Adventures of s/v WILD HAIR

Our Last Night in Grenada

2011-07-24T11:05:00.003-05:00

We hear spring has arrived in Madison: 82 degrees, greening grass, and budding bushes. Here, we are melting. It is greater than 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade below decks. The humidity exceeds 70%. We live in our swim trunks/bikinis. (Poor kitten Dinghy in her fur coat). She moves very slowly in the heat of the day. I sometimes check her pulse. But, she specializes in sleeping in the smallest, coolest places aboard WILD HAIR--like on top of the freezer lid or in the shady spot beneath the forward breezy hatch. When the sun retreats in the evenings, the night turns delicious. The cool air settles upon us. It is heavenly.

It is the end of the sailing season for us. I am exhausted by the last four days spent decommissioning the boat. I used a tank of oxygen to scrape barnacles from the hull.
The boat looks disturbingly naked as Dave and I removed the sails from the mast and forward stay. We polished every inch of the vessel—inside and out. Memories of a bag of onions forgotten at the end of one season haunted me as I scoured the boat removing perishables. Anticipating hurricane force winds, we removed from the deck every line, fender, and cushion that could conceivably take flight. Stowing these items below erased the livable space available to us.

Now, the boat sits on a frame ashore; heavy-duty straps attached to screws nestled deeply into the soil, pull the hull down onto the frame. In this configuration, we live on land 15 feet in the air. The boat feels oddly like a tree house. At one point, a Brit borrows our latter for his own use and we are stranded. A damsel in distress, I “you-hoo” a Grenadian boatyard worker for assistance.

It’s time to go home to Madison, Wisconsin.

Nearing the End

2011-07-24T10:57:00.003-05:00

It is April 25, 2011. We are nearing the end of our fourth year living on the boat. Looking back, I reflect on this extraordinary sailing season. Dave, Dinghy and I journeyed well over 2,000 nautical miles—sailing from northern Florida to within throwing distance of Venezuela—without major mishap. Perhaps, I gloat on this glorious day, skill and experience give one control. Maybe we can shape our destiny after all.

This morning, we leave our anchorage in the Tobago Cays and make our way to Union Island to clear customs. We anchor, dinghy ashore, and walk several blocks to the airport. There, Dave and I meet our first customs agent turned philosopher. In the historical reality in which I live, I can’t make the man stop talking.

Sweat pours down my face in the tropical furnace that is the airport and Mr. A. T. waxes poetically about a conglomeration of topics: God, fidelity, doctors that want to kill him, and his plans to change careers. He will not proceed with the check out until Dave guesses how old he is (answer: 52). A. takes delight in discovering via a review of our passports that he and Dave have the "same birthday"--Dave's is September 9th while A’s is September 15th. Then we consider together all of the qualities of people born in September and how no one really likes September people. “Have we noticed?” Finally, with the definitive thud of a rubber stamp, the monologue ends.

The town of Clifton on Union Island at 11:00 this Easter Monday morning is a drunken street party. Dancing in the islands is often risqué, but couples here stop traffic by lying in the street and rhythmically, graphically humping each other to the beat of blaring music. Nothing is left to the imagination. Dave and I casually head the opposite direction to buy tomatoes.

The vegetable market is teeming with more loud music, bare-chested men and
lusty, cussing young women. S of S's Produce is exhausted by it all. When I question her delicately about the origin of the street festival, she corrects, "This is no festival. This is our most holy holiday and how people celebrate. They have partied like this since Good Friday.” With emphasis she adds, “I go TO CHURCH.” Beautiful S is made weary by her lack of influence. She is disappointed in her culture. More than she will ever know, we are sisters in her pain. We purchase our tomatoes and wish her well.

To keep sailing skills developing equally, Dave and I alternate captain and crew responsibilities each day. I am especially cheerful now because it is my turn to be captain and the conditions are extraordinary. Sixteen knots of wind blows at a right angle across the port rails, filling sails into voluptuous pillow shapes. The seas are calm so I will not grow seasick. Boat and sun are unobstructed. Tomorrow, as Dave captains us to the island of Grenada, the wind will scream with squalls at 30 knots. He and I will enjoy having our hands full. But for now, I take pleasure in giving my boat full rein, allowing her to lead me, show me what she can do. Her grace and willingness steal my breath.

Christopher Columbus sailed these same waters. His journal entries for this stretch of sea capture his puzzlement over frustrating, invisible currents. Without warning, my compass and electronics conspire and confuse me. My destination is Ronde Island. But the inflowing current and falling tide push the boat sideways at 3 knots—that means we go 3 miles west for every 5 miles south we travel. To drive “straight” I need to crab the boat 60 degrees east on the compass from where I want to head. It is a weird sensation. Our progress is ridiculously slow. I feel unsure. The constantly flowing river of my emotions turns grumpy. I miss the way things were. As captain I can assign duties, so—rather than continuing with something that is making me irritable—I ask Dave to take us in. He is more than happy for the job.

Uninhabited Ronde Island is remote. This rolling 2,000 acre paradise was listed for sale in 2007 for $100,000,000, making the real estate the most expensive island property in the world. It is, however, four nautical miles from an active underwater volcano named Kick-em-Jenny (thought to be named after the odd currents in the area). In 1939, Kick-em-Jenny blew her top sending steam and debris 900 feet into the air and spawning several small tsunamis. Since then, Jenny has raged at least 12 more times making our plans to anchor within the evacuation zone disquieting.

“Don’t worry,” Dave reassures. “The heat won’t kill us, the gas will.”

Anchoring along the protected windward shore, the Delta doesn’t want to catch. I comment on Dave’s fishing gear trailing behind the boat and he says, “O.K. Yeah, I’ll get it.” We both promptly forget about it.

With the boat seemingly attached to the earth, Dave swims to the anchor and dives to check its hold. He reports the light colored bottom is mostly solid rock. But, there is a layer of sand covered with floating vegetation. He dives again to help burry the plow by hand.

“Oh my God—I almost died just now” he claims while swimming back to the boat. He is shaken. “An underwater Sea Snake shot out when I jammed my hand through the vegetation. We missed each other by six inches. I would have been dead before you could get me to help.”

On board, I scan my husband from top to bottom. He is safe and whole. Catching his eye, I raise my eyebrows in question. A smile cracks his lips as he shrugs. There is nothing to do but return to the job at hand.

Together, we back and circle the boat in three lengthy attempts to get the anchor to catch. Dave losses his snorkel mask overboard in the activity. The fishing line wraps the prop during our maneuvers, causing us to lose the lure. After a bit I notice we left the fenders hanging off the toe rail all day. They bounced for 20 miles atop waves. One line is nearly chafed through rendering it useless until replaced.

Dave dives under the boat to cut the fishing line from the prop. I watch his bubbles. He doesn’t come up. Time passes. Panicked that he is stuck, I grab my mask and jump in to save him. He is gone, no where to be seen. I crawl back aboard and scan surrounding waters. At a distance, I spy him checking the anchor’s hold one last time. I make plans to throttle him for scaring me. But before I can fuss, Dinghy-the-Sailor Cat balances like an elephant on a drum atop the stainless bow rail. She jumps down to the deck and acts oh-so-casual when I holler her name.

What is happening? We don't drop things overboard. We don't stick our hands in dangerous places, leave fishing line trailing behind the boat, or dangle our fenders underway. Kitty doesn't climb the bow pulpit. And we certainly don’t lose each other on a 45 foot boat. Have we learned nothing in our time at sea? But then I remember, Yes. I’ve learned I do not rule my dominion. I welcome chaos, relax, and enjoy the show.

It is now late. I know we have a good hold on the bottom; we’re prepared for the high winds to come. I spread my feet, grip the starboard wire shroud, and arch back in the darkness to explore the galaxy with eyes and soul. There are more stars tonight than I think possible. I scour the bright stars half believing they are pinpricks in the shroud of my delusion revealing light from the ultimate dimension lying just beyond comprehension. Perhaps Kick-em-Jenny will sleep tonight, perhaps not. Relishing the mystery of it all, I resign myself to wait and see.

Tobago Cays

2011-07-24T10:08:00.002-05:00

Wild Hair is floating on anchor in 8 feet of crystal water off the remote Tobago Cays. We are just 13 degrees north of the equator. We have an uninterrupted view east into the Atlantic Ocean. But, we are tucked sleepily behind a submerged reef so there is hardly a ripple in our azure sea.

Upon our arrival tonight, a local fisherman dashed over in his handmade bright orange boat and sold us a fresh 5 lbs lobster. We tossed it into a large bucket filled with salt water, and then swam for a long time in the spa-like ocean, melting away the day's heat and tired sailing muscles. After sundowners, we broke the lobster in half and cooked it in 2 pots. It was delicious and fed us all in grand style.

We decided the lobster was our early Easter Dinner.

Tomorrow, we will swim to the local turtle hatchery and snorkel miles of pristine reef.

Monday, we sail to Grenada, our final destination for this sailing season. We have about a week's worth of work to do on the boat before we can leave it on land, hoisted on stilts, for 6 months. We fly to Jacksonville, Florida on May 4th and then drive our car (stored at the boat yard of our cruising season's origin) back to Madison. I hope we remember how to drive. We should be home to Madison by Mother's Day.

I haven't taken an indoor shower in 7 months. Likewise, I haven't watched TV once during that same period. There has been no heat or air conditioning in our life; we are never separate from the climate of our surroundings. In 7 months, I have not moved faster than about 6 miles per hour. We have not had access to internet for nearly 2 months. In many respects, Dave and I feel ill-prepared, perhaps overwhelmed, by the thought of flying home.

Although we have not grown tired of each other's company, we are nearly giddy at the thought of seeing our Wisconsin friends. At the same time we are bewildered that this sailing season is nearly over. To where did the time slip?

Also, how could we have sailed so far? We never move very fast and yet we traveled two thousand miles. I was here the whole time and I find it a genuine mystery.

But then I don't know how I ended up being 51 with 2 capable and grown children.

Life baffles.

The Pirates of St Vincent

2011-07-24T10:00:00.005-05:00

One day we were stalked by “pirates.”

St Vincent has a reputation among sailors as the island to miss. Violent crime and boat theft are common. The police are part of the problem; if you are boarded or robbed, don’t expect justice. Nearly all cruising sailors bypass the island, traveling instead directly from St Lucia to Bequia. This is how we found ourselves nervous and alone, five miles off the Atlantic coast of St Vincent on April 21, 2011.

There was no wind that morning. Worse, a current pushed against the boat’s nose at two to four knots, slowing our forward progress. Knowing we had many miles to travel, we motored at an aggressive 2800 RPMs. Even so, our boat speed was a measly three knots.

At 08:30, three fishermen fell into pace alongside our starboard hull about 100 yards off. Their colorful wooden fishing vessel sported an enormous outboard motor; they easily out-powered us and could do anything they wanted to do. After five minutes, they zoomed off out of sight, only to return again about 20 minutes later. This time, they paced us for what seemed like an eternity. I went below to retrieve the pepper spray and flare gun for Dave at the helm. For myself, I hid a couple knives in handy locations and packed away the rest. I readied the fire extinguishers to blast into the pirate’s faces and cripple knee caps. I locked one of two doors in the aft stateroom, hoping I could barricade myself—if necessary--inside.

The fishermen inched slowly toward WILD HAIR. Dave lifted the VHF radio microphone and pretended to speak into it while visually surveying the details of the wooden boat and fishermen. With that, our three pirates took off, motoring at a high speed 50 feet in front of WILD HAIR’s bow, disappearing into the morning mist.

The only scenario to these happenings we can imagine is that we were being targeted. In the vast space of the ocean, these fishermen were practically on top of us. There is no conceivable storyline as to why they were also traveling at three knots, other than they were plotting against us. They were not fishing; they were inching along by our side like stalkers. They were up to no good.

Cruising St Lucia

2011-07-24T09:45:00.008-05:00

We had a whirlwind tour of St Lucia today.

Last night we anchored off a beach called Anse Cochon with hundreds of swimming tourists, a day cruise destination for the local Sandal's Resort (and others). Dave jumped in to check the set of our anchor and was surrounded by a flock of 4"stinging jelly fish. This was a first for us. He climbed out quickly and unscathed. Surrounded by vendors in various floating contraptions, we purchased a conch shell (from a man in a kayak) that had the tip cut off to make it a ready-made "trumpet." Now, we can blow our horn at sundown to celebrate the end of the day, a long-standing island tradition in which we had not participated because--sadly--we had no instrument. By the end of the day, all the day cruisers and local vendors left and we had a quiet anchorage almost to ourselves.

Knowing this was a terrific place to snorkel, and watching all the swimmers swim without incident, I felt like a weeny for being afraid of jelly fish. So this morning, with the tourists coming back in force, Dave and I hopped in.

There were no big jelly fish around. Phew. But, after a few minutes I realized I was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of baby jellies about 1/4 inch in diameter. It was like swimming through a jello mold peppered with nasty nuts. They were that thick. They felt like needles. It was very uncomfortable with some stings being significantly worse than others. Then, the cups in my bikini top started acting like a net. Oh my. Unmentionables were suddenly on fire! This was not funny.

I had to get out as soon as I could. Making my way back to our boat, a fellow on a day cruiser asked if the jelly fish were bad where I was too. YES! It seems they were bad everywhere in this bay. This begs the question: Why would all of the day tours bring visitors to a jelly fish incubator? Judging from my pain, I thought I would find an entire jellyfish dinner in my swimsuit top. But no, no jelly fish were harmed during this event.

As has been the case for the past week, we continue to suffer from no wind. So, today we motored down St Lucia’s shore to Soufriere, a very pretty town at the base of the Pitons (three oddly shaped mountain peaks rising dramatically 2800 feet out of the sea). Again, we were flooded by boat vendors that wanted to do odd jobs for us and sell us things. After driving in circles and looking at the amazing scenery, we moved south along the shore again.

Thinking we would spend the night, we anchored off a tiny fishing village called Laborie. It was a place known for charm and no tourists. Indeed, we were the only cruising boat there. We dinghied to shore and enjoyed a walk about town, stopping at the local bakery to buy bread. Farther down the street we noticed a sign for creole bread and a man coming up the side walk of the house. He encouraged us to go into the back yard and ask for bread. There we found a garage-type building with a very large concrete wood burning oven, and a wife selling lovely rolls baked by her husband. They made the bread early in the morning but the oven was still very hot! She charged us .25 EC each, or about 10 US cents per roll. They were supper delicious at our evening supper!

Motoring back to our boat about 3 pm we decided to leave Laborie altogether. The route into the harbor was tricky as it twisted awkwardly around coral reefs. Plus, the route was littered with floats and lines attached to submerged fish pots. Tomorrow morning we intend to depart early to sail to Bequia, the northern-most island in the Grenadines. The thought of trying to navigate the exit from the harbor in the dark gave us the willies. So, we hoisted anchor and drove out of there, following our "bread crumbs" on our electronic navigation charts. SCRRRAAAAAPE--we hit the coral reef. Knowing that coral is alive and that it takes years to grow we found the sound sickening. But, WILD HAIR did not get stuck aground nor did we wrap a fish pot line around our prop. We were safely on our way again.

Our day's final destination was Vieux Fort--the southern-most town on St Lucia. The guide book describes this location as a community without a single tourism bone. It is quite industrial and we are anchored under the flood lights of the shipping dock. But, it is quiet, safe, and we're secure.

At sundown, we took great delight in tooting our conch horn for no one other than ourselves. Plus, I'm pretty sure I finally saw the famous "green flash," a phenomenon of the atmosphere that happens when conditions are just so as the sun dips below the horizon.

I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed since we're getting up at 05:00 to head to Bequia for more adventures.

Martinique Work Boat Regatta

2011-07-24T09:42:00.009-05:00

Anchored off St Pierre on the island of Martinique, this collection of native work boats assembled in the early morning hours for a race. Dave and I had never seen this rocking technique before. Crews dashed port to starboard to manufacture wind on an otherwise windless day.

Martinique

2011-07-24T09:30:00.002-05:00

We have successfully navigated to Trois Islet on the French island of Martinique and the hometown of Napoleon’s Josephine. Our harbor is so quiet I had to check our depth last night to make certain we weren't sitting on the bottom. The town is sleepy, charming, silent. The only sounds last evening were roosters, dogs, and crickets (deafening like in Wisconsin on a hot July night). Morning brought the sounds of song birds--something you don't hear much on the ocean.

Journeying through the French islands we have purchased warm baguettes in each town. I can tell these French islands are giving me a bit of extra padding around the middle. Plus, produce at the markets has been so fresh and tender--like a home garden.

The French in France know so much more English than they do in the islands. In all our travels, we've never been THIS clumsy. We have no translation dictionary or internet. I know just a handful of French words and 10 of them are counting numbers from 1-10. Three of the remaining words are "parle vous Anglaise?" Then of course there is fromage (cheese), jambon (ham), baguette, croissant, pain (bread), and poisson (fish). I can't spell it in French, but I know the sound "ooo-ey" means "where is." To tell the deli counter lady how many slices of salami we want, I have to say "dis avec dis" (or "10 with 10," meaning 20 slices). When she says "blah blah blah?" I nod. It usually works out.

When the bread man took our order for a morning croissant delivery, I had sudden recall of my high school French class and boldly asked "at what time in the morning?" but what I really said was "what time is it now?" Forget about knowing how many euros to pay for an item. We have to read what is written down or hold out a fist full of money for them to take the right amount. There is a lot of eye rolling. Some people are kind and will go out of their way to escort us where we need to go. Some people are simply not amused.

Yesterday, we bought a bag of super tender butter lettuce. However, the bag was enormous and most would have spoiled in our fridge. So this morning, I created 2 small bags of lettuce to give to our boat neighbors. Of course, they spoke no English. Dave and I drove our dinghy up to the stranger’s boats, babbling some nonsense (English), and then chucked the bags of lettuce onto their deck. Have we crossed some line as the crazy people in the harbor?

Today we took the boat into Martinique’s capital town for refueling, Fort-de-France. Arriving to the fuel dock, we couldn’t find fuel pumps or parking slips. Spotting some capable-looking folks I hollered to shore.

“Ooo-eh le diesel?” I bellowed. Imagine the stares. I repeated with greater annunciation, “ooo-eh le diesel?” Then, a chorus of gibberish sounding words spewed from the mouths of the Frenchmen. I shook my head and held up my hands in the universal symbol of “I don’t get it.”

Finally, a bold fellow shouted, “No diesel. All gone, one hour.”
My next question was unreasonably complicated, “When diesel arrives, where will… ooo-eh it be?”

My new friends turned against me, giving me the universal gesture of “forget you.” and resumed their private conversations.

Tomorrow we'll be heading from Martinique to St Lucia. It should be pretty straight forward. But, it is a long day so we'll raise anchor at 07:30. Our problem lately has been not enough wind so we've needed the assistance of the motor. Good old motor. It is helping us get to Grenada on time so we can make our flight home to Madison. More wind is due into the eastern Caribbean early next week. The legendary trade winds will return.

The French Fishing Village of Les Saints

2011-07-24T09:21:00.005-05:00

Oh, have we been in a fun place: Le Saints--tiny French islands off the coast of Guadeloupe. This is an authentic tropical fishing village in an early tourism phase. No one comes close to speaking English here. It is unspoiled. Quaint, quaint, quaint. It's so lovely, we didn't even mind walking for hours in the warm rain, hand in hand. Can you believe Dave and I actually slept off our lunch on a picnic table at a remote beach?! Dave slept on the table. I slept on the bench. What a couple of lazy-heads! Luckily, the feral goats left us alone while we were unconscious.

Unless we're doing something fancy sailing-wise--I'll probably check my emails every other day. We just bought a bunch of satellite phone minutes that should last us through the end of the sailing season. But, the other day when it was important to let family know that our overnight crossing was a success, the "bars" of satellite reception kept dropping my email/call. It took 27 tries to send 1 email. That one email took hours to send and cost us $62.10. If our minutes are going to last until the end of our voyage, I'll have to go on a communication diet. But if we're doing anything risky, I'll keep family posted in a timely way.

Tomorrow we have an 18 nautical mile sail in calm seas to Dominica. It'll take only about 4 1/2 hours. They say this is to be the most tropical and most laid back island of all. It is known for its dramatic rain forests, tropical agriculture, and 7 potentially active volcanoes (most Caribbean islands only have one potentially active volcano). Because we're moving relatively quickly, however, we're going to have to save most of our sightseeing for next cruising season. This will be just a tease!

Bypassing Nevis and Montserrat

2011-07-24T09:16:00.003-05:00

It is 03:47 as I sail past the island nation of Nevis. I am alone in the cockpit. Without warning I am engulfed in the smell of a pig roast. Someone had a special party on shore and I can practically hear sizzling, dripping pig fat and see scent waves undulating toward me through the dark. I am now hungry.

Dave sleeps below to ready himself for his shift at the helm. Our sail from St Kitts to Guadeloupe is 78 nautical miles. Traveling non-stop at five knots the trip will take us more than 15 hours. We want to arrive at our destination in daylight so we left St Kitts at 02:30. The wind blows a kindly 12-14 knots and the water slides past our hull in four foot waves. I tend to the boat’s needs. My mind wanders. Another hour passes.

Suddenly, I am overwhelmed by the smell of baking cinnamon and butter. I look up to see the lights of a new town on Nevis Island. It is nearly 05:00 on Sunday morning. The baker is at work. I breathe heavily and wish I could thank her for her familiar smells of home.

Mid-day Sunday, after my nap, I am back at the helm and sailing off the shore of Montserrat. In 1632, anti-catholic violence erupted in the British Island of Nevis, forcing the Irish population—many brought to Nevis as indentured servants—to flee to Montserrat. The island followed the economic development of the times, becoming a hub for a sugar industry built on the backs of slaves. When slavery was abolished and sugar production ended, island people looked next to tourism. That worked until Hurricane Hugo came for a visit in 1989 bringing 140 mph winds and damaging 90% of the island’s structures. Just about the time island residents regained their economic footing, the Soufriere Hills Volcano erupted in July of 1995, burying the capital city and forcing two-thirds of the population to flee. The volcano erupts even today so half of the island remains off limits to all and a new capital city is undergoing construction.

I sail WILD HAIR outside the volcano’s exclusion zone. Still, ash carried by the breeze settles onto the deck. Steam emerges from the caldera; clouds stack up in the moist air as the easterly trade winds approach. Miles offshore, a sweaty-earth smell finds its way to me, bringing to my mind the harshly sour sulfur springs of Yellowstone National Park.

The Sharks of St. Barts

2011-07-24T09:11:00.002-05:00

At present, we are tied to a mooring ball here in St Bart's in a French national marine park. We will not be visiting the shore as we're moving quickly now to get the boat south. No need to bother about customs. Tomorrow (Friday) we'll depart early for St. Kitts. Then we'll sail overnight Saturday/Sunday to Guadeloupe.

When we departed St Martin today we first had to take our dinghy into town to clear out of customs. After waiting about 5 minutes for the office to open, I investigated around the corner. The ferry dock people said that no one from customs showed up to work today. The office was closed. So, we had to visit a local mega-yacht marina office and talk them into letting us clear out using their computer system for a $22 service charge.

Such is island life.

Tonight's unusual food experiment incorporating new-to-us items from the St Martin market includes: Catofine--a large, pear-shapped, Kermit-the-frog green vegetable that I will slice in half longways, boil in salt water, scoop out, mix with spiced meat, and restuff into the skin to bake. Plus, I'll cook a giant white yam and serve all with a tossed salad. Tonight's special cocktail will be a repeat of last night's: a guavaberry rum white wine spritzer.

But now it is time to snorkel this unique marine park!

AFTER DINNER:
Yikes. I took a quick snorkel and visibility wasn’t great so I hopped out and showered. Dave did laps in the water for exercise only to start thrashing oddly. First, he tried to climb up the anchor chain to the bow. Then, he made a dash to the boarding ladder. It seems a very large bull head shark spotted him and turned to approach. Eerily, when Dave tried to escape the water up the anchor chain, he lost sight of the beast. He felt lucky to get out of the water alive given the fact that the creatures jaw was wider than Dave’s shoulders.

There is something natural and unnatural about being part of the food chain.

The French Island of St Martin

2011-07-24T09:02:00.003-05:00

From our anchorage under the “Witches Tit” (a hillside shapped like....you guessed it), we take the dinghy to shore for a visit to the Wednesday market in French St Martin. Here, the Dominican Farmers come a sell their produce and fish. I am determined to buy at least one of every food that is foreign to me and learn from the vendor how to cook it. I take photos, draw pictures, and take notes. So, tonight's dinner is:

 Trigger Fish
 Cow Fish
 Dasheen
 and salad with island cucumber and tomatoes.

The trigger fish was "cleaned" when we bought it (no guts, no skin). But it looked hardly appetizing, reminiscent of my brother’s childhood educational model of a human without skin. The eyes were in place on the head and the meat and fins were all present. It wasn't exactly "restaurant ready." I broiled it with butter. It had a good flavor but it was very tough. Cooked through we could hardly get it off the bone. But, kitty was happy to help clean up the remains. My conclusion: I like my trigger fish better on the reef when I'm snorkeling. They are VERY PRETTY and VERY COLORFUL when alive. I couldn't help but feel that I had done something terribly wrong to transform such beauty into...that!

The cow fish was odd. Another wonderful fish to watch on the reef (Maggie will remember it's unique triangular shape and pointy eyebrows), the cow fish on my plate was less than satisfying. The locals call them "shell fish" because of their tough outter casing. When broiled, it smelled like lobster. Cooked, the shell easily crumbled away to reveal...actually...almost nothing. There was perhaps 4 tablespoons of meat inside the entire shell. And, what meat there was had an unpleasant bitter flavor. Kitty rejected this fish outright. Strike two.

The Dasheen is a potato-like root vegetable that looks like a larger version of something you'd remove in a dried clump from the bottom of your boot. I was told to peel it and boil it. I was to treat it like a potato so I simply buttered and salted it to serve. Actually, it was moist and very tasty--a sweet and mellow potato flavor--but extremely filling. It seemed to grow mysteriously in volume once swallowed. I could only eat about half of my usual potato equivalent.

The salad was delicious.

Dinner was accompanied by a Guavaberry Rum cocktail that I bought on the Dutch side of St Martin yesterday. This sipping rum has floating guavaberries in it (native to the island) and the heady spices remind me of Swedish glug. Yet, the rum has caramel overtones. For a cocktail, you add a shot of Guavaberry Rum to a glass of white wine.

While in town today we stopped at the real French Bakery and bought a baguette, two almond croissants for breakfast tomorrow, and a strawberry tart that I (breaking all healthy-eating rules) consumed for lunch. Who knew that my absolute favorite custard would lurk just below the strawberries? I believe today's strawberry tart was even better than the 3 chocolate dessert I consumed at the same bakery two days ago.

My tart lunch was followed by the biggest, ripest mango I've ever eaten. Filling a dinner plate, the fruit sent juices cascading uncontrollably down my chin. Can you say bliss?

It will be sad to say "adieu" to the French Bakery tomorrow. Our plan is to depart St Martin and head toward St Eustatius Island (Isn't that the patron saint of the inner ear?) We will likely hop from there to Nevis and then do an overnight sail to Guadeloupe. We don't want to stop in Montserrat along the way because the active volcano makes quite a spew; we will give it a wide berth so it won't trash our boat's deck! Our goal is to be in Guadeloupe (the half way mark to Grenada) by April 11. It looks like we will have cooperative weather over the next 4 days to make some tracks.

