With the wind and sea

Closed wallet, opened mind

2010-03-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

In went the debit card and out came a train ticket from Birmingham to Manchester. Easy enough, so when is the train? The reader board was blank, the tellers long gone. Haha England, tricky machine, the last train had left two hours before. There goes fifty dollars down the tube J.

Wrapped in a sleeping bag, sitting on the heater wearing a wet suit top and all my clothes, the wind sucked the heat out of hunched over shoulders as I rode from Birmingham to Manchester to catch the next leg of this budget airline adventure. The passenger window was stuck halfway down, or half way up, depending on how you look at life. It was zero degrees at midnight and the meter was running at two hundred and twenty bucks. I love England. I love it. They love me to. Eight hours in England is one way to spend three hundred bucks.

The story of three hundred bucks in Tunisia is more than I will ever be able to capture. Herman Hesse wrote a brilliant little book called the “Journey East” that out lines a grand adventure, but describes the limits of putting life down on paper. He couldn’t write about it, because his words kept reducing the memories, leaving out details, leaving out magic moments, smells, fears, and the synchronicities that come with travel. The journey was too grand and the task of capturing it would take not only his life but the lives of many more talented than him self.

I am embarrassed to say that I don’t have any close Muslim friends. I have never spent time in a Muslim country, and I was expecting to be resented for my American roots, and for once uncomfortable in Khakis shorts, and flip flops. I was even timid about flying my American flag while sailing along the rural coastline in case someone decided to shoot at the boat. It might seem silly but I have embedded images from the Mahgreb of Algerian fundamentalist; training suicide bombers, and plotting against the spread of western culture. All my experience with North Africa, and other Muslim regions have been exclusively through television. So for the first time I got to take my own pictures and experience what it means to be a foreigner on Muslim soil.

It was an amazing entry for me, because my previous associations were triggering fear and influencing my interpretations of the people even though Tunisia is westernized, European, fully developed in parts and by no means extreme. Its Europe. Yet the traditional garb and veiled faces put me on edge. The few traditional outfits that I passed made me feel like I was surrounded by militants, and that I should hide my identity. It is amazing how strong and how deep ones own propaganda can rest.

I filled a day bag and grabbed my camera. I wanted to cross Tunisia with out the awareness of valuable items to loose. Finding a map at a post card stand, I put an X on the map where each post card image was taken and sought to go take my own pictures in each of those places, and to do it all with three hundred bucks, to match my time in England. Easily I managed to see most the places on the postcard stand in three weeks, but mid way I gave up because the places lost their importance. The places on the post cards offered nothing.

They them selves were places you could buy more post cards, or T-shirts, get haggled and pay foreigner prices. So in-fact you can avoid them all, and you wont miss anything. Who cares about a bunch of date palms, or a ten foot waterfall. It’s the emperors new robe, yet package tourists file in by the hundreds to see a bunch of contrived crap that is selected as Tunisia’s experience. The beauty of Tunisia, I feel, are the remnants, the bits of its culture that have survived a battering by western culture.

The current generation; the old ways, the ancient skills, the traditions, the hand made rugs, the faith, the hospitality, the food, the ceremonial way of eating together out of one bowl on the floor. Its all that stuff you cant see because someone is waving a cheap ticket for an air-conditioned bus and a ten minute camel ride.

What I discovered by setting out alone into small towns in the south of Tunisia, is that if you are foreign, you will undoubtedly be invited to peoples homes; fed, offered a bed for rest and given everything the people have.

You will also bump into others, who are traveling in the same way. So you wont be alone for long. I don’t speak French or Arabic, but I was lead by the hands of children back to their welcoming families, fed an elaborate meal, my stinky shoes removed and given a bed for rest while the mother wove a carpet by henna tattooed hands beside me as I slept. Staring at all of this, and crying inside from the unimaginable kindness is hard to describe.

One day one after missing a train to the first postcard destination, I was stranded at a lonely train stop for twelve hours. My watch had been on Cape Verde time for three days and I hadn’t realized it. One moment alone and a boy my age asked me something in Arabic, or French probably, and I said “weah” and he lead me into the train conductors office where two official looking dudes sat watching the train grid on a board with little lights and red and green buttons. They smiled and sat me behind the desk in one of their chairs and asked me if I wanted a coffee. “Weah”. The phones would ring, trains would pass, and each of them would leave to do little jobs through out the day as I melted into the scean. I kept that seat in the middle the whole time. We broke some bread and ate chocolate and cheese. A man on a donkey lead cart arrived after the sun set and delivered fresh local dates. Long periods of silence filled the time. Periods of silence are part of life in Tunisia and I was anxiously trying to fill them with a pocket full of party tricks. We collected almonds from a tree outside and filled an hour cracking them with a salvaged block of timber. They wrapped up a pile of the nuts in a newspaper and put them in my bag for the journey.

One hour was passed teaching knots with the cord from a cell phone charger. We joked around as much as we could and they asked about all the famous people they knew from America. Little attempts at communication, elaborate gestures, and laughter helped to break the silence, that only I was aware of. Some times you can’t talk but you exchange a connection with certain people and this was one of those magic moments.

The main conductor, father of ten children had a smile that beamed when he listened, when he talked and even when he stared at the wall. He smiled at life. He told me about all of his sons and daughters. With hands, faces, and basic words we went on and on about the difference between America and Tunisia. When my train finally came I felt like staying. I felt that I had found what I was looking for.

They asked me to comeback and stay on my return journey. They were officers, and I was a casual traveler, we were now friends and we hugged at the end. They three waved till I was out of site and I unpacked my satchel of almonds and laid them out on a seat in front, beaming with inspiration, but with the thought “these aren’t just almonds, they have a story and I’ll never be able to tell it.” I tried to take a picture of the almonds in a way but my photos just couldn’t tell the story either. The picture couldn’t match my warm feeling and overwhelming inspiration, it was that feeling after telling a story, seeing the blank faces, and saying, well… “you had to be there”.

In a 4x4 headed out to some Tunisian Oasis, post card number three, I sat next to an Egyptian man with a black cloth wrapped around his head and over his shoulders. His wife wore a cloth over her hair and her hands were elaborately tattooed with henna ink. They spoke in Arabic and we didn’t speak. I didn’t understand his dark eyes and furled brow. I played with my new camera. Herded together out to the first vista point, I could tell they wanted a picture of the two of them so I gestured for the camera and wife said “yes, please that would be great, thank you!” She smiled brightly with her perfect English, and confident eye contact. They were teachers in Kuwait, on their honeymoon in Tunisia, where she was born. They transformed. My interpretation transformed. Instantly they were playful and he was playful like a child. I didn’t understand their dress and had prejudged them and had been closed off. We began to run around in the canyons with a new curiosity, trying to take silly profile pictures for Facebook. In one of the canyons a Tunisian guide gave her a stone that he broke in half revealing purple crystals inside that I thought was the most amazing thing, so she gave it to me.

I asked all my stupid questions, because I really didn’t know. “What does ‘Salam Alekim’ mean?” and is it ok for me to say it as a foreigner? It means “Peace be with you”, and Tunisians would be thrilled to hear it from foreigners. And “can I take pictures of elderly Muslim men still wearing costumes from the Star wars trilogy, or the women with Tattooed faces with out stealing their souls?” -Ask first.

We had a lot of fun and after two days, and they asked me to come back to her family’s house, but I had to decline only because they were on their honeymoon, and again receiving such hospitality was uncomfortable for me. I was filled again with inspiration and warmth. I was relieved to answer those basic questions. I had made friends. I learned about a Henna Tattoo ritual, and a few Arabic phrases to warm the path in front of me. I was re-associating the images of Muslim culture, the clothes and the language, and they felt warm and welcoming to me now. For me soon as I spent more time in the desert region I would learn the utility of a veiled face, as the sand, sun and heat penetrates everything, two yards of cloth can create a nice little barrier to any weather, and I now fancy it.

Next postcard was a gateway town to the desert. I had arranged a night stay with a local, via couchsurfer.org and planned to meet at the bus station. I had met an American backpacker along the way and we chose to travel together for a few days and maybe venture into the dessert.

Mansour, a French expatriate, renamed after converting to Islam, met us at the bus station and weaved us through dirt roads and shanty cinderblock houses to a painted metal door with a ceramic plate glued to the center of it. His house was more than we expected; a courtyard with trees, a ceramics studio, one shy turtle, green grass and a street cat.

Our room had two nice beds and a beautiful hand woven carpet. We were in for an adventure. He fixed us tea, fed us, then strolled us around town, shaking hands and smiling with most of the people who we passed. We wanted to go to the desert, and he knew the Bedouin guides that would take us. He arranged for us to go camping in two days time. We thought, well ok, that is a ways away, what the heck are we supposed to do until then?

The adventure at hand became exploring life in a small desert town through the life of a man who has been traveling continuously for thirty years.

Mansour has sixty years and mysteriously possesses more energy, mental clarity, curiosity and refined skills than I have ever known. He rose with the sun, skipped around like a teenager and always gave you his complete attention. If I were an artist with words I could paint a picture of him that would share an angle of who this guy is. Books could be written on his life, but his wisdom, where do you begin, how do you communicate his grasp on life’s lessons, his proximity to enlightenment.

I can talk about him because my words will be read as “weird or mystic” and pass right by. A life teacher, a guide, a magician is out in the southern half of Tunisia at the gate of the real Sahara, and if you go and you are ready you can find him. He is the cliché catch phrase “where one looks at the desert and sees nothing, there is everything.” I got scared because everything was there and I had to look no further. I wasn’t ready. Also I was overwhelmed by hospitality, without a means to reciprocate. So after three weeks I had to go find my boat again.

Monsour brings life to clay, capturing emotions and people in the faces of his sculptures with the stroke of a brush. I was puzzled by this guy out here in the desert, making amazing sculptures about as far away as you could possibly be from someone who would buy them. I spent a few days in his town and had some amazing experiences before and after we set out for the dunes. That’s another story.

Tunisia, is filled with Cafes that are filled exclusively with men who sit all day drinking the same tiny cup of coffee and staring at passers by. May be they are waiting to be invited home for cuscus but it is a phenomenon that I do not understand.

The women are working, cleaning house, feeding the family, and the guys sit unemployed at the café. So I tried it. Five mind numbing minutes passed and someone sat next to me. We chatted for a few moments, and another guy sat. Soon we had five guys and we were laughing, smoking, and drinking tea. One of the guys asked me to come back to his house for lunch. I declined, because I couldn’t I was weary of a scam, and besides I had only sat for fifteen minutes and I wanted to see how long I could go before I went crazy. There was a festival going that day and we made plans to attend it together. So he left. A moment passed and a second guy asked me to go to his house for cuscus. I declined again and he strolled off. Then number three guy asked and I caved.

We walked for fifteen minutes into another neighborhood on the other side of town. Again a metal door with a nice courtyard. A beautiful blanket laid out and a place was prepared for only me. A large hand painted dish was brought out full of vegetables and cuscus. Then a plate of olives, bread, some sauces and then a bowl of oranges, dates and a pot of tea. I was being served like a king, except this was the fourth day in the same clothes and my hair stood straight up supported by dust and grease. Suddenly I realized that everyone from the café was there. The four others from my table were all brothers in fact and they lived in the house including the waiter and barista. There were six brothers and they had brought a stranger home. One brother, who spoke some English, sat with me and ate until I was full and a mattress was brought out with a pillow and I was instructed to take a nap. The mother then came out, with beautiful henna hands and began to weave a carpet on a vertical loom in front of me as I slept.

I was broken. Imagine a traveler, at a bus stop café, sitting, lingering, trying to stretch out a cup of coffee in soiled forth day clothes. Here, the kids bring them home, feed them, and offer them a bed in the shade within their family walls to find rest. I can’t imagine that happening at home.

Again, I was humbled, filled with hope and racing with the need to share the experience. I needed to tell people about these people. To tell them to skip the museums, skip the postcard racks and seek an experience with these people.

It happens when you are alone. It happens when you are lost or already late. It happens when you take a wrong turn or miss your train. Tunisia is like any-other place. The people are the experience. And you cant buy it, you cant prepare it or plan it. The path does not exist after you, it was created by you, your blunders, and your vulnerable ness that people observed and responded to with kindness.

I meticulously recorded the money spent on this trip. A planned three day trip, turned into over three weeks. Paying for accommodation on one occasion and quickly falling far behind in the cost of food due to the tremendous hospitality to strangers in the South of Tunisia. I spent five hundred dinar in three weeks. That is more than three hundred fifty US. A month’s local wages, but I went all out.

For one of those weeks I had two dessert porters, three camels, and a trek around the Saharan desert. Then on the last day, National Geographic was filming a documentary and I was paid 80 Dinar for five shots playing a “westerner” trying to escape an Iraqi prison in the Gulf War.

So I was back up fifty US. So that’s what three hundred bucks could get you in Tunisia and the myth that travel cannot be afforded, is busted. Its not in the guide books and its not for sale, it begins when you close that wallet and open your mind. The cost is what you give up back at home, the people you miss, your family, the cultural holidays, the sense of community etc.

Being vulnerable, sharing what you have, following strangers down side streets and trusting people can get you around the world. I continually meet people who are doing more, seeing more, with significantly less.

Open Ocean

2010-02-05T04:38:00.000-08:00

Meandering back through the Spanish islands we set off for the Cape Verdes. After leaving the Canary- land/sea breeze we motored for a hundred miles to reach the trade winds.

We had an epic crossing. The new wind vane “The Eskimo” worked magically and the electric auto pilot “Captain Dan / Meggie” worked sweet when the wind was to light for the Vane.

We installed an 80 watt solar panel earlier on our "boys trip" so cold beer and music could be enjoyed along the way. The conditions were ideal for the self steering mechanisms and they held out for the whole eight days of following wind. So what did we do?

We made it look easy. I read three books about sailing around the world, and learned to splice cored braided line. Why not?

We played card games (BS), studied Spanish and French, caught fish, let fish go, practiced using a sextant, looked at the map of the world and contemplated all the options.

In fact the primary activity became contemplating the endless number of scenarios, studying wind patterns and fueling our endless ambitions.

We had a two scheduled parties, one for the “halfway mark” and one for the Double Bruyn’s 10,000 mile.

Then there was that spontaneous night when we wore costumes, brought out the disco ball, got completely fueled on rum (thanks Monsie), sang songs and danced the night away under the stars and moon light, then slept all the next day. Someone coherent stayed with "The Eskimo" at all times, thanks Ludo!

After steering us towards Orion's belt for a wonderful detour Ritchie slept for two days, but he was the champion of entertainment that night and has become my new idol.

We sailed at a leisurely pace.

It’s wonderful to be out in the ocean in a warm climate with consistent wind and swell.

The conditions were ideal. There was no rush to end the experience.

We found a rhythm.

Sailing under a reefed main and no foresail, so that the boat stayed dry and reasonably level.

We relaxed from the normal worries of coastal sailing.

Out in the Ocean, where the weather is stable there are no rocks to hit, seldom boats to collide with, and once she’s trimmed properly she’ll sail her self. So keeping watch means: just watching.

Watch the wind power the boat in that magical way, watch the wind vane mysteriously gyroscope our helm straight, watch ones surroundings for that new depth of awareness.

That first glance out to sea seems void and abysmal. What can be described as "mind numbing" begins to show you things, and becomes more and more interactive. When you are steering you can watch the GPS to hold your course. You can also watch a compass. You can also watch a little piece of string and its angle to the wind. You can keep the wind on the back of your neck, or the side of your cheek depending on how you sit. You can note the angle of the boat to the swell and its motion. If anything changes, goes wrong or you loose your bearings, you can refer back to any of these.

We played around with the sextant. We found our selves within one hundred miles of where the GPS put us. It’s fun to begin to relate the map of stars in the sky to the way we use maps of land. The constellations pass like features on the landscape. They also break the night up just as the sun breaks up the day. Orion’s Belt arcs across as the night goes by. It rises as the sun sets, it peaks in the sky then sets to the west. We broke the night watch into four-three hour shifts. Correspondingly Orion’s path through the sky was broken into consistent quarters. And over our passage south the Southern Cross noticeably rose as the North Star sunk in the horizon to the north. We were passing constellations like landmarks on the map. If we were more familiar with the map of the stars it would be easy to have a sense of time passing and have a feel for your location on the surface of the earth.

It all gets lost in the street lights at home.

Back in the Islands!

2010-01-26T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you had a sailboat in the Mediterranean, why would you leave it?

To catch a rare opportunity else where! Jon, Ritchie, Sophie and Mons were all meeting in the Canaries for new years! Ludo and I thought about renting camels in Tunisia and ridding across the Algerian Sahara into Morocco then taking a ferry, but since the border is closed between Algeria and Morocco and Easy Jet fly direct for eighty euros we decided on the latter.

We had an epic new years, which Sophie wrote so eloquently in her crazy French Frog Blog. So I will leave it to her.

We sailed around the Canaries for two weeks until the friends slowly trickled away as the holidays passed and we were down to one left.

Valerie from Couch Surfer auditioned to keep her spot by writing a song confessing her love for the boat and Captain Jon.

She was singing it as we escorted her to the bus and Captain Jon stood his ground that the rest of us were setting off on a boy’s trip.

