Last December, I took a transatlantic cruise and the seven days spent at sea between the Azores and Florida, with no land in sight, felt peaceful but long. But my comfortable ocean crossing was nothing compared to what Sailing Songbird, whose real name is Luke, is currently undertaking: He is circumnavigating the world solo on a 1976, 27-foot sailboat.
Photo: Sailing Songbird/Shutterstock
Man Documents What It's Like to Sail Solo to the World's Most Remote Part of the Ocean
In March 2023, Luke left his job as a middle school music teacher, spent seven months fixing up his newly acquired Vancouver 27, and then, in October 2023, took off from Seattle for the adventure of a lifetime.
The first leg of his circumnavigation took him from Seattle to Mexico where he cruised for six months and honed his skills as a sailor. From Mexico, he made his way across the Pacific Ocean to the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. The passage across the ocean took 49 days and 3,000 miles of solo sailing.
From day one, Luke has been documenting his journey on social media and has garnered a huge following in the process: 916.5K followers on TikTok and 825K followers on Instagram. In his vlogs, he explains what he eats while in the middle of the ocean, how he sleeps, how he gets drinking water, he shows the varied marine creatures he meets along the way, and much more. He shares the joyous moments and the disastrous ones, like when one of his sails ripped and he had to mend it, or when his fishing line caught a bird instead of a fish.
The vlog that is getting Luke a lot of attention recently is from day 31 of the passage across the ocean when, while in the middle of absolutely nowhere, with no wind to help him on his way, he decided to blow up his inflatable SUP and go for a paddle.
“It is incredibly disorienting to be out on a SUP with absolutely nothing on the horizon,” Luke explains calmly in the vlog. “I am well over a thousand miles away from any piece of land… and it is so quiet,” he continues, visibly relaxed about a situation that, for most of us, would be terrifying.
While Luke was confident about his ability to paddle all the way back to his sailing boat when needed, his followers weren’t so sure. “Get back to the boat button —>” is the most popular comment on the video. The second-most popular is “Never leaving the boat button————–>”, and the third one is “Bro, what a beautiful, sublime moment. Please get back to the boat immediately.”
Luke did make it back to his boat safely and, a few days later, celebrated his first crossing of the Equator. Less than 20 days later, he arrived in French Polynesia, where he stepped on land, and saw other human beings, for the first time in 49 days.
There’s no words as to when Luke will leave French Polynesia behind and start sailing again, but all you need to keep up with him is to follow Sailing Songbird on social media, like hundreds of thousands of others who want to know what’s next. 