The good news is that Guadeloupe is another French Island. The eating continues!

Flamingo Beach Playground

2011-07-24T08:54:00.010-05:00

Flamingo Beach on Culebra Island in the Spanish Virgins is rated (by someone) as the "Second Best Beach in the World" (for some reason). Dave and I liked the soft powder sand. The waves were playful, strong, and perfect for body surfing. The water was crystal clear and warm. The scenery (both human and landscape) was entertaining, beautiful. The park that surrounded the enormous crescent beach was filled with food vendors, campsites, and happy people. Hundreds of Puerto Ricans ferried to Culebra Island for a weekend holiday, joining Dave and I for our Sunday visit to Flamingo Beach. A note on scale: this photo captures only a small section of the whole.

A Hole in the Roof

2011-07-24T08:33:00.005-05:00

I have six holes in the roof of my house, but my favorite is the one over my bed. The hole is low, sitting just 30 inches above my mattress. More than two feet square, the opening is large enough for breezes to penetrate and take liberties. As I lay resting in the heat of the day, I grow intoxicated as tropical winds swirl the minute hairs on my skin and playfully caress my exposed self.

Rain falls every night through the hole startling Dave and me into a rush to close the gaps. I spin from my pillow, drop the screen, and undo braces supporting the hole’s watertight lid. There is always a moment of revelation during this drill when I find my head through to the outside, intimate with the foreign night. Disoriented, I suffer bites from icy bugs on shoulders, face, and arms before I realize I am baptized by the rain. Stumbling upon the uncensored world while vulnerable is a holly nightly sacrament. Personal boundaries melt as I awaken and absorb the world as it is. I find union between the untamed night and my unguarded interior. For a moment, we evolve together.

I live on a sailboat in the Caribbean Sea. Over time I have developed histories with every part of my vessel, but it is the hatch over my bed that breaches my shell provoking an altered point of view. Sometimes, it can be a portal toward peace in a state of uncertainty.

On New Year’s Eve in the Bahamas several years ago, our vessel was disabled in a storm. Anchors would not grab to keep us safe even though we had tossed three at various angles and distances. As the wind drove, the jagged shoreline possessed gravity, drawing the boat toward sharp rocks and certain doom. My husband sat on guard; I was assigned to rest. As the boat tossed, I lay on my back looking through the opening watching the light atop our mast scratch rhythmically against Orion’s belt. The motion was hypnotic. The immensity of the universe penetrated my awareness, fears melted, and I grew calm. I saw danger and safety as two sides of the same moment. The crisis would resolve.

I cannot always be made porous; sometimes, it is necessary to seal myself from the world. Years back, my hatch leaked miserably in a seemingly endless drizzle soaking Annapolis, prompting us to sleep among pans and under a plastic cloth. Every morning I awoke delighted I hadn’t suffocated in the improvised bedding. It took time to invent an opportunity to learn how to re-bed the hatch without splintering fiberglass and bending stainless. After many drip-filled months, we mastered the task under the tutelage of a salty Floridian; he revealed the secrets of rubber mallets, wedges, mahogany sticks, mineral spirits, and silicone.

It is the interruption in the cocoon of the hull that breaks old habits, shifts my viewpoint, and dares me to embrace new relationships with creation.

My Spanish Turtle

2011-07-24T08:28:00.004-05:00

Off the coast of Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands, I slide from the dinghy into the dim, blue scenery. I am at a place divers call “The Wall,” an uninterrupted expanse of coral that breaks the surface only to drop dramatically to a depth of 40 feet. The coral structures are gigantic, pristine. I cannot see an end to the reef. Dave and I stop swimming only when we are too cold to continue, leaving much of the reef unexplored. Heading back to the dinghy, I spy an endangered turtle. Not especially large, her shell is about 18 inches top to bottom. Despite the cold, I make her my pace car and for 20 minutes she and I circle coral clusters and pause for breaths of air at the surface. She sports a numbered tag on the trailing edge of her forward, portside fin. The tag makes me feel fortunate that she and I live in a world where some people nurture the whole of existence.

Buck Island Coral Reef National Monument

2011-07-23T15:45:00.002-05:00

Slithering from known to unknown through the chop of Caribbean waters, I drop into the action of an underwater world. Friend or foe, I cannot guess in advance who is poised to greet in snorkeling’s first moments. Today, only sunbeams dash below the surface with the random grace of elbowed adolescents. Staying alert for sharks, I glide toward the marked underwater trail off Buck Island—a lump of land adjacent to St. Croix in the US Virgins. I am here to visit a new friend, the legendary stretch of massive Elkhorn Coral that surrounds the place. But, I register something wrong. Everywhere, horns of coral are snapped from their base. Like the day-after carnage of a civil war battlefield, broken coral bodies rest in unnatural postures—bone white, dead. Suddenly, I am consumed in a crowd of Blue Tang. Hundreds of dark, 10-inch creatures swarm too close, riding a gust of nothing on a mission. The ghostly effect reminds me that life once teemed. I feel accused.

Points of Sail

2011-07-23T15:40:00.004-05:00

WILD HAIR is like a magnificent animal and it gives me immediate feedback when I ask it to perform. Stronger than the human frame, the boat will do as I bid. But, if I am careless, headstrong, or too eager in my bidding, the boat will comply but I will pay a price.

Everything related to comfort as we sail depends on the direction and strength of the wind in relation to my course heading. If a day is exceptionally mild with winds less than six knots and seas rippling at less than one foot, I can motor smoothly and confidently straight into the wind. If the wind blows in a strong breeze of 27 knots and the seas kick up to 13 feet, I can still sail peacefully, but I must sail away from the wind to be comfortable in these conditions. Were I to turn 90 degrees and sail across or into the 27 knot winds and 13 foot seas instead of away from them, the motion of the boat would be nauseating, equipment would be strained, and progress would be slow.

As a general rule, if my destination is 30 degrees off the wind, I can motor-sail comfortably into 10 knots of wind; if I’m headed 60 degrees off the wind, I can sail into 16 knot winds; if I’m aimed 90 degrees off the wind, I can sail happily in 21 knots of wind; and if I’m pointed 120 degrees or more from the wind, I can sail smoothly in up to 27 knots of wind.

Each day in my life as a sailor, I analyze the wind and seas in relation to my rhumb line. Some days, the heavens smile upon me and give me ideal conditions to reach my goal. More often than not, I have a choice to make: wait days or weeks for winds to subside or pick a new destination. Choices are confounded when my course circles around a point or an island causing me to experience a variety of angles to the wind. Then, I must gage the length and degree of discomfort I am willing to accept. Wild Hair’s log book is filled with miserable accounts of days we failed to heed common sense.

I believe Dave and I have been slow to consistently evaluate our level of comfort based upon the wind’s direction, adjusting the timing or tactic of our departure, for two reasons. First, we thought of ourselves as optimistic, enthusiastic, go-anyplace sailors. Put another way, we were naïve and hadn’t been spanked enough. Second, we were hard workers with a stubborn and pride-filled puritan ethic; we thought we could or should tough it out. Time and experience have proven that this is a dangerous attitude on a sailboat that quickly transforms a lifestyle of play into one of work—hard, uncomfortable, exhausting, dangerous work.

So, Dave and I are doing our best to learn this lesson deep in our bones. Alternating as captains, whoever is in charge on a given day must describe for the other the compatibility of the day’s heading to wind and sea conditions. Whoever is crew for the day has the right to eject the captain’s plan.

Coming to Zero

2011-07-23T15:32:00.003-05:00

If the water would dry up and stop its runoff down the hills, if the rain would cease for just a day or two more, then the soup-green two-acre pond hidden behind beach and mangrove would turn—overnight—into a bed of salt, pure white crystals two feet thick. This is what the locals tell me about the phenomenon that happens annually around this time. But each day the squalls come. The defiant sun gleams even as clouds burst over and around us, releasing their freight into the small watershed. Rain events take only seconds, but moments of deluge dampen my hopes of harvesting salt by the shovel full.

These are the things that captivate my imagination as I sit at anchor on our sailboat in Salt Pond Bay, St John’s—one of the US Virgin Islands. As my plan for a half-day snorkel at this anchorage is revised into a week-long stay, I realize that this time was years in the making. Since taking early retirements four years ago, Dave and I have done our best to downshift out of the fast lane, let go of all schedules, shed most of our responsibilities, and experience what life is like when we stop the frenzy and come to zero miles per hour.

I told a few friends about our intention to “come to zero.” A beautiful place to dwell, the idea of stopping to absolute zero emerged as an outgrowth of my Buddhist meditation practice. I described zero to my friends as a state of just being, witnessing the present moment without a nervous need to fill my time. Zero is a sustained place of peace where my mind, my body and the words coming out of my mouth are connected, authentic. At zero, nothing arbitrarily happens; actions emerge by informed choice. Stopped, I participate in the world, but I don’t do more than my spirit can process.

My friends’ responses told me how odd this idea of coming to zero was in modern western society. Thinking the benefits to be self-evident, I was stunned when one person said, “So, is it a good thing to come to zero? Why would you want to do that?” Another person said, “Don’t worry. Something new will emerge in your life, soon.” Both parties failed to grasp my intention to return my life to zero miles per hour again and again from now into the future. This is my preferred state of being.

Sometime during our stay at Salt Pond, Dave and I finally came to zero. Day after day our bodies were filled with energy inspiring us to hike the surrounding hillsides and swim with turtles and trunk fish in the area’s reefs. I worked the length of the boat underwater, scraping barnacles and other growth from the hull. I wrote stories to clarify and share my travel experience. Dave and I enjoyed an active social life, sharing sundowners with local cruising families and cheering our Green Bay Packer’s to their Super Bowl XLV win at a rented seaside villa with six other Wisconsinites. Dave and I dined with a reggae band leader—a fellow named Grasshopper—after his closing set. From a place of deep listening, I was able to hear the artist’s pride at touching people’s lives through music, his personal heart-break about the full spectrum of human suffering, and his hope for happiness for people in all walks of life. Were I not at zero, I would have felt too shy to talk meaningfully with Grasshopper, a man from a world so different from my own.

It was while hiking in the hills above Salt Pond during our time at zero that Dave and I met Clause, a man from Denmark, stealing a few moments away from the group of 24 Danish young people for which he was responsible. In a venture newly launched, he and his business partner guide groups of 20- to 30-year-olds on three-month trips abroad so they might experience ecologically responsible travel, local community volunteer work, and personal growth training. Dave and I were mutually smitten by the program and the man. Although the idea is somewhat foreign in the United States, many cultures encourage young people to give back and grow through a set-aside period of community service after college. Dave and I—former professionals in medicine and business, each with histories of leadership in community nonprofits, and parents of two happy twenty-something adults—would be excellent partners in such a venture. Plus, we have the added know-how of managing a sailing vessel, a ready-made eco-friendly mode of travel. Perhaps we could swap our boat for a larger model and launch our own variation on the Dutch program.

Stop.

I need to practice staying at zero for I am too new at this peace to be skillful. I need to memorize my way back to zero when life speeds me up. Although everything about this program makes sense, Dave and I have agreed to take this intentional retreat from lives marked by linear tasks and measured productivity. Ours is a spiritual promise to each other. I know I have not yet learned what I came to this point to learn. I know myself. Were I to start a new venture now, I would be swept into old ways. The gas pedal in my life is still familiar and hot; if I don’t ground myself at zero, I will find myself back in the fast lane for no reason other than habit. While I want always to give something back to the world and a program like this may be the right next step, I am not ready to divide my time into scheduled segments for a seductive cause.

So, I concern myself again with the mystery of sea salt. I write. I watch turtle heads break the surface every ten minutes or so for their requisite two breaths of air before diving to graze again on the sandy algae plains of the ocean floor. I smile as barnacles find a new toe-hold on my hull. I close hatches to the latest downpour of rain to prevent our bedding from becoming soaked. I am busy being present.

The Plan is No Plan

2011-07-23T15:22:00.003-05:00

Nothing is the same after our two-week offshore journey from Jacksonville to St Thomas. Before, we rushed headlong into life’s pounding surf for fear of missing something. Up and down the east coast we hurried. Across the Gulf Stream and through the Bahamas we pushed, collecting experiences and stories like figurines for the mantel, to be enjoyed in the quiet, inevitable days of infirmary ahead. What caused us to rush?

Twenty years of hard work and habit had its grip on us like a drooling monster that refused to be shaken lose. We had years of sleep shortages, late arrivals, middle of the night worries, going to work and coming home in the dark. Peppered into the chaos was church—a time of scheduled group reflection necessitating cleanliness and organization on Sunday mornings. Also, the stuff of life pressed down: paying bills, cleaning house, buying groceries, managing finances, shuttling kids to piano and saxophone lessons, soccer and football practices, scouts, and shopping for school supplies and well-fitting clothes for fast-growing kids.

Without so much as a pause for a breath of air, we took this frenzied spirit aboard WILD HAIR. Thrust into the unknown we scrambled to learn faster than the mishaps could descend. There was fear in what I did not know. Suddenly, in this strange new big world, my fragile life was in my own hands. We left the safety of land and civilization. Our nerves sparked disagreements. Everything we did was to ease our insecurities: we hired captain/teachers, collected safety gear, upgraded hardware. We worked and worked on the boat with our old dogged determination and hardly a day off. We binged on improvements so we could binge big gulps of sailing. There was no equanimity in us.

But now—after our offshore journey—I am unexpectedly at peace. We are in a beautiful place, the destination of years of effort and planning. The boat is sound. Our skills are tested. I hardly care what is around the corner. My husband’s query as to the intended shape of our cruising destinations over the next six weeks earned my response: “There is too much to see so I’m not going to try to see anything. The plan is no plan.” To my delight, he saw wisdom in these words and quickly agreed.

2011-01-25T14:13:00.003-06:00

OFFSHORE JOURNAL

In the late fall of 2010, Dave and I sailed nonstop from Green Cove Springs in north Florida (N 29 59 30 W 81 39 65) to St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands (N 18 20 19 W 64 56 40). In total, the trip was 1,566 nautical miles. Moving at an average speed of just over 5 knots, the trip took us 15 days and 80 gallons of diesel to complete. But, the journey cannot be measured by miles and time alone; during the half-month afloat in the Atlantic—with nothing but combinations of boat, spouse, sea, and air—we took a journey of the heart. Below is the sailing journal Heather recorded during this voyage.

THE BACKSTORY

The plan was to bounce down the coast of Florida from Jacksonville, through the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and into the US Virgin Islands. Having spent the past two winters in the Bahamas, we were all ready familiar with half the route. But when I actually charted the full course, I calculated the trip would take us a minimum of 27 sailing days. Given prevailing winter winds and the need to wait for safe weather “windows,” I realized those 27 sailing days would take four months to complete. For much of the trip we’d be forced to sit in crummy weather. Plus, the route included several potentially dangerous legs, stretches notorious for ship wrecks dating back to the Santa Maria.

Alternatively, we could take the offshore route straight out into the Atlantic Ocean and turning south at longitude W 65, arriving in the Virgin Islands in about two weeks.

Dave and I talked long and hard about our options. The sobering fact was that the offshore route put us days away from land or rescue should we run into serious trouble. Plus, the trip was long enough that we’d surely experience bad weather at least once along the way. We had to be completely self-sufficient on our little island: WILD HAIR. We would be alone in the middle of the ocean.

On the flip side, we had bought a Hylas brand boat because of its reputation for offshore safety and performance. We’d spent years fine tuning her so that she’d likely hold up to the worst nature could throw. This summer alone we had the boat yard refit her with all new standing and running rigging; last year we bought offshore rated sails. We’d invested in most of the safety gear on the market and studied how to manage the vessel in heavy weather. We contracted with Chris Parker—a weather forecaster, sailor, and routing expert—to advise us via single sideband radio along the way. Most importantly, we wanted to give it a try. We had long harbored a dream of sailing to faraway places. Weighing all this, we changed plans and agreed to head offshore.

With years of preparation one would think it a simple thing to depart. But the land itself has suction that draws sailors in. For six weeks we dwelled at the Florida boat yard knowing that easy access to our car, mechanical and rigging expertise, and boat parts was this year’s only opportunity to make things just the way we wanted. On three occasions it appeared to be time to go. The first time we were about to leave we undertook a check on our systems and discovered the battery bank was critically damaged last year when our regulator failed briefly to regulate. All the batteries had to be replaced. The second time we thought we could go, our galley range went kaput (the thermal couples rusted through) and the entire unit needed to be replaced. The third time, a shelf in the engine room suddenly gave way from age and a previously leaky water heater, folding the heater into the bilge pumps and potentially collapsing onto the refrigeration unit. Throughout this time, the Space Shuttle Discovery was experiencing a series of delays. I shared the crew’s frustration. With a growing reputation that WILD HAIR would never leave, our fourth proclamation of departure proved right.

And so, it begins.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2010—06:00 at N 29 59 30 W 81 39 65

Today, we take our departure slowly. We shower, and enjoy a big breakfast. It is Sunday and the boat yard is unusually quiet as we tuck our car in for long-term storage and return all boat yard keys. The day is sunny and clear, 72 degrees, with a light wind. The river water beneath us is silent, black, and calm. I know we are as ready as we will ever be.

Do we remember how to do this? My mind creaks as I shift from maintenance to sailing. Having spent the hurricane season up north, Dave and I realize it has been five months since we’d hoisted the sails. We comment on the butterflies in our stomachs.

It is my turn at the helm. To depart the pier I envision a smooth straight-back reverse and powering up into a turn to port once the bow has cleared. Naively, I don’t check the data on the river’s current this morning. Dave lets go of the dock lines, but before I get enough speed for boat control, the water and wind conspire to push us sideways into the stern davits of our neighbor’s boat, Serendipity. Embarrassingly, our friends Russ and Jane capture the moment on film. Serendipity fares well but I bend a lifeline post on WILD HAIR as we wrestle our way out of entanglement.

I choose to believe the awkward departure is not an omen to our voyage.

Dinghy the Sailor Cat has separation anxiety as we leave the land. She meows, circles, and paces in the cockpit on her leash. She is further disturbed by Dave’s moving about as he stows lines and lashes the dinghy to the deck. Only when Dave returns to the cockpit and brings her a blanket to sleep on does she settle. What must she make of her moving home?

Chatter comes across the VHF radio. The Coast Guard cautions mariners to slow if they see migrating Right whales. One boat kindly asks another to slow down so they can pass on the port side. Another voice requests a bridge opening. There is life on the water you don’t hear on land. The voices are comforting, familiar. It is the sensation of coming home.

I cannot help but feel our chosen lifestyle is something of a burden to those we love. We are absent from our friendships. Communicating with us requires odd procedures and the procedures change depending on where we are. Sailing has inherent risks creating worry. These burdens make me all the more grateful for the support we get to go adventuring. This past week I called each family member, asked them about their concerns for us, and answered their questions about how we intend to be safe. I thanked everyone for letting us go. I told family and friends that I loved them. Once completed, I reflected upon a felt kinship with departing sailors (or astronauts!) throughout time.

Five bridges cross our path today and only one must lift on our behalf. The others—colossal architectural wonders from this perspective—span the river 175 feet over our heads. “Wa-whump, wa-whump, wa-whump” go car wheels as they bounce on the seams of the bridge work overhead.

It feels good to be moving again on water.

Winding down the St Johns River we pass the Jacksonville Jaguars’ waterfront stadium. Suddenly, the packed arena roars to life. Within moments, our boat floods with the smell of beer and hot dogs sent from the breath of football fans. It is nearly overpowering. There is a second roar of approval. The combination sounds like a touchdown and extra point. This I choose to believe is a good omen for our voyage.

We pass by Jacksonville’s working ports. Soaring cranes that load and offload containers from freighters remind me of giant herons poised to feed in the shallow waters. Or, perhaps they more resemble blue brachiosaurus dinosaurs wearing tap shoes. I cannot decide.

The now falling tide draws us, increasing our motoring speed from 5.7 knots to 7.7 knots. Our 16-year-old engine has 4,000 hours running time—the equivalent of 200,000 miles in an automobile. But with tender care, the engine hums faithfully.

There—I spot the trip’s first dolphin.

Tug boats like picture book characters push rusted working barges up river. They appear little heroes. Underdogs.

At a tight bend of the river crowded with recreational and working boats, our visual navigation system freezes. I had been lazy, trusting it too much. Quickly, I scan my surroundings and mark the location and color of buoys. I pick my route for the next half mile. Loss of our electronics is a “new problem” and the only thing I can think to do is to reboot the screen. Waiting. Waiting. The image sparks to life anew and—thankfully—gives me an accurate read on our position. Unnerved by the knowledge I could lose electronic navigational support at any moment, the equipment will have to re-earn my trust. I continue down river on a defensive high alert studying and confirming our progress on the paper charts at my side.

We are surfing out to sea now, speeding with the water at 9.1 knots. Nearing the ocean, the river widens and the waves build to 2 feet. Twenty-two knots of wind blows the tops off the waves forming white caps. The boat starts to bounce and dance in the water, a sign of things to come.

The trees are in their fall color. How odd that Thanksgiving will be in four days. Having focused my attention on the details of our voyage, I feel detached from society and my roots. The world proceeds without us. This is unsettling. Seasonally, this is the safest time of year for us to make this trip. The ocean is most calm between the seasons of fall/winter (November/December) and spring/summer (May/June). So, now is the time to head south to the Caribbean. Spring/summer is the time to head north again due to the hurricanes. This is the rhythm of sailors. Not surprisingly, it is out of beat with the rest of the world.

I spot two tug boats coming at me but behaving strangely. I am confused by their actions so I turn off the auto pilot and hand steer. The tugs cross over and circle through my path. Behind them I see a giant container ship charging straight for me. These tugs are its escorts. I pick up speed so as to make my intended turn into a creek portside, thereby giving them all a wide berth. On the river, there are very few “rules to the road.”So, a captain must be attentive and—above all—stay clear of commercial traffic.

Arriving at the point where river meets ocean takes a full day. Our first major hazard will be the north flowing Gulf Stream running like a river miles off Florida’s shore. We must cross it at a time when wind and sea are favorable. Consequently, today’s destination is an anchorage up a small creek near the mouth of the river. Here we will wait for meteorologist Chris Parker to give us the all clear. Perhaps the weather will have us linger only one night, perhaps a week or more. Dave and I will fill our time with final preparations: connecting the GPS antenna to our lap top, hard boiling eggs for meals at sea, screwing down floor boards so what is stored below decks doesn’t crash on our heads should the boat roll, barrel-bolting the freezer cover for the same reason, and emailing our float plan to family. For now we are done with land until we reach St Thomas. Our journey has begun.

With anchor set and engine cooled, we shut our engine down. Watching the sun set over the nuclear power plant, Dave notes that we motored all day with our docking fenders hanging off our hull. Classy. It is a small thing but it is evidence of how rusty we are tending to the boat’s many details.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2010—06:00 AT N 30 23 57 W 81 23 22

Yesterday, Chris Parker said our weather window wouldn’t open until December. This morning, he said everything changed. A departure today “just might work!” Over the radio Chris outlined the strategy on a day-by-day, tack-by-tack basis. Although there was no wind now, we would motor across a calm Gulf Stream arriving on the other side before mid-day tomorrow. Then, the wind would pick up and shift north east and we could sail for days along 30 degrees north latitude. If we dropped too far south, the trade winds would take over and we could no longer sail east; our trip would abort west of our goal in the Turks or the Dominican Republic. So, our mantra is to stay north and make our way east for as long as possible. East!

Oh My! It’s time to go. Now. I concentrate on breathing slowly, evenly. With the words it “just might work,” I felt a stress headache begin. I swallow a pair of Excedrin Migraine pills. I think I’ll burst with anxiety and excitement. Couldn’t Chris have spoken more confidently about this weather window and our chances for success? How could I stake my life on something that “might work?”

Dave must see my anxiety, or perhaps he wrestles with his own. “We can absolutely take four months to island hop our way to the Caribbean if you want,” he offers. “I don’t mind. We can do whatever you want to do.” I don’t think he is having second thoughts. Is it kindness that makes him say that? Or, is it self-defense, anticipating that I might blame him when things get uncomfortable?

Imitating calm I sit down with the charts and plot the forecasted winds and recommended course for each day. Low and behold, the trip looks beautiful, doable! I show my work to Dave and together we decided it is time to go. Without delay we paste anti-nausea scopolamine patches behind our ears, ready the ditch bags in case a quick escape into the life raft is required, take a few dinners out of the freezer, open the sail covers and lift the anchor. We’re off.

With Dave at the helm, I raise the mainsail. As I climb eight feet up the mast to undo the halyard, I realize this is my first hoisting since my total hip replacement four months earlier. I feel a bit awkward, conscious of limited movement, but strong. I must remember to email my physical therapist and thank him for his creativity in balance exercises to make me well.

Most injuries at sea—and there are many—happen to the female member of the cruising couple. Some theorize that women are proportioned differently enough so that they miss the handrails in an unexpected bounce. This nearly happened to me once, but I managed to grab hold with finger tips to avoid knocking out my front teeth on a shelf. Perhaps it is a factor of strength. No one knows for sure. I vow to be vigilant.

Winching the sail up the last 10 feet is aerobic. It fills despite the light wind forecast and the boat springs to life. The sea is lovely this morning, friendly. It is sunny and warm; the barometer registers 1020 millibars. Perfect.

As the shore slips into the distance, Maggie calls on my cell phone with news of college life in Wisconsin. Her roommate is moving out of the house and into a relationship with an abusive man; Maggie’s cat is pooping in her bed while another roommate’s cat is using her litter box; Christmas presents are in the works; it is snowing. Finally, we lose each other from a lack of bars. My stomach squeezes with the thought that that is the end of my cell phone.

Jelly fish populate the water. A sea turtle ambles by. We are nearing the Gulf Stream.

I toss my crushed soda can overboard. Everything in my being screams, “Don’t do it!” But, it is the way to manage trash at sea. Metal cans melt quickly in corrosive salt water. Paper dissolves. Glass is the stuff of sand so it returns from whence it came. The only thing that is forbidden is plastic. So, we keep two bags in the galley: one we periodically dump overboard, the other we will dispose of at our destination. This is such a difficult mindset for me. I’m certain the last time I tossed a can out a window was late in the 1960’s, well before my 5th grade science project on pollution.

Bravely, I go below to make up the pilot berth located near the base of the mast, the most stable place on the boat to sleep. With the action of the sea, tucking sheets and lacing the restraint that holds us in the narrow berth is a nauseating venture. As quick as possible, I crawl in for a nap. Lying horizontal the motion of the boat feels as if I’m lounging on a pool raft with children constantly doing cannonballs around me. This is a calm-ish day.

Back at the helm with Dave now napping below decks, I remember there is no flat space to sit on a boat. Sitting is exercise consuming calories because we constantly adjust to the motion of the boat. Our smartest purchase was a pair of West Marine lounge chairs; wedged into a corner against the frame of our bimini, we can at least sit and lean back on something soft.

We are tiptoeing out to sea. It is the sensation of sneaking around the resting body of a volatile giant. I am like a tiny person in Gulliver’s Travels. Sailing out is not a time of sport or conquest. It is a time of respect and appreciation. Putting fears of the sleeping giant aside, I remind myself it is a privilege to meet this face of the world.

My scopolamine patch is starting to ache behind my ear. The medicine must be making its way through the skin. While it does a reasonable job warding off seasickness, it comes at a price. On site discomfort, a sore throat, loss of taste, and blurred vision are standard side effects. I dislike these things, but I dislike being sick more.