For the next few weeks it would be boat projects in the sun, afternoon beers, talking about girls, fishing, thinking about girls, surfing, sailing into little bays looking for girls, chilling out, while combing the deserted beaches for girls. Our captain has vision, reason and strong resolve and we were determined not to break rank and to follow him anywhere.

We installed Jon’s new wind vane, and painted the back of the boat.

We found a little treasure map in the guide book… a yellow posted left note reading “Ile de Los Lobos, tricky anchorage in northerly winds but good holding, longest right hand break in Europe. Surf camp and ladies.” Needless to say we set off to replenish our recently depleted stores.

We tried to fit in with the locals, and participated in a local ceremony that usually consists of just ladies, but they invited us to join as long as we wore the traditional garb and danced in the traditional manner. I felt that my personal space bubble was broached on a few occasions, but I kept telling my self that traveling is about venturing beyond your comfort zone and being part of the moment.

We provisioned for the crossing to the Cape Verdes, then sailed up the coast of Fuertaventura and posted up in the little bay off Ile de Los Lobos. It was the setting of a boy’s trip.

Great surf, clear green water and sunshine. We caught fish, ate like wild animals and surfed the days away.

When I say “surfed” I mean Ritchie and I took turns shivering in our board shorts on a boogie sized surf board, as Jon’s audience out in the pack of surfers while Jon zoomed in and out in his wet suit and flash new board. :)

We hiked around the island’s well groomed trails and tried to catch feral rabbits for dinner, but decided after many failed attempts that we had plenty of pasta on the boat and didn’t know what to do if we caught a rabbit anyway.

A few days passed and we set off for the Cabo Verdes. Unlike most cruisers, as we tend to be, we set off from the most unlikely point of departure…nearly the furthers point North East in the archipelago. So after “leaving” we were still actually sailing back through the Canaries for another day and a half after having pulled anchor.

The Holidays!

2010-01-26T08:53:00.000-08:00

Ludo and I arrived in the Canaries after an awesome week with Rob, Everett and Erin bisecting Spain’s coastline, and southern mountain towns. Everett is a rock star pimp little kid with a killer do and I would travel with him again any day. Rob and Erin, are awesome parents,

awesome friends, and awesome people to continue to share life with. We saw some sweet sights, made great new memories just hanging out playing with their new son Everett. We are thirty something’s now. Erin is still hot, a mom now, a lawyer, and still gallivants around the globe, with a binder of briefs to read, hand sanitizer, and baby on her back still learning from the world first hand.

Rob does nimrod surgery in the ER, writes with a Mont blanc pen, drives a BMW, plays with Barbies, can’t finish his beer and still wears girls underwear. They are pulling it off, real ambitious professionals, still down to earth, good parents and still living spontaneously. They are a real inspiration.

Planning on spontaneity!

2010-01-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

This trip thus far has been an attempt at the best of both worlds. Traveling via sailboat can be anything you want it to be. One can travel “fast”, sailing each day covering as much distance as the weather will permit or you can sail for one day and stop for a month. When you sail “fast” you see water, some flying fish and the coast line. Looking at the map of the region triggers little pangs of regret about missing the wonderful talked about places. The little voice in your head cheers you along, “you are sailing around the world!”, and your little heart says “you just missed Italy!”. When you sail “slow” you make friends, learn to cook local dishes, pick up new words and experience new little ideas about life. Then you leave, and you leave friends, places you got to know and routines you began to enjoy. Smelling the roses won’t put miles on your log, and miles on your log don’t necessarily give you memories or that personal transformation that we’ve come so far to discover.
For me when I have an agenda or an expectation, I tend to miss something special. When I can wake up, go for a run, meet some old lady on the street who ends up walking me around a maze of Arab markets for two hours unveiling the secrete shops and best places to bargain, I feel like I have just had a moment that was more magical than anything I could have planned, and couldn’t have been bought at a travel agency. How do you perpetuate spontaneous moments, and how do you explain to others and even your self what you are doing?
I am following one moment of inspiration to the next, lead by encounters with people, shifts in the weather etc. and the further I step down this path the more I trust in it and the less I know about what’s coming next. I meet someone who tells me about a special place and I go. I see a post card that I like and I go. I go to a beautiful city and never enter a museum, ride the Ferris wheel or see the famous statue because I got caught up with a local and ended up cooking, drinking wine and telling jokes for three days and never leaving their house. Some old salt tells me about a hidden cove with good fishing and I cut loose. I try to be as available as I can, and find the guide books distracting in this effort.
Travel moments are the magic moments and lessons learned from new worlds and people as they go by. You can’t explain your self in an elevator when someone asks you “what are you doing” and when the “American dream” inner mantra kicks in with the “almost 30” sound track “what are you doing with your life?”, it becomes hard. No plan? So the answer to my favorite question is…. “I am reserving this period in my life for complete spontaneity while following the trend of motion, but I am not stuck on the idea of moving, I could not travel if I were so inclined, intiendes?”

When we visited Palma I bought a flag for Morocco, rode the bus back to the boat, pulled anchor and took a left for Tunisia. One destination is to the right, one is to the left. The guys on the boat, just laughed. While Derek and I were sailing together, years ago now, we bought books on Panama, got a flag, then sailed east towards Europe. Both horizons had greatness in store. It doesn’t matter where you go. There is so much to see, not enough time and all of it is good. The people you meet, the experiences you have all manage to have their impact. The most amazing people and experiences I have had could have been on a bus after getting a flat tire when I was trying to get somewhere, or when you stumble upon on the edge of town and you follow the light around a corner, or a smell in the air or music from the distance. Setting off ready and willing to follow the moment, is a muscle that you have to exercise, and its like anything else…. Use it or loose it.
Everyday, waking up and following that day’s moment of inspiration can be difficult. There is no manual or book to read that out lines what you are supposed to do. So on my boat, with great pride, I printed out the biggest label my Wal-Mart labeler would print stating my mission statement for this adventure: “YOU ARE SAILING AROUND THE WORLD”. I posted it on the door step from my boat to the outside world. And this helps my mental health, because that question, “where are you going, what are you doing, what do you want to do with your life” is the freaking plague, and it should be outlawed. What brings you alive is the new question! And Thirty is the new Twenty. Having Kids doesn’t mean your life is over, you don’t have to stop traveling or living your dreams, in fact you must continue so that your life inspires that of your new little one. That is my rant, back to the blog.

Ludo and I sailed from the Balearic Islands to Tunisia as fast as we could. Of course we experienced the biggest waves and heaviest sustained winds I have ever seen in Noche. Have you ever surfed down the face of a wave while sailing up wind? That’s the Mediterranean in the winter for you. Little sea mountains race south generated from the intense northerly winds streaming from the French Alps into the Gulf of Lion and joining the north west bound warm African winds for a party.

One wave crashed over the boat, and a wall of water ripped in one side of the dodger and out the other side, breaking two windows and floating both pairs of Ludo’s shoes away and the coffee cup out of my hand. Water flowed in through the closed hatches and into the galley. My stove burners were full of water and the gimbaled action kept a nice pond in the kitchen as we hove to at the edge of physical exhaustion feed now by the refreshing blast of sea water and exhilarating sound of furious wind and the beauty of whirling sea foam.
We went to Sardinia, and covered half the coast of Tunisia, with out venturing more than a city block from the boat. What did we discover, what did we experience? I am not sure. We didn’t even get an Italian coffee while we were in Italy. We went to Sardinia, but I wouldn’t say that I have been there. We crawled into little ports completely exhausted and entirely drenched. Spent all our time there drying our selves out and sleeping. Same with Tunisia. A seed of intrigue was planted, a new place to explore is on the list. Ludo’s in his brilliant way of expressing life in a succinct powerful way, said “I am glad to have had that experience, I feel alive!”

The yellow sky above Africa with its sirocco winds and wispy clouds, the stars at night and the new angle of familiar constellations was what I noticed. You have time to make observations. It’s wonderful to have missed years of political news, but to be aware of how Orion’s belt and the big dipper are moving up and down on my horizon as I zig zag around the surface of the globe. You move the stars from one side of the sky to the other as you sail by night.
We crossed the Mediterranean in two 48 hour bursts, which was awesome, but we did not see the places we went to, if that makes any sense. The color of the water is slightly different, and it’s these things that you start to notice. We went to fast.
Our Christmas was Special. We arrived in Tunisia, and the Marina was full. The customs officer asked for a bribe, and I gave him a copy of “The Alchemist” by Paulo Cohelo that was written in French. Ahh I got a kick out of it, he was expecting whisky, and instead he got a book that might transform his life. They permitted us to get food (bars of chocolate, and three loafs of bread), water and fuel. The weather forecast was bad and two other boats were in the harbor waiting out the bad winds. Weary and feeling a little deflated about spending Christmas Eve beating into the weather eating Macaroni and Cheese, (that is what you cook, if you are cooking an authentic American meal for someone) we set off once again. We sailed a quarter mile off shore hugging a depth of 30 feet in 20 knots wind right off the beach. As it turns out we were gliding along in perfect sailing conditions, lots of wind and no chop.
The bad weather came, but first we caught a fish for dinner, toasted a glass of wine and smoked the last cigar from Noche’s Caribbean stores all while the wind vane steered and we rested.
Upon arrival in Monastir, we tied up the boat, dried her out again, packed our bags, took a bus across the country and a flight to Barcelona where we were to meet up with Rob and Erin, drive to Malaga then fly to the Canary Islands to meet Jon for New years and then sail his boat to the Cape Verdes. Voila.

With the wind and sea: Here is the lattest update, check Sophie's Blog

2010-01-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

With the wind and sea: Here is the lattest update, check Sophie's Blog

http://www.theadventuresofthecrazyfrenchfrog.blogspot.com/

Here is the lattest update, check Sophie's Blog

2010-01-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.theadventuresofthecrazyfrenchfrog.blogspot.com/

I got a new wing man

2010-01-14T08:02:00.001-08:00

Here are the steps:
Find some of these.

Find some way to distract them:

Grab your new buddy.

Let him do the work....

Rob, Erin, Everett, Ludo and I just had a road trip across Spain for the holidays. Beautiful countryside, good laughs and great times catching up with lifetime friends.

December to remember

2009-12-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

It's Europe and the streets are filled with fashionably dressed Christmas shoppers. The intricate city of Barcelona wraps around a large port filled with mega yachts and wintering cruisers from all around the globe. In amongst the glimmering boats on display is that little white sail boat from America with four bath towels drying on the life lines. Noche is like the clown car that missed a turn and fell behind the circus.
I started a couch surfing account, and now am mother hen for backpackers traveling through Europe. I woke up this morning and there was a beautiful Brazilian girl snuggled up next to my nineteen year old German couch surfer, out on the deck was a bag full of groceries a bottle of wine and two books on the Balearic Islands that a stranger had brought to us in the night. Its just like Christmas around here, except I am wearing flip flops and board shorts (not so much because it is blazing hot on the Coasta Brava, but because laundry is so expensive).

So here is the update:
Since my parents are the only one's that read this blog and they came for the French Canals, I can save them for latter. We made it to the Mediterranean! I am sailing in the Mediterranean. Wow get out the pencil and cross something off the list of things to do in life. I know everyone else knows this, but the Med is in fact expensive, and the winter winds are unpredictably strong, and the sea state is a mess. So the images I had of clear water, petite villages and cocktail parties on Noche were congered from postcard images taken during the summer. The good news is when I pull up to a petite village the office that collects money has dust on the door knob and the money collector is on holiday, so its free. People don't sail the Med in the Winter.

Ok the real update. I got Ludo. The Ya Ya sisterhood road trip is almost complete.

Two months ago, I met a kid my age on dock in Bordeaux and he helped me remove the mast so Noche could qualify as a Canal boat. Ludo and his father had spent two years completely restoring and preparing a boat to sail from France to Cuba, and were scheduled to depart the following week. We kept in touch and a month later he called me with news that his mother was ill and his sail boat would be parked for another year. He was on the next train to Noche and now we are sailing the Med together. He speaks Portuguese, French, English, Spanish, knows good cheese and can read a wine bottle so he is handy as it gets on Noche.

I have always had a pang of fear about traveling alone, but each time I set off, I learn again and again that you are only alone for one or two days.
If you follow a calling you'll meet like minded people along the way. I meet alot of people who say, they would love to do what I am doing. Its a phrase that I do not understand. I feel like I am working down the list of things I want to do before I die, and everyday I am anxious because I don't think I have enough time. I cant imagine how I would feel if I wasn't doing my list, if I was doing something else instead. Life can take a turn and those dreams we've saved for later might not happen. Ludo and his father will sail some day, and in the meantime Noche will fill in the gap.
Yesterday, we met a Lithuanian girl and her French Canadian boy friend who have been living in Barcelona for six months. She is a bartender, living off 800 euros a month, and he passes out flyers for a discotheque and rakes in 400 euros a month. They have an apartment, nice clothes, etc and look like every other Barcelonan. They took Ludo and I rockclimbing all day, and hosted us around the city. She speaks six languages, and is in her second year of her masters in sociology. He speaks four languages and skateboards all day. This city is full of young people from all over the world, and the lingua franca is English. I speak broken English, burn 400 euros a week, and don't have nice clothes. There is no real point to my story other than, my jaw dropped when I learned how much money they live lavishly on, and how extravagantly well cultured citizens of the world can be.

I am doing this cliche voyage of simplicty, sailing around the world, powered by the wind, and my head spins when I meet a 22 year old Belgian kid who has walked from his home in Antwerp to Tibet and back with out ever paying for a bus or train. Or when a wispy 19 year old French girl trumps me by thumbing it from Mexico to Canada with homemade signs and seventy bucks. There are so many amazing stories out there and I never stop being amazed by how people can do so much with no fear and no money. You can go round the world by lifting your thumb. That is amazing. It's proof that people are good natured and you don't have to be afraid. I continue to learn every day out here.

How about this one: If you sleep eight hours, you'll sleep a third of your life. If you sleep six hours, you'll sleep a quarter of it. If you remember your dreams, you'll experience it all.

Here is the latest. We are newly inspired to rock climb so we will be sailing to the Balearic Islands to do some deep water soloing and I have always wanted to do this experiment: Take a thousand bucks and see how far it gets me. Due to the current "crisis" lets start with five hundred US. I want to dispell the myth that lack of money is a barrier to traveling. So I will be doing this experiment soon and documenting every penny. 500 US is 300 Euros so I should be back with a report very soon.

Motoring, Mud Fights and Wine

2009-10-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

We we Noche and the French Canals. A year gone by, and she didn't look that bad, but boy did she smell. The first night back in La Rochelle my buddy Patrick said, "Its like camping, campfire smell and all". You do all you can but after all the salt air, the flat screen tv seized along with every zipper from trouser to raincoat to my favorite backpack. The only thing that got better was a stash of Dominican Rum, but not the mayonnaise or the carton of milk next to it. Sunny weather welcomed me off the plane so drying her out and enjoying the boat again was a breeze. Leaving La Rochelle and all the good people there was difficult. I know everyone is tired of hearing about "La Rochelle" and how great it is, but if you have a boat, and can handle castle turrets, and old clock towers illuminating around you as you have that glass of wine at sunset its the place to go. Waking up to the smell of fresh bread in the air and having an organic vegetable market a block away makes the good things in life right at your doors step.

Bordeaux...but not yet. There are crazy tides and wild Kiwis before lazy canals and cheap wine. Jon and Paul happened to be in the neighborhood. One carbon tiptoe for Jon from London to Toulouse, and Paul happened to be ridding his bike through the Pyraneese mountains on a month holiday from his mega yacht in the Med, so we met up and took Noche into the Garronne river on the rising tide at eight knotts to the walls of Bordeaux in one day. Well... all in one day, meaning we stumbled back from a Cuban dance bar in Royan at two in the morning and wanted to take the boat out...we left the car at the dock, and believe it or not Paul fell as sleep on the couch as Jon averaged about four knots out into the river and into the night. Having three "Captains" on board was luxury cruising so I crawled into my fart bag and when Paul and I woke up, Jon had done the hard watch and as the sun came up and burnt off the fog the tide changed and we started to reach speeds of eight and nine knots.

Bordeaux, pretty similar to Royan. We closed down the Irish pub and then danced the night away in a sweaty club with no air or elbo room to familiar Caribbean music and Mojitos. Somehow the wonderfull bar tender Anna,
from the Irish pub ended up with us the next day and we took a leisurely drive though wine country and had a mud fight in front of peaceful family vacationers in a sleepy beach town in autum. Its always so much fun with those guys.

Then the possie came down from La Rochelle for a monday night. Chris, another bar tender...came down first from LR, and thought I could use a fresh shirt so he took me shopping... meaning you go to little chic-shops looking for a t-shirt that's to small but comes wrapped in a fancy bag that you carry around town making you feel fancy for the rest of the day. We bought a few bottles of wine, and made reservations at a street side Italian restaurant for latter that night. Then we got Macaroons, a regional cookie that comes in different colors and flavors and again it is served with a white glove and boxed up like a wedding ring. Half of the experience is presentation.You select a baguette and they tie a paper bow around it. Everything is done intently and with great importance. Greeting people is the same. A greeting starts with "hello", then two kisses, you chat and then two more kisses, "good bye", and then "good journey". In this region life is one sensational moment after another.

