As we celebrate Points East's fifth year of publication this year, we're catching up with a few of the folks who appeared in our early issues.

One of the very first to appear was Abbot Fletcher of Bath, Maine, a legendary racer on his Tripp Javelin, Majek. Abbot wasn't your typical boat owner Ð he remained faithful to Majek over nearly four decades, until his death a couple years ago.

Majek has moved on to new owners, but for the members of the Fletcher family who grew up cruising and racing aboard her, the need to be on the water hasn't waned. For Max Fletcher, who wrote an accompanying piece to his dad's story in the April 1998 issue of Points East, that need to sail has remained particularly strong.

It was Max who told us in that story of one of our favorite racing anecdotes. "In the 1993 Bermuda Race," Max wrote, "my sister Judy and I were on watch, doing 9 knots with Majek surfing nearly out of control. We were preparing to put a third reef in the sail when Abbot appeared on deck, looked around, and asked, 'Hadn't we ought to get some more canvas on her?'"

Max went on to become an accomplished sailor in his own right, taking a year off from college to sail around the Caribbean, cruising across the Pacific to New Zealand with a 2-year-old, and joining his dad for a cruise to Newfoundland.

Now Max is at it again. We caught up with him by email as he explored the western Caribbean.

After 40 years of cruising and racing with my dad and watching him enjoy life and give so much of himself to others, his death in 1999 reminded of the impermanence of life, and reminded me to keep pursuing the things that give meaning to me. This resulted in my purchasing a Nordic 40, which I renamed Juanona after the 32-foot Lawley sloop my great-grandfather purchased in the 1920s, and which my father sold in the 1960s before buying Majek (boats don«t turn over quickly in the Fletcher family!) I also had the sad task of selling Majek, but left her to some wonderful folks, the Harmons, up the St John River, where Majek cruised over 30 years ago. Last summer, I married a great woman, Lynnie Bruce, who shares my sense of adventure and love of travel, and we left our home and jobs last September to go cruising.

We made our first foreign landfall in Cuba, where we visited relatives. In our brief time there, we fell in love with the Cuban people and country, and wondered at the policies that keep our peoples so apart.

We then cruised the atolls of Belize, teeming in underwater life and remarkably absent of cruising yachts, given the magnificence of the area. We are currently moored near Laga Izabal, up the Rio Dulce River in Guatemala, used in the 1500s as a staging area for the Spanish fleets heading back to the Old World.

We've used this as a base to explore the Western Highlands in Guatemala, as well as the ancient Mayan ruins at Tikal and elsewhere. Later this spring, we'll head for the Azores, and plan to spend next winter in either Spain or Turkey.

The toughest part of the trip so far was saying goodbye to friends and family, but after just 6 months, we treasure the new friends we've met along the way, the simplicity with which we are living, and the opportunity to expand our personal horizons that cruising brings.

Congratulations on Points East's anniversary!

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