This time of year the days are evenly split between light and dark. At night, everything looms forebodingly in shadow. The ordinary elements breathe ghostly hot air down your spine. Waves, clouds, moon seem to conspire against me. I don’t mind the darkness on land. But on water, without points of reference, imagination swirls unanchored. Perhaps I will make a peace with the absence of light this trip. I will have plenty of opportunity to practice.

Dinghy joins me at the helm. She is a social creature. But her face is strained and looks like an old man’s. She must have a touch of seasickness. Dinghy rests like a friend at my feet, springing to life when dolphin surface alongside the boat.

In the eastern sky, as the sun sets behind me, the night creeps above the horizon. Top to bottom the sky blends color from blue to pink. But as night rises, the sky above water turns deep, dirty lavender. It is the color of light without hope. It is the bruising of promise. It is the color of goodbye. In contrast, the silk of water seems to cling to the remaining light, brightening in the face of end. Water is the color of sand as it struggles to preserve the glare. Soon, the water loses its fight and swirls in a surrender of lavender circles, welcoming a new master.

2011-01-25T14:08:00.003-06:00

“I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space.”

William Shakespeare
Hamlet

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2010—0600 at N 30 41 21 W 78 49 23

It was a great night. I took my long REM sleep from midnight to 04:50 so I woke feeling refreshed and ready to relieve Dave from watch. Typically, our shifts are two to three hours. But once a day we each need a deep sleep. Dave will take his now.

Before sleep, Dave tells me of the horror he experienced in the night. He witnessed a cruise ship come toward us over the horizon. Then, the ship burst into flames. In a few moments, with the orange colors intensifying, he figured he was watching the full moon rise. Dave’s upset ebbed as he came to understand our journey would be blessed by the light of the moon.

The sky is lightening enough to turn off our radar, our evening eyes. The sun bursts the horizon at 07:48.

I’ve written before that sailors don’t actually enjoy sailing offshore, but I’m not sure that is universally true. The past 24 hours have been wonderful. Perhaps with a good attitude I can rest well, move about the boat safely, and stay attune to the boat’s needs. If I get in my head about missed comforts, I will be miserable. I can ward off boredom by journaling, doing exercises, reading, charting our course, and snacking.

Our boat is like a little space ship traveling into a non-human world. We are dependant only upon what we have brought on board: food, water, fuel, spare parts, navigation aids, communication tools, and life raft. This will be the first time in my life when it will be impossible to pull off the road and get what I need. I more fully appreciate the creativity of nomadic people supporting their existence in a harsh environment with only the items they can carry on their backs, a horse, or camel. We are loaded so heavily that the boat’s stripes have sunk below the water line. Dave and I could never carry all the supplies we have on WILD HAIR.

It is an odd day. The fickle weather had us sailing unproductively south and west to avoid storm cells. The lap top isn’t accepting the satellite phone as its modem so I can’t send emails. Then the satellite phone speakers don’t work so Chris Parker can’t hear me when I call for the weather. The bilge pump is going on every 20 minutes so we must be slowly taking in water. We will have to troubleshoot.

Indeed we are through the Gulf Stream and the winds have arrived. The engine is off and WILD HAIR shushes through the water. Besides the 60 gallons of fuels we started with in our tanks, we have 40 extra gallons of diesel fuel in jerry cans on deck. With relatively calm seas and a desire to keep the boat ready for anything, Dave and I pour the jerry cans into our tanks being careful not to create a toxic spill. It is supremely challenging. Heavy and smelly, the cans do their best to cause us to lose our balance and our lunch.

At an evening shift change I learn Dave got hit by a flying fish. Or he would have if the “glass” of our cockpit enclosure hadn’t preempted the fish’s terrorist mission. Dinghy spotted it just before contact and made a leap to intercept. Like the Secret Service, she would have saved Dave. Good kitty.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2010—0600 at N29 57 18 W 77 30 20 (360 nautical miles east of Cape Canaveral)

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a struggle we have had. With winds vacillating from the east we were forced to tack and tack. In 12 hours we only made 12 nautical miles of progress. But now the winds have shifted and we are bucking like a bronco in the waves right on course.

For dinner today I’ll make a canned turkey-stuffing-gravy casserole with canned green beans, powdered mashed potatoes, and canned cranberry sauce. I’ll top it off with pecan pie (purchased frozen by the slice). The meal doesn’t sound a thing like my traditional holiday meal. But, it is what I can manage at sea and it should recall the spirit of family, friends, and food.

The single side band radio is a finicky creature. Successful communication depends upon the ever-changing ionosphere. But this morning, Chris Parker came through loud and clear at his 06:30 broadcast. His news wasn’t good. Tomorrow night through Saturday a cold front will overtake us with gusts to 40 knots. It will be a gale. Thankfully, the winds should be from behind. If the boat gets going too fast and are at risk of breaking rigging or tearing sails, we can hang a line of chain off the stern (known as towing a warp) to slow the boat, allowing the waves can pass. We’ve never done that before. We’ve never sailed in weather this big.

Today is the day to make everything storm proof. We stow our coffee pot, secure sharp knives and silverware into drawers, and tie down the refrigerator lid. We double tie the dinghy, jerry cans, and all other hardware onto the deck. We re-read chapters on heavy weather sailing so all of our options are at the top of our mind. Most importantly, because the bilge pump is now cycling every five minutes, Dave will find and stop the leak.

Dave is so smart. He just discovered the problem was with the second bilge pump, the one that would go on should the water rise to a higher level. Because the boat is healing to one side, the secondary bilge pump is actually siphoning water into the boat. To make the repair, I bring the boat about to a 225 heading so that WILD HAIR leans on its other “hip.” This raises the side that was siphoning above the water line and Dave performs surgery on the stuck valve. The good news is we no longer take in water. The bad news is that the valve couldn’t be saved so we’re going into the storm down one bilge pump. Not to worry; we still have the two electric and two more manual pumps that work. Boats are all about redundancy, especially in the life support systems.

I wash my hair and bathe. Ahhhhh.

Of all the travels Dave and I have done, this is by far the most unusual. Trips of the past been about a destination, sightseeing. This trip is about the journey itself.

Our Thanksgiving dinner is sub-par, nearly inedible. We did connect with our closest family members through the satellite phone, but the conversations were necessarily quick and unsatisfying. This traveling over the holiday stinks.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2010—0600 at N 30 22 21 W 75 45 28 (240 nautical miles north of the closest land: Abacos, Bahamas)

I did a cruel thing to myself. With our crazy around-the-clock schedule, I inadvertently skipped a day of my hormone medications. So yesterday, as is customary when a pill is forgotten, I took one in the morning and one in the evening. Side effects to this medicine are nausea and dizziness. In this environment, the double dose did me in. Suddenly, I was violently ill and had vertigo so bad that the entire room spun—even while lying on my back. I had been doing so well! Poor Dave. He did more than his share of watch this morning as I did the only thing I could do: sleep it off.

It is noon and I feel human again. We must re-rig our lines into new combinations so that they will not chafe when we have tiny amounts of sail up for the strong winds. Lines chafe in a heartbeat when they touch an edge in the wind. We even lash our drink bottles and flashlight to the helm.

We have 10 to 12 foot seas which makes moving about very difficult. I lost two mugs full of chicken soup and Dave lost the cottage cheese. All were ejected from their counters in the style of a B-grade horror film. The waves are like those experienced on a trampoline with more than one person jumps. You can anticipate the regular pattern but then you are catapulted by a Super Bounce that shoots you at great heights into an unpredictable direction. Unfortunately, Dave was In the middle of storm preparation, strapping on the life jacket and tethers that attach us to the boat, when the boat took a Super Bounce. He shot from his cockpit seat and gave himself a nasty gash above is eye. Like all head wounds, there was a lot of blood. Were we at home I would have taken him to the hospital. Here, we dress the wound with antibiotic cream, gauze, and apply pressure with a wool cap. We are grateful that he didn’t hit his temple or fall through the companionway.

The winds are now 22 knots, gusting to 30. Dave is finally getting some rest. He is severely exhausted as he hasn’t had a deep sleep since the trip began. The sun is setting as the storm approaches. Why does the worst of it always happen at night.

With my seasickness, the storm prep, and Dave’s injury, we didn’t email family and friends. I hope no one worries. Anyway, the lap top got stowed in its water tight case early in the day to protect its fate. Our last computer had so many concussions from bouncing onto the floor it turned “brain dead.”

I can’t help but notice all my stories sound negative, miserable. If this is true, why do I sail? I guess I know there are downsides to living anywhere. In my land life they include standing in lines, getting caught in traffic, having nightmares about work. We don’t have those discomforts while sailing; we traded them in for a different set. Here, I get to be with my husband, my best friend. I like playing house in our tiny but fully functional space. I like living outside, learning new things, and being surprised by beauty. I like being self-employed and meeting new people. I like our sails and keel and how they make the boat go forward when the wind blows from the side. I like how nothing stays the same. Ever. I like that you never know what will be demanded of you.

Now, the water moves so aggressively that it feels like an entire men’s basketball team is bouncing on my trampoline. I work to stay upright. Below decks, the noise is deafening. The contents of every floor board, cupboard, and cranny is flung from port to starboard over and over again. Sometimes you can make subtle adjustments in course to smooth things out. This is not one of those times. I can almost guess the contents in each hide-away by the clatter it makes.

2011-01-25T14:04:00.002-06:00

“Security is mostly a superstition. It doesn’t exist in nature.”

Helen Keller

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2010—0600 at N 30 22 55 W 73 41 00 (325 nautical miles northeast of the closest land: Abacos, Bahamas)

The cold front arrives at 05:15. I check the radar and see that the squall is three miles away and moving fast. It is enormous on the helm’s video screen, glowing yellow and red. First the rain hits. Then the wind. Then more wind. The instruments tell me we’re experiencing a sustained 35 knot blow with gusts to 45 knots, a strong gale according to the Beaufort Wind Scale. The canvas cockpit enclosure shutters like concrete in an earthquake. The GPS tells me we are moving at a potentially dangerous 11.7 knots across the surface of the world, but the other speed indicator tells me we are only moving 7 knots through the water. This later bit is the important information and I know the boat is under control. We are running happily in the swells despite the weather’s fierce roar. There is no need to deploy the chain drogue. I watch the boat’s balance and—surprisingly—we have too much sail area behind the mast. Despite the fact that we have only the forward sail out and the main sail is completely stowed, the auto pilot struggles to maintain course. It must be that the cockpit enclosure and sail cover are providing windage and acting like a sail. I hand steer. Dave sleeps. The front passes without event and it turns into a gloomy morning.

When the seas were roughest During Dave’s nap, the pilot berth flew out from the wall. After making the bed the other day and sliding it back into place, I missed putting the holding pins back in. It was such a tight fit I thought nothing of it. But in these violent seas, when Dave and kitty were fast asleep, the bed went sliiiiiiiide-BANG! Kitty’s eyes according to Dave were the size of quarters. First her whole world is in crazy motion, then the furniture pops out of the walls. What must she think?

After my nap, I am back at the helm at 12:35. Another front approaches. Chris Parker told us this morning that the end of the foul weather will arrive at around noon. Now a seasoned veteran of the wild ocean, I watch nonplussed as winds climb to a mere 28 knots with a bit of rain. The seas calm. A gentler blow shifts to the north. We sail east in what grows to be a lovely day. Because I seem to be at the helm when the foul weather comes, Dave has given me the knick-name “Stormy.”

We are always hungry but our tummies never let us eat too much. So, we eat often and we eat anything we want. Everything spills. Eating requires two hands so we can do nothing else when we eat. Further, we can only eat one thing at a time: one apple, one cup of soup, one egg. I stopped bringing food to Dave at the helm because I cannot carry food up the companionway and hold on at the same time. Kitty’s food is disappearing and there are deposits in her cat box. She is doing a good job taking care of herself.

It is nice to have hot drinks. So, I keep a press pot of boiling water tied up in the galley with a basket of teas, hot cocoa, soups and bullions next to it. The most dangerous activity in the galley is boiling water. To avoid burns, I wear full foul weather overalls and rubber boots as I pour the water from kettle to pot. Despite my most concentrated efforts, water goes everywhere. I make myself a cup of steaming hot chocolate with the little water that made it into the container. As I wait for it to cool, I notice my arm gimbaling naturally with the wave action so that I don’t spill. My mind sings, “Hey, ho, way to go, a pirate’s life for me.” I realize that pirates don’t conduct the orchestra with their rum; they swing their mugs to keep from spilling the precious contents.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010—0530 at N 30 12 56 W 71 36 16 (385 nautical miles north-east of the closest land: Abacos, Bahamas)

In our sleep deprived and nearly robotic on-watch-off-watch state, time is a blur. For 20 minutes Dave and I deliberate on the date. Having reached agreement, Dave turns on the computer and we are wrong—way wrong.

But, we are making magnificent progress. The skies have cleared and the waves have lain down. There is a superb wind, 12-15 knots from 030 (N/NE), allowing for a close reach toward our destination. We set the sails last night before dark and have cruised ever since at seven knots, like a Japanese Bullet Train. That’s the thing about cruising; when you get in the grove and the weather stays stable you can go for days without adjusting the sails. This is addictive.

Below decks, everything is quiet. The contents of our cupboards are leaning to starboard. The rush of water along the hull creates a whispering, sluicing sound the full length of the boat.

After getting some much needed rest, Dave is a bustle of activity: tossing garbage, making food, rearranging our sail plan for tonight’s predicted weather, and charting our progress. Amazingly, we are a mere six nautical miles from where Chris Parker told us we would be prior to our departure. Kitty feels better too. After days of dormancy she is feeling playful. Unfortunately, the rocking motion is still a lot for her small body so her play is limited to attacking our feet in the pilot berth. Given my bout of seasickness, I don’t yet feel a bustle of activity nor playful. I crave rest but I’m hanging in there.

Still sporting the bloody bandage over one eye, Captain Dave turns to me and says, “would you like to see my broken toe?” Yesterday it seems he charged up the companionway in bare feet, ignoring the wisdom that bare feet are a no-no on boats. The boat took a hop and he cracked the toe on an edge. Swelled like a purple and red balloon, I have never seen a toe look worse.

Our fresh water pump volunteered to break today. This is the pump that pushes drinking water from our tanks through our faucets. Not to worry; we have a manual foot pump in the galley that accomplishes the same thing. I am grateful again for the boat’s redundant systems. Plus, we have gallons of bottled water under the forward berth and strapped on deck. We won’t go thirsty—yet.

On this day, with consistent winds and smoother waves, Dave and I are learning to relax and listen. We don’t need to be wed to the helm. So today we enjoy meals together below decks and take care of ourselves, reading, cooking, and writing. It feels good to relax our guard.

2011-01-25T13:56:00.003-06:00

“His body resented the scene, his intellect disbelieved it, but his imagination was enthralled.”

VS Pritchett

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010—0600 at N 29 04 54 W 69 19 31 (460 nautical miles northeast of the closest land: Abacos, Bahamas)

This is the pits! In the dark of night our beautiful breeze shifts and turns unexpectedly intense. We have the wrong sail combination but dread in these conditions to make a change. Some boats have all their sail controls strung to the cockpit. Our boat does not. Changes to the sail plan necessitate a crawl on deck to the point where we balance precariously in our winching and cleating. Instead, doing his best to maintain course with too much sail, Dave drives our Japanese Bullet Train headlong into big seas. It is impossible to sleep below. Everything is leaping again in the cupboards. Great waves rise and smash into our deck. The boat groans and pops. Water drizzles through port lights we hadn’t sufficiently dogged down. Our big salon windows, having flexed with the boat this trip, have lost their seals. I lay awake exhausted in the pilot berth with icy water drip, drip, dripping through the salon windows onto my body and bedding.

All night the boat pummels forward on the edge of control. On my watch, the wild animals of surf and swell intimidate just beyond sight. Out of the black, a rogue wave attacks, plummeting from a great height, smashing with a deafening force onto the top of the cockpit enclosure. Salt water flows through every void of canvas.

Dave does the math. Twelve 24 hour days of sailing are equivalent to an entire season sailing eight hour days between weather windows. This trip is putting a lot of wear on our vessel, and us.

At 06:30, Chris Parker—the archangel of good news—tells us we will get additional chances to go east in the days ahead. We can stop beating ourselves up into the wind. As a fellow sailor he knows, without our telling, that we’re hammering ourselves silly. He gives us the go-ahead to turn south promising that in doing so we will not fall short of our ultimate destination. In an instant we take a right turn and the ride turns quiet. The boat rocks port to starboard like a smooth rocking chair. It hardly feels like the same day. Worn out, we re-trim the sails and both fall sound asleep.

Mysteriously, I have lost my voice. Because I cannot talk, Dave was this morning’s radio contact with Chris Parker: long time listener, first time caller. He did a good job.

Also, the inside of my ears itch and Doctor Dave fears I might have an early fungal infection from the sustained use of wet ear plugs. I must stop using them and accept the noise at bedtime. The ear discomfort might also be caused by the anti-nausea scopolamine patch, so I remove it, trusting that I am now acclimated to the pitching sea. Removing the patch should also help me see again; I can no longer read the charts due to blurred vision, a side-effect of the medicine.

Waking after our simultaneous naps with the boat still cruising happily along, it dawns on us the boat stinks! To remedy the offence, we clean heads, the cat box, and dishes, and toss the trash. We bathe, wash our hair, and shave. We stow discarded clothes strewn about the cabin. What a difference; everything is made fresh again. Plus, Dave replaces the pilot berth’s screaming fan with a whispering new model; now we can keep cool as we sleep without the fan adding to the ruckus. He also fixes the fresh water pump so water flows again from our faucets. We run the engine to charge batteries drained by our electronics. Above decks, we re-lash jerry cans and equipment knocked about in last night’s turbulent dousing. We look for chafing in our lines.

Distance wise, we are more than half way to our destination.

As the sun sets we use the final moments of daylight to prepare again for night. Winds are increasing a bit. Even with no main sail and a tiny bit of forward sail out, we’re making six knots. We keep the sails conservatively rigged and continue a sea-kindly course south.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2010—0600 at N 27 10 13 W 68 26 40 (475 nautical miles east of Abacos, Bahamas)

We departed a week ago today. 520 miles separate us from our destination.

This is an extreme amount of sailing. Every moment we think about sailing tactics, getting the most from our boat in the given conditions. For safety’s sake, no one leaves the cockpit unless the other person is awake and watching from the cockpit. Even then we know our chances of recovery are slim if one of us were to fall overboard; a person in the trough of a 12 foot wave is invisible to a boat in the trough of another. In our desire to make an efficient passage, we change sails and trim as a team all day and all night. It is not uncommon to be woken up because the weather has shifted. With only the two of us, I am nearly hypnotized by the constant raising, lowering, reefing, furling, winching and letting out. When cruising the shore and stopping at night, our time is divided by other activities like anchoring, hiking, shopping, and socializing. Here, there is no relief. We are on an endless treadmill of sailing.

With winds from the northeast we are making steady, settled progress. I had been on watch from 01:00-03:00 and 06:00 to 10:00. Between watches I sank into deep and restful sleeps. I woke at 13:00 dreaming I was in a hermetically sealed tube being sucked through a chute at the bank.

There was mutiny aboard WILD HAIR at 03:00. Dave scurried about the deck changing sails in the dark as I waited drearily at the helm for my watch to end. When all essential adjustments had been made, Captain Dave announced he was going to do some non-essential tasks on the foredeck. I said, “no.” After getting an earful about how he was trying to maintain top performance to make the trip as short as possible for safety’s sake, I quipped that I was too tired to save him should his tether fail and he fall overboard. I know when I’ve reached my limit. Unfortunately, 100% of the time, it is before Dave has reached his. My job is to speak up when I believe things aren’t safe. Dave’s job is to eek out that extra mile. In the end, non-essential tasks were deferred until daylight.

Kitty is on a busman’s holiday: If she wasn’t sleeping all day she’d be sleeping all day.

My voice is returning as my health symptoms evolve into a cold. As an added bonus, because my hormone medication provoked seasickness and dizziness, I abandoned its use.

I can’t remember having done anything this physically challenging before—except perhaps recovering from total hip surgery. I lay in bed with eyes shut feeling normal and rested, regretting the moment I must sit and then stand. In the wave action, every motion must be accomplished with a singularity of purpose and a concentration on balance. Holding my head on my neck takes energy. Each step must be timed with the boat’s motion requiring two hand holds for safety. Brushing my teeth necessitates two feet planted on the floor, butt pressed backwards onto the opposing wall, and left hand wedged to the basin. In this way, my right hand is free for business. I offer these comments not as a complaint. They are an explanation or reminder as to why I might think twice about doing this again. Offshore sailing is hard, hard work.

My clothes are getting baggy as my appetite is lacking; I am always on the verge of nausea. I feel ravenous and then fill on a mere half sandwich. Nothing tastes the same. Things that taste exceptionally good include: hard boiled eggs, apples, chicken bouillon, and peanut butter. Some of the meals I prepared in advance miss the mark with curry and horseradish cream sauces. Even coffee is a traitor to my pallet. I haven’t the courage to open the jars of chili I canned this summer for our travels. We completely take a pass on liquor underway; why add that to my system when I already feel sluggish and brain dead. It wouldn’t be safe.

But I have a Buddha in me and she won’t stop smiling. Every time I look she is there, so happy that we are able to go on this ultimate adventure.

Watching the boat move through the waves is inspiring. Such a simple machine is our hull and keel and sails. Simple, yet the design is informed by eons of our ocean-going kin. WILD HAIR goes into, alongside of, and surfs over the waves. Our bow like a faithful hound sniffs the route while our stern swings, absorbing the shock of energy out of sync. The autopilot reads the boat’s constant adaptation and keeps us pointed properly. The autopilot job is made easy by well-balanced sails. There is intelligence in the inanimate. Of course the nose and tail of our hound are connected without benefit of a supple spine. But the resulting motion of a rigid vessel is one of compromise, grace. It accepts every twist the universe supplies and finds a path forward. Its compass is unyielding in the face of uncertainty and oppression.

At 19:00 we are in another predicament. The cold front that blew by us with 47 knot winds and huge seas stalled; we sailed back into the old frontal boundary. Our weather oracle, Chris Parker, failed to warn us so our sail plan is not right for the 37 know winds at hand. We run downwind—heading too far to the west, of course—with everything on the boat pitching wildly again.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2010—0600 at N 25 04 38 W 68 23 07 (280 nautical miles northeast of the closest land: Turks and Caicos)

06:00 finds us at the front of the front experiencing “free frontal activity.” The wind clocks, reverses, and quits. As I try and hail Parker on the radio during his morning broadcast, Dave shouts, “Enough of this! I’m sailing back and forth over the same ocean now heading north! Who cares what Chris Parker says? Let’s change the sails and point ourselves out of here!” Reconfiguring our set up, we aim the boat at the only patch of sky that seems to be clearing: south and east. We creep forward.

With things normalizing, I reach Chris Parker via satellite phone only to discover he is actively sick with the flu. Kindly and with great effort, he manages to confirm what we know—we should continue south and east. In a few days we should be able to motor east some more when the winds die.

Our autopilot has been munching energy like a Pac Man, causing us to run the engine for battery recharge much more often that we had originally planned, utilizing limited stores of diesel. Parker doesn’t know that “motoring east” might not be an option. Dave begins a chant that we won’t get to St Thomas; we’ll need to opt out of the journey in the Turks or Puerto Rico. My captain refuses to even initiate a fuel calculation until we are at a decision point. Either way, I hardly mind. It will have been the least efficient way to arrive at one of those destinations, but there are worse places in the world.

Enjoying a now beautiful day, I marvel again at this boat. Here is a riddle: how can the wind blow a mere 11 knots from the 10 o’clock position left of our nose and move the boat 7 knots forward into the oncoming wind? I understand a bit of the physics surrounding airfoil dynamics and the way in which our lead keel re-routes energy into forward progress, but how does it work?

The void that is the ocean makes it possible for memories to bubble up uninhibited into consciousness. Both Dave and I feel the presence of a number of people on this trip. Repeatedly, we are caught off guard by voices and encouragement of family and friends, some living and some dead. Presently, my childhood friend Diane is my companion at the helm. As I sit, I capture her memory in the story included below.

Tonight, the sky is full of stars. The air is warm. The wind and water are gentle. I am feeling blue.

2011-01-25T13:46:00.003-06:00

“Empty day all-around. In the entire circle there is not the furthest
impertinent interruption—through all the degrees there is not one fool standing in the light; and you yourself are on nobody’s horizon.”

HM Tomlinson
The Sea and the Jungle

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2010—0600 at N 23 29 27 W 67 33 07 (235 nautical miles northeast of the closest land: Turks and Caicos)

At 04:00 the wind went kaput. Nada. It was dead with a tag tied to its toe.

Now, we are floating in place. The boat rocks lazily to and fro. The wind indicator at the top of the mast swings with the boat’s motion sending confused signals to my electronics: swing—the wind is from port; swing—the wind is from starboard. Round and round my instruments spin as Dave repeatedly asks, “What direction is the wind coming from?” He does not accept my answer that there is no wind.

Becalmed, I really feel like an explorer of old. I contemplate mutiny for fear of falling off the edge of the world.

For two hours we work to suspend the sails. Captain Dave’s goal is to hoist everything we have and lasso it into place so that it won’t snap and bang with the rocking motion. We know that most equipment damage happens in light winds. But, Dave is driven to take advantage of every breath. We strapped the boom to the portside toe rail, and lashed the whisker pole with the foresail off the starboard side. We lash the wheel and rudder to hold a course toward the south and east. But, the boat doesn’t have enough forward momentum to steer. We flounder in the slop of the sea and every time we check our progress we are pointed in a different direction. Since we’re not going anywhere, our course heading really doesn’t matter.

Seeing the futility of our effort, I mutter how happy I am not to have been in Dave’s OR for the past 20 years. He is a determined fellow, just what you’d want in a physician!

I radio Chris Parker to find out if we can motor to a place with wind. Sunspots must be bursting today because the ionosphere is not cooperating. The radio is horribly garbled and I can hardly hear Parker’s transmission. Quickly enlisting the cooperation of boaters sailing closer to Parker’s home base in Florida, I spark a relay team. Now, we all struggle to hear and be heard. Suddenly, the heaven’s open and I hear seven words directly from our weather oracle as clear as a song: “Wait for the wind to reach you.” Got it! We get a day off!

Pancakes, bacon, and eggs are the order of the day along with tall mugs of steaming decaf. Then sleep—precious, uninterrupted, glorious, deep, safe sleep. Dave, kitty, and I sleep all day long. After that, we sleep all night long.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2010—0900 at N 23 14 41 W 67 37 09 (229 nautical miles north east of the closest land: Turks and Caicos)

Chris Parker assures us the wind will arrive by noon today. But, Dave woke with new energy. Forget noon. Dave has us under sail by 07:20. There are eight knots of wind blowing consistently from the north east, so we can muster five and a half knots of boat speed heading 130 degrees on the compass. That’s not bad!

This is a blissful moment. Gun shy about how quickly our fates change, I am no longer presumptive enough to call it a beautiful day; I can only vouch for this moment. In 20 minutes everything may be different. The sea is teaching me about the dynamic and ever changing flow of life. Nothing stands still in time. But this moment is heavenly.

Dinghy woke with new energy, too. She and I play with her fuzzy pink worm on a fishing line for about 30 minutes. Her favorite move is to dive for it while falling into the sling of the pilot berth. She jumps and twists like a short stop. Her athleticism is brilliant.