"Thats fishing"

2009-09-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

How was Alaska? My mind races, my emotions whirl, physical and mental exaustion brings everything to mind at once. The seemingly endless mecanical failures,scarcity of fish, relentless wind and sea paired with days of perfect hamony of weather, man, machine, and abundance of fish. We had weeks of trying so hard and earning so little, and then we had hours of success that produced more than those weeks of struggle.
It was "A first year" as they say, that I will undoubtedly forget by the time the season rolls around. And thats what suits one for fishing. You learn from your mistakes, heighten your awareness, forget those times of misery and remmeber those moments of sun shine and easy fishing. So how do you answer that question?
Murphies Law is undisputable. If it belongs on a fishing boat and you need it to fish, we broke it. We broke it once, and we broke it twice. Without gettting to technical, if it floated when we got it, we sunk it while using it, if it spun freely we froze it up. If a line seemed new and strong we cheifed it, snapped it, spliced itback to gether, snapped it, spliced it and snapped it again. If the weather was bad and the fleet was tied up, we were setting our net. If the season closed for 22 hours, half the crew were at the welding shop for 22 hours with bits of metal to restore and the other half were tracking down the local mecanic to come fix another part of us so we could go fishing again.
We had crew fall overboard, bar fights in the local taverns, sharks in our nets, and what seemed to be just about every Alaskan adventure. We had moment after moment of total dispair. Relentless challenges, wore down those on the crew who seemed at first to be the most promising with their years of experience and proclaimed importance and then they quit. While those who started as the unexperienced, became the expereinced, and stuck it through to the end of the rainbow, where we eventually found a little pile of silver.
We worked harder and longer than those around us, while catching fewer fish all summer long. But we lasted longer and ended up catching and passing some of our local competitors. Would I do it again? I can't freaking wait.

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The Resurrection!

2009-05-07T19:23:00.000-07:00

Western Alaska had a tough winter this year while the headlines boasted of sunken boats and epic rescues at sea. A friend of mine, Bill, called me in March from Durango Colorado, where he was spending his winter vacation. In a radical storm storm his boat had frozen in the ice pack and been swallowed by the rising sea and needed some TLC. He built the Namorada him self years ago on Kodiak Island and has fished it all over Alaska for twenty plus years with his wife and son. I have been privileged to work with him for five years and through many adventures and prosperous seasons I have grown attached to the boat my self. News of her sinking, was hard to bear. It was going to be "a miracle", but Bill wanted to resurrect and refit the boat so that we could fish in four short weeks. With pictures all over the Internet the word was out and the consensus was overwhelmingly doubt full. It was going to be an a life time experience dealing with the cold and desolate conditions up there and it sounded like another adventure.

Some parts of Alaska solidify in ice during the winter, and we happened to be in one of those parts. The F/V Namorada was stored on the beach at the end of the summer in a tributary of Bristol Bay. Through the winter the rivers become five feet thick highways for those who live there year round. The Namorada was preserved in the ice pack poised for Shackleton's photographer, when an extreme hide tide and a twelve foot storm surge came for a visit.
Amazingly four weeks time has brought us from the above, (a complete bath then the boat becoming a solid block of ice inside and out) to where we are now... completely ready to fish.
Chipping the ice out of the boats living quarters, cleaning every nut and bolt, defrosting and breaking apart our fishing net, repairing radios, reviving the engines, chipping the boat out of the ice with a crowbar and a two inch wood chisel. Jacking the boat up out of its ice bed, then towing the boat off the beach into the water and having a bottle of champagne flown in for the occasion (great job Amanda)!
When you have a guy who smiles in the face of everything, knows his boat backwards, has a spare part for everything and can tell you what size wrench you are going to need for every job, values good conversations hot cups of tea anything is possible. We are in the wild wild west out here, beyond the realm of OSHA and hardware stores where WD40 and a good pair of vice grips is all you need.

Nostalgia

2009-02-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

I changed my return ticket to France the other day and my heart sunk. When I left Noche I thought I would be back in three months. My spirits were beaming from the French culture and vivacity of the sailing lifestyle. So many magic moments one after another, no stress, just one day after another of everything you want it to be.
September 15Th is the date I will take hold of Noche's lines again and head for that next horizon. I am dreaming of when that daily routine resumes of putting the kettle on, drawing a few scoops from my elndless supply of stale bitter Caribbean coffee, walking down the dock to the bakery for a small baguette, some cheese and a bottle of two euro wine, stopping to chat with friends encountered months ago in some random far away place, pulling my sails back out, fitting them back in their places, and peeling through charts looking for that next adventure.

Today I was checking the weather, feeling remorseful and debating about taking a few weeks to go check on the boat. Its winter, I thought, but what does that mean over there? Jon's boat is snowed in there in bristly Brighton. That would be brutal.

The wind in the Bay of Biscay seems fine, and the swell not bad either.

Here is twenty four hours later, fifty knot winds and 10 meter waves.

Ah, life is good, maybe I feel like I am missing it, but the best is still to come.

Who do I know in the Bahamas instead?

Derek Got Pranked!!!!!

2009-02-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when you leave your car and your keys at one of your old college roommates house.

Derek is famous for decades of pranking people in good humor. Its very hard to catch him in a vulnerable position, but Rob Evans happened to catch him off guard. 2,500 post-it notes, a car full of packing peanuts, shredded paper, glitter, and some hidden treasures yet to be found make for a nice payback!

Snowboarding in Crested Butte

2009-02-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

Jon from the Double Bruyn and Laura my cousin from the days of Barely Twisted and I met up for a reunion in Colorado. We romped around the slopes under cloudless skies, met really hospitable people, drank beers in the sunshine, talked endlessly about sailing and our next adventures, and soaked our bones in the hottub.

Crested Butte is a charming town and warm community. We were greeted with genuine interest, treated like royalty with discounted food and lift tickets, free accommodations, and a ski jump right in front of our porch. We couldnt ask for more. If you buy a case of beer, you receive two for one lift tickets. How could we complain? Free buses roam the streets and there is always a way to score free hot chocolate. Thanks to Kristen and Thomas for all your hospitality! They even said we could come back anytime... hehe

Back to boats and back to Alaska

2009-01-20T18:59:00.000-08:00

The boating adventure has morphed into a boating venture and the labor of love into labor for money. She's twice as long and twice as wide as Noche. This boat was sold at close to half its value because of the uncertainty of the economy and the fickle nature of fishing. Some are scared and some are simply ready to move into their place. The taste of Alaska is now a lifestyle and days on land few and far between. I am living in Seattle and its awesome! I am metting inspiring people and the weather has been relatively dry and nice to us.

I am a "waterfront character" to these poeple, who sleeps in a sleeping bag, on a dirty smelly boat, with oil on my clothes, with earth in my nails and grime stained calluses. And to me my friends are "nine to fivers", living up the finer aspects of city life, working for a greater cause, tasting adventure through a flat screen, raging two days a week and two weeks a year and trickling the extra into the promise of a 401k. Its all an adventure and you sleep in the bed you create. Admittedly I only have one pair of jeans that I like to wear, a favorite hat, no car in my name, but a powerful confidence/ delusion of my self as one of the wealthiest men alive. I have a hundred dollar gift certificate to Nordstroms that I cant spend because there is nothing that I need. I wake each day, and its the day that I own. I show the wear and tear of a large boat project, but its my project. Its up to me each day to do what needs to be done, to make that list and cross it off. I like that. Free to run, free to work, free to read, free to talk with the person next to me. My tools aren't made by Black Berry but I can build, fix and interact fist person with this universe and still strike five conversations a minute with a group of strangers on the streets or in a room.
Today overwhelmingly I sense this great dichotomy with whats being said and whats actually going on. I think that we should learn to read the weather for our selves, and nourish our instincts and what it really means to be a human. Its crazy to get all our information from a Television or even a newspaper. Its crazy to experience an emotion with a a inanimate object like a television. Our ability to read life and sense whats going on atrophies to nothing when we swallow, believe, and act with out our own reason. A decade with out television (except for movies and the Lost Series) and I feel like I have a pretty strong grasp of what is going on around me.
I can feel rain when its on its way and when its not. As far as the economy goes I was in line at REI (an outdoor clothing store) listening to a couple in front of me talk about stories of "lay offs" and this massive "recession" that we were in. All I could think of was that, in fact we were standing in the longest line at REI that I had ever been in. So many people were getting new ski outfits that Sunday that I had to wait longer than I had ever waited. Last night after a sold out concert the bars were so packed with free spending consumers that my friends and I had to walk several blocks in the cold to find a place that was empty enough to hear each other talk. I am writting this now in a cafe with out an empty table, there is heat, 46 visible light bulbs burning, food going stale in their show cases and coffee being poured out every hour because its not fresh enough for our palets. Times are tough, thats what I hear, but sometimes I cant get over what I see.
For every person that is out of work and forced to sell their stuff there is someone buying stuff cheap. There will be more opportunity now to acquire promising assets, than buying houses or assets when they were at their peak. The channels of information have us scared, when we should be getting ready for the biggest opportunity for economic gain this generation will experience. The boom is when allot of people see a steady gain, the bust is when a select few will see tremendous gain. American companies are on sale. Wealth will be shifted again even more now into the hands of those who already have it. The economic middle class will pour like sand in an hour glass into the lower region and the money will swell in the pockets of the extremely wealthy.

Companies will shrink, because they over expanded. Houses will loose value, because we built too many, and frankly we built boxes around shiny marble counter tops surrounded by other unimaginative boxes that were engineered in shapes that squeezed more into less with no regard for livability. Our dallor will loose its value because we are printing too many. Our credibility in the world as a power, as a leader as an inspiring idea has lost its luster because we wrote checks our soft power account couldn't cash.

So that's my soap box as you know, don't miss out on the land of opportunity. A friend, fisherman, businessman from Alaska and I are venturing into the uncertain waters of this recession with a Canadian boat. The Canadian salmon fisheries are in turmoil and boats are being sold off. Alaskan fisheries are in good shape, but traditionally really expensive to capitalize for. So a cheap boat from one area, brought to to the promise land is the plan.

Of course there are always reasons why there aren't other people doing the same thing... this boat was too long on both ends.. so we cut the bow off and part of the stern. So nothing is easy and you have to take risk. We are taking engines out, and putting engines in. Cutting nets apart, and sewing nets together. Cutting catches off, and putting hatches on.

Here is my number one: Jamil, a Peruvian, who drove from LA a month ago with his mind set on becoming a fisherman, and he did.

And we are looking for more:

A gold mine in Mexico

2008-11-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

Old Mexico

We crossed the border in a convoy of delapidated trucks and freshly painted mining equipment, heading for the sonoran moutain desert. funny as it works this time I was waved through, while everyone else had to dig for their wallets. A hundred bucks here a thousand bucks there a few days later and we evenually got all our gear through. I was pit crew for our mecanically feable fleet. It seemed as though from Colorado to base camp we experienced it all, from broken windows flat tires, trailers jumping off their tow hitches while cruising down the highway, fuel problems, new pumps, compressor problems, two new compressors, running out of gas, locking the keys in the car, paying road side tire repair guys to watch our trailers, getting totally separated with no means of communication and camping along the side of the road in dangerous parts of Mexico.
The adventure of gold minining in mexico has long begun.

Once we arrived with our pile of gear we rounded the troops for a meeting with the owner of the ranch where we would hopped to set up this mine. The ranch owner happens to live in a hacienda style compound with gaurds and surveilance cameras on the alleys that border his estate. Why all this? he's got alot to loose. Most mafia familes do. when we arrived We were expected and were ushered within the thick compound walls single file into a large air conditioned meeting room with marble floors, leather chairs and a surveilance monitor with my car awaiting out in the alley front and center.

Our host was unlike the weathered sunglassed faces that possed around his property. He was middle aged, well groomed, and greeted us each with a bottle
of water and a soft skinned hand shake. He smiled with perfect teeth
a perfect mustache and stood short but tall in a perfectly pressed shirt. we were tired, dusty and sweaty palmed. An hour before we had had breakfast
with a local that had filled us with horror stories about this man and his connections and other possible businesses. Our meeting started casually and
revolved around the interpretor. When it was discovered that we would need a document, Castro would pause, make a call and moments later a courier would be
at the door panting with a freshly typed up document.

We discussed legistics, partnership details and the use of Castro's planes. Yeah of course this story wouldn't fit the bill if it didn't involve a
private air strip and planes awaiting. We concluded the meeting and on our way out admired his car collection and reconveined in the alley. In mexico there are many
parties struggling for power and pilaging or taxing the people. The government patrols with the military. Federali cops patrol with little oversite.
Local cops patrol with even less oversite. then
there are mafia types and militia gangs. Who's on top, who knows? Our association with Castro keeps everyone away. Who is he? Thats not our business, our
business is to find gold, and keep our promises. I am kind of intrigued by him, but I figure it wouldn't pay to dig for anything around here other than gold.

What am I doing down here?
Sitting on a gold mine by my self with a bunch of rusty equipment. I play around on it till my imagination runs dry or I get embarassed
because I think someone is watching me pretend to drive tracktors that are not turneed on. I can hit a pop can with my sling shot from ten yards and I know
where a den of jack rabbits are come thanksgiving. I learned "G, D, C and E'm" on my Mandoline. I tarred the roof of my trailer this morning and just
climed the highest hill in the area. Its beautifull down here. The moonhas been bright at night and the sunsets on the desert landscape are always
spectacular.

I found a local cheese maker and a tortillaria, so I pretend I am in france. Instead of being close to everything, I am fifty miles from the nearest gas station
and twenty two kilometers from the nearest street light. I made pinto beans yesterday, and it took all day. I am reading Down the River by Edward Abby.
Talk about coincidence, Abby left the day he cast his ballot for the 1980 elections then went on yet another river trip. The story is in journal form and its
the same calendar day as the day I started this trip the day after I cast my ballot. You guys know more about him than I do, but he talks alot about mining
and industrialization, mexican labor and ruening the earth with our urban foot print. Its easy to come to the same conclusions as he does when I look out
across the beautifull desert from the top of a hill. I see the magnificence of the desert vegitation, sense the struggle for life, admire the hillsides,
and then contrast it with the view of a fifty year old pit mine that looks like a wound that has never healed. I look at the power lines and dirt roads
that bisect the landscape. I view the trash we leave and listen to the heavy trucks rattle back and fourth. I imagine all the open pits that we created,
so that we could make those trucks, and the fuel they consume so we can make more pits, and I close my eyes and imagine them all gone. You can't have to
much of a concience and carry on being human. Even the most fervant environmental lawyer drives a Toyota Tacoma. Its all hypocracy. Where do we begin?

It would help though if we all realized that gems and gold only hold the value we place on them. Gold makes things shiny, and has a few electrical applications.
what else does it do? What do dimonds do on our fingers mounted in gold. Its simplifies the human race down to that of a hungry fish that strikes at a shiney luer.
We like shiney things, and are enamored and estemed by glitery objects. They cost lives and create huge holes in the earth, reck landscapes and waste time, the only true gold we will ever have.

The tremendous cost of a miner to aquire and a consumer to buy a piece of gold. What do I do if I find a nugget of gold, should I smile? should that make me happy? I'm not sure what I am supposed to do. What a miner can find in one life time amounts to a small pile of Gold. How much promise does a pile of gold yeild, and how big a pile would you trade your life for?Its an easy annology. What are you trading your life for right now? A garage full of stuff from Walmart, a car that people esteme? Its all worth thinking about, what are we exchanging our youth, vitality and life for? Is it the promise of something in the future, like freedom in retirement? All in all I still think the promise of retirement is a crazier idea than looking for gold in mexico.

Hundred things to do in life....work on a political campaingne

2008-11-05T20:21:00.000-08:00

Check.

If you were bugged to vote and received piles of handbills on your doorstep in the last month it could have been me. Funny how it works, I hate to be harassed my self, I resent being invaded with phone calls and junk mail and yet I jumped at the opportunity to work with a political organization for this election. Why was it so easy to be a pest and pass out alot of stuff that goes straight to the bin? Well,i figure that its unacceptable that half of Americans don't bother to vote, and under this current administration we have dumpsters full of metal and usable lumber.

The efforts by the politicians may be annoying to us, but our lifestlye and foreign policy has become life threatening to the world and our greatest threat to national security. I was ashamed to fly my American flag while sailing around the world. I am not ashamed of our ideals. I am not ashamed of where I come from. But those stars and stripes have a different meaning today. I am ashamed that we have insulted world leaders and not done our part to move forward on world wide issues where the rest of the community has.

I had a blast. As you can see I got to see a life long hero up close and almost shake his hand. John Elway was the Denver Broncos quarterback while I was a kid and in love with football. Seeing him in person was really cool. He is a big human, bigger than I thought. I had to wait through a few speakers, but I got to hear him, and it was for me a life time opportunity.

One of my favorite memories was running into an old college alum, while wearing a pink cowboy hat and a pair of retro roller skates. Yes I was a paid goon, and I probably contributed to how annoying this last campaign became.

