“He began in Hawaii. If he’d gotten on a sailboat, he’d be posting from Ecuador today.”
Not exactly ...
He’d be sitting in a Tampa, FL prison for being a father to his blood children.
Thank you CNN rats.
He didn't know the right people in Hawaii. He should have spent more time hanging around the Ala Wai Marina. Plenty of skippers could get him non-stop to Ecuador or anyplace else in the Pacific. You just need a few friends among the long-distance cruising crowd, well represented there. Hawaii is a great pitstop or hub for long-distance sailros. Heck, he could have purchased a 30 footer for cash and just disappeared for good without leaving a forwarding address. He was very smart about the crypto stuff, but his escapeology tradecraft was dismally poor.
My own escape pod, mid-Pacific. I sailed solo from Panama to Hawaii to Guam. I could have had a SEAL squad aboard, and none the wiser.
And there are thousands of us out there crisscrossing the oceans right now. (Shoot, just the Brits would be thousands.) Airport security lines give govts the impression of omniscience. They are just cattle dipping lines for those who can't sail.