It was disconcerting to sleep as we floated aimlessly in the middle of the ocean. We left on our running lights and our VHF radio so a local boat could hail us if we were about to hit. We knew our radar reflector would help other boats pick up our location, too. We turned off all other instruments. Dave and I were concerned about a collision because three times this trip in the middle of the night WILD HAIR came within two miles of another boat. Twice we had to take evasive action at the helm so as not to collide. The odds surrounding such a phenomenon are incalculable, but there you are.

Imagine a lumberjack camp. In it, a 60 foot crane lifts a ten foot log on a rope. The crane swings right and left 15 feet in each direction until the log arcs wildly. It only takes two or three strokes. This is what happened this morning as we took the whisker pole off the forward sail. Dave was standing on the bow as I cranked the sail in from a winch at the stern. I heard a strangled call and as I looked up Dave was falling backwards onto the deck. The log/whisker pole had swung wildly from the top of the rocking mast clearing him by inches as he fell. It easily could have knocked him overboard. It easily could have knocked him out. Luckily—and it was sheer luck—Dave saw it coming out of the corner of his eye and dropped. On the pole’s next pass, Dave caught it and the drama was over. Just like that. It was to date our most frightening moment and the whole event happened in less than 10 seconds on a sunny day in calm seas.

Today we realized our next for-profit venture. We have discovered what the true off-shore sailor wears. Forget Nautica, it’s underwear under the PFD. Dave and I will start a new line for men and women to be sold by West Marine. We’ll call it Skipper’s Secret: for the non-sensual times in your life. It will feature vintage elastic and pre-stretched cotton. To draw attention to the naughty bits, where others add feathers or beads, we’ll have scales. We think we have a winner.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2010—0600 at N 22 11 00 W 66 25 59 (225 nautical miles north of the closest land: Puerto Rico)

I’m having odd dreams. Vividly, I dreamt of walking in tall, clean woods. I lingered in the cool shade as I woke. Later, I dreamed I was eating a scone at Starbucks.

This morning, the world is moody. The wind moans through our canvas, waves growl past the boat, the sky is torn fibrous paper in the colors of charcoal. White caps burst into the air as they meet at cross purposes.

Today is our last day for easting. The door called “plenty of opportunity to go east” is closing. Very soon the winds will shift and the only thing we will be able to do is go south. But east, the required direction for the next 85 miles, is uncomfortable. We are driving hard into rude waves. Press on, press on, press on.

The chart tells me we are in 18,163 feet of water. Soon we’ll be over the Puerto
Rican Trench—the second deepest hole in the world.

I’d like to paint the sky for you with words so you can see it with fresh eyes. You’ve seen this sky before. It is the sky of childhood, of endless summer days. Blue is so clear. Clouds are fuzzy and shapeless—no rabbits or turtles in them. There is a cotton-ball softness that wraps my heart in gentle warmth, a looseness that says, “Don’t be afraid.” Then, down low, clouds hang with full bellies inches above the horizon. These are satisfied clouds. These are the water-carriers going about their business. These are the clouds that give us life. Or, not us, but people far away. The blue space between clouds jumps back and forth like an Escher painting: is it a positive shape or a negative absence of shape? It matters little for the blue is the jewel in Nedra’s Net. There are so many jewels, holes. They are the way into the ultimate.

Press on with courage into the objecting surf.

This trip is a learning lab. There was only so much Dave and I could know about off shore sailing from books, bar conversations, and lectures. Eventually, we had to come out here and taste it. I write this journal to unravel the mystery of sailing in the great beyond for myself and for you. I can paint pictures of moments, but no one—including myself—will ever fully grasp the enormity of the surface of the world gone wide. I may suspect that here it is possible to know my place in the universe. But, no. This is not a human place. I am a mere court jester passing comically through without effecting plot.

Knowable is our technical progress; Dave and I now have a pat drill for handling storm cells. We know what to do when we detect a change in the wind. Previously skittish about such things, we feel safe riding out squalls, the blustery downpours that make the Caribbean a lush place. Further, hoist sails confidently in the face of a blow when before we would have shrunk from intimidation.

Press on mindlessly against the mindless surge.

In retrospect, maybe we should have gone north to go south. Every year, the Caribbean 1500—a cruising rally open to sailors like Dave and me—departs from Hampton Virginia, traveling nonstop to the Virgin Islands. Surprisingly, that route is the same distance to the islands as a departure from Florida. But this year, Caribbean 1500 participants made the trip in only 9 days compared to our two weeks. What is the difference? Given the slope of the east coast, Hampton is located hundreds of miles east of northern Florida. Their trip is almost due south and the winds push from behind nearly the entire distance. We did the trip the hard way; northern Florida is just about as far west as you can get on the east coast. So, we had to sail 955 nautical miles east into the wind in order to reach our goal. Doable, but it is slow and hard on a body and a boat.

There is another lesson not to be missed from the Caribbean 1500: bailing out of an off shore route for land can be dangerous. One boat in this year’s November Rally decided to veer off toward the Bahamas. Perhaps they had difficulties with their systems, maybe they were tired or made uncomfortable by the weather. Whatever the reason, the decision was fatal. The captain drove the boat in a narrow pass between the islands during a “rage sea”—a time when strong winds create violent waves as the Atlantic Ocean pushes against the Bahamian shoal. Throughout time Bahamian rage seas have slammed boats into rocks. The way I heard the story told, the boat was lost. Two passengers drowned, only the captain survived. It is common sailor’s wisdom that the deep ocean far from land is the safest place to be when things get rough.

At 2300, under Dave’s watch, we reach our easterly target: 65 degrees west—the longitude of the US Virgin Islands. Remarkably, there is no finish line to stride across in jubilance and a final rush of athleticism. As I sleep, Dave turns the boat from east to south and the 20 knots of wind shifts from working against us to working with us, nudging us boldly from behind. The boat stretches though the waves as silent and settled as a yoga master.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2010—0600 at N 20 58 10 W 64 56 36 (160 nautical miles north of the closest land: St Thomas, US Virgin Islands)

I woke this morning with Captain Dave’s pronouncement that we may arrive in St Thomas tomorrow morning. Hooray! It is time to burn the Skipper’s Secret apparel and break out the bikinis. In celebration, I load a new set of electronic charts into our navigational system and study the Virgin Island cruising guides. Before now, I was afraid to hope.

How peculiar the idea of being in civilization. It is peculiar and pleasant. I plot my first umbrella drink. I cannot wait to take kitty for a walk on land. I cannot wait to take a shower, eat a salad, and sleep in my bed instead of the pilot berth. I cannot wait to move freely without a personal floatation device and tethers literally tying me down. I cannot wait to wear something pretty and dine on something someone else has prepared for me. Wouldn’t it be nice to go for a swim in all this warm water or walk down a street window shopping, absorbing culture and the energy of others? Wouldn’t it be a delight to see green and red and yellow, to smell soil and clean people? I look forward to movable furniture and the kindness of a stranger as we help each other through the day.

I am grateful to this boat. It teaches Dave and me how to sail. With a little smart handling, the boat finds her way through the seas. The sails capture what they can of the wind. The sails themselves are strong, light, and skillful. Bending just so, the sails fool the wind into thinking the cloth is more than it is. These strips of white thread force the wind to speed on one side and linger on the other, perfect airfoils for imperfect, tired deck hands.

The hull, bobbing with confidence through unending assaults, takes the middle path of least resistance. WILD HAIR’s shell is our safeguard. It is a thin barrier between us and those that would consume our meat with satisfaction. The hull’s innate, engineered wisdom is our savior, delivering us from evil. The rigging soaring toward the heavens is the temple of our efforts. Forgiving, movable pawns in this chess game, every piece of rigging is a tool to harness and leverage nature toward our end. In the past two weeks I have seen a year of wear put upon our dear boat and yet it stands tall, willing, able, and ready for more.

These are the components of a boat that sleep in a yard or marina. These qualities are hidden to the buyer that knows only to ask, “Is she strong? Can she go off shore?” The reputation says yes. Now the reality says yes and this indebted sailor says yes. Discovering the boat in this way is like meeting a lover only to discover that your lover is also your best friend.

And speaking of best friends . . . Dave has shown me a few of his inner workings that—after 25 years of marriage—I didn’t know made him tick. His energy appears unlimited. After years of working as an operating room leader, I find him an articulate captain able to delegate jobs and describe shared outcomes prior to action. It is his habit to think 10 steps ahead. Further, Dave is incredibly kind. Concerns about my nausea and dizziness, my cold, and the fact that I was five months post-operative from a total hip replacement prompted him to manage most of the physical line and sail duties on a heaving, wet deck. Over the course of two weeks, he did 90% of the winching as I managed the less physical but more technical helming during sail changes. He also did 50% or more of the watches since he had trouble sleeping. Dave says he feels like he just spent two weeks on call; I do too but I think his efforts were more physical than mine.

We each made certain our partner didn’t get behind in drinking fluids or eating. We spent our energy caring for the boat and each other’s wounds. While we both navigated and charted our progress, Dave was the technician overseeing WILD HAIR’S diesel and the charge of our refrigeration and batteries. I was responsible for communications with family, friends, and meteorologist Chris Parker. I prepared meals, Dave cleaned up. He is skilled at judging sail plans given predicted winds, I am skilled at trimming sails for optimal performance. With the exception of maneuvers requiring strength and balance, we split the load evenly and played to our advantages. I believe we are the perfect cruising couple.

It is 14:00 and the wind has quit. We are becalmed again and just 152 nautical miles north of our destination. Knowing this was going to happen, we saved fuel for the final push to shore. Now it is time to start WILD HAIR’s engine.

“Va-room!” our 63 horse power Yanmar comes to life, we strike the sails and abruptly WILD HAIR is transformed into a motoring trawler. At 2800 RPM, we will ride on smooth water at seven knots for the rest of our journey.

But, we have no idea where in St Thomas we are going! It is time to refine our destination. Because we will fly to Arizona leaving the boat for two weeks over the holidays, we need a slip for a month at a protected marina and someone to watch the boat in our absence. Using the guide books as reference, I call several marinas using the satellite phone to check availability and make arrangements.

Oops. I quickly am informed that this is the most popular time of year. Most marinas are fully booked. Others only rent by the night so the price for an entire month is cost-prohibitive. Given the season, we feel a bit like the biblical Mary and Joseph. At last, we find one marina run by a charter boat company that has one slip for the month at a quarter of the price of the others. Phew! What a lucky break. Who knew it would be so tough? Sometimes we feel like rank amateurs in this cruising life.

As we motor toward our new home, I find my thoughts are rushing to the end of this trip. I’m having a hard time witnessing this sunset, this lovely placid night.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2010—0600 at N 18 35 47 W 65 03 56 (24 nautical miles north of the closest land: St Thomas, US Virgin Islands)

I am at the helm as the sun teases the horizon at dawn. The lights of St Thomas are visible like chunky sugar crystals on a Christmas cookie in profile, gold and red. For the past several years of our sailing life, I have been acutely sensitive to the cruelty with which people treat each other. Every time Dave and I re-emerge from an extended sailing trip and come back into the US culture of media and financial markets, we are stunned by how badly people behave—spiteful politics, greedy business decisions, and selfish personal indulgences. None of this is new to the history of mankind. What is new to me is the degree to which bad behavior saturates every aspect of our collective lives. It seems to be the fascination and allure of news casts, the tantalizing plots of sitcoms, and the root of catastrophic economic loss. Constantly turning off the TV, I find it almost more than I can bare.

But this morning, with the sugar crystal lights of St Thomas on the horizon, I saw nothing but the beauty of mankind. We take care of each other through the gift of light in the dark night. Art, literature, science, medicine, environmental protection, and education are all evidence of our nurturing higher selves. Food—the act of growing, storing, preparing, serving, and eating is a reflection of kindness one for another. All of civilization is a testament to our love. Civilization is the creative energy and celebration of our coming together.

I am so relieved. Now, I can see the beauty that counterbalances the chaos of petty ways. Now, I have a salve for the pain. The ugliness becomes mere background noise to the greater story arch of human inspiration.

At the helm of my ship, I sit in peace.

It is 80 degrees as we approach the harbor in St Thomas at 06:30.

I ask Dave if this voyage has satisfied his strong desire to “cross and ocean.” He says, “Yes. I no longer need to cross an ocean. We’ve done that.”

There are two kinds of sailors: those who have sailed off shore and those that want to. I’ve never met a sailor that doesn’t—on some level—want to sail off into the great beyond. It is a profoundly compelling call to anyone who has experienced the power of wind and trust in their craft. For us, the idea gnawed for decades and caused us to finally rearrange our lives for the opportunity to do this, together. Today, Dave and I graduate into the first category, those that have sailed offshore.

Now, the mystery is gone; the price of off shore travel has been named and paid. Our conclusion: off shore adventures are not glamorous or romantic. They are grueling work. But, we are so very happy to have undertaken this voyage and to have successfully completed it. Like mountain climbers and astronauts, there is no denying our sense of accomplishment. But, are we called to do it again? It is too soon to tell. For now, I look forward to skipping south from island to island through the Caribbean, perhaps voyaging all the way to South America. This is called “coastal cruising” and it too is satisfying. After all, it is the coast—the interface between people and the sea—that is the stuff of legends.

Thank you for coming on this journey with Dave and me. We needed you. We love you.

Diane

2011-01-25T13:45:00.002-06:00

Dave and I were not alone on our voyage. Frequently, we heard the voices of family and friends, some alive, some long gone. One night I sat at the helm with my girlfriend, Diane. It was then that I recorded this story.

My neighbor Diane’s inoperable brain tumor and unscheduled seizures made her an oddity in middle school. My elementary days of clearing aside desks and chairs as she fell, guarding that she didn’t swallow her tongue, and reassuring substitute teachers that this was normal behavior had passed. We had drifted apart. But, there was no one else around during those early summer days of 1971 and my head filled—as it always did—with new games for us to play in her built-in swimming pool, my second summertime home. So, I phoned.

Unexpectedly, Diane said I couldn’t come over. I was no longer invited to their home. When pressed, she passed the phone to her mother. Kindly, her mother explained, “You girls haven’t played together all winter. So, your interest in coming over now seems more about the pool than about being with Diane.”
In a rush I remembered I had acted badly last summer. Frustrated by Diane’s increasing slowness, I twisted her name into ugly playground sayings. At least once, Diane’s older sister overheard and stormed into the house shouting, “Mah-om!”

I sat uncomfortably with the truth. I had bullied a mentally handicapped girl, a friend. Worse, I was more interested in the pool than in Diane.

How I wondered could her mother be kind? Did she know that her daughter had grown different from the other kids? Was she shooing me along to go be normal? The thought of leaving our friendship sickened me. I knew the truth: I was Diane’s last ordinary friend. If I abandoned Diane, I would be responsible for her lifetime of loneliness.

Unable to sort the layers of my emotions, I simply told my mother I was banned from Diane’s. She said she knew. “No one blames you for not being Diane’s friend,” my mother volunteered. “No one is angry.”

There it was again—kindness in the face of meanness. In that moment, I didn’t understand the world. I knew right from wrong and kindness as a response to my wrong-doing made no sense. I was at a loss for how to behave. Eventually, for lack of a different option, I filled that summer (and all my summers to come) with other pursuits.

Four decades later, memories of Diane bubble to the surface and I wrestle anew with feelings of guilt. Like a commodity, I seek to trade guilt for someone else’s pain thinking, “If I feel badly enough about what I did perhaps you will hurt less.” Except after so many years there is no one’s pain to relieve save for my own. This is when I make my discovery; I have hurt for Diane since childhood. Sadness floods me. I remember a vibrant friend with a quick smile, generous heart, and devilish creativity. My dedication to our friendship was bought through the fare and equal trade of childhood laughter. We were the same. Then we were different. The pain is imprinted on my heart.

Now, at the age of the adults of my youth, I understand our shared loss. Their understanding is no longer a mystery. Sadness compels kindness.

Mayday

2010-06-25T23:09:00.004-05:00

Dum Spiro Spero
While I breathe, I hope.

Cicero

I did not send a Mayday distress call into the teeth of a stormy night because our boat had slipped its anchor and was smashing into the rocky shore of an uninhabited Bahama island. It was. But I issued the cry for help because I saw my husband carried out to sea in our inflatable dinghy armed with nothing but a broken outboard motor, a plastic paddle, a PFD, and a feeble head lamp. Luckily, “out to sea” was an illusion. Beyond my line of sight and in the falling tide, my husband Dave grounded the dinghy onto a previously submerged rocky shoal, walked across the island, through the water, and back to our beached boat. This is the story of my distress call and its afterlife.

THE CALL

Alone on the boat that night my first thought was to trigger the 406 MHz EPRIB—an emergency satellite beacon we have registered with NOAA. By sending out a hex code specific to each unit, EPIRB distress calls immediately tell the Coast Guard where a troubled boat is located, who is likely on board, and what type of vessel rescuers should look for. EPIRBs provoke an enthusiastic response: aircraft are launched and large Coast Guard Cutter ships are diverted. I did not launch the beacon however because I did not want to bring emergency services to me. I wanted to rescue Dave. So instead I cranked up the electronics, identified WILD HAIR’s position and—at 22:05 on that brutal February night—spoke simultaneously into our VHF and Single Side Band or SSB microphones.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” I called. “This is sailing vessel WILD HAIR, WILD HAIR, WILD HAIR. Our current position is North 25 degrees 36 minutes, West 77 degrees 43 minutes. Repeat: N 25.36 W 77.43. Repeat: N 25.36 W 77.43. We are west of White Cay in the Berry Islands of the Bahamas. Our vessel is on the rocks. One person is onboard the vessel and one person has blown out to sea in an inflatable dinghy. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”

Silence. After 3 attempts I stayed on VHF channel 16 but changed SSB frequency, eventually trying 2.1820, 4.1250, 6.2150, and 8.2910.

Still hearing no response, I got out our month-old satellite phone. Smartly, I had pre-programmed all of the Coast Guard emergency phone numbers for the east coast into the handset. Not so smartly, I forgot under stress how to access the numbers and make a call. Without operational knowledge, the phone was as useful to me as a paperweight. So, I repeated the sequence of calls into the SSB and VHF radios.

At some point, I heard Dave’s voice shout his return. My attention bounced from distress calls to relief to the next emergency at hand: boat rescue. Our strategic thinking was interrupted by the crackle of the VHF. The crew of a local cruise ship—the Bahamas Celebration—had heard my VHF call and summoned their captain. His calm and experienced voice was like salve on a wound; I had been heard. It was comforting to know we were not alone. With too big of a ship to enter our snug harbor, the captain offered to contact the Bahamas Air and Sea Rescue Association or BASRA on our behalf. But, with Dave safely on board and only our boat at risk, we took his personal cell phone number, thanked him for his kindness, and said their services wouldn’t be necessary, yet.

With a signal spot light we hailed a sailor sharing our harbor about a half mile away. His dinghy had a working outboard. That and a rising tide allowed us to kedge the boat from peril at dawn. After the frontal passage and an extra day’s rest, Dave and I discussed between us the lessons we learned from the nasty experience. Then, we started putting the nightmare behind us. We had a glorious sail 20 miles south to the populated island of Frazer Hog Cay. It was here that I started to learn the rest of the story.

THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE

When we arrived, everyone seemed genuinely happy to see WILD HAIR and her crew. As we snagged a mooring ball, people came out to greet us and check on our well-being. Our Mayday had prompted a buzz of speculation and theories had persisted unchecked for days. Evidently, boaters and Bahamian locals had heard my call for help but—given the storm—none felt they were in a position to lend assistance.

Astonishingly, we learned my SSB distress call had skipped the east coast entirely. Instead, it was picked up by Joshua Bouknight, a Petty Officer at the United States Coast Guard communication station in Kodiak, Alaska. Alaska was the only Coast Guard station to copy my voice and he heard the call on 4.1250. Garbled through space, Officer Bouknight recorded only a partial position statement, figured out our approximate location, and contacted the Coast Guard District Offices in Florida. The Florida District office then briefed the Royal Bahamas Defense Force, and a local volunteer rescue boat was deployed that night in 35 knot winds and 13 foot seas. Remarkably, the rescue effort initiated from Alaska came within 20 miles of our call. But, without a full fix on our position their efforts were futile.

Still stunned by this news, I opened our satellite email account to discover the Coast Guard’s actions hadn’t ceased. My in-box was flooded with worried emails from family and friends. It seems we had become a Coast Guard Search and Rescue or SAR Case. Procedurally, once I had initiated the Search and Rescue system it would not abate until there was resolution. SAR cases close when the Coast Guard finds who they are looking for and either renders assistance or confirms that no assistance is needed.

In total, the Coast Guard spent three days tracking us down and Officer Bouknight personally dedicated almost an entire day of non-stop searching. Like a detective, Bouknight searched the national database and found twelve vessels registered as WILD HAIR. He used software to clean up my radio transmission and listened to it several dozen times. Hearing “One person blown out to sea and one person on board WILD HAIR,” Bouknight knew there were two persons on board. Ruling out larger commercial fishing vessels, he did an online search and found the Adventures of WILD HAIR blog. Our writings confirmed that our sailing area matched the partial position statement he had picked up. Further, the blog listed the length and type of our vessel, a Hylas 45.5 foot sloop. Bouknight cross-referenced the boat details with the vessel registration database and identified us as the boat owners. Our contact information was also listed.

Armed with our names and addresses, Officer Bouknight attempted to call Dave, but our home phone had been disconnected. Utilizing an internet spider, Bouknight opened pages related to my husband and learned of his former employment. From there, he called Dave’s secretary in Wisconsin and she provided our cell phone number and confirmed that we were sailing. Unfortunately, our US-based cell phone did not work in the Bahamas so this proved to be a dead end.

Knowing that our children were close friends with my husband’s partner’s kids, the secretary put Bouknight in contact with Dave’s colleague. Again, Dave’s partner confirmed we were sailing and—after a quick connection with his daughter—offered Bouknight our 21-year-old daughter’s phone number. Bravely, our daughter gave the officer our satellite email address and the phone number of my mother in Arizona. I always email my mother our current latitude and longitude. So, through my mother Bouknight was able to confirm our last known whereabouts and our travel intentions. This information correlated perfectly with our distress call.

This detective work was the reason why my inbox was flooded with worried emails. Everyone had spent hours and days fearing the worst. Quick as I could I got on the satellite phone and started the process of easing minds.

THE HUMAN RESPONSE

I experience a bundle of emotions when I think back on these events. Of course, I am hugely relieved that Dave is safe and with me still. I am chagrinned that the clocking wind and simultaneously shifting tide conspired to lift our anchor and put WILD HAIR on the rocks, but I am proud that we—with a little help and a good measure of know-how—got our boat out of her predicament. I regret having prompted a rescue vessel to launch on a futile mission in horrible weather and am made nauseous by the thought that we put someone else needlessly at risk. I feel horrible about the sleepless night I caused the people I hold most dear. Not least, I feel guilty about the precious Coast Guard resources spent over the course of three days on our behalf. But Officer Bouknight would have me feel no guilt.

In stunningly compassionate and deftly professional follow up emails, Officer Bouknight expressed nothing but relief that we were safe and sound. “It happens too often that our best is not enough,” he laments, “no matter what we do. Too much works against us … be it the ticking clock or the wrath of nature.”

After emphatically reassuring me that I took the appropriate actions and even complementing me on a carefully articulated, clear, and calm manner during the Mayday call, Bouknight insisted that no one should hesitate to send a distress call should the need arise. He claims, “All Coast Guardsmen feel only relief when they find a vessel in distress is safe.”

Eventually I learned that I could have resolved the SAR case more quickly by simply phoning the closest Coast Guard unit. The agency is structured on a series of ever broadening tiers so messages find their way swiftly to the right person. But Bouknight characterizes phoning in to close a SAR case as “considerate, but not overwhelmingly necessary.”

I have a heightened respect for the individuals and organization that makes up the United States Coast Guard. Humbly refusing to accept accolades, Bouknight claims “I was trained to search for every boat like I had my own family aboard.” He goes on to say, “Everything was made possible by a chain of individuals who operated with consistency and professionalism.”

As a reflection of his deep, personal commitment to saving lives, Bouknight ends all of his email correspondences with “Dum Spiro Spero,” while I breathe, I hope.

2010-06-25T23:08:00.000-05:00

All through the dark the wind looks for the grief it belongs to.
W.S. Merwin

Dinghy the Sailor Cat: Part IV

2010-06-25T23:01:00.003-05:00

Dinghy is easily the most admired member of our crew. So sweet is her disposition that Dave and I had to institute an “equal kiss policy:” if you’re going to kiss the cat you must kiss your spouse. How did she earn this extreme popularity?

First, she adores attention. “Road-kill Kitty” is what Dave calls her sudden flop-and-roll move that cannot be ignored. Lying fetchingly on her back, white paws suspended in the air, it is impossible to resist giving her chin a scratch. Below decks, she has the habit of standing eye-to-eye with us on the top step of the companionway poking her nose toward us for kisses. She is especially fond of Dave’s bristles and their “kiss sessions” go on for minutes. Her naps inspire our naps as she looks sleepily at us with Bahamian, yeah-mon eyes. Nightly, she imitates a lap dog as we watch a DVD. Her favorite program is Battlestar Galactica.

Dinghy does her part with crew chores, too. She is assigned varmint patrol and stalks the bowls of the boat munching flies and the occasional cockroach.

Who would have guessed that our kitty would be the hunting dog Dave always wanted. On island after island, the two operated like a well-honed team. No bug was too small, no curly-tailed lizard too big for their attack. Much to her dismay, Dinghy never came close to catching a lizard. But, when we learned of the killer ticks populating the islands, her hunting days were over. Ticks resistant to any US flee and tick preventions reportedly crawl onto the animal, ride into the boat, lay eggs in the beds, produce larva that grow under human skin, and kill pets from secondary infection. We were impressed enough to curtail our fun.

Does Dinghy swim? Not by choice. One day in Jacksonville we were taping large boxes for shipment. As Dave straddled the box on the pier, Dinghy came around the corner. Her body met his swinging foot and she was launched to the full extent of her leash. This is when I began hearing Dinghy psychically speak to us in full-fledged sailor talk.

For her first birthday, we made one of her favorite dinners: tuna casserole. As a gift we gave her free-rein above decks when on anchor from that point forward. This created a monster. Now at every sunrise Dinghy does patty-paws on the companionway hatch boards, rattling them until we are awake. She is biologically compelled to monitor the local bird population at this time of day. Our only solace is how uncomfortable she is walking in the deck’s morning dew, high stepping and shaking her feet with every step.

Clearly, her favorite sailing task is climbing the mast, sinking her claws into the lines that hang. From there, she can sleep in the best place on the boat: the folds of the sail stacked on the high boom. Yes, we’ve lost her in the folds of the sails several times. We encourage her to surface again with the prodding of boat poles. Her mast climbing skills are an asset because this is a sometimes necessary task her humans don’t enjoy. Perhaps we’ll teach her how to carry a drill and pull a line so she can do something valuable while she’s at it.

2010-06-25T22:58:00.001-05:00

Be a Columbus to whole new continents and
Worlds within you,
Opening new channels, not of trade,
But of thought.
Walden
Henry David Thoreau

Company

2010-06-25T22:53:00.001-05:00

I love my kids. They have grown to be wonderful adults, people with whom it is worth spending time. That is why it was a treat to have Maggie, Eland, and Ale--our Mexican foreign exchange student from ten years past--join us for nearly a week aboard WILD HAIR.