Funny, I learned nothing about politics, but not because I didn't ask questions, all was not lost I had day after day of opportunity to observe America. I learned that if you ask someone how the electoral college works, they typically recite a few of the same text book answers then realize there is a gap in their own understanding and they reach for a friend, the friend provides justification for the electoral system yet the gaps remains. Its one of those issues that most people have a question about, but no one follows it to the end. Nodding and assuring understand is less painful and gets most people by. Who is the electoral person in your area? Where are they, and do they have to vote with the people? That depends on the state. Its great, it makes no sense, but that confusion incites nothing.

If you were a Martian you would scratch your noggin at this. In America we turn lights on during the day even though we have the sun. We have this idea that our personal freedom and Independence is tied to driving in a car alone even though it means we spend hours of our own day in the trafficked jammed lanes, side by side with other solo drivers who feel they are exercising their freedom and rights while the four passaenger cars jammed with two humans fly by at top speeds in the empty carpool lane. Who's free? This is the most impressive behavior: we travel the earths surface and bore its depths with tremendous equipment sourcing out various metals.
We capture those metals, refine them, use them for some human purpose for a short while and then we discard them and they are mixed back up with other materials and we try to then put them back into the earth. If you could watch us, there would be a few obvious ways to make our existence alot easier. Let me tell you that if a mining operation found this much resource in an area the size of a dumpster every employee in the operation could retire rich.

We need a leader. This new guy brought more people to the streets on a Sunday than any football game, and the world was dancing all at the same moment for the first time in history. Hes going to bring us together. I'm not talking about the suburbs and rural America, if you think Obama is a terrorist, or your still nervous around black people, well frankly we cant afford to wait for you at this point. I'm talking about making america and its ideas popular again. Its not about us its about war, genocide, tremendous waste and we do not have the right to waste the worlds resources.
Ignore the news and take a look around, while I was a away I heard horror stories of depression but my observations are that we are not in desperate times over here. The carpool lanes are empty, and people leave their lights on all day and there are dumpsters full of resources.

2008-10-13T03:24:00.001-07:00

Wow, hitting the news stand makes you wonder. The year has passed; cruising through the Bahamas was great, the Caribbean was worthy, crossing the Atlantic was once in a lifetime, the Azores was an undiscovered paradise, Spain lax and dreamy, England rainy and unwelcoming but worth visiting because there are so many Kiwis. Then France was heaven with Angels and all the rest. It has been such an inspiring year! The world seems so accessible now, people seem so welcoming and life seems harmonious.
But what’s this, the world is in turmoil. I’m not sure what is really going on. One phenomina seems blantant: TV and the periodicals have a lot to do with it. The media perpetuates these catastrophic events by spreading the fear. Shut it off.

The first newspaper I see shows this:

The Magazine underneath it shows this:

Both are illustrating what’s going on in the world. Yeah the rich are having a ball still and we are in turmoil. But I am poor and I didn’t feel the world shake. The Financial times said the world shook. Well, not enough to rock my boat, nor the rest of the boats and these guys seem to be carrying on as planned.

It's time to go sailing. Its really time, maybe the promises of retirement that we live for, won't exist in ten-fourty years. What if you lived your life based on a promise, and it turned out to be a lie? You might be reay to kill, eh?. Well its nothing new, if you planned on retiring with your "investments" in realestate or the stockmarket, its not time to retire its time to go back to work.
If you would rather not get caught up in all the doom and gloom, and jobs seem hard to come by,or the pay is not worth your time even, then do what you can to get a sailboat. Get a small one, put this lie to rest and start the dream. It would be hard to convince me that this was'nt the greatest year to have gone by. As the news pumps this demoralizing saga and the dark clouds of depression loom ahead, the world of sailing is beeming. The wind will always blow and exploring this earth will always be fantastic. I've got pictures of more smiles and magic moments this year than any other. I missed all of what happened on TV but I am soo excited about what lies ahead.

Notes from the Streets abroad

2008-10-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

London never rests; its streets display the worlds latest fashion trends and its buildings house an epicenter for a globally linked financial system. It might be safe to say it’s not the best time to seek a job in finance, but gearing up with the right threads is as cheap now as it will ever be at fifty percent off in this shop. This would indicate that the need to go out and get that suit and tie has dropped in half according to the invisible hand of Economics. While underneath it all there seems to be an investment opportunity in the manufactures of “manikins in despair”.
Shopping remains a dominant activity in western culture, and in these slow times shops are plastered with discount signs. “No one’s buying anything, so everything’s on sale”, that’s the word on the streets, from Shane Smart a London Civil engineer. How long does fashion hold on as a “need” in such uncertain times? In England, for those keeping it fresh, the trend is to style up at the second hand boutiques called “opportunity shops”. These boutiques are registered charities that receive donated clothes from various department stores. They sell the clothes, generating funds for the blind, the homeless and others in need. It’s recycling, its charity, it’s cheap and it’s called “opshopping”.

The Noche Challenge

2008-10-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Lysol

2008-10-05T02:41:00.000-07:00

Putting the boat away :(

La Rochelle

2008-09-29T05:50:00.000-07:00

Delicatessens and Pardon my “French” :)I arrived in La Rochelle late Friday evening. It was a long sail in the sun from dusk to musk. My face was caked with salt and pink from baby sun screen. The customs agents were waiting at the dock for me as I pulled into my slip. Flying the American flag as you go about the world these days raises flags of other types . They were great, they asked me, “Obama, or McCain?” I said “Obama”. They said, “Se bon, enjoy your stay.” It seems to be on everyone’s mind. They are worried we won’t make change, and the World, from what I have seen is losing or has lost its endearment for America. We have an important role in the World, and our leader affects everyone and They realize it. But this journal is not a political forum, it’s just an observation. I am asked three times a day and even told I need to go home by November to vote for Obama. I found a pair of scissors in the shower and there went all my hair. Se bon.I get a lot of attention for being an American. Not a lot of us travel. The Canadians travel. The Australians and New Zealanders, they travel. Americans, we drive cross country, go to Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. There is so much to see without needing a passport. In the Marina here, there must be one thousand boats. There are three Canadian boats next to me. I have looked, and you know I am desperate for another American right now, because everyone here speaks French but me. No, the biggest marina in Europe and little Noche’s flag is the only stars and stripes I have seen. You guys owe me, I could be a big jerk right now and that would make you guys all big jerks too. At ease, please, I am rebuilding the faith in America over here. Today I took some friends sailing. It was sunny, warm with light winds and three Frenchies. One was Christian, one Atheist, one Muslim and me. We had a ball and we worked well as a team. Sailing is not accessible to all, but it is hugely dominant in the media and culture here. It was a treat for them. Anyway France has such a multi cultural history, I forgot beer, and the wind was slow so we had to touch on religion. We all connected in that little microcosm. At that moment we felt like we were all in the same boat; hey! We are all in the same boat.I am so amazed by the French demeanor. I used to think that they were rigid, stuck up and particular. Now they seem gentle and focused on the finer aspects of life. When you walk into a store they say “hello”. When you leave they “say good bye”. When you see someone you know, man or woman you kiss both cheeks. If you come across a group of your friends, look out, it can be very time consuming just doing the kiss greeting to each person can hold you up for a while, so you have to pick your route through town. The guys kiss each other too. I have never seen a gentler group of people. There is so much kissing going on all the time. Everyone is always kissing. A pub is more or less a kissing booth. If you are a bar tender you know a hundred people and those hundred people stop in everyday to say hi, and saying hi, means doing the double kiss thing. For us the bar tender might get the nod, or a high five which is my arm and your arms length away. Our greeting is two arms length away. What does that mean? For me, now, here, I have to shower, and maybe consider using soap now because my bubble is no longer two arms length away. But really, I see how close these people are and it blows me away. You ride in a little car and your shoulders are touching. How could you ever get into a fight when you were busy kissing everyone you were talking with. Laugh out loud, check this out, they really don’t understand why we say “Pardon my French” when we say a bad word. I guess I don’t either, besides the roots of our language, but they get a kick out of the idea that somewhere else in the world when un couth language, fesses or vulgar terms for the act of love are mentioned, it must be excused for being “French like”. How’s that supposed to go over? :)Can you spot Noche?

Flick of the day

2008-09-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

Bon Apetite

2008-09-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

“France”. I grew up with the idea that to go to this place it calls for a distinguished and well cultured, even wealthy individual. lol... I also remember from our own history that they gave us a statue, taught us about liberty and helped us fight for our independence. These days they have a reputation for being rude when you don’t attempt to speak their language while in their country, and they turned on US recently when they didn’t believe in the fight. hmmm... A good old traveling friend of mine, “English Owen” and I set off for France from the south coast of England last week after being refused entrance to the UK. In the mariners world the “French” are sticklers for safety, insurance, and paperwork. In the English world, the French are traditionally second best and overall rude. Owen and I set off with low expectations for the crowd ahead. We crossed the channel, dropped anchor, and slept till a squad of customs duardos knocked on the hull. We endured an exhaustive but friendly shake down, and then set foot in the land of tiny coffee and fresh bread. We walked around the old Napoleonic streets and grinned at the refined cafes that stretched out onto the sidewalks and into the public squares. Owen tried his luck with the native tongue and instantly this older couple was walking us around the town in search of the best Creperie. We were on our heels how nice everyone seemed. Then we sailed to the next town… where a local drove us to a Saturday Farmer’s market to do our shopping, bought us coffee and toured us around an entire Island. At our next destination upon landfall we were invited to a potluck and disco party by a stagecoach driver. Then in the next town we met a large group of air traffic controllers who were unexpectedly interesting and fun. The next day a bicyclist in full leotard zoomed past as I stood on a foot path admiring boats in the bay. He screeched on his breaks and came back to enjoy the view and have a chat. It worked great; since I couldn’t speak he would! Shoot you don’t both have to speak French, just one, and he was able to keep the “conversation” going the whole time. I learned all about his bike schedule and the walking trials around the town of Brest. That evening Owen and I met a group of students who entertained us for hours singing and humming hundreds of songs that we all knew from the eighties, nineties and today till the Bars closed down. The day after that a couple of organic farmers picked me up hitch hiking and we ended up going out for dinner, playing pool and having drinks till two in the morning. Owen, being full blood English is particularly upset. Day after day were having astonishing ease with travel. Without coming here it’s easy to boycott French fries and generalize about a people. Having this past week’s experiences we would say that the Frenchies are lovely. These folks will stop what they are doing and spend their entire day with you. I guess a snear in Paris is the same as a honk from a New York cabby, don’t take it personal, go beyond Paris when you’re in France, and get out of the way when you’re in New York. Renewed and excited about the French, Owen took a bullet train to Paris and then a flight back to London and I caught some easterly winds around the Finistair peninsula to Belle Ile. Today I discovered I am living my dream. I look out at my view of the world and I want for nothing. Maybe its because the people I often meet are on their dream vacation. Sailing is a lot of work, I put in more all-nighters than any sixty hour a week guy on Wall Street, but the reward is direct and intrinsically evolving. Sailing offers little control, and it’s the slowest means to do anything, but somehow I feel I get to go directly for what I am after. It’s a lifestyle where one doesn’t have to wait fifty one weeks doing something unrelated in exchange for a week of the dream. Every day is a view that a camera cant capture and my big screen comes with all the sensations of smell, temperature and emotion. Now I am dead broke but I feel like I am the wealthiest guy on earth. I hope to avoid the lifestyle of buying a car to get to a job that pays my car payment. Please help to remind me of all of this if I get lost because it’s time to get a job, so I can afford to buy some time off again.

The First Flight Across the Atlantic!

2008-09-14T04:34:00.000-07:00

Here’s a bit of forgotten history: Eight years before Lindberg’s solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, Franklin D. Roosevelt while serving as assistant Secretary of the Navy persuaded the Navy to fly an aeroplane from the Eastern Seaboard across the Atlantic. The Navy built four planes, the NC-1, NC-2, NC-3, and NC-4 for the mission, and stretched a fleet of naval ships every fifty miles all the way across to England. The ships were to aided in navigation, provided weather and stand by for rescue. Four planes set out, one made it. It was a primitive era for flight: 60-70mph navigating by sight, compass and new prototype aerial instruments. To cross the ocean at low altitude meant big waves and dangerous fog. The NC-2 never made it off the coast of North America. NC-1 and NC-3 were disabled by rough seas near the Azores, embarking on adventures of their own. While the one remaining NC-4 meandered out of contact lost in the fog. The mission had seemed to flop when through the fog the NC-4 sighted the high volcanic landscape of the Azores, the group of Portuguese islands in the mid Atlantic. The NC-4 landed safely in Horta, on the Island of Fial. From there they flew to Portugal, Spain and then to Plymouth England! They flew Across the Atlantic. It wasn’t solo and it wasn’t continuous but it was a first for the times. In Horta I found a propeller from the NC-3 hanging on the wall of a museum. It was there as a memento, from a failed attempt to cross the Atlantic by plane. The rest of the story went untold. It looks as though along the trail I am the only one who talks about the first transatlantic flight. As Morning Glory and I sailed across the bay in Ferrol, Spain, public television in America flashed a clip of the story on TV. But in 1919 the streets were parading as these guys approached. They went on a victory tour after the flight and it lasted for days. My Great Grandfather Jim Breese was on that party tour, because he was the Co-pilot and Engineer of the NC-4. But it seems like the party began before the crossing because before the planes set out from Rockway, NY, Breese and his ‘boyhood friend’ Roosevelt, rigged an extra seat on the NC-3 and went for a fifteen minute ride.

Deported from :)

2008-09-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

Catchy title eh? We made it to England!!! You have to read through all my stories to get to the deported part.

So the trusty I-touch got us into Sunny England where we found red carpet and never ending hospitality(I don't want there to be any confusion, England was wet and grey, the only reason I would ever go back is because there are people from New Zealand there.) Jon, Smarti, Jas, and Nae (All Quiwis)gave us a roof over our head, transportation passes for our pockets and a cell phone for our social lives. It was great, they invited us to parties and one social event to the next for our entire stay.

We had some adventures to note:
:)Twenty miles off the coast of the Isle of Wight the back-stay from Noche landed in a nice coiled pile on deck, disrupting my movie and waking up Glory. This could have ruined the entire day, but the mast stayed up and we were able to reinforce it with two spare halyards and motor the rest of the way into Brighton.
:)Jon and I caught wind of a wedding happening some three and a half hours drive away so we got our dancing shoes and a tent and fully crashed it. We got to see some really good friends from Habitat for Humanity Ireland, all the bar peanuts we wanted and a full half days worth of dancing. We were the last men standing, in fact it was so chaotic, I woke up in a field with some tee-pees and a Gypsy caravan next to Jon, and there was only one shoe between the two of us with our car keys in it. Smiles were glued to our faces the whole time.

:)Jon brought a life raft to the River Thames,(the river that runs through London) and set it off. He Smarti, and Jas jumped in and floated away... for about twenty minutes till it sank!!!! Life rafts provide too much piece of mind and in fact this one was worthless. It was the best possible use of one. The whole stunt was awesome and would probably have made the news if three people hadn't parked their cars below the tide level for the Thames to take away on the same day.

So good times and here is the chase. We entered England by boat and with out a conventional set of answers for the bureaucratic block heads at the gate, we were turned away. We had no return tickets, so "no plans to leave".Well we don't print tickets for passages on the sail boat, I never thought about it. They didn't seem to understand why an American couple would sail to England. We tried to explain that for us, when crossing the Atlantic, England happens to be on the other side. Its an English speaking country and London being progressively vibrant and the transportation hub of the western world, is an ideal place to land and leave ones boat. Nothing got through. They didn't believe a word of what I said. In our experience the immigration officers were not well trained, lacking continuity in the information they provided us, and carelessly un-thorough. In the end during our third meeting they were so shifty and un-professional that when they tried to finger print us and take our photos, we thought they were being abusive and stepping out of protocol. Morning Glory lead the march right out the door. On the day of my departure they delivered my passport to the boat with a two stamps in it. One with a subtle hand scribed "+" across it and one with a larger hand scribed "+" across it. What daunting technology.

Morning Glory flew back to Colorado, and I sailed to France with an old friend from England. The food is once again inspiring, and the French immigration welcomed us upon arrival, saying "thanks for having all your paper work in order and in 18 months if your still in EU waters, send us a check for the tax on your vessel". The greatest part about all of this is the great ideas that come out of it. Now I am going to drop the mast and cruise through the French canal system across France to the Mediterranean.

Ive been touched.

2008-08-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a PC guy. But on the day we departed to cross the Atlantic a trickle of rain shorted out my trusty laptop. On that precious laptop, were five years of pictures, journals of adventures, all my music, and Nautical Charts of the entire globe. At fifty bucks a chart in the store, my routine up untill that point was to print off my own charts as needed, as I went. So with my trusty printer and a reem of paper I was set for the world. Well, now chartless, we set off anyway. What the heck do yo need a chart of the open sea for? Well you dont untill you get to where your going, well that was a month away. ahhh young cruisers eh? So a month passes and we are marking our progress on a weather pilot and the GPS Satelight photographs. And it was untill we began to see Azorian light houses at night, that I began to freak out. You'd be surprised really how hard it is to see how far away a flashing light is. It can be ten miles away or fifteen feet when your eyes are tired. Anyway we made it fine as the sun rose, and my strategy became no need for maps (you cant buy maps if you wanted to where we were) just day time arivals and nightime sails. Sweet right? Well that worked for the next two months.

