Ocean Planet Update - WWW.OCEANPLANET.ORG Is Back! And Better Than Ever.

Many of you who followed Ocean Planet in the 02/03 Around Alone have wondered why we switched to www.bruceschwab.com, and what was going on with the old website...well, let me explain:

As hard as I am working now to get to the starting line (and the finish!) of the Vendee Globe 04/05, that isn't enough for me. What I enjoyed most from my rather arduous Around Alone voyage was the interaction that I was able to have with the classrooms and young sailors. After the finish, it was an amazing experience for me to visit some of the teachers and classrooms that had followed the adventure. Seeing the logs, letters, pictures, and even dances that they created about the race really drove it into my head what the real value was of what we had done.

For the Around Alone, HSBC Bank created the Global Education Challenge (GEC), which was a big success all over the world but had limited traction in the U.S. While visiting classrooms on behalf of the GEC in other countries, it inspired me to create a similar program through The Made in America Foundation and our Vendee Globe adventure. The challenge is to build a "standards-based" curriculum that uses our around-the-world trip as the glue to keep it interesting. We still have a lot of work to do, but will be partnering with more than one very experienced group to help us do that. So the new www.oceanplanet.org is just the start of what we hope to do.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! Time is short, and what my volunteers and I can accomplish on our own isn't enough to do it right. We need to hire experienced help for our educational and shore teams and your donations are the primary funding to make it happen on time.

So have a look at www.oceanplanet.org. I hope you will see what I am shooting for with all this and believe that it is worth your support. I think it simply has to be done. When I started this program about four years ago, I had no idea how hard it would be, and the struggle it has been to raise the funds has been indescribable. Yet I'm not going to quit.

I'm going to get Ocean Planet around the world, solo, nonstop, in the Vendee Globe "come hell or high water" (as my Dad used to say), and I am going to have an education program and website. Why? So you won't have to.