While they were here, the weather was Bahama-perfect. Warm, clear skies made possible a wide range of activities, including: sailing, snorkeling, beach sunbathing, hiking, sea shelling, diving for conch, spear-fishing, iguana feeding, and touring a remote inland river—an eco preserve—via our dinghy. We ate coconut and fresh-caught lobster. Sunsets were celebrated nightly with different rum drinks. Everyone got to experience an outdoor “swimsuit” shower on the boat’s transom.

In Nassau Harbor, we shopped at the native straw market, enjoyed fine dining, and watched Flamingos “march.” The kids brought DVDs and music from their homes for our nightly entertainment. Maggie and I were trounced by Dave and Ale in our family’s favorite card game: Schlutenglaggen.

As fellow sailors know, it’s tricky planning a successful sailing vacation for visitors. Our goal was to give the kids an experience of traveling by boat to exciting destinations. We wanted them to see for themselves the variety that the islands offer. So, there were early decisions to be made about the route and last-minute decisions based upon what was doable given the actual weather.

Planning meals for five was a challenge. Our stove is limited by two burners and an itty-bitty oven. Our pots and pans are sized for two eaters. Some visitors were voracious carnivores while others were conscientious vegetarians. With a little creativity, the meals were a hit and no one went hungry. The fare included: fresh “cracked” conch, Mexican Pasta Salad, hearty fish stew, and a “Pirate’s Eye” Toast and Egg breakfast.

To feel welcome on board, everyone needed their own space. Dave and I cleared several cupboards and gave each visitor their own cubbies and hooks for their stuff. Dave and I slept in the salon so the kids could spread out in their own private staterooms with en suite heads.
Finally, it was our duty to protect everyone’s safety and well-being. To this end, Dave and I unearthed our spare life jackets and reviewed with our new crew WILD HAIR’s man overboard drill. Anticipating potential medical discomforts, we stocked up on sunscreen and seasickness medications.

Unfortunately, Dave and I didn’t think of everything. Despite our best efforts, some of our guests experienced a day of mild seasickness, others got second-degree sunburns and uncomfortable allergy flare-ups. In retrospect, I wish I baked the French fries at a hotter temperature, and I wish I remembered to pull the chicken out of the freezer a day earlier.
All in all, it was a joyous time together. I suspect they will join us again for another satisfying adventure.

2010-06-25T22:51:00.001-05:00

I could be bounded in a nutshell and
Count myself King of infinate space.
Hamlet
William Shakespeare

Sharks

2010-06-25T22:44:00.001-05:00

MONDAY, MAY 1, 2010—With great anticipation, Dave and I arrived to the shores of Conception Island. Known as “a paradise in paradise,” Conception Island is a preserved wilderness area managed by the Bahamas National Trust. Hidden crescent-shaped beaches, long-tailed tropic birds, turtles, and miles of mature coral reefs promised entertaining exploration in the days ahead.

As soon as we dropped anchored, I jumped into the crystal clear water with my snorkel gear to make sure the anchor had a proper grip in the sand. It did. I relished the cool water as I paddled around the boat feeling my core temperature drop. I marveled at the starkness of the underwater environment: no fish or vegetation, just miles of clean sandy bottom. Amazing. I lingered in the water a long time.

As I climbed out and started thinking about dinner, Dave jumped in. He too seemed to enjoy the water as heat, humidity, and the day’s sweat lifted from his body. But then, I saw him spin his body unnaturally. Adjacent to WILD HAIR, Dave started paddling backwards staring at something near his feet: a shark.

Dave had inadvertently jumped into the water with an open cut on his heal. Realizing he attracted the shark, Dave scurried out of the water to safety back on board. He leashed our kitten, Dinghy, so that she couldn’t choose that moment to fall overboard. The shark was massive, agitated, threatening. Normally harmless, this Nurse Shark was greater than six feet in length and it was hungry. Round and round it circled WILD HAIR as it tasted blood and hunted for dinner. Feeling like unwilling prey, I shuddered as I went below decks to make dinner.

“What are you making?” Dave shouted below.

“Sweet and sour Chicken,” I responded.

“What did you put down the sink that drained into the water?” Dave persisted.

“I just rinsed the chicken breasts,” I considered. “Chicken blood?”

“That explains why we now have two sharks!” Dave concluded.

Springing up from below decks I saw a second shark even larger than the first. This fellow was a notoriously mean Lemon Shark. It swam so aggressively around the boat that Dave decided to take action. He swished our boat pole at the water’s surface to attract the animal, and then poked the shark hard on the top of the head with the pole’s pointed end. This further angered the hungry shark and did nothing to deter his search for food.

“What can I feed them to get rid of the things?” Dave queried.

“Feed them?” I asked. “If you feed them they will be attached to WILD HAIR for life!”

Seeing the logic in this, Dave decided to do the only thing we could do, leave them alone.

It was unsettling to eat our meal in the cockpit of the boat as the sharks circled. It was disquieting to watch the pair continue to hunt for blood as the sun slipped below the horizon and the world turned dark. It was a relief to wake in the morning to find the sharks had gone.

In the end, we didn’t swim at Conception Island again. On the second day of our stay, Dave’s cut hadn’t sufficiently healed so we did beach-based activities. On the third day, family issues pulled us out of the wilderness toward an island with an airport. As it turns out, we didn’t have to fly back to Wisconsin; we cut short our visit to Conception Island prematurely. However, neither one of us complained about missing the opportunity to snorkel the pristine reefs of “a paradise in paradise.”

2010-06-25T22:40:00.001-05:00

The worst tyrants are those which
Establish themselves in our own breast.
The man who wants force of principle and purpose is a slave,
However free the air he breathes.
Spiritual Freedom
William Ellery Channing

Gifts

2010-06-25T22:34:00.002-05:00

DECEMBER 20, 2009—I was surprised by an unexpected turn of events during a Holiday Open House for the friends and family members of the Center for Resilient Cities (http://www.resilientcities.org/). My colleagues took the opportunity to honor my retirement as director of the organization through kind words and thoughtful gifts. With insight into my new life and a little help from my husband, my associates bestowed upon me a tiny, boat-sized plaque adorned in the organization’s logos and given in recognition of my “pioneering spirit, vision, and devotion.” I was genuinely touched. Then a large gift box appeared with a state-of-the-art underwater camera inside. I was speechless.

I have had fun these many months in the Bahamas experimenting, learning how to use the camera. I have discovered unique challenges to photography in an underwater environ include wave motion, silt, the filtering of light through water, refraction, and the unpredictability of wildlife. Fortunately, the camera is “smart” and can automatically help overcome many of these challenges.

The images included here are the best fruits of my efforts. You’ll appreciate that the images of coral are generally more successful than the images of fish. As any fisherman can tell you, they are speedy creatures. To date, I am not speedy enough to fully capture their beauty—but I’m getting there!

I have found underwater photography a humbling but immensely entertaining endeavor. Through their generosity, my colleagues have given me a new world of opportunity. Knowing them as I do, I should not be surprised that they continue to enrich my life. I remain grateful for all of their gifts throughout the years.

Thanks again, dear friends.

2010-06-25T22:27:00.003-05:00

The Almighty has played the old joke of
taking away the chair on which you were going to sit every day….
The truth is that you have landed on another reality.
You are bewildered, your consciousness flustered….
Even if you do not understand it,
know that what has happened to you is something marvelous.
You are no longer the same as you were moments ago
and, if you are wise enough, you will never be.
Other things matter now.
You will climb other mountains.
You will face other demons.
Other brothers will walk along with you.
Live your new life. Look with new eyes.
Nevertheless, be prepared to be reborn. Again.
Only by doing so will you be able to reach the end of the way.
L.E. Schultz

Deck Level Forecasting

2010-06-25T22:18:00.003-05:00

Sitting happily on anchor in George Town, on a beautiful sunny day, I decided to try my hand at deck-level forecasting. Weather faxes and broadcast reports coming to WILD HAIR through our VHF and SSB radios indicated that a significant cold front was moving toward us. But I knew seasoned sailors do more than depend upon regional reports. The most accurate information comes to a sailor from personal observations of wind, sea, clouds, and barometric pressure. So, I decided to get a little “seasoning” and weigh the regional predictions against my own deck level observations. I pulled out all the weather books we had on the boat and got serious about studying the clues.

Weather shapes everything we do on WILD HAIR. Prior to going anywhere we wait for favorable winds and moderate conditions to give us a good start toward our destination. If we don’t have them we simply don’t go. Some days, the weather tells us where to go because a stiff breeze on the nose is a miserable slog but the same conditions from behind make a gloriously ride. Weather informs our anchoring decisions, including: where we anchor, the number of anchors we use, the anchor type, and whether or not we can leave the boat untended to go to shore.

My task that day was to find at least three indicators of potential change. Weather, being an especially complex system, will give one symptom of change nearly all the time. If you see two indicators, you should take notice. With three symptoms you can nearly bank on the fact that something is going to happen. This time, I found four clues: the barometer had fallen over a few hours to 1009 mb, the sky was covered by a whitish film, cloud layers were moving in different directions and at different speeds, and the night before—due to low level clouds—the sun set “high.“ These indicators, plus the fact that local boaters were organizing a gag prize for the first boat to slip its grip, prompted us to set a second anchor.

Then, stupidly, came my disconnect. Earlier in the day Dave and I had agreed to buy the last few groceries we needed at 16:00. Our plans were to sail to a new location the next day after the front blew through. Dutifully at 16:00, I re-stowed my weather forecasting books, Dave put away his studies on electrical systems, and we dinghied to shore leaving (uncharacteristically) all the port lights and hatches open.

Stepping out of the grocery store at 17:10 under a foreboding, black, and rolling sky, I knew we were in trouble. We scrambled to the dinghy, loaded the groceries, and took off on the half-mile ride back to the boat. I stood in the bow of our 10-foot-long dinghy in a feeble attempt not to get drenched by the now three foot waves kicked up by the wind. The buckets of warm salt water that smacked hard over the bow were humorous until they knocked $17 into the harbor from the pocket of my dress. We arrived back to the boat just before the torrential downpour broke lose. We were incredibly lucky that WILD HAIR’s interior wasn’t flooded.

Sitting inside the protection of our enclosed Bimini with the engine armed, we monitored WILD HAIR and the vessels around us. We could see fellow sailors on their boats doing the same. Cautionary conversations buzzed on the local VHF channel as we saw or heard six boats break lose in the high winds and seas. It was comforting to note that the entire sailing community was engaged in safety patrol.

The winds had been predicted to clock from south/southwest to west/northwest. But as we watched, we experienced free-frontal activity. The wind (and boats in the anchorage) clocked 360 degrees. This happened not once but twice during the storm resulting in an enormous tangle in our two anchor lines—the downside of added security. Through it all, WILD HAIR stayed put.
By 19:30, the barometric pressure had climbed to 1012 mb. The front had passed. It was then that I realized I could be a cracker-jack deck level forecaster. There was only one problem. As in the rest of life, I needed to—without fail—let what I know inform what I do. Damn.

2010-06-25T22:17:00.000-05:00

Be in love with your life

Giac Thanh

Our cruising life is filled with:

2010-06-25T22:11:00.002-05:00

Smells of the ocean meeting land
Shooting stars
Charts
Weather reports crackling across the ionosphere
Skimming, flying fish
Trust
Kindness between spouses
Kindness from strangers
Swimming
Experiencing ourselves as both predators and prey
Silence
The sounds of happy children, barking dogs, and persistent roosters
Pinkish, powdery sand
Surprises
Beaming white smiles from dark faces
Sunsets
Romance
Sunscreen, cinnamon toes, and childhood freckles

2010-06-25T22:08:00.000-05:00

I am serene and satisfied.
When birds fly and the
fishes swim as in fable,
For the moral is not far off;
When the migration
of the goose is significant
And has a moral to it;
When events of the day
have a mythological character
And the most trivial is symbolized….
Every incident is a parable of the Great Teacher.

Journal Entry:
May 18,1852
Henry David Thoreau

Bedtime in Nassau

2010-06-25T22:03:00.001-05:00

It was lights out after a busy day in Nassau readying the boat for the arrival of our kids. We had carried from market to boat five days of all-you-can-eat food and drink for five people, freshened all the sheets and towels at the Laundromat, filled our water and propane tanks, and scrubbed the boat spotless inside and out. I was near sleep when I kindly and semi unconsciously helped Dinghy to the port light window so she could see what was making the sound that captured her attention.

This was how I found myself with the lights off in my stateroom holding the cat’s rump to the port light as my marina boat neighbors wove their way drunkenly down our shared pier. Like all good sailors, they were doing their damndest to be silent in their stupor as they navigated with care the route to their boat.

“Don’t move,” slurred the gallant man as he firmly planted his beloved, middle-aged wife not more than four feet away in the center of the pier.

“ O.K. I won’t move” she vowed in an earnest whisper.

Silence. More silence. Then, krrrr—splash!

Pause. Pause. “You’re kidding me” his bride muttered in monotone, keeping her promise not to move.

Concerned now for his well-being, I silently removed the cat from the window and took my own look through the port light. My view was limited to a steadfast mid-section of the woman and the man’s soggy body from belt-buckle to nipple. Somehow the knave had climbed out of the drink.

“How is it?” She deadpan whispered.

“Cold,” he quietly giggled.

He disappeared beyond my line of sight.

“What are you doing?” She prodded.

“Pulling the boat closer,” he logically responded.

“Oh, like that’s going to help!” She muttered, still guarding her position.

Without fanfare, she too wobbled out of my view. Shifting my concerned-neighbor view to a new window, I saw that they both had successfully mounted their vessel. They were safe.

I don’t know if they saw my cat Dinghy floating mysteriously at the port light. I don’t know if they saw me: a strange woman lurking in the dark. I do know that I laughed myself to sleep.

By the time I woke at 07:00 the next morning, they and their boat had departed. The sauced couple is made from stronger stuff than I.

2010-06-25T22:01:00.000-05:00

I am too blessed to be stressed!

Said one Bahamian lady to another while talking
on the street

Junkanoo

2010-06-25T20:08:00.003-05:00

Resplendent.

That is the best word to describe the musicians and dancers participating in the Saturday night Easter Junkanoo at Black Point. A small flock of trumpeters, trombonists, tuba players, garbage can drummers, Kalik (cow bell) ringers, and a rack ‘n scraper (a cheese grater artist) was adorned in fantastic, mardi gras -style costumes. In the dark of night, hundreds of people of all ages emerged from the small town to line the street and step and bounce to heart-pounding rhythms.

Junkanoo is a festival in the Bahamas and Turks and Cacaos celebrating freedom from slavery. The word is derived from a 17th Century slave master and trader named “John Canoe.” Given opportunity, Canoe’s slaves would hide in bushes, dance, and make music while covered in improvised costumes created from home-made paints and leaves.

Part of the Bahamian cultural fabric, Junkanoo celebrations vary widely from the elaborate parade with floats in Nassau to the recreated performances for cruise ship passengers in Fish Fry Village or Rock Sound. In Black Point, the Easter Junkanoo celebration was the climax of a fundraising festival supporting the community’s multi-purpose center. Food, drink, clown ventriloquists, and face-painters, had loosened the crowd. Trophies were ready for award to the winners of the day’s basketball, fishing, and domino contests.

Scheduled to begin at 20:00, the Junkanoo actually started on Bahama time at 21:30. From the darkness came a thumping, repetitive tune playful in its execution. Soloists took turns flaunting their musical prowess. Decorated dancers broke from the group to display high energy moves. The freshly constructed handmade costumes sparkled. Sequined patterns on crisp white, oranges, and yellows set off towering feather headdresses.

Starting at one end of the block, the musicians danced nearly in place to the driving beat. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the musicians made their way down the street. The locals swooped around the group and joined in the dancing, shouting cheers of encouragement. The energy was infectious. The handful of sailors present were swept into the crowd with the locals and danced and bounced like residents. After a period of time (perhaps 30 minutes), and some distance (maybe a half block), the musicians spontaneously did an about face. This caused chaos in the crowd as everyone bumped into each other in a friendly bopping mess.

This is Junkanoo: resplendent musicians surrounded by happy party goers “marching” up and down the block many times while playing a driving tune. In this simple fun nothing else matters. A bond of love and camaraderie is born.

2010-06-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

I’m the Preacher now!

Said the Captain of a B-Class
racing boat to his argumentative crew

George Town, Exumas, Bahamas

2010-06-25T16:00:00.001-05:00

Perhaps it was in Georgetown that I finally came to understand the magic of the Bahamas.

THE HISTORY

We found ourselves on a bus tour headed east from town. The tour was free, sponsored by the Bahamian government as part of the 57th National Family Island Regatta—the country’s largest and most popular five-day boat race and heritage festival. Luckily, Dave and I scored front row seats on the bus so we could hear the driver/tour guide even though the intercom was broken.

Driving down island we came to Rolle Town and the driver shared the local history. Having sided with the British government during the US War of Independence, the Rolle family—like many from the Carolinas— fled the United States with their slaves to find safe haven in the Bahamas. This is how the Bahamas came to be a British Colony.

The Rolle family started a plantation on Great Exuma Island. But, the land was rocky, dry, and salty. Fresh water was scarce. It was a hard place for a large plantation to thrive. After failing to make a significant profit, and after some nasty hurricanes, the Rolle family left the island and returned to England. As they departed, they deeded the land to their slaves—forever.

Today, everyone in Rolle Town has the last name of Rolle. Land cannot be bought or sold. At no cost, if you are part of the Rolle family’s slave lineage, you can claim stunning beachfront, former plantation property as your own. There is one catch. Because banks cannot hold the property as collateral and resell it should someone default, financing for home construction is impossible.

This story of settlement and deeded family land repeats itself in Williams Town, Hearts Well, and other communities throughout the islands. This is why the Exumas are known as the “family islands.”
As we came to a remote community of 30 residents, the driver shared his own story. In the 1960s and 70s, when the Bahamas were granted independent nation status as a member of the British Commonwealth, the islands were defenseless and overrun by drug traffickers. There was not enough economic activity as an independent nation to support the people. Many Bahamians lost their lives. The driver’s father decided to leave this remote village, fleeing with his wife and nine children in exodus to the United States.

Bahamian drug traffickers had ties to Ortega and Columbia. Seeing its own national security threatened, the United States government stepped in, established military bases, and—within a decade—ended the massive drug trade. The driver’s family joined others in returning to their nation.

On a side note, the only drug activity we saw in two winters of touring involved US-flagged cruising boats. The smell of ganja wafting is unmistakable.

2010-06-25T15:57:00.002-05:00

THE PEOPLE

Traveling throughout the Bahamas, Dave and I never felt like tourists. It is a superb feeling unlike anything we have experienced in our travels. Sailors have cruised these waters for generations so we were instant, de facto members of the community. Without exception, the Bahamians we met were willing to share a friendly chat. They were helpful, curious, and quick with a smile or a joke. Dave and I never felt hustled. We were never swindled. We never felt unsafe. For me, the beauty of the Bahamas starts with the generous and open-hearted nature of its people.

2010-06-25T15:54:00.004-05:00

THE PLACE

When Columbus entered Elizabeth Harbor— the setting of George Town—he reportedly exclaimed “the harbor could fit half the boats in Christendom.” Indeed, George Town is nestled in one of the largest and most beautiful protected harbors in the Caribbean. The water is crystal aquamarine and the beaches are a powdery white public relations dream. The town is the capital of the Exumas, arguably the most beautiful chain of islands in the Bahamas stretching 150 miles south and east.

Elizabeth Harbour was a favorite haunt of pirates and privateers. Later, during World War II, the harbor was a US and British allied forces Navy Base. From here, sea planes combed the skies between Cuba and Florida looking for German submarines.

George Town is the most southerly annual destination of hundreds of American and Canadian sailors. But given its scale, the harbor never felt crowded. Over the years, returning cruisers have gotten things organized. A morning VHF radio program gives boaters the day’s weather report, a review of events, and opportunities ask questions of fellow boaters. There are seriously competitive volleyball tournaments, beach yoga and Pilates, children’s programs, workshops on topics like celestial navigation, weddings, craft projects, and weekly Texas Hold’em games.

The town provides a full range of services to cruisers. The well-stocked grocery store offers free reverse osmosis water and accepts packages for boaters at no charge. (Water is normally purchase in the Bahamas for 40 cents a gallon.) Several places in town offer cheap phone connections to the United States so leisurely, catch-up conversations are made possible. We paid our taxes at a small internet café. My favorite George Town perk: Mom’s Bakery because Mom gives hugs and blessings with each bread sale.

2010-06-25T15:49:00.003-05:00

THE RACE

Dave and I made a point to visit George Town during the National Family Island Regatta, April 20th through the 24th. Of the 18 regattas throughout the country, this is the most prestigious. Event sponsors engage school children in national contests to name the annual theme. Each year, the event honors an enterprising boat builder or captain that has contributed to the growth and development of this national sport. This year’s featured craftsman was also a sponger; he was the first in the world to discover a method for “planting” sponges by dividing mature creatures and rooting them on the sea bed with weights.

The regatta is comprised of three classes of boats. All boats are handmade in the tradition of Bahamian work boats. The vessels are beamy, gaff-rigged cat boats with old-fashioned canvas sails; keeping to historic traditions, high tech materials are prohibited.

The racecourse spans the harbor, so competing boats sail through anchorages, narrowly missing stationary cruising vessels in the process. Spectators chase racers in their dinghies and gather at the turns to cheer on favorites and watch collisions. Turns are demanding. As the boats swing round the markers, racers must avoid being knocked into the water by the flying boom, adjust sail trim, and shift ballast by sliding “hiking boards” across the beam and crawling out over the water on the opposite side. Often, spectators and their dinghies must scramble out of the way when the unexpected happens. When a collision results in a sinking, event organizers tow the submerged vessel out of the field, plowing the workboat across the harbor floor as they go. Safely out of the way, it is the responsibility of the race boat captain to figure out how to get their boat back to the surface.

None of the competitors wear life jackets.

During the Regatta, George Town itself is transformed into festival grounds. Shack permits are issued to entrepreneurs and the government dock becomes party central. Prior to the event, I asked a Bahamian construction worker how Bahamians could party all night and race their boats all day. His response, “Ah, that is both the advantage and the disadvantage, mon.”

The festivities attract visiting dignitaries. Reportedly, we saw the world’s “most photographed” model; she was a stunning half Bahamian and half Brazilian young lady with a body that put Barbie’s to shame. While I marveled that a woman’s butt could actually have that shape, men circled her like dim-witted dogs. Less provocatively, we shook the Prime Minister’s hand two nights in a row.

George Town is controversial among sailors. The busy social life driven by notoriously “type-A” Americans does run counter to a relaxed cruising lifestyle. The number of boaters causes many to run off in search of isolated anchorages. But, we visited George Town late in the season. I’m not sure our experience was typical. What Dave and I found was an abundance of friendly people, services, and adventurous fun. I heartily recommend a late-season visit to all.

2010-06-25T15:43:00.003-05:00

I aint promising you tomorrow

Said a the man on a bar stool when I explained
I couldn’t have a gin and coconut juice after two beers

Two Sides of an Island: Sweet Cay

2010-06-25T15:30:00.003-05:00

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010—Today we made our first landfall in the Bahamas at the western shore of Great Harbour Cay or “Sweet Cay” as it is known to the locals. After days of isolation on the water, an unknown, lanky Bahamian caught our lines and boasted, “Side thrusters will kick in now, mon” as he pulled WILD HAIR toward the pier.

Dinghy, our goodwill ambassador, surprised and delighted the marina administrator. She giggled, “I have a silly cousin named ‘Dingy!’”

Hours went by with us trapped restlessly on the boat, quarantined until the customs agent could come from the airport. Despite our eagerness to explore, it was illegal to wander ashore without clearing customs and hoisting the Bahamian courtesy flag. The paperwork took only minutes to complete when the uniformed official arrived after lunch. We were off.

It was raining. Opting not to rent a golf cart to tour the 7.5 miles of island road, we found ourselves happily wandering the newly paved street, stretching our legs. But time and again, drivers either honked and waved or pulled over to offer us a ride. Finally, we accepted a ride into town from two very large, dark men, one heavily tattooed with the phrase “Papa.”

We asked, “What do you do in town when you get there?”

They answered in their thick Bahamian lilt, “Drink, gamble, and eat—that’s what you do in town, mon!”

They were right. When we arrived we found everything closed but the grocery store and the bar/restaurant. Men’s voices boomed from inside, sounding as if they were cheering a cock fight. It seems the rain made the day unusual. Because nearly everyone worked outside, it was the island’s unwritten rule that no one works when it rains.

Standing like outsiders on a street where everyone grew up together, another stranger approached. Introducing himself as Benjamin, he offered an impromptu review of all the places to which we could walk and the houses that sell bread. “Just knock,” he urged.

After walking a bit and turning down a few more rides, we accepted a lift from two guys in a jeep. They were mechanics with the day off. Hearing we had newly arrived, they insisted on taking us to the airport for a peek. Next door, they encouraged us to get a drink at the Beach Club Bar claiming, “It is very popular with the tourists.” Despite the TV blaring an American soap opera, the location was spectacular and the cracked conch was crunchy and delicious.

Getting the hang of this island hitch-hiking thing, we quickly picked up a ride from a man named “Yellow.” Without prompting, he decided we needed to see High Rock—a vista for tourists under construction. Our ride was made slow by his troublesome fuel pump; we crept painfully, humorously up the hill to High Rock. Gazing out at the uninterrupted view, Yellow wistfully declared, “Sometimes, I come up here by myself and my mind goes crazy!”

2010-06-25T15:25:00.002-05:00

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010—Today we circled Sweet Cay aboard WILD HAIR and anchored in a lovely harbour on the east side of the island. We just happened to anchor off the shore of the Beach Club Bar, yesterday’s conch restaurant. Taking Dinghy for her first beach walk-about, we met a handful of American ex-patriots residing on the island. When it is not raining, they gather at cocktail hour for a game of Petanque, the French version of Bocce Ball. Before we knew it, we were drafted onto teams and found ourselves in the middle of a Noel Coward play—a farce.

Each of the ex-patriots had a comically eccentric personality. Dave and I were the fresh audience for their long-standing riffs and follies. There was the bossy, know-it-all, board to death, self-appointed hostess who became progressively soused as we played; the Nostradamus-preaching poet that laughed like a hyena and spontaneously spouted his published poetry (while the hostess blurted, “Of all your poems, I hate this one the most”); the his-and-her authors in the throws of writing their next motivational book; and the silent couple that we spotted earlier watching Judge Judy at the bar. When the silent woman—a dead ringer for Cruella DeVille—arched her eyebrows and deftly knocked others out of play, her husband snarled, “the bitch is back.”

Like all Noel Coward plays, we had a delightful time and were home in a few hours.

2010-06-25T15:16:00.004-05:00

You have these experiences….
And sometimes they are very strong ones.
And then they are over, but you cannot say what they mean.
You just go on.
Maybe you are happy, maybe you are scared,
maybe you are sad. But you want to say,
“I learn this, or I learn that, or I understand better.”
But maybe you don’t understand better,
and it is not so easy to say
what you learn and what you don’t learn.
Right of Thirst
Frank Huyler

Books: Two Thumbs Up

2010-06-25T15:01:00.003-05:00

Having spent months traveling aboard WILD HAIR with no television or radio, Dave and I are well read. We would like to recommend the following books for your summer reading enjoyment (listed in alphabetical order):

All the Pretty Horses by Cormick McCarthy
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Constant Gardener by John leCarre
Lost at Sea by Patrick Dillon
Right of Thirst by Frank Huyler
The Road by Cormick McCarthy
Saturday by Ian McEwan
This Much I Know by Wally Lamb

Further, we would like to recommend the definitive sailing reference that puts an end to all of our boat arguments (the squabbles Dave calls “mutinies”):

Blue Water Voyaging by Beth Leonard

ADVENTURES OF s/v WILD HAIR

2009-12-03T12:32:00.009-06:00

It’s not about the sailing.
It’s about slowing down enough to experience the unexpected.