One day we left in the late afternoon for a random cove along the North Spanish coast. It was thirty miles away and I figured I could navigate in by lights. Ha! more often than not I find my self navigating in by lights and waking to discover a new beautifull place the next morning. Its great. Well the wind picked up as it does in the Bay of Biscay, along with the swell. So we rounded the last cape and found our selves in a confused swell, overcast dark night and the sound of breakers on both sides of the boat and no channel lights! No green and red! Or Red and Green as they do here. The depth sounding was eratic and the fun seemed to have left stage right. I remembered that my I-touch had a google maps program on it so I started to fuss around with it. Zooming in and in and in and in I found where I was heading and got a good look at the harbor. I switched on the Radar that I hate soo much and I matched up the out line of the satelite photos with the radar image. I continued to zoom in on the i-touch untill i could clearly see the channel and what appeared to be a trail of bubbles!!! I zoomed back out to see that that trail of bubbles lead to a boat, in the satelight photo that had just navigated the channel and was rounding into the harbor! HIS TRAIL WAS THERE. Again THERE WAS A BOAT in the photo and his trail of bubbles lead all the way back to where I was. Sorry for the reapeat, its for effect. There we were huddled over an glorified ipod following a bubble trail around rocks and safely into an unlit channel. I am still blown away. The photos on that itouch were in its memory and they were soo good that I could see rocks in the water and felt there was no need to get out and explore when I got there. ha!

Here is where it really gets good: We are sailing up the English channel on our way to Brighton. The English channel is littered with traffic from ferries, fisherman, pleasure cruisers to huge freightors bound for Panama, The coast gaurd is constantly on the radio warining people of weather and sea conditions. We even heard maydays as we were passing through. Well back in St. Thomas I got a huge cell phone bill. If anyone knows me really well this is a frequent occurence, but this time it wasnt my fault. Being on a sail boat my cell phone was picking up cell networks from passing cruise ships at a rediculous rate and its un beknownced to the user. Well its a flaw, but so uncommon that its not worth fixing, the cell companies just rebate the money. Anyway since my itouch is the most amaizing savior now I pull it out as I am getting passed port to port by a cheesy cruise ship. Poof I've got wi-fi in the English Channel.
Un freaking beleivable, I upload the local google maps, and write my Dad an email. One more Cruise ship bears down on us and it picks up its signal and sends my emails. If I were going the other way I would have had more time and could have downloaded all my emails.

Reunions, plotting a new course, and becoming outlaws!!!

2008-08-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

We sailed on to the other side of Terceira to catch up with the Boyz from the Double Bruyn. Two years ago I met these pair of good value Quiwis in a boat yard in Florida. They had just bought a boat and were fitting it out to sail across the Atlantic. I bought the boat parked next to them and our adventure together began from there. Along with my cousin Laura we set out with hopes to conquer the world. We were four like minded sea beans in two pods. Over the last tow years our boats have gone on seperate adventures, but we had always kept in contact and not missed a beat. They sailed to the Azores the year before and left their boat there for major repairs. Upon Glory and I's arival in 'Ultima Noche' we happened to turn our VHF Radios just at the same moment as the Double Bryun, and the sound of Jon's voice fired us up like no other.
Sure enough as we weighed anchor John swam out to greet us, but not with out pulling the dinghy gone missing trick, where you untie someones dinghy and float off with it. Its pretty good, but its one of those freak occurances that only seems to happen when he's around, so I am conditioned to look for John, before I go looking for my missing raft. :) Good value though, theres never enough play in this life we live.

We spent days and nights having potlucks and helping them ready the boat for the passage to England. We talked about where we were thinking of going, and we heard thier plans.
After a few days it seemed like we should head to England as well, to do something more challenging with our time. London is full of progressively minded NGO's with plent of opportunity for us to do something cool for a while. We copied maps and made plans to sail with them to England. We danced the nights away in Terceira then set off the same day with plenty of wind for England. A few days into it Glory and I got hit by a true gale that knocked our radar and wind generator tower down. And our third mate Wilson (wind vane paddle)who had gotten us safely half way across the Atlantic was blown to bits. All that remained of a three foot paddle was a three by five inch base. In the peak of the blow we were hove to for a few hours, and then on sea anchor for another six during the lightning. Amaizingly with the sails reefed and hove the boat was calm cool level and comfortable, it was so calm Glory and I went to bed. Sea anchor dind'nt work out as I expected, it seemed to hug the hull rather than drag to windward. We had all the electronics in the oven as lighting squalls were passing, and when we emerged the next morning to a lively sea and overcast day we had still somehow traveled one hundred and sixteen miles. The previous day with a following twenty five knott wind we had made a one hundred and fifty mile day. For Noche that defys the laws of physics. We were outlaws now but we had lost one of our crew and 'Wilson' we are sad to have lost you, but proud of Noche and the radar tower I hate anyway.

So the wind died and as sailors do, we looked at the Atlas and realized stopping in Spain would be freaking cool, so why not (without charts) we headed for Spain. Ha ha I love the sailing life, you can do exactly what you want to do on a day to day basis. We pulled into La Coruna next to our Dutch friend Yella from the Azores and woke him up by zooming around his boat and howling till he and a new lady (Fiona)friend peeked their heads out the hatch!! haha Another Reunion!

Spain!!! The wonderfull world of Spain!!! Cured procuto hanging from the rafters in everyshop, real funky cheeses that will blow your toe jam away, local seafood and Sangria. Thank the heavens we stopped here before we reached the land of blood pudding, bland tea, mushy pees and chips. People out walking the streets, napping mid day, old roman light houses peaking out from old spanish forts and spanish speaking organic farmers selling their goods on every corner. And again we pay nothing to have it in our front yard.

Mid Atlantic Magic

2008-08-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

We couldn’t have expected how beautifull it was in the Azores. The five Islands that we visited all contained natural wonders worth a visit. Our pack of friends had grown by the day and its became one social even to the next.

We had to see more of the Islands and time is always running out. We ventured off from Horta at midnight and to send us off the people of Pico lit the sky with fireworkds of yet another festival. We arrived off the beaten track at the Island of Graciosa the next day. On Graciosa with in a full days hike there was another volcano, but within its perfectly intact rim lay a hidden a valley filled with birds, old growth forests and green pastures with graizing cows. Inside the volcano valley is a beautifull cave with fresh water lake etc. soo we spend all day hiking upto the rim and circlling around trying to get in. After back tracking and getting rather frustrated we saw a truck driving around deep in the Volcano then suddenly dissapear into the wall. The road that lead from town and interested with the rim trail on our map was actually a tunnel and they neglected to mention that the crossing of these paths was actually separated by a thousand verticle feet of cold hard lava. My frustration with the cartographer only simmered when we found a lone human in the very bottom of the volcano selling ice cream, postcards and tickets to an enormous cavern. The ice cream was so good infact it was Magnum’s newly realeased double chocolate dipped in caramel then again in chocolate, yeah its the one that is on the advertisement board but they never actually have, well they had it, so all was redeemed. But as you can imagine the guy was so lonely that being next to him was like a vortex of human contact and I could feel him thinking of words he knew in English so the urge to leave was growing as he began to form a sentence and eating an ice cream cone in front of someone risks a feeling of guilt and with a cone this good and un explored by my taste buds I didn’t want to risk it. I had to cut short his one human interaction by walking away from his lonely and curious stare from the doorway of his commerce shed so this new cone could have a fair chance, and then again walk strategically slow enough away so that I remained far enough behind Morning Glory so that she wouldn’t be inspired to have a bite. No worries it all worked with the new flavor, its wonderfull, but I got caught with the wrapper in hand as I caught up with Glory again and had just enough chocolate on the stick to ward off any hints of guilt.
With so much to tell, and soo little readers attention span:
Pause for a hot chick photo:

we walked around some more, stood in aw, saw stuff, did stuff, and eventually set sail for Terceira. All in all Graciosa was good but I would not return until the Marina is finished.

Here´s a great story befor I loose you. Glory and I rent bikes, que with Photo:

We ride around the Island of Terceira,

begining with a cheese farm, peaking with a free Sangria flooded local food fest, pause for photo:

Stopped for a nicest hat contest:

View back from first place:

A view from everyones list of a hundred things to do...ride a bike through old rock walled european country side for 12 euros:

and ending with a free tent at a camp site with hot showers and a free personal dinnner at a small vinyard´s wine house. Which turned out to be just some guys personal home and how we got him to serve us dinner, taste wine and admire every last fixture all the way into the new bathroom was a blend of his general hospitality, the language barrior and my strong desire to get into what I though was some top notch invite only restaurant. The whole day was magic. We ate to our fill of exotic pleasures for free, the excersize on the bike felt great and the scenery again is more than I can describe.

Where we rode has some interesting features. We glazed in salt and adorned in sweaty clothes, glided into this town of Biscote, to find the most dramatic coastline, worked into wine country. The volcanic shores over hundreds of years have been converted by man into fertile wine country. Everyone wants to know something about wine well here we go. In northern Terceira (an Island in the mid Atlantic) they build four walls and within reserve a small pit with fertile soil.
The grape vines are protected from the harsh marine environment by the walls and the sun and earth are aloud to do their work. Here´s an active lot.

Pico this!

2008-07-22T08:42:00.001-07:00

To make friends and use the internet we sailed from Flores to the Island of Fial. Upon our arrival we met half a dozen incredible people and have been skipping from one meal to the next chatting the days away with like minded people from all over the world. The first obvious activity for us all to do was to climb Pico, the local volcano. So plans were sorted one evening over dinner and wine. These pictures taken by Johan tell the story better than words.

First peak:

Hitching a ride to the base:

Underestimating the climb:

Showing off for the ladies:

Wine from Pico Grapes, Cheese from Pico Cows, Bread from Pico Bakers, and hot Coffee from Seattle:

Everyone making it to the top at the same time:

Sitting on top of the world:

The descent:

A blow out!:

A repair:

The trial:

And parting shots:

Island of Flowers

2008-07-21T10:01:00.001-07:00

The pleasant customs official casually waited dockside in shiny tall boots, and a freshly ironed uniform as we inflated our Dinghy and readied our selves for land. We rowed in, weathered, jet lagged but wired, to presented our papers. We eere very surprised to find that the ground beneath our feet was no longer familiar. Both Glory and I, like coiled springs swaggered along, growing woozy but excited as the young customs officer giggled, and removed his starched new hat. We had become people of the sea and land was making us feel sick, but we had made it to the most beautiful place on earth.

“Isla Flores”…the name doesn’t do it justice. To build a reasonable expectation for what this place is like they should have called it, “Island where flowers found in the shops flourish intensely and bloom on every available inch of land, along roads, trails and all property lines". Thats what I would have called it, and maybe they did at its now abreviated. A month at sea with subtle variations in scenery, readied us for the most beautiful place on earth. We hopped around by foot, lead by one flower patch to the next, for a few days until we had covered all the directions from the boat and every available road. We found trails that led to volcano lakes, waterfalls with swimming holes, light houses, endless views and unbelievable beauty.
Queso-fresco and warm local bread broken on an old rock wall overlooking old pastures and green lush hillsides was our first meal. Fresh bread, organic tomatoes, cucumbers, endless variations of cheese and ridiculously cheap local wine have filled our bellies each day and has become another world for us to explore.
We have discovered that cheese is not actually orange vacupacked and square cut, it is alive, wrapped in wax usually round and full of flavours that awaken parts of the tongue that I didn’t know existed. Tomatoes grown wild are rippled with shape and color. Potatoes grabbed directly from the earth taste like apples and bread can have so much flavour you begin to crave its taste alone. Corn from the stalk does not explode with perfect kernels in every row, it comes miss-shaped with fewer yet flavour packed bites. Wine costs 69 cents a litre and if you want a ten euro bottle then you might have to go to a speciality store.

Life is pretty good over here guys. I have not been to a more beautiful place.
.” The stillness of the cobble stone roads and old rock homes, set against all these flowers has been such an inspiring experience. As the afternoon comes around the families come out the parks for barbeques, guys fish along the shore and kids jump tirelessly into the water from the public docks. Family units are strong and people spend a lot of time growing their own food or catching it and then eating it together.

Its hard not to smile all day long around here. The richness of our lives seems to have increased. We can walk to where our food is sold and we can look over and see the hill it grew on or go meet the cow it came from. The food, the air and the scenery are fresh and giving of life. The scale of these towns seem like they were built around a human rather than an auto mobile. Since we are not inside a car we catch smiles and “bon dias´” rather than fingers and honks. When we bump into people it spurs conversation and we continue to meet new interesting people everyday.

Portuguese is a different language. It sounds like French to Glory, Russian to me, and some how it’s structurally close to Spanish. English is prevalent but not as much as I thought, usually in places of business. The young kids don’t seem to know it, and that really surprises me.

What comes to mind the strongest are all the people I know that need to see this place the way it is now. It's a really special place.

Crossing the Atlantic

2008-07-16T03:57:00.000-07:00

Atlantic Crossing:
The water became a canvass for all the colors the sun could throw at us, and the sky displayed endless new cloud formations right above, way above and afar. The moon lit up our nights and the sun rose earlier each day as we flew east with the wind. It was like gliding. We were caught in an endless moment where we were “right” with the wind and “right” with the soft roll of big ancient waves from other storms steadily encouraging us on and letting us be.

Laura of Colorado, Derek of THEWORLDBYSEA and Ben the metaphysics master (all former all star crew) will appreciate the 2,470 knautical mile/ 24-day venture into our personal frontier of experience. These are the stats in order of impressiveness: Not a drop of water came inside the boat*, we didn’t run out of fuel**, the automatic steering systems worked*** twenty of those days and we sailed with the wind behind the beam never to exceeded 15knots (10 apparent). For all the wet passports, soggy moldy clothes and days of drying stuff out on other sailing adventures we earned this blissful spinnaker driven crossing. I kept looking at Morning Glory and shaking my head, “sailing isn’t supposed to be like this, I mean, its supposed to be like this, but its not really like this, even though we do it in hopes that we get days like this, but we don’t really, but we are now”.

Gains and losses: We lost two fishing poles with their reels, but somehow fish would occasionally jump on deck anyway and we came right up on one free life ring. We made friends twice with two passing sailboats that came within ten meters and we were blessed with five dolphin escorts. On board there was a full moon costume party, a birthday party with balloons and carrot bread, potlucks and gourmet meals, pedicures, backrubs, and a frenzy of reading.

I cleared my backlog of books, who of us can say that we’ve read the reference books on our shelves? He he, I have a small shelf, but I am actually reading about famous storms of the 1950’s. I am studying weather; it’s fascinating and relevant. I haven’t learned anything really but I have become more acutely aware and I know what pages the clouds are on in my books and where to read about what s going on now, and as my American childhood mentor used to say “knowing is half the battle.”

We started a basil plant, and we completed the journey with out consciously consuming processed sugar, alcohol or caffeine. The challenge in that came while stocking the boat, once we set off it was out of site and out of mind.
A neat part of our month at sea was our radio hour. Months ago I bargained for an out of date short wave radio that had been used as a shelf display and got it for ten cents on the dollar. We depended fully on it for our weather information. A former sailor by the name of “Herb” on the east coast of America voluntarily looks at the Atlantic weather information and corresponds with boats crossing the Atlantic via Single Side Band radios that cost thousands to buy and install properly. With jury rigged alligator clips and ten feet of randomly strung wire, we could hear Herb and the boaters talking clearly from a thousand miles away on our fifteen dollar double A radio. Unbeknownst to them we tracked them and Herb’s recommendations. For about three days there were two boats within eighty miles of us that guided us around the doldrums of the Azores high.

As Captain there are so many voices one fears when preparing for something that’s beyond your level of experience. Daydreams of the boat sinking and the town’s people saying, “He left with out a life raft!” Then there is getting caught in a storm and feeling that pang of regret for having bought an IPOD instead of a heavy weather jib. Or knocking your rudder off months prior, hammering it a few times back into place and calling it good. Setting off with batteries that don’t hold a charge, going to the cheapest welder in town to rebuild your masthead chain plate. These things remain on your mind and the knot in your stomach doesn’t loosen till you see land again. Once you do then comes the fear of running into stuff again, but you look around and relish all your good luck and you soak up that sense of empowerment that land provides in this situation, and you think “few”, but in fact this time those fears were just fear.
Going now is the only way to go and less is more. Plenty have done more with less than our little boat. Read the biographies, and less of the preparatory magazines that fill your mind full of equipment you “need” before you can go sailing. There are plenty of good books to ready someone to go, but they are too long, you’re never ready. They can do as much to keep people in the harbor as they do to launch them after their dreams.

All in all we had a fantastic crossing, and I look forward to the next.

*One rouge wave caught us off guard and splashed a wee bit into the companionway and made it to the galley floor. No personal items casualties.
**We bobbed around for a few days waiting for wind during the first thousand miles and it seemed imprudent to fire up the engine with so much ahead of us, anyway we’re a sailboat.
***The electric tiller pilot worked when there was hardly any wind and when we motored and the wind vane worked when there was at least six knots apparent wind and three knots over water.

