Noted Key West-based author, photographer and sports fisherman Jeffrey Cardenas, 61, embraces the wind as he sails out of the Stock Island marina on Saturday, to embark on a three-year voyage around the world.  Cardenas noted that the 46-foot cutter-rigged vessel, “Flying Fish” is “built like a rock” and “strong enough to take me through any ocean.”

Cardenas’ wife Ginny Stones, sister Susan Cardenas, and other family and friends gathered on the dock to wish bon voyage to the sailor, who is joined by brother Bob and their 91year-old father, also Bob (seen in background, coiling line) as far as the Panama Canal. Then Cardenas will continue solo to South America, dock in Ecuador and do some hiking in the Andes mountains until typhoon season has cleared in the Pacific, then on to Polynesia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Africa, the Caribbean “and home again to Key West.” Cardenas will be blogging about his travels at intervals at https://flyingfishsail.wordpre ss.com/2017/11/29/onward/