ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — One day Bo Cordle, 28, was sitting on a neighbor’s boat in Bear Point Marina talking about his plans to sail around the world.

The young deckhand and avid sailor was in the early stages of planning for the trip and already had a plan for raising part of the money. He would ask people from his website, sailingbo.com, to sponsor a mile for $10 and send ‘em a postcard and supply them with daily reports and tweets about his adventure.

“When I started kind of throwing the idea around I was on that boat right there talking with a guy named Scott (Templeton) who lives on that boat and Tim (Stephenson) who lives on that blue boat,” Cordle said, relaxing aboard a 40-foot sailboat he lives on.

“I was telling him ‘what if I see if other people join in and sponsor $10 a mile?’”

Cordle sat back and waited for his friends’ reaction. Stephenson’s was immediate.

“He reached in his pocket,” Cordle said. “‘Here’s $20. I got the first two miles because if anybody can do it, you can. I believe in you.’

“I still have Tim's $20 in the front of my wallet so every time I see it I know that somebody believes I can make it around the world.”

It was at that point Cordle said the reality set in. His friend’s confidence in him lit a fire under him. And it scared him just a little bit.

“Holy crap,” Cordle said. “Now I have to actually do this. Somebody actually believes I can do this. This became real.”

The idea for getting others to contribute and participate came during a road trip so see Auburn play in the national championship game in Arizona. Cordle was, at the time, ending his tenure as the video producer for Auburn athletics. It was a job he quit to start his pursuit of the round-the-world trip.

They decided to set up a website, goingtotheship.com.

“Got to see a national championship season,” he said. “Me and a friend road-tripped out there. I’ve got a national championship ring coming.”

Along the way people began sponsoring miles for $10 apiece and the pair would send them a postcard. After the championship win by Auburn, those who contributed also received some confetti from the celebration. Cordle’s Auburn connection had earned him a sideline pass.

“Our entire gas bill ended up getting paid through day 14 of a 19-day trip,” he said. “We started getting all these emails from people saying ‘hey, we couldn’t make the trip, we had to work, we just couldn’t do it. Through y’all, we felt like we were there.’”

And another piece of the “sailing-around-the-world puzzle” fell into place. There is now a place on sailingbo.com where anyone who is interested in his trip can sponsor a mile or more, if they choose. A total of 149 miles have sponsors already.

“I said ‘I don’t know all the details yet, I’m going to figure this out as I go, because I don’t have a roadmap for this thing,’” he said. “If you want to sponsor a mile at $10 a mile then I’ll send you a postcard and keep you updated and we’ll have some fun with it. There’s probably three or four people that said ‘you know what? Here’s $100. We may come sail with you when you get to Australia.’”

Cordle believes it’ll be an investment in an entertaining three years, the time he expects to spend on his trip.

“If you’re going to give $10 to either me or to the Red Cross, give it to the Red Cross,” he said. “Instead of buying a magazine subscription, for three years I think I can entertain you more than a one-year magazine subscription. I’m not just a beggar with my hand out.”

For now the plan is to sock away as much into savings as well. He expects to spend $70,000 to $80,000 on a boat in the 32- to 42-foot range. He’d also like to have $150,000 in the bank to pay for the rest of the trip.

The quest for the trip began after a somewhat shorter trip to Key West in 2004. Cordle, then a novice sailor, bought a 25-foot sailboat in 2003 and began working on it and learning to sail.

He took the spring semester of his junior year at Georgia to sail the boat to Key West.

“I moved it down here that February of ’04 and lived out here on E dock from February until June,” he said, “then sailed to Key West in that 25-foot boat.”

He proved to be a quick study. He had to be to navigate the Gulf waters.

“The first day I sailed on the ocean was the first day I left for Key West,” he said. “I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing. It was just kind of an adventure.”

That boat was later totaled in Hurricane Ivan, but that adventure planted the seed for another, much larger, adventure.

“When I got back from that I was 21 and determined if I turned 28 and not married with kids and a house and all that, then I’d try to come back and sail around the world,” he said.

His parents, Robert and Mitzi, were supportive on the sail to Key West and after seeing the change in him following the trip, are behind this effort as well.

He’s slowly making steps to see that adventure through. Friends David and Patty Link had a boat sitting empty in Bear Point Marina, the Gabriel, and wanted someone to live on it.

He considers that move the first step and his jumping-off point.

“Down here every day I can do something to move in the right direction,” he said.

He hopes the trip will serve as an inspiration to others as well as entertain followers via the Internet.

“If a fat kid from Georgia can sail around the world,” he said laughing, “then anybody can do anything.”