Sixty knot winds and plenty of Caviar

2008-06-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

"Thats fish'n" as they say. What it means is, once you think you've seen it all, the elements conspire a curve. Tokiak herring is a highschool reunion for me. I get to see my childhood friends and catch up on all thier crazy stories from the year gone by. As the ice peeled away from one of the worst winters in twenty years, the Hearring made their anual pilgramage to the Northern Coast of Bristol Bay Alaska, where we lay there waiting. The fleet sat for two weeks before a single fish was spotted. Japanese freighters lined up on anchor, three dozen off season Berring Sea crab boats, thirty commercial fishing boats, and six bush planes, were coiled as thousands of tons of fish finally boiled into the bays.
With spotter planes swarming the airspace pointing out schools the fleet pulsed and sampled for three days untill the female roe sacks were ripe enough to catch.
If you can imagine the nerves of those who have invested millions to facilitate the fishery. Some companies were soo eager and had been sitting soo long that they wrecklessly bought imature fish.

We on the other hand waited it out. We waited, waited and when the fish finnaly rippened up, a steady breeze of sixty knots with gusts to eighty sat on us for three days. And at that point we regretted waiting. The shallow boats scurried up shallow bays grounded thier hulls and tied them selves to shore. The Crab boats, from Discovery channels Deadliest catch, were forced to weather it. Several boats broke their anchors and simply had to drive around in the wind untill the storm past. When the system let up the water was terribly churned up and the fish were no longer visible to the pilots. For the next couple of days the entire fleet drove around aimlessly trying to land dirrectly over a school of fish, recognize it on the depth sounder with out scaring them away, turning around and setting around it with their net.
The fish must be caught right at the moment they are ready to spawn, not before or after.A fish can go from green to ripe to fully spawned out in a matter of hours. The fish carcass is worthless. Its the golden herring eggs that rippen to an apetizing state, that are then used soley in one specific Japanese ritual. The whole show is for a little sack of eggs that sit on a fancy plate and the novalty Custom for the Japanese is even going out of style. Soon enough it will be all for not. One ton Herring fetches around 100 bucks.

In this senario there are so many fish that acre wide patches of water take on a velvit shine like the fish. A lone fishing hook pulled through the water will snag a fish, and we repeatedly used this method to sample the maturity of the fish.
We scratched around making little sets slowly filling our tenders,with good fish and got the wheels turning in the processing lines. Soon they would clog up as well and we would have to stand down while more fish slipped by. The stress built along with the frustration. The entire spawining activity lasts ten days and we had caught very little fish. Very little means around 2000 tons. The days slipped by with beach combing, campfires and card games but the stress and cabin fever continued to build. Caviar hung on every fathom of our net, globs pilled on the rails and deck, little eggs glazed our rain gear and stuck in our hair. We were smothered in it, but at the same time not getting any.

As the season closure loomed over our heads we snuck in another thousand tons. All of the sudden it was over, and we fled to our respective callings. Furtunitly the forces of supply and demand take effect and when you catch half as much you sell it for twice as much and some how it all turns out the same. And thats fishin.

The fun stuff

2008-04-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

Glory left her life in Boulder to sail the high seas only to find us in St. Thomas with day jobs, shore power and dock lines made fast. For Derek and I after six months on the water the list of chores, the list of options, and the lack of money weakened our defense to a payed stint of land life with free cars, hot showers and great people.

So for the past month Glory, Travelin D and I have acted as Eco-tour guides by day in a beautiful Mangrove preserve, and dock security/ bug killers by night. On our off days from Kayak tours we rebuilt and repainted the marina, restructured the rain cistern and sold a dighy for a profit. All the while wondering how we ever landed in St. Thomas.
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Glory has brought life and pride back into the boat. She sewed new cushion covers with our miniature sewing machine, layed carpet in the rough looking corners, sanded the unfinished teak bungs and oiled the insides. Its amazing how new energy can call one to action. Four months ago we broke the step that leads one in and out of the galley. For four months escaping the galley was a full body leap up to the counter and a 42 inch drop to get back in. While Glory was buzzing away on her projects I took a look at that list that had paralyzed me for so long. It took me all of six minutes to rebuild the step that for so long I was un able to fix.
Next a new solar panel mount was fabricated with a piece of stainless rod that Jon and I pirated off a sunken boat one year ago in Great Inagua. Our mast head chain plate that had sheared on both sides was re-welded, the decks re-painted, the rails cetoled, and some of the long awaited cabinetry finished off.
Another example of boat burnout overcome was our ever present fuel problem. Back in the Bahamas and again in the Turks and Caicos we thought we were out of fuel. The comradery of other cruisers kept us moving with fresh fuel and council as we sputtered and stalled in every precarious spot. All the way to St. Thomas one of us would steer and the other would hand prime fuel to the engine. With earmuffs and a sweat rag one would hang over the engine acting as a four dollar fuel pump restoring the engine to a roar as it choked through dirty fuel. At the time it was all we could do to keep things going, but as it turns out diesel grows and tanks must be completely flushed out. So weeks of hand priming and a life time supply of costly filters was then made redundant by a twenty minute flush and scrub of the fuel tank.
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So now the with coolant flushed, transmission oil changed, new motor mounts, engine oil changed, tank polished, racor scrubbed, new fresh water pumps installed, sea strainer and bilge cleaned I am on top of the list. Hows this one for ya, the heat exchanger zincs are new and ready to cross the Atlantic.
Burn out is one thing, but boat projects are complicated by the fact that everything takes longer than you think, you never have all the right parts, you want to do it right. Needing to live, cook, be a nice person and sleep in that project area which is constant motion is a challenge. Paints take days to dry, glues kick off fumes, rain always comes when you need it the least and that part you need is ALWAYS right underneath the foot or seat of the other person on the boat, but most of all you have to sail when its time and that usually means breaking away before your done. So why start?, it only makes it hard to sail on, or does it make it easier to sail, I don't know.

Today the crew of Ultima Noche are in their respective states. Glory back in Colorado, Derek in an airplane somewhere and me on my way to Alaska to "work just for a couple of weeks". By the end of May we hope to be crossing the North Atlantic for the Med.

Rolex Regatta

2008-04-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

hehe, we made our way into the Rolex Regatta.... It all started out with skipping a day of work, then hitch hiking down to the yacht club and laying on our charm.

Right off the bat, we found one spot on a beach cat. A beach cat is a small and fast two person catamaran. The seas were choppy and the wind blowing twenty knots. I geared up without a clue of what was in store.

This is what its supposed to look like:

This is more like what I was doing:

My job was to run the jib, the spinnaker, and the down haul, while using my body mass to balance the boat and counter its heal. This means I clip my harness into one of the side stays and hang off the side with sheets in hand. In big swells and heavy winds in a race it means getting bashed into waves, tossed around and yelled at like a gumby for the duration. I was literally getting pummeled and knocked off my feet by the waves, and correspondingly yelled at. I was secretly relieved when we broke our jib roller and had to turn back after an hour. Due to the conditions all the other beach cats capsized and some completely turltled, meaning they were upside down in the water and required tow assistance in.

Day Two of the Regatta, we sold our selves as spinnaker men and we landed on a 52ft sloop. In the interview the captain asked us if we knew spinnakers, and technically we did since we had flow ours that one time in the Bahamas. haha This is a picture of us under spinnaker. It totaly looks like we are winning. I'm up on the bow and Derek is in the cockpit
running the lines.

The skipper was laid back and the crew fun and casual. We filled in the gaps and worked our young backs into knots grinding the winches as we tacked up wind race after race. We finished dead last in four races, but enjoyed every minute of it. The other boats in the regatta were well funded with racing sails and matching t-shirts, while we were sporting old cruising sails and hauling eight peoples vacation luggage from point to point. We danced the night away at the race party and blended in with the other racers.

Day three the crew came together as a team. Bow team and cockpit team. Our execution seemed flawless compared to the day before, but we were still in above our heads. After completing half the course, the entire fleet had finished and the committee requested that we accept our place and quit so they could collect the race marker buoys. :) We had a great time and saw our improvement, and from this who would know that we finished last.

I still think this is the most beautifull boat out there.

Derek and I got some more experience and hope that we can pick up the pace as we set off for longer distances across the Atlantic in our own boat. haha

Getting to it in St. Thomas

2008-03-25T17:10:00.001-07:00

Our current project is the Special Olympics here in the USVirgin Islands. Sybille is the head of the local chapter and we are raising funds and support for the up coming events. Stay tuned as we will be holding a Regatta and bowling turnament for the special talent here in the USVI.

Rags to Riches

2008-03-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Where do I begin. Its been an adventure. Our car got robbed in San Juan, it cost us $3,500 bucks, then we hopped the wrong ferry and landed in the arms of strangers who took us in with cold beers, our first hot shower in months and a bed with sheets. We danced the nights away in the streets at the Culebra Regatta. Sailed in the lee of the Virgin Islands during the largest waves this region has seen in years. Met wonderful people, landed a free dock for a few months, and have been escorted first class around these Islands by the great hearted wealthy community here. And to top it off we are gainfully employed now as eco-tour kayak guides in a beautiful protected lagoon here in St. Thomas.

The stories between here and there would clog up my inspiration from what has happened to us most recently, so I’ll just skip to now.
We left Culebra, a beautiful Island off the coast of Puerto Rico, full of locals and endless trails to explore for the big city lights of St. Thomas. A large Atlantic Cold front was came with mountainous waves and we didn’t want to get stuck so we pressed our luck against time in our little boat in the lee of the Spanish/ US virgin Islands. We made it to the big ship harbor of Charlotte Amale in St. Thomas. With out a clue of what to do, we hitched a $2 ride on a public “Safari” which is a truck with bench seats in the back which circumnavigates the island. We got off at the first hardware store and that is where our good fortune began.
Inside we met young Sybille, the owner of the USVI Eco-Tour company. She was looking for someone to splice rope, and I was looking for work. We carried on with her to her business, then to lunch at the yacht club, and on it went. We needed her, and she needed us. She owned a marina that needed more human presence for security and we needed a dock. We moved Noche to the dock and planned to head out to the British Virgin Islands for a full moon party. She was going already and knew everyone in the Islands we needed to meet. She offered to take us, “her treat”. So off we went.

We were hosted for the weekend in a beautiful marble home with cushy couches, fountains and open airways. We were treated as kings and shown the highlights of a beautiful Island by wonderfully generous people. Our host was AJ Sanger the renowned Chef / understudy of Wolfgang-Puck and the financier of the replica tall ship the Nina. Remember that boat Columbus discovered the new world with? AJ was a hoot, sharp as a tack and full of personality. She showed us how to cook an Omelet, the way a great Chef would. Lots of technique, great ingredients, high heat and eggs have never tasted so good, sorry Mom. :) Sybille, and AJ lead us around introducing us to numerous people, showing us the top restaurants, undiscovered beaches, and mountain hikes.
The highlight for me was Sybille dancing on Stage at the full moon party, champagne everyday and getting to Captain a Forty Seven foot Catamaran for the former BVI Chancellors family,
out to an Island for an afternoon of great food, and snorkeling in sea caves after Captaining a 47’ Catamaran.
Also I got to Captain a forty seven foot Catamaran. :)
This weekend was such a blessing and beyond our wildest dreams. Let this blog entry be a thank you letter to all those who’s generosity continues to inspire us to do good to others in this journey around the world by sea.

2008-03-11T18:28:00.000-07:00

Luck lands on us by day out here. A friend of a sailing friend offered us a house on the beach and a convertible for four days in the old city of San Juan. Hastily leaving the boat we set out from the southern coast on the highway with our thumbs out and some snacks in the packs.
Getting a ride requires all your wits when you look like you haven’t showered in a week and there are two of you. We pulled all kinds of stunts to build our value, including clever bi-lingual signs with dollar bills and the age old rolled up pant leg displaying a bare leg to on-comming car followed by a giggling smile. Being a guy the leg thing draws a laugh and shortly we landed a ride from a fantastic guy in a nice car. He drove us all the way across Puerto Rico. We stop along the way to service some errands, and all the while became great friends.
Hitch hiking is a great way to get around down here. We have met half a dozen great people who end up touring us around for a while before they drop us off. We love it because its always different, the price is right, and we wouldnt know were to go if we had to drive our selves.
So then in San Juan our new besti Kim arrived with a car and keys to her place. She took us to old San Juan and offered to show us inside the Coast Guard command center. We’ll that’s a boys dream to see a top secret war center. So we jump on it. We show our id’s and surrendered all electronic devices, as we passed through one guard then a coded security door, long hallway, then another coded door where we called into the center and gave notice that civilians were entering the facility. Minutes passed and clearance was granted to enter. Inside the hum of at least thirty flat screen monitors and a large wall screen tv with world news channels were playing. The walls were lined with large maps of the local area, with fridge magnets of boats, displaying the locations of vessels around Puerto Rico. The room was divided by a glass wall with blinds drawn on the other side.
The entire wall was covered to protect us because if we were to see what lies beyond the curtain it would compromise national security and we would surely been sent to the morg. Inside that top secrete room all radio transmissions are recorded and monitored. My suspicions recall the Wizard of OZ, and a game of Texas hold’em. That perception of intelligence, and technical advantage works as a more powerful deterrent than all the technology in the world. That room could have been filled with old dusty files and a jury rigged VHF in front of a nineteen year old recruit with a pencil and paper for all we know. Regardless the perception remains of some incredible technology existing behind that wall and we will go on from that experience ready to fold, rather than gearing up to call the bluff. So that was a boys dream come true, and to revisit that boyish top secret fantasy world was a cool moment.
We were flying high as we returned to the civilians walking the cobble stone streets of Old San Juan. We found the pathway that strolls along the ocean and lines the steep Spanish fortress walls. It started out as the usual story, romantic lit streets with live music in the air set amongst beautiful walls bearing tremendous history and charm. What unfolded was a wild phenomena of feline behavior. A colony of domesticated cats had squatted along this pathway. For hundreds of yards healthy looking kitties roamed, lounged, cleaned, and slept amongst the rocks and foliage that lay on either side of the path. They peered at us from the rocks and from the bushes, they ignored us and they snuck across our path as we traversed their domain. They did as cats do, they were normal, but wait, this wasn’t normal. How strange and distracting it was to have this city of kitties stretch the length of this magnificent display of old world masonry. How cool it was, life is so full of surprises.

Speaking of pleasant surprises, after the fort we then went to a house party with some fellow Americans at a high rise flat set right on the beach. The host was a twenty four year old yank who put 25 cents in a slot machine back in Vegas and won two million dollars. What a stroy the people you meet out here make the places. We were introduced to beer pong on the beach and listened tales from Senor Frogs till we grew tired and retired.

Crossing the Mona

2008-03-08T07:22:00.000-08:00

Dominican softball will carry on without us, but it will not be the same sin crew from "Ultima Noche". We made great friends and built quite the commmunity in a short period of time there in the DR, but the tradewinds died down for us and it was time to cut loose. The furry set in and we made the mad dash to Puerto Rico with twelve other boats. Traveling east in the tradewinds means motor sailing tight along the coast when the cooing air on land rushes back out to sea canceling the incoming winds forming a night lee. Columbus took advantage of this effect by rowing east by night and anchoring through the day. Sunrise after sunset we snuck along the coast. The weather window was short, and the pressure to stay in the comfort of the group was intense. We were all crossing into new territory and none the less the passage has a rough reputaion. Being small and slow we lead the pack off the line in order to stay with the group. Our friend Christa left his anchor and two hundred and twenty five feet of chain because it was hung up on a coral head and the prospect of falling behind and gettting left on the North coast when the weather picks was worse than replacing $1500 of ground tackle. All in all we had sunny days undersail filled with cardgames and watermelon, and the ocasional mecanical problems, but nothing tragic. Sailing around the world, is more or less getting as ready as you possibly can, then setting of when its time with tiller in one hand and wrench in the other.

Humpback whales escourted us along the way, and as we pointed due east just north of the hourglass shoals I saw a whale as big as our boat jump completely out of the water and hang in the air. It was one of those moments where staring off into the sea payed off. The experience was thrilling, and it wasn't far from the boat. The memory will remain and forever testify for me that some of the most amaizing life and natural phenomina happen in that vast and seeemingly void expanse we call the sea. I have spent days on end watching it, and I still see new phenomina after years on the water.
We slipped into Puerto Rico at 3 AM under a cloudy sky illuminted by the industrial lights of Mayaguez. Two boats abondoned the passage due to fatigue and two pulled in behind us. Overall we finished seventh. The race wasn't official, in fact no one else knew about it, but amongst the bigger boats we tend to place better when the race goes on un-announced.:)

Waterfalling

2008-03-04T07:39:00.001-08:00

If you were wondering what projects the Peace Corps are resposible for here in the DR, here is an example: Adventure waterfalling!! If you havent heard of it before, it involves a helmet, life jacket, sturdy shoes and two able bodied guides. The idea is that water runs down hill over cliffs and occasionaly carves out narrow slot canyons. The game is to traverse up these features against the water, then to get back you cliff jump into these water holes and slot canyons. Its slick, the rock is hard and the water is powerfull. The rainforrest backdrop and the teal colored water makes the entire experience complete. Its ten bucks and there are 27 waterfalls.

