La Rochelle

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

Bon Apetite

“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!

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 :)

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.

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!!!

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

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.