This fall, Dave and I sailed the Chesapeake Bay aboard sailing vessel WILD HAIR. We explored seaports by foot, golf cart, and loaned cars. We visited museums and state fairs, mended broken ribs, twice dragged anchor, and followed our Badger Football team via satellite radio. We saw the homes of John and Yoko and Dick Cheney. After 6 weeks of adventuring in ever-cooling temperatures, we headed south in three legs.

First, we traveled offshore from Portsmouth, Virginia (around the elbow of Cape Hatteras) to Southport, North Carolina. That leg ended as we got ourselves towed from “Frying Pan Shoals” up the “Cape Fear River” to spend three days cleaning fuel lines and diesel tanks.

On the second leg, we motored the Intercoastal Waterway from North to South Carolina, avoiding the aftermath of Hurricane Ida and proving to ourselves that the engine was happy again.

For the third leg, we traveled offshore from Georgetown, South Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida.

Today, the boat is resting at a marina in Jacksonville while Dave and I make merry holidays in Madison, Wisconsin. Photos here reveal good-looking towns and distinctive doings from our cruising life. Stories take time to describe our most remarkable goings-on.

By scrolling down the right-hand side of this page, you'll find "Blog Archives." I invite you to check out past postings of our travels.

Happy Holidays to you and yours. Please stay in touch!

NAVIGATING FEAR

2009-11-30T17:50:00.005-06:00

Shipwrecks off Cape Hatteras are legendary. So dangerous is this offshore passage that the Cape was a major factor prompting the federal government in 1808 to begin construction of the Intercoastal Waterway, a dredged inland route for commercial traffic spanning more than a thousand miles along the east coast. Dave and I prefer to sail the ocean and avoid motoring the mostly monotonous parade of second homes peppering the Waterway. But when it came to sailing around the outside of Cape Hatteras, I was chicken.

A little geography lesson will help me make my point. Picture a map of the United States. Moving from south to north, Florida hangs like Caesar’s thumb of condemnation from the bottom. Georgia and South Carolina curl shyly westward in a graciously southern arch. North Carolina juts eastward again, forming a great elbow at Cape Hatteras. There is a second westward scallop curling through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and beyond.

To sail from Virginia to Florida, I--as WILD HAIR’s unofficial navigator--had to understand why boats shipwreck off Cape Hatteras. Unfortunately, our guidebooks were silent on the topic as they routed recreational boaters down the Waterway. Interviews with seasoned sailors were most telling.

Problems around the Cape seem to have a few causes. First, conditions are dangerous when winds blow from the south-west because those winds build powerful waves in a matter of days. Always in sailing, winds are relatively benign until they drive wave action; it is the combination of winds and waves that kills. If we were to experience this condition, we would round the Hatteras landmark and meet south-west winds and waves on the nose. We could literally be driven backward into the shallow shoals of the Cape.

The Gulf Stream—a northbound river within the ocean—further confounds navigation. Think again of the shape of the east coast and you will not be surprised that the Gulf Stream nearly touches both the coast of Florida and Cape Hatteras. Scooting around the point of Hatteras is like threading a needle between the shallow shoals and a river moving four to five knots in the wrong direction. With WILD HAIR's top hull speed of eight knots, the river current is something we could not ignore.

Finally, a local magnetic disturbance—a planetary phenomenon—is charted in the area. Compasses are known to be an astonishing 11 degrees off. Today, however, the danger of an inaccurate compass can be mitigated by GPS feedback.

Knowing all this I became fearless.

I watched the weather and picked a departure day when the winds were solidly from the north. After charting our route, I calculated a departure time that would put us off Cape Hatteras at 7:00 am, giving us plenty of daylight to deal with anything unexpected that might arise. I studied current satellite images of the Gulf Stream and determined that we’d have a distance of roughly eight miles from the shore before entanglement with the river’s fastest moving outer edge. Plus, none of the Gulf Stream’s notorious swirling eddies were in our path. Finally, we confirmed that our GPS was functioning on the chart plotter, and put fresh batteries in our backup handheld GPS unit. All these tasks were performed under the watchful partnership of my husband, Captain Dave.

In the end, our navigation around Cape Hatteras was—happily—uneventful. The overall experience was confidence-building and far more interesting that motoring inland channels.

THE HEARTBREAK OF TANGIER

2009-11-30T17:47:00.010-06:00

I found our visit to the remote island of Tangier to be simultaneously delightful and unbearable. I fell in love with a people on the brink of extinction.

THE AMBASSADOR
Tangier, is an inhospitable-looking stretch of land barely breaking the Bay’s surface, It is bisected by a narrow navigable channel, a hub for fishing and recreational boat traffic. The island's unofficial ambassador is 78-year-old Milton Parks. The man is a retired Waterman, a US military veteran, and an ancestor to the island's earliest settlers. Like St. Francis of Assisi, Mr. Parks walks his marina piers with a dog and a half-dozen cats tussling at his feet. Quickly in conversation you learn he is someone who knows the meaning of hard work; crabbing by day and working construction by night, Mr. Parks built the island’s only marina 40 years ago. Remarkably, he and his sons also laid a football field length of heavy boulders to stand steadfast as a breakwater to the marina and channel.

Mr. Parks loves and spoils his guests. At $30 per night, his marina prices were the best value we’d encountered in two years of cruising. Earnestly wanting us to have a good time, Mr. Parks rushed us to dinner in his golf cart at four in the afternoon. Lavern, he explained, keeps “church hours.” Because hers was the only year-round restaurant on the island, we had to leave immediately to try her crab cakes.

In the tiny restaurant, we met other good-natured Tangier residents. Most remarkable was their accent. Tangier was settled in the 1600’s by a group of Cornish pilgrims from England. After 400 years of relative isolation, today's residents carry a rich blend of cockney and Virginia drawl in their speech. To my ear, their private conversations were melodic and undecipherable. Kindly, when they spoke to us, their accent was transformed to that of main-stream America.

Shortly, Mr. Parks returned to the restaurant in his golf cart to give us an unsolicited full-island tour. The island’s central canal had the look of a working waterfront. Rusting crab pots, dilapidated boats, and marine debris were piled haphazardly along shore. But farther in, freshly painted modest homes lined pedestrian and golf cart “streets” made of crushed oyster shells. The pride of ownership was collective. A few houses promised crafts and gifts inside—evidence of a fledgling tourism industry. The homes of newcomers (nearly) blended with the homes of locals. Mr. Parks made it clear that everyone was welcome on the island.

We also witnessed that Tangier was an island of cats. Felines roamed freely and un-spade. Dave and I had been warned by people on the mainland that islanders control the cat population by putting strays onto visiting boats. Consequently, prior to our arrival, we had assigned Dinghy guard duty. Throughout our Tangier visit, Dinghy stood sentinal, alert and yowling her disapproval as others got too close.

The next day we bought groceries and explored the island by foot. At the market, photos of shoppers clutching grocery bags while knee-deep in salt water lined the walls. Flooding we learned was a regular occurrence. The grocer said simply, "when the tide is high and the moon is just so the island floods."

We wandered without direction throught the streets and found ourselves at the local history museum. To enter the museum, a sign on the door instructed us to “walk around back” and “ring the doorbell of the house behind.” Once done, we found ourselves in the living room of a young Artist in Residence. Armed with both Art and History degrees, this energetic fellow joined the community last year to transform an old house into an interpretive center. The young man admitted us into the museum and answered our many questions. His newly crafted displays, writings, and collected photographs were revealing. Professional videos and audio recordings disclosed--in the words of local residents--the community’s stories, memories, and fears. It was in the history museum that we began to learn of the natives’ crisis.

A COMMUNITY IN CRISIS
On Tangier Island, the people's shared livelihood is soon-to-be outlawed. Young people are already driven to the mainland for work, the intricate web of generations-old relationships is unraveling, and the charming culture is likely doomed.

The men of Tangier are Watermen. For centuries, Watermen have caught and sold the Chesapeake Bay’s famous Blue Point (soft shelled) crabs. Eighty percent of the world’s Blue Points come from a handful of independent Watermen working the Bay. Six days a week Watermen rise at 4 am to hoist, empty, and re-bait crab pots. The most ambitious manage up to 400 crab pots a day, year round. Largely done by hand, hauling pots through 40 to 70 feet of water is wet, cold, dangerous, exhausting work.

The Chesapeake Bay resource is struggling. The “glory days” when trainloads of oysters were hauled to New York City have ended. Non-point source pollution chokes oxygen levels thereby killing sport fish. Invasive predators destroy any number of delicate population balances. Influential political forces are fighting to preserve the health of the Chesapeake for future generations. Environmentalists and sport fishers go toe-to-toe with the commercial fishing industry. The science driving their passionate cause is new, untested, and a mystery to the island's Watermen. National politics are vicious. Compassion is nonexistent.

As a result, Watermen’s historic crabbing beds are heavily restricted and the economics of their trade no longer work. As small businesses they own their boats, buy fuel and bait, build and maintain their pots, and—maybe—hire a helper. After 10 hours of labor, they may have 10 bushels of crab that they sell to a middle-man at the going rate of $15 per bushel. With rising fuel prices, $150 cannot cover operational costs and feed families.

Just this year, crabbing was made illegal five months out of the year.

Last spring, for the first time since the 1600’s, not one of the graduates from the island’s school will go on to become a Waterman. Most Watermen are too old to learn a new trade and too young to retire.

It gets worse. There is evidence that the island (actually all the land along the Virginia and Maryland east coast of the Chesapeake Bay) is sinking. It is thought that in geologic history a meteor struck the Sassafras River, opening the river to the ocean, and giving birth to the Chesapeake Bay. Scientists believe the land is still reverberating with shock waves and the eastern shore is in a slow downward thrust. Tangier locals are convinced their flooding woes are aggravated by melting polar ice caps.

By the time Dave and I left the history museum, I could hardly breathe. These kind and simple people are not lobbyists and have no voice in the larger resource decision-making process. But, I am (among other things) a lobbyist. I found myself rapidly calculating how I might live on Tangier, commute (by boat) to Washington DC, and steer the debate to protect their interests and preserve their culture. Old habit energies of running with an environmental cause sprang to the surface. I would challenge and clarify environmental science and bring environmental sustainability to poor and underrepresented people. But, in the midst of my internal tirade, something caught in my head.

I remembered that I’m sailing with my husband. Our time together is sacred for us as a couple and it would be far too easy for either one of us to fill our time with work. Knowing how tempting work is, Dave and I actually promised each other that we would not do that. As I calmed, I realized Tangier was not my fight; the world would have to sort this one out without me.

THE SALE
We returned to the boat and found the “middle man” had arrived. Milton’s son Doug lived on the mainland and traveled to Tangier each day by boat to buy the day’s catch from the Watermen. Boat after boat bellied up alongside Doug’s larger trawler, unloading bushel baskets that overflowed with live critters. Once on the mainland, the company Doug worked for would truck the catch to Canada; the crab would be in Toronto by morning.

Fellow sailboat cruisers Paul and Sheryl Shard were onboard Doug’s boat filming the Watermen's exchange. As TV personalities, this talented cruising couple is in their fifth season producing Distant Shores, an internationally sindicated travel show. Together, Paul and Sheryl participate in whatever activity is at hand, film their experience, and edit footage into a coherant whole. At their urging, Doug taught us all how to hypnotize crabs, how to tell male crabs from female, and how to hold them without getting pinched.

Illogically, there is almost no market for female Blue Point crabs (except in China). Wanting to do a taste test, we bought a dozen males for $15 and a dozen females for $3. Later that night at our private crab boil, we confirmed there is no difference in taste, texture, or ease of picking. We also learned that Dave, Dinghy, and I cannot eat more than 18 crabs at one sitting. The act of steaming two dozen live crabs in WILD HAIR's tiny saucepans is another story.

Just as Doug’s boat departed, three more sailboats approached the marina looking for dockage. We had toyed with the idea of staying another day, but in the moment we decided to cast off to give the newcomers our prime dock space. Deep inside I knew it was time to press southward. If I stayed a moment longer I was at risk of dweling on Tangier Island forever.

Our Home Annapolis

2009-11-30T17:41:00.005-06:00

Annapolis Maryland was our home for 17 days. Drawn by the world’s largest in-water sailboat show, we submerged ourselves in the community’s historic charm, our own budding friendships, family visits, and opportunities to learn.

To get to our downtown Annapolis anchorage, we sailed from the bay, up a river, and into a creek. Arriving on a Saturday, the route was a technical trial as we navigated through the heart of not one but three racing regattas. After clearing the regattas, we met a mine field of crab pots threatening to wrap our prop, and dozens of inattentive kayakers clueless as to our limited maneuverability.

Gracious and welcoming, the people of Annapolis make this place the “Sailing Capital of the World.” Annually during the boat show, locals give up their picturesque downtown as throngs descend. Drivers stop on a dime when absent-minded tourists approach crosswalks. City Dock staff receive packages for boats sitting (free) on anchor. Pump Out boat drivers protect the Chesapeake Bay’s environment by cheerfully collecting holding tank waste. Overwhelmed restaurants and local businesses maintain good-humored service. Industry professionals work long hours meeting the needs of visiting conked out vessels. Community groups raise money as they assemble in shifts around grilles to feed hungry show-goers. Most remarkably, city leaders invest public dollars for floating dinghy docks every place where street ends meet water.

For us, the boat show attracted sailing friends from up and down the coast; our social life blossomed. Our Washington DC-based son Eland lived a rental car and 45 minutes away. We connected with some of the world’s most experienced sailors and technicians and learned buckets from them.

It’s rare and wonderful that a whole community shares a hobby and agrees to be generous. Add to that stunning architectural character, the geographical marvel of endless, deep waterways, and a spectacular presentation of fall color and it’s easy to see why Annapolis was our instant home away from home.

Exceptions to Life's Rules

2009-11-30T17:26:00.006-06:00

While fixing our engine in Southport, NC, I needed to catch a ride into town to buy fuel and oil filters and four- amp fuses; I no longer shop for pearl earrings. The marina manager was unable to help me, but the man he was talking to--Brooks--said he could. Brooks, a dead-ringer to James Cagney, was a smallish, 70-ish, well-seasoned fisherman. I learned in that moment that getting into cars with strange men is something I do while cruising that I don't do at home.

Brooks, as it turned out, was not as he appeared. He was a retired newspaper publisher. In his life he had appointments lecturing at two law colleges, and was now a real estate tycoon. He had two Portuguese Water Dogs and (of course) "knew Ted's dogs." Evidently, he and the Kennedy's were neighbors and close friends up in Cape May.

Brooks had one arm, was blind in one eye, and had recently recovered from his second heart attack. He was just diagnosed with diabetes. No stranger to pain, Brooks had had throat cancer a decade earlier and didn't speak for 3 years. He informed me, “that was not easy for a man who bought ink by the barrel!" The man refused to give up smoking.

Brooks drove me all over the county looking for the endangered and elusive four-amp fuse. It took hours. He knew everyone in town. I was charmed.

At the end our shopping spree, Brooks gave me his car. Yes. He informed me that he lives on nearby Bald Head Island but keeps a vehicle on the mainland parked at our marina. As a member of the Island’s Fire and Rescue Crew, Brooks often makes the car available to islanders with medical concerns needing transport to the hospital. The car is always open, the keys are barely hidden. Generously, he offered me unlimited use of the vehicle while we were in port.

I learned a lot that day about the cost of keeping myself distant from strangers, safe. I am so glad our lives crossed with the innocence and fearlessness of children.

DINGHY THE SAILOR CAT, PART III

2009-11-30T16:22:00.008-06:00

My adult nephew informed us over Thanksgiving that he thought our cat Dinghy wouldn’t last a month aboard s/v WILD HAIR. Oh contraire! Dinghy has adapted well and is a valued member of our crew. Her responsibilities these past weeks have included:

Overseeing as foreman all boat repairs
Eating errant fish found stranded on our deck
Eating fat, sugar, and salt (like mayonnaise, chocolate, and cashews)
Stalking geese, climbing trees, and traveling unfettered in Annapolis, Maryland aboard our inflatable dinghy
Stuffing herself with steamed crab in Crisfield Maryland and Onancock Virginia
Protecting WILD HAIR from trespass by the cats of Tangier Island
Keeping the mattress warm as we slept in shifts behind the lee cloth offshore
Drinking drops of Benedryl to prevent seasickness
Protecting the boat from trespass by the Chocolate-colored Labrador in Georgetown, South Carolina (in this task she was unsuccessful)
Escaping from the boat to wander the piers alone in Hampton, VA and Jacksonville, FL
Doubling in size from a kitten into a cat
Lapping water politely out of drinking fountains in airports across the country
Providing numerous giggles and stewarding crew morale

Since her arrival, Dave has knick-named WILD HAIR the “Happy Boat” (perhaps this is an unrelated occurrence, but I think not).

On a seperate note, Dave is to be known from this point forward as “Captain Happy.”

BOAT CARE AND REPAIR

2009-11-30T15:54:00.005-06:00

Cruising is sailing from one exotic port to the next to fix your boat.

It’s true! Salt water and the constant torque and flex of the boat underway combine to make an exceptionally harsh environment. The boat demands constant love and attention. Just for fun I’ve included here a list of the problems we experienced and the repairs we made in the month-and-a-half from September 27th to November 11th. By all accounts, this list is fairly typical for live-aboard cruisers.

Problem: after rebuilding the head, the toilet still won’t stay flushed
Solution: we installed a new electric toilet. This complex task challenged Dave’s plumbing, electrical, and mechanical skills, required multiple calls to the company’s technical support hotline and visits to the company’s booth at the Annapolis boat show to request a specially engineered part be sent overnight.

Problem: we exhausted our fuel supply in the Norfolk/Portsmouth shipping lane
Solution: we sailed to an anchorage (arriving after dark), added more fuel, and bled air out of system.

Problem: the boat’s engine died unexpectedly a week later
Solution: we called for a tow off the notorious “Frying Pan Shoals” at “Cape Fear,” cleaned diesel tar out of fuel/water separators, manifold valve, hoses, tanks and primary and secondary filters. Also, we pumped out and hand filtered all the diesel in the tanks.

Problem: our newly installed fuel filtering system repeatedly shorted out
Solution: after many weekend and late-night conversations with the company’s owner, we determined a yet-to-be-connected display wire was touching a piece of metal inside the engine room thereby causing the short.

Problem: the main sail pulled out of the mast track
Solution: we contacted the track’s manufacturer because the system was new and under warrantee. The item was repaired by a professional rigger.

Problem: the two-year-old Mercury outboard dinghy motor ran rough and died
Solution: we changed the sparkplugs and added de-watering solution to the gasoline.

Problem: the two-year-old Mercury outboard dinghy motor died again
Solution: we got a Mercury dealer to pick up the outboard from the boat, remove water from carburetor in his shop, acid wash, and steam clean the ethanol “varnish” from interior.

Problem: the two-year-old Mercury outboard dinghy motor died again
Solution: row to shore with plans to fix it when we’re someplace south.

Problem: our Garmin wind and speed indicators died
Solution: sail the old fashion way with “tell tails.”

Problem: our Garmin depth and temperature indicators died
Solution: we cuss and wonder what’s up.

Problem: our Garmin GPS positioning and chart plotting capabilities died as we depart from an unknown-to-us port with blinding morning sun in our eyes
Solution: we called Garmin and listened to an inexperienced technician apologize profusely and tell us the only thing to do would be to disassemble the unit and mail it back to them. Quivering at the thought of dismantling the system, we diagnosed the problem as a bad T-connection on the backbone. We replaced the connection and all is revived.

Problem: during rain events, water cascaded into the boat through every port light and hatch, destroying woodwork, and saturating bedding and clothes
Solution: we patched windows and hatches temporarily with silicone and made plans to remove and rebed all port lights and hatches when we arrive south.

Problem: while doing a routine pre-ignition engine check, we noticed the alternator belt was loose and while tightening the belt, we discovered the bolts holding the alternator in place had sheared off the bracket. The alternator was poised to fling uncontrolled from its mount, potentially busting through cabinetry and who knows what else.
Solution: we found the uniquely sized bolts online and had them delivered the next day.

Problem: the alternator stopped charging the boat’s battery bank and we quickly drained battery power
Solution: we discovered the field wire connection from the regulator to the alternator had corroded and broken free.

Problem: our backup electronic charts were lost from our laptop when the computer died (the computer experienced repetitive trauma from being thrown to the floor in rough wave action)
Solution: we bungeed a repaired computer to the navigation station and bought a replacement chip to reinstall Maptech on our new laptop.

Problem: our E-bay “bargain” of a single-sideband radio failed to transmit
Solution: after consulting ICOM technical support, we packed the unit up and shipped it to Oregon for repairs. Unfortunately, the unit worked perfectly for them. Upon its return, we reinstalled the unit; again it did not work for us. We intend to fix it when we arrive south.

Problem: without a single-sideband radio, we could not receive weather reports or make emergency calls more than 25 miles offshore
Solution: we purchased and installed a satellite telephone and internet data package.

Problem: below decks, light bulbs burned out, fans shrieked noisily, and faucets leaked
Solution: we installed new light fixtures, swapped fan locations, and rebuilt faucets.

Problem: the hose connecting the boat to municipal water at dock leaked into the bilge, causing the bilge pump to run incessantly
Solution: we shut off the system and installed a new check valve.

Problem: the bilge pump was at risk of sucking in cat toys and other tidbits that made their way between the floor boards and into the bilge
Solution: we installed a heavy-duty bilge strainer.

Problem: the LPG tanks were not to code with proper gages
Solution: we installed a new LPG regulator with pressure gage.

Problem: our handheld VHF radio would not charge in the charger
Solution: we took the unit into West Marine and they swapped out both the charger and the power cord for new.

Problem: we could not sleep offshore on passage due to the motion of the boat
Solution: we installed a lee cloth at our salon pilot berth (a cloth fastened beneath the cot and laced to overhead handrails to prevent sailors from falling out of bed).

Finally, we completed basic maintenance tasks. We regularly washed salt off the deck, canvas, and hardware, cleaned growth and rub marks off the hull, replaced the impeller, and changed the engine’s transmission fluid and oil.

That’s it.

Adding It Up

2009-08-23T17:05:00.001-05:00

Since September 2007, we have lived aboard s/v WILD HAIR, our 1994 45.5 foot Hylas sloop. Our trips along the East Coast have included the Grand Bahamas, Abacos, Eleuthra, Exumas, Nassau, and Bimini regions of the Bahamas; the Florida Keyes; the Intercoastal Waterway; Pamlico and Albermarle Sounds; and Biscayne and Chesapeake Bays. Together, we have undertaken many offshore passages, including a 3-day passage totaling 244 nautical miles. IN TWO YEARS, WE HAVE CRUISED A WHOPPING 4200 NAUTICAL MILES. If you’re slow to impress, please remember the boat’s top speed is eight knots. That’s as fast as a leisurely bike ride.

Opting Out

2009-08-23T17:02:00.002-05:00

Previously, I told you we were going offshore with the Caribbean 1500 this November. The nonstop 12-15 day trek from Norfolk to the British Virgin Islands would have been an extraordinary skill-building experience. But, we’ve changed our minds.

Instead, Dave and I will take the “gentleman’s passage” south. We will spend the winter island hopping through the Bahamas and Greater Antilles into the Caribbean rather than taking the distance in one gulp. Why the change?

Simply put, WILD HAIR is set up as a coastal cruiser; it’s not ready for serious offshore travel. We found ourselves stressed out and rushing in an effort to get a long list of necessary improvements done in time for the Rally. The decision to bounce southward along the coast also stretches our sailing dollars, an important consideration in these wicked financial times.

Both Dave and I will attend the Caribbean 1500’s Offshore Seminar this September to further develop our offshore skills. Maybe we’ll do the Rally at some point in the future.

We’re excited about our navigation decision and eager to explore more islands and new stretches of coast on a slower timeline. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Zero-zero

2009-08-23T16:59:00.001-05:00

On a warm and rainy afternoon in Norfolk, Virginia, channel marker Red “36” sat benignly in the middle of the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. The marker looked like hundreds of others. This marker was distinguished, however, in that it represented the 0.0 statute mile of our nation’s Intercostal Waterway.

Dave and I had seen the tail-end of the watery snake in Key West, Florida months before. There, the waterway is mile 1250, a goodly distance from our present location. Today echoes of accomplishment. Feeling like a spawning salmon, I stare in awe at the point of origin.

“We made it,” I said to Dave as I stood to do a happy dance in the cockpit.

“Not so fast,” my salty husband cautioned. “The hardest part is just ahead. Look at the radar.”

Knowing that we were a mere 10 miles from our final destination in this two-week, 675 nautical mile trip, I climbed into the seat beside him at the helm and stared at our chart plotter. WILD HAIR’s radar projections overlaid our course. Ahead, a violent electrical storm with heavy showers appeared.

For two years our sailing grounds were plagued by drought. Put another way, we have enjoyed splendid sailing weather. We’ve braved electrical storms, but the winds and waves failed to pick up so the event was all drama and no punch. We’ve experienced 62 mile an hour winds, but WILD HAIR sat untroubled on anchor through the blow. Dave and I wondered when we would get clobbered with Mother Nature’s full bag of tricks while underway. She decided to give us the works late in the day on our maiden voyage into Chesapeake Bay.

Having sailed with ease through the Intercoastal Waterway of North Carolina, Dave and I didn’t stop to think about the population challenge of the Portsmouth-Norfolk region: bridges. That day, with me at the helm, we negotiated 9 bridges, 8 of which restricted their openings at the hour and the half hour. A waterway lock made additional technical demands as strong currents played our keel like a puppet master. Our progress was further threatened by afternoon rush hour when all bridges promised to be closed to recreational boat traffic from 3:30 until 5:00 pm. Astonishingly, we made the last bridge on our course at 3:28 pm with two minutes to spare.

It was after the bridges and locks that we passed Red “36” and spotted the storm.

With all the sails stowed, we pulled back on the throttle. “No reason to plow right into the worst of it,” reasoned Dave. Zippering down the side panels that cocoon our cockpit, and putting kitten Dinghy safely below decks, we prepared for the worst.

The storm was torrential. Visibility diminished rapidly to nothing. With our radar glowing red, orange, and yellow from the weather front, we could no longer pick up the location of ships and channel markers. Navigating to our destination, a new-to-us marina notoriously difficult for deep keeled sailboats to get into was impossible. We needed a Plan B.

“Bill,” I shouted into the cell phone. “Where can we throw an anchor for the night?”

Bill was the knowledgeable marina manager expecting our arrival at Bell Isle Marina in Hampton, Virginia. “There is no place to anchor, Heather.” With that declaration, Dave and I knew Plan B meant taking turns on watch until daylight, turning circles in the Chesapeake a safe distance from land.

“But,” Bill pointed out, “I’m not seeing anything behind this line of storms. It should clear and you should be able to make it in before dark.”

