Adventurous and daring, twenty-year-old Daniel Feinstein is quenching his wanderlust by sailing solo around the Caribbean in a 26-foot wooden boat.

Born and raised in New England, he started sailing at the age of six, bought his thirty-one-year-old, Bequian built, wooden boat Plumbelly two years ago, and has been sailing around the Caribbean since last November.

"People tell me I'm courageous, but I don't think that's necessarily true. It (sailing) is my every day life, my home, and I love it.'' he said.

"You don't have time to do everything in life, so you might as well do what you enjoy, when you can.'' Daniel left high school at sixteen and spent a year travelling around the Pacific Ocean on the tall ship Barkentine Concordia . He returned to the US East Coast and underwent shipwright training at The Wooden Boat School in Maine.

"I've always liked building things, and sailing and I'm very interested in traditional ship building,'' Daniel said. "I had some formal training for a while but for the most part I have taught myself.

"It's quite hard to find work and there is not a lot of money in the trade.

You need to find a place where they really need shipwrights or do something that doesn't require much money.'' Daniel said it didn't cost much to sail the world -- "about $1,000 to $1,500 every year maintaining the boat and then I have to buy food. I work for a month or two and then sail for a whole year. I used to catch and eat a lot of fish when I sailed, until I got fish poisoning or Ciguaterra, in the Virgin Islands. I lost 30 pounds and was sick for two weeks.'' He started his journey last November sailing from Maine and came through Bermuda soon after for repairs, having been through some major storms.

He then set sail for St. Kitt's, Nevis, Montserrat, the Virgin Islands, Carriacou, cruised through the Grenadines to Bequia, Antigua, and back to Bermuda this week.

Daniel has a 5hp engine on the back of his boat, but it has not been working for the last two years, because he is missing a carburretor.

"It would be nice to have an engine that worked, but it is not necessary. I can sail everywhere, and if there is not enough wind I just put up my hammock and relax.'' When asked if he was ever worried something might go wrong out at sea and there would be no one to help him, he replied, "No, not at all, when you sail alone, you must think everything through very carefully, examine all possibilities of what might happen and make the right decision that way. The trick to being a good sailor is to always be ahead of your boat...'' He pointed out, "I have GPS, and a radio if I did need help and I know celestial navigation. I always avoid bad weather if I can.

"I never really get lonely. When I'm at sea, if I'm not busy sailing, I cook, play my flute, read, write or listen to the radio. I meet many amazing people in port.'' He continued, "Dolphins often swim alongside the boat to keep me company and I babysat for a whale once. One day a large whale and a small whale came and swam by the boat. The large whale left for about an hour and a half and the small one stuck right with me. I met a whale behaviourist in St. Croix and he said I had been babysitting for the little whale.'' His boat Plumbelly , was handmade on the beach in Bequia, and is one of the only two boats of West Indian descent to circumnavigate the world.

"She's still in perfect sailing shape, 31-years-old and has never needed to be re-caulked.

She is designed after the working boats in Bequia, except she has a full keel instead of just a dagger board. The boat is wider than most and the Bequians gave her the name because it looks like she has a "plumbelly''.

"I normally stay in one place for about a month to a month and a half and by that time I'm ready to leave. So far, Bermuda is the only place, when I leave, I won't feel ready to leave.

"I have seen a lot of kindness in my travels, but my introduction to it has been in Bermuda.

"When I came through Bermuda last November, I had a broken boom, gaff, and bow spring. Fifteen minutes after I arrived, one of the guys off the pilot boat, had me on the phone to his brother who works at Gorham's to help set me up with parts. Stevie Hollis gave me an old boom to make a gaff, Morris Johnson, gave me a sixteen foot four by four to make a boom, and Don Coram gave me a place to work on my boat, and his wife made me the best apple pies.

Bermuda is one of the few places where everyone still says hello on the streets. It may not be perfect, but it seems still small enough and the people seem conscientious enough that the problems they do have are still solvable...'' Daniel will be staying on his boat in St. George's this week and then he will sail to Martha's Vineyard.

In the future Daniel hopes to attain his yacht master's license, hopefully one day build a bigger boat, and keep on sailing.

DANIEL FEINSTEIN -- `It would be nice to have an engine that worked, but it isn't necessary. I can sail everywhere, and if there is not enough wind, I just put up my hammock and relax.'