Fun Times in the Tropics

Although we meet hundreds of cruisers on the Baja Ha-Ha rally each year, we’ll probably never forget Aussies John and Leanne Hembrow, of the Moody 54 Red Sky, who sailed south in 2010 with the Baja Ha-Ha fleet. Why? For one thing, they both seemed to have boundless enthusiasm for joining in the rally’s activities and making new friends, thus squeezing the most possible fun out of the event.

The perfect illustration of their Ha-Ha spirit came at the Bahia Santa Maria beach party, when Rally Committee volunteers were passing out temporary tattoos: John insisted his be put right in the middle of his forehead. "Uh, are you sure?" asked a volunteer. "It won’t wash off for days." "No worries, mate," said John. "I love it!" Although similarly enthused, Leanne opted for a Ha-Ha ‘tramp stamp’.

That was two years ago. Since then they’ve covered thousands of miles cruising south along the Central American coast, then west into the Pacific aboard their big, beautiful Moody. We were about to post these fun photos of them in mid-December, when we realized that they and many other cruisers had became threatened by the imminent arrival of Tropical Cyclone Evan. Although that monster storm hammered the Fijian islands, Red Sky and most other cruising boats came out with only minor damage. So now that the dust has settled and the Hembrows are happily back out cruising, we thought we’d pull this report off the back burner and share it with you.

We caught up with the couple in Tahiti last summer and learned why John, in particular, is so thrilled to be out cruising. He used to run a large painting operation with a huge staff, where some days the headaches were colossal. As these photos confirm, he’s having much more fun now, taking a slow cruise home to Australia. By the way, one way that John and Leanne are helping to finance their cruise is by selling a line of polarized bifocal sunglasses through their company Aquatic Optics. The connectivity of the modern world — even in places like Fiji — allows them to keep the business afloat while being thousands of miles from the warehouse.