We backed up our radar image to a three-state perspective and saw he was right. Turning circles all night wasn’t necessary. All we needed to do was avoid hitting anything until the viscous front blew over. We cooled our jets and scanned the water around us for container ships as best we could.

The worst of it passed and blue patches of sky emerged. I rolled up our side panels to see clearly and Dave and I began the careful process of picking our way through the channel markers toward the marina. Bill’s last words rang in my head: “Although it’ll look like you can, do not cut between the islands or you’ll go aground. Also, hug the beach!”

Sure enough, as the sun emerged we misinterpreted the channel markers and headed straight between the islands. “Wait, no!” Dave shouted. “We’ve got to be over there!” A quick spin of the ship’s wheel careened us back into deep waters.

“Have you got Green ‘9’ followed by Green ‘9-A’ and Green ‘9-B’? Look, you can see them all curving around the point,” I coached my husband.

“Got it!” he said. “So far, so good.”

The curve off Chesapeake Bay led into stunning Back Creek made more beautiful by the aviary of birds nesting on the beach in the setting sun.

“Hug the beach!” I shouted as Dave took the corner too wide. “Hug the beach!” I shouted more urgently to his non-response. “MAKE A U-TURN NOW!” I demanded as I saw our next channel marker sliding behind us.

With that, Dave swung the wheel and put Red “2” properly on our starboard side. “Wow,” mused Dave. “You mean ‘hug the beach!’” We cruised strangely but safely within ten feet of the shoreline.

Between Green “9” and Red “10,” the chart indicated we should leave the channel and head toward the marina. White-knuckled, Dave made the turn in 5.2 feet of water. Knowing we needed to come into the marina at mid- to high-tide, we were surprised to find our keel still cleared the creek’s floor by a mere two inches. Further, the required turn was scattered with debris, broken off channel markers that did their best to guide us toward the deepest water. The approach looked treacherous by every measure and was nearly impossible to read. Dave took the leap of faith, made his best guess at the route, and motored in.

By this time, Bill had gone home and Marty, the owner of Belle Isle Marina, was on the cell phone giving aid. “Go to the ‘B’ dock, the second pier on your left and back into any slip,” he said.

Instantly we noted the marina catered to twin engine fishing boats. Most of the boats present were less than 20 feet long. Short, twin engine fishing boats have no trouble spinning on a dime and backing into a slip. With a single rotating prop that works inefficiently in reverse, sailboats as a rule don’t back up. The notion of WILD HAIR “backing into a slip” with the wind still blowing 25 knots was ridiculous. After two tries, Dave announced he was done. He pulled straight along the marina’s face pier. I tossed the lines to Marty, he killed the engine, and we were at our new home.

There are a hundred delightful, accessible marinas in the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Hampton area. I am un-embarrassed to admit that we selected Belle Isle Marina because it was inexpensive. Here, we’re renting a slip for a month at the same rate we paid for a night in the Bahamas. So, we don’t mind the inconvenience of waiting for tide or the difficulties navigating Back Creek. Besides, challenges give us an opportunity to be exultant over our ever-improving teamwork.

Dinghy the Sailor Cat

2009-08-23T16:50:00.004-05:00

How does a cat know when it dies and goes to heaven?

Suddenly the service isn’t as good.

From a cat’s perspective, a boat is an M.C. Escher world: the galley morphs into the cockpit, a hatch on deck is a gateway to the stateroom, and the mast below deck is something to climb for a superior perspective of the salon. Our new kitten Dinghy is thriving in this 3-D life.

When she first got to the boat, after three connecting flights from Madison, Wisconsin to Brunswick, Georgia, our restless kitten sought out the boat’s most threatening dangers. She climbed through a hole in the cabinetry into the maze of live AC and DC electrical wires. Trained to come when called, she thankfully emerged un-charred for a “Scooby-treat.” Moments later, she nearly lost her front leg when she inserted the limb into our guillotine-style garbage bin.

Cats do get seasick. During our three-day offshore voyage from Georgia to North Carolina, Dinghy was miserable for the first 28 hours. Ever thoughtful, she vomited into her cat box. As the boat rolled from side to side, she assumed a commando crawl and slid port to starboard and back again (like a dust mop). Ingeniously, she picked to sleep at the boat’s pivot point, the most stable part of the vessel, the foot of the mast in the salon.

A sailor cat’s life isn’t all danger and suffering. No one can celebrate arrival into port (and the startup of air conditioning) better than Dinghy. Almost like young parents again, Dave and I found ourselves unsuspecting characters in her fantasy game of “Cowboys and Indians.” She enjoyed entertaining guests at dinner and curled into my lap to participate in the “adult” conversation.

Motor sailing the much calmer Intercoastal Waterway and sporting her fashionable harness and leash, Dinghy was a lady of leisure. Unfortunately, she’s slow to learn she cannot jump downstairs when tethered. Kitten repeatedly hung helpless, like a rock climber “on belay,” until someone came to her rescue.

Dinghy takes her responsibility for maintaining high crew morale seriously. She is a wonderful addition to our team. Even curmudgeon sailor Dave thinks she’s “purrrrrrrrrrfect.”

St Simons, GA to Cape Fear, NC

2009-08-23T16:44:00.002-05:00

Someday, I’m going to write a story about St Simons, Georgia. It will speak to the genuine warmth of the people, the Tennessee Williams provocative quality of the air, the complex textures of green, the steal-your-breath expanse of coastal salt marshes, and the comic faces of wildlife coming or going or staying. The area has wrapped itself like a song around my soul and charmed me to the core. Being a NASCAR-loving “red” state, I never expected to hold the place and people so dear. But, despite my fondness for this residence of many months, it was time to go.

Norfolk, Virginia and the promise of the Chesapeake Bay called to us. For Dave, this trip was especially meaningful. With family roots in Suffolk, Dave spent childhood summers running barefoot with a pack of cousins through the backwoods country of Virginia. Dave’s only brother Bill, a man who lost his fight with cancer some years ago, was a sailor, navel architect, dedicated husband, caring father of three girls, and my husband’s personal hero. We visited often throughout the years. Today, our nieces are grown and married; two of the three remain in the Norfolk area with their families. Although we never lived in Virginia, Dave and I were excited to sail home to new waters.

We have found that leaving port is a process. Coming back to the boat after an absence follows a pattern and that pattern will not be rushed. First, we have a day of relaxing into the boat. This is a time where we gear down, start to check the systems and remind ourselves where we left off in things like the quantity of diesel or drinking water. We check-in with friends and settle-up with the marina.

Then is the day of provisioning. This is the day we buy everything we think we need, including food, spare parts, and supplies. The all-day project involves calculating what we expect to use and multiplying by 1.5, buying the items we need at a dozen different stores, and finally stowing everything away into the nooks and crannies of the vessel. To avoid cockroach infestations, all cardboard packaging is removed; I repackaged everything into Ziplock bags. With kitten Dinghy as our newest crew, we added a cat box, litter, kitten chow, and climbing rope to our provision requirements.

Then is the day of readying ourselves and the boat. We study the weather, track local tides, fix what’s broken, mount the radar reflector and the US flag, chart our course, reinstall the canvas bimini and dodger, and confirm the working order of batteries and navigational equipment. This is also the day to fill any depleted water or fuel tanks.

Sometimes this day stretches into two. Or three.

Wanting to build our skills, we elected to take the first leg of the Georgia-Virginia trip from St Simons to Cape Fear as a nonstop offshore passage. The leg would take us three days. Cape Fear too was something of a personal landmark. Cape Fear, North Carolina was where we bought WILD HAIR two years ago. It was the starting line of our retirement adventure. Because we found its “bad-ass” name much more intimidating than “Fitchburg, Wisconsin,” “Cape Fear, NC” is tattooed to WILD HAIR’s hull as our official US Coast Guard port-of-call.

Traveling offshore is grueling hard work and I’ve yet to meet anyone who likes it—especially in the first three days as the body acclimates. We knew we were in for a chore. The doldrums of summer sat atop Georgia with light south to south-west winds, hot and humid 90-plus degree temperatures, and calm two-foot swells. This is typical July weather and not an excuse to delay.

In the final moments of preparation, fellow-sailors and marina neighbors Fort and Michelle arrived to send us off. Graciously armed with gifts of pickle relish I forgot to buy when provisioning, treats for the trip, and a barbeque lunch to take away our immediate hungries, we bid farewell. Tide was at slack. It was time to cast off.

Offshore, Dave and I wear scopolamine patches behind our ears to ward off sea sickness. Although they don’t do 100% of the job, they do okay. With them on we can function. We can eat.

July in Georgia is stifling. Worse, over the course of three un-air-conditioned days we kept all the hatches and portholes closed so that kitten Dinghy couldn’t unknowingly escape. Below decks was beyond uncomfortable. Our small 12-volt fans did little to move the air as we attempted to sleep, jostled in the rolling sea. My mind couldn’t help but wander to the millions of slaves ripped from their families and packed into the bellies of airless, sanitation-absent, ships. The depths of cruelty are without limit.

There is too much shoaling and shipping activity along the coast to simply put the boat on auto-pilot and go to sleep. Our watch schedule worked well as we took turns sailing on 2-hour shifts through the night and 4-hour shifts through the day. I cooked, David cleaned up. Hourly, we logged our latitude and longitude, speed, and course so we’d have something to tell the US Coast Guard should we need them.

It was a bit spooky passing Charleston harbor in the middle of the first night. Container ships arrive and depart at all hours. Spotting them visually and on radar, we managed to adjust our course to keep them several miles at a distance. They move much faster than we do. If WILD HAIR was in their path, they would most certainly sink us!

Unfortunately, we lost our XM Sirius Radio signal. Although this was nonessential equipment whose absence was immaterial to our safety, the navigation equipment was programmed to tell us—by beeping every 30 seconds for 3 days—that the signal was gone.

Sleep-deprivation hallucinations started for me on night two. Several times alone in the dark I saw large whales crossing our bow; I was sure we’d collide. At one point I turned to starboard and saw the heads of hundreds of seals swimming abreast of us in the moonlight. (Seals are not found in these waters.) Later, I distinctly heard a Latino man sneeze just behind the vessel. I recognized each of these hallucinations for what they were as they were happening: harmless and humorous. I reminded myself not to detour from our plan in my current state of exhaustion. My judgment to improvise couldn’t be trusted.

The weather treated us favorably as predicted storm cells passed or disassembled miles away. The wind was fickle at our stern causing the Genoa head sail to snap noisily. To accommodate the winds, we traveled 20 nautical miles off course.

Arriving at the mouth of the Cape Fear River was glorious. The morning was beautiful. Our earliest memories aboard WILD HAIR flooded back as we followed channel markers up river. At South Harbor Village Marina, we plugged into shore power, turned on air conditioning, slept, showered, ate, did laundry, played with Dinghy, plotted our next course, watched TV, and slept some more. Peppered in our conversations was the realization that we were very happy coastal cruisers. Although we could sense our bodies were starting to adjust after three days, perhaps we didn’t need to go offshore for 15 days as part of the Caribbean 1500 Rally just yet. Perhaps coastal cruising one to two days at a time to the Caribbean would make us happiest.

Technicolor Gems

2009-08-23T16:38:00.004-05:00

Cruising is an act of faith. It’s like grabbing hold of a lump of rock and trusting that somehow, in a short period of time, the rock will transform into polished gem. The polishing process doesn’t happen through events I plan. Instead, life on a sailboat attracts the unexpected, like an electric storm that hangs in silence from horizon to horizon, or the impulsive surfacing of a pod of dolphins. With the unexpected, pieces of my rock's rough exterior fall off and reveal the flawless jewel that is life itself.

The morning of our departure from Cape Fear, we spotted a family with three small boys as they came into the marina for fuel. Forty yards of safety netting meant to keep our new kitten from falling off the boat sat uninstalled below decks on WILD HAIR. To protect their boys, this family had successfully strung safety netting to their lifelines. I needed to see how it was installed. To initiate conversation I brought Dinghy to meet them.

The boys were instantly smitten at the sight of Dinghy’s dear little frame. Asking their parents permission, they scrambled off the 38 foot sailboat and gently took turns petting the kitten. The family had sailed down from French Canada and was on their way to the Caribbean. Sabbaticals and home schooling were part of their cruising strategy. In their travels south, they had especially enjoyed anchoring at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

Most striking to Dave and I was how kindly they treated each other. The boys wearing large, uncomfortable-looking life jackets were calm, attentive, and responsive to their parent’s instruction. They spoke no English but whispered among themselves in an intimate world of brotherhood. Filled to the brim by life, the parents were incredibly good natured, laughing and enjoying the conversation. The family vibrated with energies of trust and co-dependence unlike anything found in the suburbs.

We spoke for no more than 10 minutes. I learned what I set out to learn: how to install the safety netting. But something else happened. A large piece of my rock's shell fell away and the gem of life was revealed in Technicolor.

I'm certain we won't cross paths again. But, I am grateful for the gift they gave. The family’s gift was the lingering picture of kindness made manifest.

Celebrating 50!

2009-08-23T16:36:00.003-05:00

It’s official. By now I must be grown up. I turned 50 on July 28th. Hooray!

In honor of the event, my children called, my parents called, and my brother called. Everyone but my brother got a hold of me as he failed to get the memo that my cell phone was in Davy Jones’ locker.

My dear husband cooked for me during the day, took me out for a lovely dinner in Beaufort, NC, and gave me a gift of a toilet. Yes, my 50th birthday present was a toilet. For reasons I won’t explain, this is an especially thoughtful gift. Thankfully, it also comes with installation.

Cape Fear, NC to Norfolk, VA

2009-08-23T16:30:00.001-05:00

We took the tourist’s route traveling north from Cape Fear, stopping in many of this country’s oldest port towns and sailing rivers and sounds that shaped America’s history. Evenings spent on secluded anchorages entertained with vaulting fish, spectacular sunsets, and awe-inspiring electrical storms. Docking at marinas enabled us to go on sightseeing expeditions, re-provision, host friends on the boat for dinner, and make repairs.

Beaufort, NC

By the time we arrived in Beaufort, NC (pronounced “bow-fort”) our navigation electronics were in chaos. The Sirius XM signal hadn’t worked in four days, the GPS hadn’t worked in three, and the wind indicator hadn’t worked in two. Also, the SSB radio we had painstakingly installed months ago had yet to pick up any conversations. If we didn’t fix the GPS it would be too dangerous to sail the shallow and shoaling Pamlico Sound. After four hours on the phone with Garmin’s Technical Support, David diagnosed the problem: the nonessential wind indicator display was knocking out the other systems. The electronics sprang happily to life when the display unit was shut off. Next week in Norfolk, we’d return the unit to the manufacturer for repair. That night, our Ham-operating friend John Kelly brought our SSB to life when he and his wife Jill joined us for dinner. We had a productive stay in Beaufort.

New Bern, NC

Dave and I found New Bern, NC appealing. After sailing up the Neuse River, we docked at the Hilton Marina in the heart of historic downtown. Swanky! Tryon Palace—Capitol of the Colony of Carolina in 1767—was a short walk away. As advertised, it was a place where “governors ruled, legislators debated, patriots gathered, and George Washington danced.” We visited the birthplace of Pepsi, bought line to string our safety netting at Mitchell’s old-fashioned hardware store, and shopped at the Saturday farmers’ market and local seafood house.

Departing New Bern we noticed that WILD HAIR’s batteries—supposedly—were not charging. It took us the rest of the trip to confirm the monitor was acting up and the boat’s alternator and regulator were doing just fine.

Pamlico Sound

Thirty-two knot winds on our beam drove us across the Pamlico Sound. Four foot seas on a roll made a queasy ride. Having taken down our reefed sails altogether when we passed 25 knots of wind, we were surprised to discover WILD HAIR still carried 3 knots (without the motor) because of the boat’s windage. We made the protected harbor of Spring Lake on Ocracoke by late afternoon.

Ocracoke, NC

Once anchored at Ocracoke, we inflated the dinghy and prepared to go ashore. Unfortunately, the lock on our outboard motor was corroded shut by salt water (we hadn’t used it since the Bahamas last May). Outboard motor locks are designed to be theft proof. We were unsuccessful in our attempts to saw and hammer the darned thing off. The wind, still blowing hard, prevented us from rowing the 75 yards to shore. We were stuck. Frustrated, we called it quits for the day. Early the next morning I got on the VHF Radio and called for help. “Hank” from the local marina gave us a lift to shore. He assured us we could easily "hitch a ride" back. After an enjoyable stroll with kitten Dinghy around town we found they were right! “Brian,” a young fisherman, consented to ferry us back. Neither of our gracious captains would accept a tip. We became known around town as the “dinghy-less sailors!”

Hatteras, NC

The channel leading into Hatteras Island was unnerving. Advertised as seven foot at its deepest point, we noted depths of just over five feet as rain and wind blew us cross-course. Channel markers were confusing on the charts and difficult to decipher in reality. Once in safe harbor, we were rewarded with hot showers and a great meal. We caught a man named “Risky” of “Risky Business Seafood” steaming fresh-from-the-boat baskets of Blue Point Crabs. After a brief lesson on how to break through the shells, we feasted on a dozen tasty Blue Points for $24.

Roanoke, NC

Roanoke Island is home to the famous “lost colony.” In 1584, the first English-speaking colonists settled on this island. When supply ships returned in 1590, the colony of more than 300 people was gone; their fate remains a mystery. Coconut chocolate-chip ice cream, and a replica of the Elizabeth II that brought the first colonists to America, were highlights of our stay.

The Tale of a Fateful Trip

2009-08-23T16:27:00.003-05:00

Our Virginia-based nieces and their husbands are great fun. Eager for adventure, they joined us one sunny Saturday for a dinghy ride to a local sand bar. Before I knew it, the dinghy departed with everyone on board except Dave and I. The plan was for Jacquie’s husband Dickey to ferry them across and return for us.

Alas, the dinghy had bad gas. Water must have seeped into the fuel tank during recent storms and this eventually choked the outboard engine. Stranded in Back Creek, the wind blew the inflatable dinghy away from shore. Paddles sat unhelpfully on WILD HAIR’s deck.

Jennifer’s husband Andrew called from his cell phone. Through his thick Manchester England accent, Dave and I deduced the problem and hustled the paddles to the peninsula. By this time the boat and passengers (including 21-month-old William) had blown a quarter mile away. Quick as we could we flagged down a jet skier. He was happy to assist and towed our family back to the boat.

Sensing that people had had enough of the dinghy for the day, we piled into cars and drove to an area beach. In the end, no harm was done and fun was had by all.

Dave and I really have to work on showing people a better time.

Where are We Now?

2009-07-17T16:36:00.005-05:00

Having spent the past two months in Madison remodeling our kitchen and catching up with friends and family, we’re back on the water. Here is a basic sketch of where we are today and our travels in the coming months.

July 20 to August 19: Boat—Sailing the boat up the east coast from St. Simons Island GA to Norfolk VA

August 19 to September 18: Madison—Getting Maggie tucked into UW at Stevens Point and making a quick side visit to parents in Scottsdale, AZ

September 18 to November 2: Boat—Sailing the Chesapeake Bay and continuing to ready the boat for offshore travel

November 2 to November 13: Boat—Participating in the Caribbean 1500 (a 1500 mile non-stop blue water passage with 30 other boats from Norfolk VA to the British Virgin Islands)

November 13 to November 21: Boat—Sailing the Virgin Islands

November 21 to January 9: Madison—Celebrating the holidays with family and friends

January 9 to June 1: Boat—Sailing the Caribbean

After that, who knows? We must get ourselves and the boat out of the Caribbean for hurricane season by June 1st. We may come north to the east coast, go south and sail the shores of South America, head east to the Mediterranean, or go west through the Panama Canal and beyond. We’ll have to see which way the winds take us!

Baxter Boy

2009-07-17T16:35:00.003-05:00

The story of Baxter’s new home is a tale with a happy ending.

Baxter is a dear 7-year-old Chocolate Lab/Chesapeake mix that brought our family joy since he was a youngster. Upon taking ownership of s/v WILD HAIR, we realized the boat couldn’t accommodate a large dog, especially one terrorized by slippery floors. So, as part of our years-long departure planning, we found wonderful homes for both our dogs. Baxter would move to Las Vegas to live with my brother Robb and his dog Boon, and Jinx would move to Scottsdale to live with my parents. We all looked forward to retiring in the Sunbelt.

Tragedy struck. Shortly after Baxter’s arrival, my brother’s dog Boon got inexplicably sick and died. He was a young and healthy fellow and to this day we don’t know what happened. So bereaved was Robb over the loss that my parents agreed to take Baxter to Scottsdale, temporarily. The long grip of grief prevented Baxter from returning to Vegas. My parents did not agree to adopt both of our big dogs; we knew it would be unfair to impose. Baxter needed a new home.

Our network of contacts came to the rescue with a single email. Many of you forwarded the email to your personal networks. Because of you, Heather was inundated with phone calls and emails from interested homes all over the country. To you we owe a debt of gratitude.

Darleen, a charming grandmother originally from Iowa who retired to Melbourne Beach Florida with her husband eight years earlier, quickly emerged as the ideal candidate. For years, Darleen ran a feline rescue service from her home. She partnered with others in her community to create an alternative business plan for the local animal shelter promoting a policy of “no-kill.” For years Darleen and her husband yearned for a dog. Baxter fit her specifications to a tee. Within days Baxter relocated to his new home.

Two days after Baxter’s arrival at Darleen’s, Heather was studying the Intercoastal Waterway chart. Surprisingly, Melbourne Beach was on the east coast of Florida (not the west coast as we had thought) and we were going through the community that day. Immediately, Heather called Darleen and made arrangements to meet in person.

The get-together was significant for us. Having been somewhat unsettled by flying our dear pal to a stranger, we found the meeting reassuring. Darleen was unflappable and clearly charmed by Baxter’s idiosyncrasies. Baxter looked handsome in his new blaze orange collar and leash. Most comforting, Baxter didn’t want anything to do with us. He took one look at us and seemed to say, “Don’t screw this up for me guys; I’ve got a really sweet deal here!”

We are grateful for the blessing that is Baxter and confident he will live out his days in the lap of luxury and love. We have friends and family to thank for helping him find his new home. Truly, thank you.

The Remodel: DIY

2009-07-17T16:34:00.005-05:00

As with most remodels, things are s-l-o-w-l-y moving along.

You’ll recall that last summer we tore out the kitchen in our Fitchburg, WI house and stockpiled new stainless appliances and pretty cabinetry throughout several rooms. Of course, no one installed the kitchen this winter while we were gone!

Coming back to our home-base in May, eager to make order out of chaos, we were disappointed to discover necessary kitchen ingredients were missing. We had to wait six more weeks for everything else to arrive.

While waiting, Dave tore out the front hall closet, and the stairwell banister. Outside, he removed the front walkway and almost completely denuded our backyard landscape. Yes, the “forest” granting our backyard privacy was comprised of weed trees easily pulled out “by the hair.” But, the result of Dave’s interior and exterior deconstruction was complete mud and bedlam.

When the kitchen parts finally arrived, we struggled to master a host of new skills, including: dry walling, plumbing, carpentry, and tiling. (The only work we hired out was electrical.) Dave likes to claim: “We’re not good but at least we’re slow!”

I should confess I was temporarily fired by my husband/captain/forman from my tiling responsibilities. Mysteriously, my 12” granite counter squares lay jagged as the surface of the moon. An old curmudgeon named “Smiley” came to my rescue for $80. I later restored my pride with a brilliant installation of subway tile on the backsplash.

We’re still not done with the kitchen project, but at least we no longer have to cook in a dark, make-shift corner of the basement. The project is 13 months and counting.

What is the bumper sticker? “I’d rather be sailing?”

Kitten!

2009-07-17T16:32:00.004-05:00

“Dave,” I sighed, “you’re just not cuddly enough.”

This was my (Heather’s) argument for why we needed a boat cat. Dave had no ammunition to argue against my logic. He is cuddly, just not enough.

I am a pet person. As we make our home offshore, my need to nurture and take care of another creature remains unchanged. Dave is pretty self-sufficient and doesn’t need a whole lot of care. So, I did my homework.

I spoke with other boat cat owners and learned that (like people) cats can experience seasickness; they throw up, feel better, and acclimate. I researched pet import requirements for Caribbean nations and policies for returning to the United States. Sure, the paperwork and veterinary requirements are staggering but well worth the trouble. I checked with various airlines regarding pet carry-on rules and found that the fees nearly equal that of a third person’s ticket. But, these disadvantages did not make Dave cuddlier!

Happily, Dave acquiesced.

Today, we are proud parents of an adorable Humane Society kitten born April 6, 2009: “Dinghy” of sailing vessel WILD HAIR. Anticipating her unusual life-style, we took steps to make sure she travels well. Daily in Madison, Dinghy ran errands with me in her special pet back pack. You’d be surprised by people’s reaction to meowing-sounds in Home Depot. Although she doesn’t walk on a leash, she now tolerates its imposed limitations. Importantly, she has a perfect litter box track record.

Dinghy is cuddly. She sleeps on or near my head at night and curls in my lap by day. She has a devilishly playful personality and loves her toys, dragging them about the house and returning them to her toy box when finished. Like a dog, she comes when she's called. Even Dave is wooed by her charms. However, Captain Dave is reserving final judgment until he sees how well she does on WILD HAIR.

To be continued….

Get Your Copy of Cruising World Magazine

2009-07-17T16:31:00.001-05:00

It seems Heather is soon to be a published magazine author! Cruising World Magazine has agreed to purchase one of her articles: Transitioning to a Life at Sea. The publication date has yet to be announced.

In the article Heather discusses how to sustain enthusiasm for a cruising life when personal mechanical, navigational, and boat handling shortcomings emerge. She gleaned a handful of insights on this topic by 1) being less than completely skilled and 2) meditating on the subject as part of her Buddhist practice. She offers these insights and herself as an example to all who have experienced a sense of inadequacy afloat!

To learn more, check out Cruising World Magazine at http://www.cruisingworld.com/.

WomenAndCruising.Com

2009-07-17T16:28:00.005-05:00

I (Heather) have found a special community of friends in women cruisers. Because of my interest in writing, I was invited to prepare this article on meditation for WomenAndCruising.com. Visit the website; it’s packed with useful information!

Taking Your Passion Cruising: Meditation

Boating life progresses at a slower pace than life on land, making a sailboat a perfect place to nurture spiritual practice. In my case, my Christian faith is complemented and enhanced by ancient Zen Buddhist teachings and the practice of meditation.

As humans, our minds jump from topic to topic even when our bodies slow down. This condition is known among those who meditate as “monkey mind.” A meditation practice trains our mind to settle, focus, and experience peace. In this way, meditation adds to the already contemplative nature of sailing.

The uninformed believe meditation is a way of “zoning out,” losing touch with reality. But during meditation, the practitioner actually is in a heightened state of awareness registering everything that happens in the present moment. Nothing exists outside of the present moment.

I have found meditating on land different from meditating on water because of the boat’s constant movement. By witnessing my body’s adjustment to the waves while meditating, I have gained insight into the vulnerabilities I feel afloat. By sitting with my vulnerabilities, I have cultivated an unlikely admiration for the vastness of the ocean and the mysteries of hidden life forms.

Further, wave action during meditation has revealed to me a profound confidence in WILD HAIR, our 1994 45.5 foot Hylas sloop. I observe that she is a nimble and responsive vessel. I know my boat was designed, built, and is maintained by talented people working to keep me safe. All of the knowledge mankind amassed in its history with the sea is incorporated into my boat’s construction.

