness to travel farther to find an experience like this one has benefited the members in numerous ways. For example, not only is the desire to repeat the trip prevalent, but the crew also appreciates the new cultures they saw.

South Africa is a favorite place to revisit, according to Cohan.

“Great wine, interesting people, and a great place for a motorcycle ride. We especially enjoyed the safari we did there,” Cohan commented of South Africa.

In addition, learning about other cultures gave her a better understanding of their politics and geography.

“South Africa was especially interesting in these respects,” Cohan said.