Planting a seed

2008-02-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

Well we have been all over the place in the last few weeks. The DR has treated us well and the experience thus far has been idealistic and experimental but we have formed a model for what we can accomplish along our journey. Coming to the DR, we had hopeful ideas, but we were unclear as to what exactly we could offer without spending a significant period of time in any place. So with alot of leg work and some of Derek's magic, we had a party and brought together those who want to help with those who are in need of help. It's the Dominican Republic and everything is a celebration- we roasted a pig and set up the Karaoke machine and with five speakers and an audience of fourty people, we had a fund raiser. It seems we have become "aid brokers without a commission" - Ottis S/V Independance.
Here is the magic. We came here to work for an orphange. You guys wanted to help and you gave us a thousand bucks. We stretched that around and around. That activity stirred the community and more people wanted to help. Soon people emerged from various organizations including local hospitals and the US Peace Corps. The magic of networking lead those with the funds to Viajito, a local family man who had lost his leg and hearing in a diving accident. His family has been struggling futilely to make ends meet since, and there has been no hope for a prosthetic leg. His wife cooks in a local restaurant, has a laundry business and other odd jobs. Crippled and deaf, Viajito's voice and story reached alot of people and the pig roast fund raiser made enough to pay his medical bills and get him a new leg.
Thank you for your support. We ventured out here to see a bit of the world by sea, and do some good along the way and the vision is growing. Our first goal was to raise a thousand dollars for an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. We were amazed that it worked, and secondly we have been blow away by how much can be done and how willing people are to help us help other people. All of what we have purchased has been at tremendous discount and doors have been opened left and right for us.
The money raised thus far has started a wave amongst the community around us. People are lining up to do their part, and amazing opportunities are emerging. The money donated to Theworldbysea.com was matched one and half times last night at the pig roast. That brings us to $2,500. Your contributions started something and it will reverberate even when we have sailed on.

We were able to purchase clothes for hundreds of kids at the orphanage. Then we acquired a lawnmower, to alleviate the laborious and lengthy task performed by four staff members of mowing the grounds with machetes. Then $200 went to provision a street orphan soup kitchen which feeds up to twenty kids a day and provides English lessons. Here local schools are short on writing utensils, so if a child is without a pen they are sent home. So we had a pencil drive and have a mound of pens now to meet that need.
And then there is Viajito, who gets a leg. It’s pretty cool to see every dollar go directly to a need. Most importantly, we have observed the tremendous need here, and identified a community that desires to help alleviate that need. Of course, people have been doing their part already, and we merely have helped more people to give- it all seems to be making an impact. People have emerged here to organize the effort and channel the resources. Now the channels are in place. Hundreds of sailboats come here each year from all over the world. If the word gets out that there are volunteer opportunities here and we are taking ownership, then we could have a huge impact.
Your giving inspired us and that inspired dozens of others. For us we have a model to continue on with. We will explore, come across needs, seek out the key players and bring attention to those needs. Thank you for your support. This project has been loads of fun and fulfilling. I hope you all can feel what good your contribution has created down here.

Domincan Sunrise

2008-02-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

We eased into the long sought and hard fought Port of Luperon, with eager hearts and wet belongings. The trip, I'm sure, will have prepped us for other challenges that lie ahead in the world by sea. Alas we have found what we went looking for. As we made land fall and called our wobbly legs to use, the sounds of music filled our ears and smiling faces blessed our tired eyes.
As we arrived our friends at the orphanage welcomed us with showers, hot food and a stationary place to sleep. To them we were surely shocking by sight and hard on the nose....

Seeing the beautiful faces here and pleasant camaraderie in the DR is something special to experience. We have been working at what I would call an "after school care center" where kids from a Dominican and Haitian worker camp come to eat their first meal of the day and participate in after-school activities. Here they are helped with their homework, inspected by nurses, given a shower, feed, and allowed to play games in a protected field. The facility borders a Haitian workers encampment and is surrounded entirely by sugar cane fields. It is a definite refuge and symbol of hope in a community where there is very little.
The youngest kids are charming and amazingly independent. A quick tour of their home situation explains all.
We jumped in with a team of nurses for a week as they set up mobile clinics in the area to initiate health records for hundreds of kids and dozens of families looking for answers to their neglected ailments. The people seem tremendously grateful for the aid and greeted our presence with smiles and handshakes.
Derek and I found ourselves most useful helping with the construction projects on site. We put our mark on a shelving unit and some trenched electrical conduit. Actually making a difference with a short period of time is the challenge. We felt like we got alot out of the experience, and we hope that they felt the same. A thousand bucks was raised through the website and that has gone a long way. We asked them to make a long list of things that they need and we explained that we would do what we could to meet some of those needs with the money.
The list was long but full of real basic things like socks and underwear. Apparently the clothes donated to Haiti by the US are brought to the DR and resold to raise money for food. So we found one of these markets and used our bargaining skills to finagle 200 pairs of underwear, 40 pairs of socks, 10 bras, and 17 belts all brand-new for $100 USD.
While at the school we were laboring with five of their paid staff members. Those five guys spent about four days that week cutting the grass around the school with machetes. The land around the school is large and since its overgrown, the students were forced to play in the streets. We asked the director about getting a lawnmower and he informed us that he had ordered one and it was being held until they could pay it off. The construction workers who were supposed to be building a school room were detained a week at a time to re-cut the grass in a painfully inefficient way. We felt that paying off the lawnmower would answer their prayers and be good stewardship of the money raised. Now one guy can cut the grass in a day and the other four can continue to build the school rooms.
After three weeks in the DR we feel that we can go directly to kids in need with the remaining funding. We are holding a slide show and informational event for the sailing community here. Luperon is home to fifty sailboats at any given time and they have shown a huge interest in the local community. Most travelers we meet ask us how they can get involved, and who they should talk to. People who live in the DR ask us if we can help, so we think establishing an avenue for them to meet is a worthy venture. Numerous sailors have gone out on their own to do what they can. Our vision is to organize that group of people who are already doing their part, focus their efforts and connect them with needs.
In the short time that we have been here, another group of sailors inspired by our efforts have started to organize a group focusing on helping kids in a town a few hours east of where we are now.

Adventures top to bottom

2008-01-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

We set out from Georgetown first thing Saturday morning with less than favorable winds. Five other anxious boats departed the same day with the same hopes, each of us fighting into the wind but diverging on to our own strategy. Derek and I were sure we would shortly be lost in the wake of the newer, bigger boats. We chose to fall off the wind a few degrees to gain speed and make several long tacks to stay in the game. The day passed and dark clouds rolled in as the sun set and soon we were deep into what would be a long night of shifting winds and squalls. We watched as an approaching squall swallowed a boat to the south of us, then a boat to the west of us. The rain soon closed in around us and washed away the comfortable sight of the other boats. We sailed sixty miles through the night and at dawn were out of radio contact with our pack- but only eight miles east of where we were sixteen hours earlier.
We had sailed out beyond and around the protective islands and as we tacked back south in the morning, we trailed over the line of the Bahamian bank and hooked our first fish. A shark followed it in and ate it as we pulled it up to the boat. Our spirits were up and we put out another line and shortly hooked a huge Mahi Mahi. The sight of the Mahi is out of this world. Its green and bright yellow body are alien to this world. This time, as we brought it up next to the boat, we scrambled for a method to bring it in and it spooked, breaking the line at the last moment.
So we headed for the next bank off Samana Cay. On the charts the cay is surrounded by three thousand feet of water then an abrupt eighty foot depth. We hit it about lunch time, and hit it we did. With three lines out in flat calm water we could see eighty feet to the bottom. When we reached twenty feet of water beneath us we began to see coral heads reaching up for the surface. The GPS chart showed six feet deep and sandy. Nevertheless, Derek went to the bow to spot for shallow, threatening heads. Immediately he pointed for me to turn hard right, then hard left, then straight on. As the heads approached my end of the boat they were four feet beneath the surface and on both sides of the hull. We proceeded into a narrow channel, conversing in tense loud voices, until we could go no further. We had entered into a impassible coral field. Then the sea surge lifted us up and right on top of the reef. “Boom”- we landed square and the whole boat shook. “Boom…Boom…Boom” and we sat balanced on the reef, looking at each other with new faces. The next surge backed us onto a shallower head and it knocked our rudder up and out of its seat. We were getting beat up on this reef and now had lost our ability to steer. The third surge lifted us up over and off the reef and I gunned it for a clear area of water. We dropped anchor in a patch of sand and proceeded to dive on the rudder.
The rudder was dangling to one side and a bit chewed up. We were on the fringe of no where so we called a passing boat, to let them know our situation. It was Snark, our traveling buddies, so they stood by on the radio as we worked on the rudder. I held the rudder in line from underneath as Derek beat on the post from above, driving it back into place. It was as easy as it could possibly be to fix- any weather and we would have been in trouble.
So I have this big shark fear now that I have seen them rip fish away from us underwater as we hunt. I am pretty paranoid swimming around in the water. All the while fixing this rudder there was a typical sleeping nursing shark right under the boat and lots of edible fish. The Nurse is not supposed to be dangerous unless you manage to get your arm in its mouth. To be fair, they are not interested in us and have no real teeth, but I’m not tough and fear is rarely rational anyways- and so it goes. We lost all our trolling gear in that snaffoo on the reef. I lost a special rig that Jon of the Double Bryun had given me and we came all the way out to Samana to fish, so we couldn’t leave empty handed. So we geared up, intending to spear a fish without waking up the shark beneath us. We eased in like Navy Seals, speared a fish in less than twenty seconds and hysterically scrambled up the sides of the boat before the shark could get it or us. We timidly navigated out of the coral heads and set sail again with rice on the stove and fish in the oven.

Looking for more adventure, we drug the dead fish carcass behind the boat as we glided back out to sea. With the video camera out, we watched and watched and watched for a shark to jump out of the water feigning for our bait. So we watched, we slowed the boat and made splashing noises to simulate struggle, etc. What are the chances, eh?

Well, half an hour passes and we lose interest in the fish, but just then a school of Tuna boils just off the side of the boat and a dorsal fin heads toward us. A massive ocean white tip shark is now circling the boat and narrowing in on the bait. It danced around the carcass for fifteen minutes as we snapped photos underwater and took video from above. It was unbelievable. Sharks are out there, and they are near by, it seems, at all times.

With luck the adventure has begun. We have luck. Some would think we have had a lot of near-catastrophes, but those of us who pray for an adventurous life are nothing but grateful. From top to bottom we have experienced a few of what every sailor fears most. Days before we left Georgetown, by chance, we changed the mast anchor light and inadvertently found our mast rigging plate completely sheared off at the top, meaning we were moments from toppling our mast. And now we have hit a reef and been rudderless.

The story goes on as we were still only halfway to the DR. Our weather window was closing in twenty hours, so we came to a real tosser. There was another day of no wind, meaning we could motor straight to the Turks and Caicos bank where we needed to cross, but we were a few hours from being out of diesel. And when we reached the Turks bank we would definitely have to motor. We could change course to get diesel from a station that reportsed that it “may” have fuel but we would have to wait ten hours till it opened up. This was not an option, since once we had the fuel, our window for motoring would be over. So we leaned on our luck a little and pressed on. Sure enough, sailing vessel Prudence, another traveling buddy of ours, closed in on us and sold us some of their extra fuel. Thank you Prudence -you saved out backs! That five gallons got us all the way across the Turks and Caicos bank and into a safe anchorage. We did run out again and sailing vessel DIVA, who had provided safe waypoints across an incompletely surveyed bank, also sold us ten more gallons and we were set for the Dominican Republic.
We pulled an all-nighter and fought our way to Luperon, where we are now drying the boat out because everything and everything was drenched in the passage. Nothing was spared- Derek’s passport was too wet to stamp at the immigration office. We are stoked to be here and ready for a break from the boat. The reward of our long fight east has been the smiling faces, beautiful country, and cheap living that we have found here in the Dominican Republic.
All-in-all, the sailing has been hard on the nose and we are looking forward to the downwind passages to Central America.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas all from Wardwick Wells Exumas! We will celibrate the day here with dozens of other cruisers from around the globe on the beach for an afternoon potluck. We miss you and welcome you out here anytime you want to join in.

Naughtso Bahamas

2007-12-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

Tropical storm Ulga has pinned us in the Bahamian capital of Nassau. Anchored in a channel /no-mans land between the have’s and the have-nots we lock our dinghy to a free dock on the ghetto side and walk the bridge to where the grass is watered and the beaches are sanded. It’s the scene of a future revolution. A toll bridge brings you from a concrete graveyard to a highly guarded Disneyland. Across that bridge is celebration: nightly fireworks illuminate the casino skyline as timeshare folks file in to drop off their weekly pensions and Carnival cruise line ushers thousands of buffet gurus into the t-shirt stores with their fifteen bucks so they adorn their tanned pot bellies and spare tires with proof of their Bahamian experience, even though tourist day here was designed by the same group that did Myrtle Beach and south Florida and every other tourist coral. If you walked deep into New Providence Island then drew up a t-shirt after the fact it would hardly be yellow with a palm tree, but its no wonder since the seamstress is looking out the factory window dreaming beyond their own rusted corrugated roof line of Sri-lanka.
Informally I have surveyed the impressions of other foreigners and our sentiments concur. Slouched middle aged men line the crumbling city streets of Providence Island with hopeless eyes and idle hands. There is a defeated feel and distance in their eyes and smiles are few and far between. Their ethic is different than what we are living off of from the protestant era. When you do make a connection with someone and venture beyond that first layer the people are beautiful and proud.
The common hope here is that one can land a tourism based job where the tipping culture put you above the daily average wage. Its interesting that people are coming to see a way of life that is contrived for the benefit of and exists solely because people come to see it. So how does it occur?

This weeks adventure has been a high low search for a two person meal under thirty bucks. Our first four days ran us thirty bucks every time we stopped walking. A burger is eight bucks and if you want fries and a coke that’s seven more dollars. Ha! So we found a few shacks built up with scrap plywood and other scavenged timbers on a vacant lot down on the fisherman’s wharf underneath a two lane bridge. I ordered the cheapest chopped onion, tomato and ice burg salad with diced conk and it was nine bucks. This was as local as it got. We need to get further south it looks like. Lobster fetches $19.50 per pound to the fisherman, that’s twice what we get for chasing down King crab in the frigid Bering sea. Sorry folks the Us dollar wont get you far. So we collected a few coconuts from the trees and plantains from the market and we fry that up everyday along with our daily home bake pizzas. Our thirty bucks now lasts two people two days.

2007-12-12T17:49:00.000-08:00

Gun Cay and on the way

2007-12-03T17:31:00.000-08:00

We reached the teal Bahamian waters and entered into the life of subsistence gathering and barter. When are you ready to set off on a trip around the world? What do you need to know, and what do you need to take? A month of Home Depot runs and Wal-Mart provisioning drained the kitty and the soul, and filled the closets with “things we need”. We couldn’t fit any more stuff on this boat, so it was time to leave- I guess we were ready.

We crossed the border of the US and Bahamas on the eve of my 27th year. It was a great year. I hope to find new ways to make a living that are adventurous and pose the opportunity for personal development and the next challenge.

Rob, Derek and I speared some fish today and got our first sense of what it actually takes to put food on the barbecue. Day one we caught nothing, day two we caught our first, and day three we caught our first meal. The debate is open about what fish we have been catching, but the freshness is amazing, and the experience unbeatable. Derek nearly shot a sleeping shark thinking it was the biggest fish he had ever seen. Numerous sting rays and jelly fish made us aware of our thin skin and vunerability.

The crew had a blast when we decided to fly our spinnaker for the first time…. It’s not a one person activity, and when we got it flying it was so beautiful that I had to get pictures of it. So I jumped into the dinghy and attempted to take some pictures. Well, the boat took off and the dinghy began to sink. The boys had to keep the boat on course so that the spinnaker wouldn’t tear. So there I was, terrified, watching my new boat sailing beautifully off into the horizon with two laughing deckhands. I bailed water and finally caught up- all the while they got more pictures of Captain Ahab out adrift behind the boat than we had taken of the new spinnaker.

Rob leaves tomorrow, to rejoin his wife in their first trimester and the boat is heading South East to Great Inagua and then to Panama. This adventure is continually fueled by the prospect of exploring different cultures and a simplified lifestyle, coupled with the opportunity to volunteer and serve at whatever capacity we can. As Jimmy Rouge used to say “The people we meet make the experience, the places will always be there”.

We are going to take a slow journey to the Eastern Bahamas where the fishing is rumored to be untouched and the surfing is credible. The boat remains named Nicole Marie until Glory comes with a paint brush to reintroduce this old boat as “Ultima Noche”.

A new boat and bigger dreams

2007-11-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

Leaving Colorado last December to sail around the world was the dream, figuring out what I would need to know along the way was the plan. I drove to Florida, bought the first boat I looked at, and sold the car. Three months of sailing around showed me what kind of boat I would need... After getting knocked around in a gale and several short squalls in that last tropical storm off the coast of South Carolina, wearing out crew and soaking every last personal item at least once, it was time to start looking. I sailed into St. Augustine and threw down the pick. Right next to me was a beautifull 1964 Pearson Vanguard, full keel blue water cruiser. I rowed over to take pictures and met the owner as he was brushing his teeth. The next day we traded titles and rafted up to move off of and into our new boats.

