Bucket List Item # 3: sail across an ocean: The Transpacific Yacht Race - known far and wide as "The Transpac" - starts off the coast of Los Angeles, California and ends 2,225 nautical miles later off Diamond Head Lighthouse in Honolulu. It is one of sailing's most exciting and prestigious races and provides some of this planet's best downwind sailing. But - if you live in the Great Lakes region and don't have the bucks or the time to do it, then, like most sailors - all you do is read about the Transpac in sailing magazines and on websites. After missing a chance to actually crew in the Transpac when I was in my forties; because the guy who owned the boat, a Swan 48, committed suicide a few weeks before the race, I figured, "That's it. No Transpac for me at least not in this lifetime." The big revelation for me was the realization that what I really wanted to do was just sail a boat like that across an ocean because when I really thought about it, it was not the racing I really loved it was the sailing. Therefore the problem I needed to solve was not how to get into the Transpac race itself, it was really to just, "sail across an ocean." This is the story of that ride... a ride I didn't think I'd ever get to do.