07.08.2013 Moscow

Dear Expedition friends,

Today I took the difficult decision of delaying the development of our Pacific Ocean Discovery Expedition until next year.

After suffering several mishaps, it became impossible to start sailing from Tokyo without some logistical support in the Kuryl islands and the Aleutian archipelago (between Japan and Kamchatka and between Kamchatka and Alaska)

The advise we get from Japan and Russia is to delay our Initiative: everybody say that things will be easier in July 2014

Sometimes, it becomes necessary to delay a battle in order to win the war... 

In any case, our Expedition continues and is running now. All we do is delaying the departure in order to give many more chances to its possible success.

The Spain-Japan Dual year  will continue active as it will be ending at the end of 2014 

On the other hand, our tribute to Russian Count Rezanov is timeless.

Finally, there is the Commemoration of the 5th Centennial of the Pacific Ocean Discovery, for which I have adopted a solution.

Due to the commitment taken this year with ROTARY, the END POLIO NOW Campaign, various institutions and myself too; I am determined to celebrate the 5th Centennial of the Pacific Ocean Discovery, so I've made the decision to sail from Florida to Panama in September (next month)

I will try to set sail from Miami on the 1st of September and navigate along the coasts of the USA (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas); Mexico; Belize; Guatemala; Honduras; Nicaragua; Costa Rica; Panama and Colombia. 

I will try to arrive at the same historic spot where Vasco Nunez de Balboa saw -for the first time- the Pacific Ocean back in the XV Century -being the first european to do so- and on the same date (500 years later): September 25, 1513-2013

Let's see what happens.

Thanks again for your warm support.

Yours ever,

Álvaro de Marichalar 

www.PacificDiscoveryExpedition.com