If you set out to live your dream the world will conspire to make it happen. We are surrounded by resources that will lead us in which ever direction we are compelled to follow. Everyday I meet someone who helps me along the way. The adventures with Barely Twisted are now to be lived by Michael Perry the competent restorer of the former S/V Nicole Marie, who has seen the world twice round. She will be properly re-introduced to the elements as the S/V Ultima Noche. Sea willing, she will set off once again on another cultural geography tour around the globe.

This week was spent finding teak and making this table and bed board surfaced with a chart of the Puget Sound where I learned how to sail, and Morning Glory styled the Wind Vane paddle (that steers the boat with the wind) with an Aboriginal style dolphin.

The plans are growing with this new boat: A roving hostel, humanitarian research and aid platform, sea farm and sustainable living experience all-in -one. The brightest minds and spirits are quitting their jobs and filling the bunks. Morning Glory Farr and Derek Turner are cutting loose and making her their home as well. We will be making a film, writing, and facilitating an international dialogue as we go.

Keep in touch, as we will be exploring different ways of life, sharing our lessons and bringing aid to those who we encounter. If you see a humanitarian cause that you want to help, let us know and through our non-profit organization 100% of your pledge will go directly to that cause.

Time to clock out

2007-09-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Aleutians will remain in the back of my mind as the most beautifull place in the world on a sunny windless day. A sunny day and one easily forgives this region for its wild temper. A halfmarathon on Unalaska Island, the lunar eclipse, wild flowers, the best drinking water on the planet, lava explosions from an erupting volcano, living out of a homestead, countless bears and other wildlife, getting handcuffed to the bartender, wild blueberries, catching salmon by hand in shallow streams, the biggest halibut and pay check I ever hopped to see all in all made for a complete alaskan summer.

Its been nine months since I have spent any significant time on land. While my eyes filled with wonder, my legs and social skills have atrophied beyond repair. Dreams of running in open feilds fill my nights in between thoughts of pretty girls.

Its time to shave and dig in with Amelia at the DENVER Voice. I will be an unemployed technically homeless volunteer working for the Denver homeless newspaper for all of September.

Then its off to Barely Twisted, with who knows yet, to the southern hemisphere.

Big Fish

2007-08-04T23:04:00.000-07:00

We caught a huge Halibut. It took three guys, each with a gaff and all our might to pull it over the rail. It was four hundred and forty pounds and sold for sixteen hundred bucks. What an exciting moment it was. We have been hidding out from the weather for a few days and in the mean time enjoying the natural surroundings.

Every expense is paid for with a bit of your time

2007-07-24T00:51:00.000-07:00

Money is not profane. If a tree is sacred and a baby is sacred and if even a baby shit is sacred- if everything is sacred- money certainly must be as well. It is part of the stuff of life.
Money is among our most sacred things because it is actually a representation of life force itself. The key to understanding this is to take a step back and ask: what is money really? How do I get it? How do I use it? A particularly insightful question to ask is, “How much do I make?” Your answer will most likely be something like “I a make ten dollars an hour” or “ I make $45,000 per year.” And what that answer would clearly show is that you exchange time its self for money- the time remaining in your life. While it would be going to far to say that money actually is a life force, it certainly represents it and is a primary means by which we exchange our life’s energy with that of other people. It is often how we exchange our life’s energy for the energy of the earth its self. How can money not be a key spiritual aspect of our lives.
When we receive money from our jobs-from exchanging our precious and finite time and energy for it- we don’t hoard it. We use some money for out survival needs and some for special treats. Maybe we save some or invest in a business or in education. When we spend money, we give it to other people in exchange for their precious time and energy to serve us. We pay people to bake us bread, build us homes, teach us, pave our roads, design our web sites, and make us chocolate bars.
When we incur debt, we literally owe parts of our lives: time that we have not yet lived that must be given up to repay that debt. “Wage slave” takes on a whole new meaning. What is paying for a home, or a car loan, or a student loan, or a credit card but literally indentured servitude? How much of hating our job is due to knowing in our bones that we are selves unable to escape our masters.
How Much Money (time, that is) does it take you to live the lifestyle you are living? Many expenses don’t serve us, like that light bulb that is still turned on in the next room where no on is. Right now. How much less would it take to live if you cut out most of the waste? How would it take to meet your needs if you wanted to spend every possible moment working on the truly important things in your life?
We all know how “voting with dollars” affects the environment and society. When we purchase gasoline, we contribute to air pollution. When we purchase a hamburger, we are eating higher on the food chain than is sustainable. But what about how “voting with dollars” affects our own lives? When we spend money on something that is good for us, that helps us grow, and that contributes to our community, we are affirming life. We are focusing our lives energy on adding to our lives and growth. What about when we waste our money? It does not add to our lives to spend money on electricity for a light bulb nobody is using. In fact, it hurts us twice: once when we spent our time working for the money that we wasted, and again with the negative social and environmental consequences that come from energy over consumption. Every expense we incur is paid for by a bit of our lives. Time lost at work, commuting, and job training is time that we never get back, time we cannot devote to what really matters.
Imagine that a rich relative left you an inheritance. There is enough money that you never have to work again if you keep your expenses low by sharing an apartment with roommates, using the bus instead of owning a car, cooking your meals at home and so on. What would you do with your time? Would you work at all? Learn to play the piano? Crisscross the country attending antiwar demonstrations? Be a full time parent? Where do your passions lie? Why aren’t you following those passions right now? Why aren’t you living that life? Is your path in life more important than living a lifestyle that obscures it? Can you make some changes to your lifestyle to rebuild your life around your passions? Will you?

Utne, “A different real on life”. July –aug 2003 no.118

Your Money is Your Life. By Psy
From Reclaiming quarterly a political mag from the witch community.

PSY PO box 14404, San Francisco ca 94114

2007-07-23T23:48:00.001-07:00

Leaving Stonewall Homestead.

End of an era…

Our time fishing the grounds near the stonewall homestead have ended abruptly with a wave of good fish reports from the north. Thanks to today’s latest technology each boat in our group is equipped with satellite email, so as our five members are spread out amongst the grounds our captains resemble teenage text messengers on their cell phones. No need for secret radio channels any longer. We pulled our net out of the water and have begun the forty hour transition to the Bering Sea Salmon runs.

The hills around us are teeming with bears. One began to pester a nearby village so the locals shot it and cast it out to sea. The next high tide brought it right up on the beach where Keith and I found it. For a Grizzly it was medium sized at seven feet tall. It must have been a thousand pounds with for arms bigger than my thigh. Its wrists were the size of my thigh. Up until finding a bear and getting close enough to smell and feel its fur and gauge its mass I had entertained the idea of fending one off with a fisherman’s knife or out maneuvering one. Hmmm… not going to happen. We tried to cut its arm with a buck knife and were unable to get through the fur and no where near its thick tough hide. Its claws were nearly three inches long with paws like a squash paddle. If it wanted you it could have you.

I just finished Ishmael, a timely book about humans and their relationship to the universe. It is set with a caged Gorilla mentoring a young journalist. The book presents our creation myths in a new light and derives great lessons that inspire an ancient way of interacting with the world. It was timely for me because I am surrounded by a frontier that man has not conquered, and the elements rule your life.
We also capture a lot of our food and energy from our own efforts and local sources out here. The first few years out here I thought this place was beautiful but barren. Now I feel like I am surrounded by food and energy.

Togiak Herring

2007-05-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Togiak season was filled with great weather, and plenty of easy fishing. In out spare time we hiked to hot springs, combed beaches for Walrus Ivory, glass balls, barbecued on the beach and made bonfires.

We decided to fish the season with one engine and came out as the top producing boat. Over all it was a blast and we came out with more money and adventures than we expected.

From here I am heading to False Pass to Long Line Halibut for three months. It should be a great summer.

Break down at Sea

2007-05-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

If you fail the first time then try again? We set out from False Pass, the end of the Alaskan Peninsula, to cross the Bering Sea heading North to Togiak. The Sea was flat and greasy. It was to be a thirty seven hour leg. Fog rolled in, and then snow. The cold buys us time, but our weather window was slim so we pressed to get across the notorious stretch of ocean before any weather arrived. With a crew of three we held six hour wheel watches. Just after a complete rotation on a dreamy crossing with the Captain back at the wheel a new and strange sound rattled the hull. Bill slowed the engines to an idle. Tom jumped out of his bunk and out on deck to check the bow and our anchor winch and the bow. Snow and ice had built one the rails and deck and when I reached the bow slipping along the way in my sneakers with one eye opened and half awake I see Tom bear feat in the snow standing in his pajamas. Fog and calm flat sea surrounded us. The moon was full, but everything was luminous and eerie. The Anchor was there. We must have hit a small ice berg and it worked its way along the hull. We clambered around the deck and into the various holds looking for damage and the cause of the sound. We returned to the cabin with nothing to report on the strange noise.
A familiar sound continued. The three of us stood there in the cabin and below our feet the sound of water flowing settled in on us. We tore out the floor boards to view two spouts of water on both sides of the engine room below us. Our reactions were slow. We were taking on water, our bilge pumps were not working and none of our water alarms were going off. We were out now deep in the bowels of the Bering Sea. We were sinking. Bill jumped into the flooding engine room as did Tom. I asked if I should Pan Pan our GPS position on the radio just in case. Bill thought we should hold off.

Bill called out for some cloth to stuff in the holes. I tore a pair of sweatpants into bits and scrambled for all the dish rags. Tom established a circuit with a bilge pump and began the fight against the incoming water. I stuck my hand in one hole and Bill stuffed rags with one hand in another hole and held his finger in the third hole. The water was ice and our fingers and legs were instantly numbed. Our hands ached and lost their dexterity. The panic began to wear off as did the sleepiness. The reality of the moment began to set in. We were not in a great spot for a break down, but the problem was known to us now. We had holes in our boat, disabled bilge pumps and a broken propeller shaft. What caused it we will never know.

The propeller shaft had pulled out of its tunnel leaving us with a two inch hole that swallowed half a pair of sweat pants and a dish rag. Like magic Bill produced a bolt that fit miraculously into another hole that my finger had occupied. The third hole took a synthetic cork and some 5200 glue. None of these holes stopped leaking but their violent personalities were tamed into non threatening drizzles.

We were one third of the way across the sea and we turned around for the closest shore. We were pretty spooked and with our one remaining engine we lightly traveled back to land.
We sheared our prop shaft and the stuffing box spun free and wildly caught a near by run of wires and proceeded to wrap them around the shaft coupler on the engine. That run of wires lead to the engine room lights and the bilge pumps. When it pulled tight on the wires, the lights were disabled and the bilge pumps were ripped out of there locations and drawn into the shaft. Once the bilge pumps were wound in tight to the shaft their hoses followed and the entire water extraction system was disabled into a tight ball on the shaft. The hoses pulled on other engine cooling hoses and a thru-hold was sheared off at its base. Holes were created, pumps and lighting were disabled all in one shot.
Our confidence was breached. So much trust and blind faith is built in electronics and alert systems. We could hear water coming in, but we did not check our engine room because the bilge pumps and alarms were not activated.
We all have a greater awareness of boats now and a appreciation for the layer that separates us from danger. We also have a cool ass job and live exciting lives. Discovery channel has never caught the look on a skippers face when his boat is sinking and the sea is vast cold and coming to get him. I saw it from two inches away. I don’t know what’s better, having spare hands to take pictures, or to have one fist jammed in a hole of gushing water and a finger in another one. I guess it wouldn’t have been as real if there was time and or though of a camera.

We are now tied to a pilling at an old rotting fish cannery. Our spirits are low because we are bored now it seems like we are no where and we can’t go anywhere.

Ragged Islands to the Isle Great Inagua

2007-03-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

Pictures speak for themselves and long winded updates never get read so here are some pics of the South Eastern Bahamas and our experiences.

The beautiful Ragged Islands served us well with calm coves to anchor and the fruits of the path less traveled. We landed on this completely deserted Island and these are our Boats. From Left to Right, Moxi, Barely Twisted, and Double Bruyn.

Our daily feed is becoming less of what we have purchased and more and more of what we are able to catch. Jon and I went fishing with spears on the reefs, I got two and Jon got one. :) This Dolphin fish Laura and I just caught on the line was the most beautifull color in the water. It took both of us to get it into the boat.

The company that we have made has been most of the last weeks adventure

Hundreds would pay thousands eh?

We are now heading for the Dominican Republic where we hope to get local vegitables and some culture.

Exumas

2007-03-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

Well we had a few adventures getting here by the end of the month but we made it.
The cold front that passed over Florida last week came our way to Chub cay and hammered us. We barely skirted into the safety of a marina as the winds reached a gale and the rain picked up. The marina wanted $112.00 for us to stay for the night so we choose to head out into the storm at nine in the morning to find a free anchorage and it happened by tremendous stores of good luck. We beat into the wind and rain hitting sand bars and loosing hope for another few hours before we got an anchor to hold. We have a knack for traveling against the wind and in less that favorable weather. But we are working it out and growing patient and all the while seeing some beautiful places.

The quality of people here is the ice one the cake as it always is with travel. The places you go will all ways be there. Its the people you meet that make the places. We are amongst a crowd of retired Canadians, French and Americans. They love that we are out here so early in life and they all say they wished they would have done it when they were our age. Everywhere we go people reach out to help us and offer advice. Each day we meet more people and hear more incredible stories.

We spent a few days in Nassau where we met the skipper on the NZ12 Americas Cup boat and he took us for a sail on it. It was thrilling. Then the next day he came for a sail on our boat where he tuned my rig and taught Laura and I how to trim our sails. It was an amazing sailing experience on our boat and a life time experience on a five million dollar carbon fiber Americas cup boat with a mast ten stories high.

Most importantly, we met up with our partner boat the ‘Double Brauyn’. The New Zealand brothers that started in the same port as ‘Barley Twisted’ in Florida, two months ago. We are going to post out here in the Southerly Islands of the Exumas for the next month. The fishing is good and the scenery never tires. There are over three hundred sail boats from around the globe here for the Georgetown Regatta. We came just in time and will slip into the race.

Last night we dressed as pirates and danced the night away on the beach to the Regatta music. Today we are setting sail south for the Ragged Islands just south of the Exumas.

Crossing the gulf stream and becoming heros

2007-02-14T07:21:00.000-08:00

We Barely made it through the gulf stream. Our youth and impatience set us off in NE winds 15-20 with a destination against the current. We beat into the wind and against the current for fourteen hours at 2 knots speed over ground. As we closed in on the last fourteen miles our genoa was reefed and water was trickling in everywhere. It poored rain and the wind veered around to the East keeping us just off the coast for hours. We were tired, wet and cold, sleeping at the wheel and doing cirlces. Leaving at 13:00 we arived North Bimini at 07:00 the next day. Water had come in all the windows and through the steerting column and and anchor locker. It was horendous, we were wet and and tired but we worked well as a team and made it through the night. When we went to our bunks in the morning we found that everything was soaked. The moral was a bit low as we entered the long anticipated clear water Bahamas.

We spent all day yesterday drying our stuff and recovering. Everything was out on deck blowing int he wind. We have also learned that in a matter of seconds there are flash rain storms that can leave you with buckets of the best drinking water if you are prepared to catch it. We have met numerous other cruisers who all receive us with soo much hospitality and interest. We are younger than anyone else out here by thirty years. Most people work thier whole lives to do this, we sort of skipped the line.

Yesterday our trusty radio picked up a mayday call that no one esle could hear. So we responded and acted as relay for the boat in distress and the coast gaurd in Miami. We were on the radio for four hours as they deployed a helicopter and a rescue boat. There was a crazy lightning storm and the boat was adrift out in the Bahama flats. The Helicopter had to leave them as the lightning storm engulfed them and after propably six hours the boat was met by a rescue commercial fishing boat. haha leave it to the fisherman.
Laura and I were in a yoga lightning stance on the galley floor as lightning struck all around us. It was pretty scary. It was neat to learn that my out dated radio works all the way to Miami, and the boats around me with thier flash new equipment were out of the loop. Barely Twisted was thanked by the Coast Guard and Tow Boat US for assisting in the rescue.

Yesterday I saw a giant sting ray manor ray thing jump clearly out of the water. I have never seen such a thing.

Our next desitination is Chub Cay due East of here. Noaa weather reports call for gale force winds and freezing temps. hmmm, might be time to lay low for a while.

Float Plan 1

2007-02-11T06:27:00.000-08:00

Lv Ft Lauderdale 26'05.40N 80'04.70W
Ar North Bimini 25'42.05 N 79'18.65 W
Course 120' T

TD 10:00
ETA 20:00

Off to a start

2006-12-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

Its off to Florida to find a boat to sail around the world. The sea is different everyday. What was conquered yesterday, is not guaranteed for the next. Plenty have sailed around the world, but he challenge will always remain.

The goal is to meet people from all over while seeing more of the globe.