Through meditation I quietly and systematically uncover my fears, joys, ego, discomforts, and strengths. Most importantly, meditation helps me rest in the knowledge that I am awake to everything this precious, impermanent cruising moment offers.

How to Meditate

Heather is an ordained member or the Zen Order of Interbeing and student of Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

If you would like to try meditation, follow these simple steps:

o Posture. Sit on the floor with a cushion tipping your sit bones slightly forward in a cross-legged position or sit upright on a chair (without using the seat back) —whatever is more comfortable. Have your body relax, straighten your spine, and support this posture with a triangle made by your pelvis and knees (if seated on the floor) or pelvis and feet (if in a chair). Lift the crown of your head, relax your chin downward, and close (or mostly close) your eyes. Relax your belly and let it “hang out.” Invite a small smile onto your lips. Note: there is no reason to experience pain in your posture as you go along; if you are uncomfortable while meditating, slowly and mindfully adjust your posture.

o Breath. Focus your thoughts on your breathing—an action that is always with you. Put all of your attention on your breath as it moves through your nostrils, down the back of your throat, and into your lungs. Notice how your abdomen moves when you breathe. Do not force your breathing into longer or shorter intervals. Instead, watch as your breath naturally flows.

o Practice. As “monkey mind” kicks in and you lose focus, bring your attention back to the breath. Meditation is the act of starting over, again and again, without judgment. Be gentle with yourself. Kindly return your mind to the breath and observe what is going on for you as you sit and breathe.

Begin by meditating for five minutes and over the course of about 10 days build your practice to 20 minutes per sit. Find a time of day when you can sit calmly without interruption (for me, this time is before breakfast). To increase meditation’s benefits, you can cultivate “right mind” by studying Zen teachings. While many instructors are bringing eastern philosophy to the west, I recommend the books of my teacher, the Vietnamese monk nominated by Martin Luther King Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize: Thich Nhat Hanh.

Meditation is experiential and will produce direct benefits. You need not take anything on faith. If after a month of daily practice you have not found meditation helpful, stop. But, I am confident that a daily practice of following your breath will surprise you in its rewards.

Ahoy Mates!

2009-03-04T15:03:00.005-06:00

Having returned from a delightful 71 days in the Bahamas, Dave and I offer this blog update to share with you a sampling of our travels. Below, you'll hear and see how we

Came face to face with wildlife

Organized our days

Gained spiritual insights

Barely managed broken equipment, groundings, currents, and crash-courses with large commercial vessels

Plus, we look forward to hearing back from you. Give us a call or email and let us know what is happening in your life. We're anxious to keep in touch!

Wishing you fair winds and--if not--cheap diesel!

An Unlikely Angel

2009-01-23T08:38:00.001-06:00

While cautionary signs urged thoughtful wildlife etiquette in harbors up and down the US coast, Dave and I had actually glimpsed the threatened and endangered Manatee just once in sixteen months. The fleeting visitation was granted by a lonely cow inside the Cape Canaveral locks that link the Intercoastal Waterway with the Atlantic Ocean. As the Manatee and Wild Hair journeyed together out to sea, Dave and I thrilled to the puffing nostrils and munching lips of the otherwise hidden creature. Our imaginations were made to guess the mysterious life form hidden below.

Many months later, on a glorious Florida morning in December, while swabbing the deck (a chore not to be underestimated in its tediousness or aerobic demand), a group of voices called out, “Wild Hair, Wild Hair!” I looked up to see the noisy crew of a catamaran recently arrived from South Africa vigorously pointing to the side of our boat. There, a Manatee cow had “bellied up to the bar” to sip the fresh water flowing off Wild Hair’s deck. In awe, I dedicated my garden hose to quench her every desire.

For more than 45 minutes, she and I enjoyed each other’s company. Rolling with incongruous grace in slow circles next to the boat, spinning on her belly, back, and belly again, encouraging me with urgent flaps of her flippers in a “come on, come on” gesture, the Manatee consumed gallons of water. Dave seized the National Geographic moment and snapped photographs from every angle. I trained her to do a trick: when she floated a little too far from the boat, I moved the hose just ahead of her nose and brought her back toward me. In this way, I took my Manatee for a walk along the length of the vessel. I couldn’t tell which she adored more—drinking the fresh water or having me spray it on the old propeller scars and rough barnacles attached to her back and sides.

As we were communing, four more Manatees approached to join in the fun. Not feeling generous, my Manatee made it clear to them that they were not welcome. Without event, the gang moved on. Ours—she agreed—was a private moment.

Eventually, as was destined to be, my dear Manatee friend also moved on. But her presence still resonates in my heart. I believe on that glorious Florida morning that I was visited by an angel. She came to lighten my chores and remind me of the magic of the world. The angel was a Manatee and she was thirsty.

Daily Schedule

2009-01-23T08:29:00.004-06:00

Often friends and family ask us, “What do you do all day on your boat?” For the curious, here is a look at our time spent:

· Awake (without an alarm) at about 7:30 am. Sometimes, a noisy rooster or pack of dogs helps with this process.
· Before rising, look up through the hatch over the bed to determine what the day is like. If rain did not interrupt the night, stand up through the hatch and look around to see—literally—which way the wind blows and how the boat is oriented to shore.
· Have coffee and breakfast.
· Run the engine for an hour to charge the refrigeration system.
· Turn on the VHF radio to channel 68 at 8:15 am to hear the “Cruisers’ Network.” This informal broadcast organized by seasoned local cruisers provides detailed 5-day weather and wave predictions, ‘invitations” for local businesses (e.g. pig roasts, happy hours, SCUBA diving trips), news and sports highlights, Q&A for cruisers with questions (e.g. Where is recycling? How can I get cash? What is the duty owed on imported parts?), community announcements (e.g. dog training classes, opportunities to register foreign born children, requests from the community NOT to wear swim attire while shopping), mail call (identifying people that are headed back to the states or Europe willing to carry unsealed mail from other cruisers), and arrivals and departures.
· Together, do yoga followed by meditation on the back deck.
· After this morning routine, Dave and I make a plan for the rest of the day. Activities might include several hours of boat repairs, cleaning, and maintenance (the boat requires about 20 hours per week of attention). Other options include sailing to a new location; taking our inflatable dinghy and outboard into town to grocery shop, track down the local fisherman and his catch, surf the internet at the coffee shop, or walk the beach; swimming; snorkeling; or lobster spear fishing. Whatever we do, our plans are shaped by our location, weather, and tides.
· Typically, we eat all our meals on board. I love my little galley kitchen and we are working our way through 10 weeks of stowed provisions.
· At sunset, we are on board with beverages in hand quietly watching the sky change colors.
· After sundown, we run the engine to charge the refrigeration system and—this time—power our XM satellite radio. In this way, we can listen nightly to Wolf Blitzer and the Situation Room on CNN. If we are at a marina (about one night a week) we can watch unlimited cable TV, choosing between a wealth of US channels.
· Make and enjoy dinner.
· Read till we pass out from all the fresh air. Sometimes, rarely, we last until 10 pm.
· Sleep under the stars visible through the overhead hatch.
· If we are on anchor and the wind is blowing hard, we rise several times during the night to check weather and possible anchor drag.

God

2009-01-23T08:26:00.004-06:00

In Bahama waters, past the point where land is visible, I meet God. In an environment without boundaries, the world appears as half cloudless sky, half “gin clear” water, and (somewhere borrowed from these percentages) a man, a woman, and a boat. Here, God speaks as sky, water, human, and boat, equally.

With an open heart, I realize that saying “God made man in his likeness” actually diminishes God. God doesn’t favor or not-favor man. God is all.

Skimming along the illusionary air and water divide, I (half air and half water myself) see my place in the universe. I am not humbled, not fearful, not boastful, not conquering of my brother sky or sister sea. I am simply equal.

God is a god of equanimity speaking with clarity. If I am wise, I will remember to listen to sky and sea and boat (and spouse). In this way, I will rest safely and peacefully in the cradle of the universe.

The New River Exit

2009-01-23T08:07:00.003-06:00

Crossing the Gulf Stream between Florida and the Bahamas is a considerable hurdle to recreational boaters. The secret to a safe and comfortable passage is picking the right weather window. Winds from the north, for example, are notoriously bad because the north-bound Gulf Stream beats against the south-bound winds and colossal, confused, and dangerous waves result.

By way of background, Dave and I had convinced the family (my mom, dad, brother, and our college-age kids) to fly out and meet us on the boat at a remote Bahamas out-island for the Christmas holiday. We knew the Gulf Stream crossing would take an overnight from Ft. Lauderdale to Grand Bahamas Island. In addition, we expected it to take three more days for us to work our way to the out-island of Elbow Cay with the quaint village of Hope Town. Knowing that we might have to wait for a weather window, we gave ourselves a total of 9 days for the 4-day trip. Our goal was to arrive in advance of family.

What we didn’t realize was that the winter winds between Florida and the Bahamas were considerably less favorable than the summer winds. Day after day our concerns grew as weather windows refused to open. At relatively the last minute, we spotted an “OK” 12-hour window beginning at 1 am on Tuesday December 16th. If we didn’t depart Ft. Lauderdale at 1 am, the window was predicted to shut and not reopen for at least another week. This unfortunate circumstance would have caused our kids to enjoy a “parent-free” Christmas, and my parents to wonder why they listen to us!

At noon Monday we decided to depart Tuesday at 1 am!

Dave and I kicked our preparation into hyper-drive. We filled water tanks, topped diesel tanks, rigged safety lines, adorned the tender spot behind our ears with anti-nausea scopolamine patches, made that final trip to the grocery store, and stowed gear. Most urgently, we literally begged the refrigeration expert to finish repairs to our unit by the end of business on Monday. I couldn’t imagine how we’d spend 10 weeks in the Bahamas without a way to keep food cold. Luckily, the refrigeration parts arrived from Miami at 3pm and he completed his repairs by 6:30 pm Monday! We set the alarm for midnight, called family to let them know the plan, and went to sleep immediately following dinner.

Groggy, Dave and I woke at midnight to ready ourselves and check weather one last time. As a new development, Dave began chanting, “The hardest part of the entire trip will be backing out of our boat slip.” Our marina was nine miles up Ft. Lauderdale’s New River. Stressing about the river’s strong tides and currents, Dave had visions of us backing out only to be carried into the boats directly to our rear. We’ve made that costly mistake before! The sounds of cracking fiberglass and tearing metal are not the sounds you want to wake to at 1 am. We came up with our best guess as to how to proceed safely and decided it was time to go.

We went to start the engine at exactly 1 am. However, when I pushed the electric start button, not a sound was made. There was no deep throated “vroom vroom” as there had been only hours earlier when we checked the refrigeration compressor; there was no "wannawannawanna" of a tired battery trying to catch; there was not even an electric “click” of the starter solenoid doing its job. There was only middle-of-the-night silence.

Dave and I scrambled in unison to pull troubleshooting manuals from every book shelf below decks. After a hurried "literature review," the only thing we could come up with was possible corrosion of the starter solenoid interrupting the electrical connection from the push button to the engine.

Sharing only 45’ of space with a newly retired surgeon, I’ve started to notice things about my mate that went undetected for almost 27 years. Dave mutters a lot. He gave up his chant that "the hardest part of the journey would be backing out of our boat slip” and began muttering, “I retired so that I could give up “middle-of-the-night” surgeries.” Upon inspection, the solenoid indeed was full of corrosion. The delicate parts were hand-filed so connections could be made. (Why the solenoid took that moment to demand attention, we’ll never know.) Once reassembled, “VAROOM”—the Yanmar engine sprang to life.

With the engine running, our hope was restored that we would indeed join the family for Christmas. But, checking our gages, we found that the auto pilot—what sailors lovingly call their third crew member—was dead. For weeks we had made a series of improvements to the boat, especially new navigation instruments at the helm. We strung delicate wires through the helm’s stainless grab bar to feed and power the auto pilot, GPS, XM audio and weather, radar, a VHF command mic, and chart plotter. Everything had worked perfectly on our journey from Georgia to Florida. The day before our departure, we had made our final installation: the cocktail table mounted to the helm’s grab bar. In that final action, we must have inadvertently decapitated the auto pilot’s wiring. Although we grieved the loss of our trusted assistant, and knew we’d miss the auto pilot’s convenience during our ten week voyage, we quickly decided the auto pilot wasn’t a deal-buster. We decided to press on the old fashioned way: hand steering.

It was now 2 am.

Backing out of the slip was indeed tricky. Without pictures, it is nearly impossible to describe the looping, convoluted, ridiculous, backwards route the boat took in the current. Like breaking in a wild animal, Dave redirected powerful forces of nature just enough to avoid smacking into the mega-yachts to our rear. Only once did we lever noisily against an especially proud dock before entering the more open waters of the river. It was a unique contortionist experience trying to fend off in the pitch black without waking anyone up!

We got out of the marina but we could not yet breathe easy.

Along the way, Ft. Lauderdale’s New River has five bridges that must open into wide yawns if our 61’ mast is to pass. Also, the river is lined with boats, piers and other structures easily seen during the day, but lurking with seemingly evil intent at night. As part of our preparation, I had called ahead the day before to every bridge tender to make certain they were prepared to open in the middle of the night. They all confirmed that someone would be on watch and respond to our radio call as we made progress. To avoid other obstacles, Dave armed me with a spotlight that I suspect had been decommissioned from Alcatraz. Trying desperately not to shine the light into people’s homes, we began quietly picking our course with the out flowing current down the river.

As we approached the first bridge, I called the Bridge Tender on the radio to request an opening. Like the engine, there was only silence. I tried a second and then a third time. Dave at the helm slowed the boat so we wouldn’t hit the fast approaching closed bridge, and—immediately—the current took over. In a poor impersonation of Linda Blair from the Exorcist, Wild Hair had a mind of her own sweeping sideways into a bank of pilings. Giving up on the radio call, I found myself running through the bookshelves below decks again, this time looking for the guidebook providing local phone numbers for each bridge. Finally, I connected with the first bridge tender via cell phone. Embarrassed, she apologized profusely and explained that she was “asleep on the floor downstairs.” Within moments, horns blew, gates came down, sparse automobile traffic stopped, and the bridge reached slowly skyward. Dave powered Wild Hair off of the pilings and we moved through.

Switching back to VHF radio communications, I noticed our sleeping bridge tender remained non-responsive. Because the radio was a recent boat upgrade, I wanted to be certain that the problem wasn’t on our end. With great patience, the bridge tender worked with us, going back and forth between cell phones and VHF radio, until I realized I had the radio set for “weather” and not “calling.” Oops.

Surely, I thought, now that our radio was working properly we’d have no more problems raising the bridges. I was wrong. As we moved down the New River, it was necessary to wake every bridge tender along the way with a cell phone call first. Armed with phone numbers and expecting the openings to take longer, we were able to avoid additional collisions.

Then, we arrived at the intersection of the New River and Florida’s Intercoastal Waterway, the ICW. Routes through this high-traffic area with dangerous shallows are marked by a series of red and green sign-posts. Unfortunately, a red signpost in the ICW has the exact opposite meaning as a red signpost in the river. (I don’t know why this is but it is true along the coast.) In our sleepy confusion, we got mixed up. Taking a marker on the wrong side of the boat we ran Wild Hair aground. Did I mention that we were on a falling tide which would make us tilt precariously as the water slipped away over the course of 6 hours? I had visions of being a laughing-stock obstacle, or the source of long strings of cuss words from type-A power boaters, as the sun came up. In our current position we would completely block recreational and commercial traffic.

Dave had no such visions. Plus, he was not about to miss Christmas or be the butt of jokes. Gunning the engine, we slowly rocked and bumped our way forward, eventually making it to the center of the boat lane.

Thankfully, the opening of the last bridge was uneventful. It was now 3 am.

In the main harbor of Port Everglades we made final preparations for our Gulf Stream crossing. The spotlight was stowed, life jackets put on, and sails rose. We were practically giddy with excitement—exhausted, but giddy.

Motor/sailing out of Port Everglades, we pointed straight for the red and white “safe channel” marker. Red and whites are at the entrance to every harbor along the east coast. They mark deep water, the place from which outbound sailors are free from all navigational concerns. As we approached the marker, it began to look a little odd. Then, the red and white flashed a bright Alcatraz-style light directly into our eyes and we in instantly realized the marker was actually a VERY large freighter. We were pointed straight at it!

In the end, our Gulf Stream crossing was relatively uneventful. The promised 2 to 4 foot waves were actually a more nauseating 6 to 8 feet, and the wind was directly on our nose forcing us to motor across. But, hand steering in 1-hour shifts at the helm, we arrived safely to West End on Grand Bahamas Island at 4:30 in the afternoon. We arrived just in time to clear customs and tuck in at the marina for a good night’s sleep.

People may claim that the Gulf Stream is difficult and dangerous. But, in our book, the Gulf Stream doesn’t hold a candle to the dangers of the New River.

The Schlutenglaggen Report

2009-01-23T07:59:00.001-06:00

The ever popular and increasingly competitive Holiday Schlutenglagen Tournament was held in Bahamas’ Abacos this year in lovely Hope Town. Here are the results:

Tournament One—five hands of three rounds each—won by Bonnie Anderson and Eland Mann.

Tournament Two—one hand of five rounds—was won by Maggie Mann.

Trophy cups with tropical themes were graciously accepted.

Adventures of Wild Hair

2008-10-18T10:40:00.002-05:00

Join Dave and Heather as we travel. These blog updates give you

a flavor of our experiences working in Uganda for 5 weeks (September and October)

an update on the house beast: what we did this past summer

an introduction to our new life aboard sailing vessel Wild Hair

Currently, we and the boat are docked at one of Georgia's outter islands: St. Simons. We're adding new sails and toys to the boat to increase safety, speed, and comfort. The islands of the Bahamas are our winter destination.

If escape to a desserted tropical island sounds good to you, then come join us! Give us a call or email and let us know when you'd like to visit. There are a number of options regarding accommodations and iteneraries.

Take the plunge! We'd love to see you.

First Taste

2008-10-18T09:29:00.001-05:00

As a volunteer fund raising consultant for Conservation Through Public Health, my assignment was to travel to the remote mountain villages of southwestern Uganda to interview the staff that are providing direct conservation and health services. My goal was to tell the people’s story of need and opportunity in such a way as to inspire giving. Early in the 14 hour drive to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, chaperoned by three of my new colleagues from work, I experienced Uganda life outside the city.

Tugging at my curiosity, footpaths wound through untamed hills and villages, circled hand-tilled subsistence farming plots, and wove through exotically shaped pine clusters. Deep red soil contrasted smartly with green vegetation, yet seemed repelled by the pretty white party dresses of young girls. Sprawling and incongruously well-groomed tea plantations divulged the well-funded influence of outsiders.

Everywhere, people walked. Children large and small lugged differently-sized jerry cans to collect the family’s daily supply of water from community pumps or streams. Women with babies strapped to their back made their way to market balancing weekly harvests-for-sale on their head. Businessmen in suit coats walked with purpose to their next appointment. Cattlemen and their four-legged companions hoisting comically long horns grazed inches from speeding traffic. Untethered goats, chickens, and dogs wandered into our route. Hunting, carnivorous Malibu Storks eyed all the activity from perches directly overhead.

Trucks of all shapes and sizes belched goliath-sized plumes of black smoke as they passed. Motorcycles known as “Boda Bodas” invented new lanes as they zipped passengers without helmets or common sense. Alternatively, bicycles-for-hire carried 1-2-3-4 passengers at once. Bicycles as carts supported pyramids of green bananas—matoke—stacked taller and wider than Michelangelo’s sketched man. Bicycles with loads jutting precariously sideways into the street transported four foot long sticks for construction projects, rolls of foam mattresses, old-fashioned milk cans, five foot sacks of charcoal harvested from shrinking forests (to fuel the meals of urban residents), and eight foot bouquets of sugar cane.

Our driver zigzagged around animate and inanimate obstacles all the while avoiding swimming pool sized pot holes. Speed bumps known locally as “sleeping policemen” created a nauseating break-acceleration rhythm to our movement. After a time, the tarmac disappeared completely leaving dirt roads textured like rocky river beds. Forward progress required use of the left lane (as is expected in this former British colony), the right lane, or either shoulder. Further, it necessitated an inexhaustible use of the car’s horn. Our tactical advantage was the fact that we could go 40 miles per hour day or night. People, livestock, and wildlife alike were motivated to give us clearance.

At about 10:30 am, our driver pulled to the side of the road and shut off the engine. Not speaking Bugandan, I was the only one in our party clueless as to what was happening. Immediately, we were swarmed by people holding plates of cooked food: roasted plantains and various meats on sticks. Looking past them, I could see the food was prepared low to the ground on barbeques constructed from retired automobile wheels. I asked an associate to buy for me something that she would like. Quickly, she negotiated a purchase and put a hot cassava into my hands.

At first bite, I noticed its pleasant potato-like flavor coupled with its exceptionally dry texture. I swallowed and the food went partly down my throat and stopped with a scraping sensation. To help push along the first bite, I took a second and swallowed. This caused not one but two wood-chip-like lumps to get lodged in my esophagus. While I could still breathe with ease, the discomfort in my throat was terrific. My body took immediate action. A voice of ancient wisdom rose to my consciousness saying, “don’t worry Heather, I know what to do!” Instantly, to help lubricate passage, the spit glands in my mouth began squirting large quantities of fluid for me to swallow. As a Plan B, my stomach began its preparation to push the cassava wood chips back up. I feared the worst: hurling on the dashboard in front of my new colleagues within seconds of eating the food so graciously purchased on my behalf. I did my best to act normal and not draw attention. Seconds passed like hours as the claws of fiber made their way to my belly. Somehow, I managed to avoid an international incident and no one was the wiser.

As evening approached, the human and livestock traffic didn’t let up despite the fact that there was no electrical service or street lights. The roads and houses were very dark. Boda Bodas with passengers still traveled at great speeds but without turning on their headlamps. I found myself wondering why a woman felt compelled to walk her goat on a leash after 9:30 at night. As we drove through Queen Elizabeth National Park, human traffic was joined by wildlife; a hunting lioness and a family of elephants were captured in our headlights. We arrived at camp adjacent to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest at 10:30 that night. Rattled by “shaken baby syndrome” from the journey, I was greeted by the cook, housekeeper, and waiter—gentlemen that would serve me (and only me) for the next five days. They led me through the jungle to my private tent announcing: “diner will be served in 10 minutes.”

In the morning, I woke with the village before sunrise to the sound of drums.

Pit Stop

2008-10-18T09:25:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, a woman has just got to go. Dave and I had been traveling for hours in a Land Rover with our guide Ronald and driver Chuli. I had missed my cue to duck into the trees and relieve myself when Chuli had pulled to the side of the road an hour earlier to “change his shoes.” I asked Ronald if he might—at the next opportunity—find me a toilet.

Uganda is not known for its rest stops. Most villages do not have public buildings or restaurants. Thinking he meant another wooded area, I nodded in agreement when Ronald indicated he would find me something “around here.”

Chuli pulled over at a small cluster of homes. There were a half dozen women sitting under a tree in front of the homes, and Ronald hopped out and began a conversation in some version of his native tongue. I looked at Dave with some trepidation and asked, "What's going on?"

"I don't know," he said. "But whatever it is I think you're in for an adventure!"

It is important to know that white people—known as mzungus—are rare in the country. Everywhere Dave and I went we were something of a novelty. Children especially flocked to us to strike up conversations. When our Land Rover stopped in this small village and the guide announced that the mzungu lady needed to pee, everyone in the community stopped what they were doing and came to see what was happening.

Leary, embarrassed, I emerged from the car. It seemed to me that the women under the tree were not pleased. They made unhappy faces as they argued between themselves. Finally, one young woman stood and indicated that I was to follow her. We walked among the more than dozen single-room mud and stick structures in the compound. The private universe was quiet, dappled with sunlight, and accented by chickens underfoot. Thankfully, the ever-growing crowd stayed at the street.

Eventually, the woman stopped. Turning to me with a smile that lit her face in unexpected beauty she announced, “Here.”

“Here,” I repeated?

“Here,” she affirmed, laughing.

This mud and stick structure was about chest-high. The building was divided into two sides (male and female?) and I was to enter behind a mere suggestion of a burlap curtain. Once inside, I found a swarm of flying insects and a hole in the dirt. After doing my business, I noticed that the bit of toilet paper I always carried in my pants pocket was the only contribution of paper in the pit; I felt grateful to have it.

Alone, I made my way back to the vehicle and the now-enormous crowd of people surrounding it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had imposed upon these women, making them uncomfortable by the idea that a foreigner had barged in and used their home in an undignified way. Feeling bad and confused as to how to make amends, I called, “Thank you, Sisters!” To my relief, this prompted a warm and friendly cascade of laughter.

Driving away, Ronald turned to the back seat and volunteered, “The women were very concerned that their toilets weren’t nice enough for you. They were arguing over who had the best facility!” I shook my head in wonderment over my misunderstanding and smiled at their open and generous hearts.

Phrases you'll not hear in Uganda

2008-10-18T09:23:00.000-05:00

Save room for dessert.
Don’t stay in the shower all day and use all the hot water.
What ants?
My, what a nice man-hole cover.
I just repainted the house.
Do you want that on the rocks?
That’s a sexy outfit.
Thanks for calling. Bye, bye.

2008-10-18T09:21:00.002-05:00

Too Much Homework!

2008-08-18T18:20:00.004-05:00

Dave and I have been landlocked back here in Fitchburg, Wisconsin for more than a month now and we've made good progress on our fixer-upper home. Having newly retired, Dave is quite surprised at how exhausted he is working around the house. What do we have to show for our time on shore?

We have completed construction of a screened porch. Yes, it only took 18 months but our wooded retreat is stunning!
In the living room, Dave and I stripped off 1980's-style wooden ceiling beams, added new windows and doors, painted, recarpeted, and hung a chandelier in front of the fireplace for drama.
With my parents in town in July, Dave and my father were able to complete the audio installation of our lower level entertainment center. It is exciting to have our surround sound back.
We oversaw the installation of a new roof on the home--a necessary step due to nasty winter ice damming, water in the walls, and the arrival of mold in the attic. With the state-of-the-art roof came waterproofing underlayments, mold remediation, improved venting, and even a worker falling through the ceiling. He was fine but we heard the universe scream "skylights" so we added two for additional light. Mr. Winter, show us your worst!
Most recently, Dave and I gutted the kitchen and dining room. We're replacing 8 can lights with 22. Dark oak floors, new two-tone cabinates with frosted glass and aluminum accents, chocolate-colored subway tiles, stainless appliances, and granite tops will round out the kitchen improvements.

Unfortunately, when doing the work ourselves, everything seems to take longer than expected. It is highly likely--given our travel schedule--that we will not finish the kitchen until MAYBE Thanksgiving! The pressure is on because we've agreed to make the holiday dinner.

All in all, it's been a wonderful summer. The kids have been home and they've been a terrific help. New neighbors have moved in and they're very friendly. June floods were followed by spectacular mid-western summer weather. Dave and I are bringing our relationship to new understandings as we navigate 24-7 togetherness. Our long days, occasionaly disagreements, aches, and pains are--ultimately--a reminder of our good fortune.

Wild Hair: A Love Story

2008-07-08T08:15:00.000-05:00

"How can you leave?" my friends and colleagues asked. "You built this not-for-profit from scratch. This is your vision, your dream."

They're right. I ask myself how can I walk away from the flower of my efforts. For more than 13 years I have nurtured relationships, honed skills, and made a difference.

My husband, a pediactric orthopaedic surgeon, is asked similar questions: "How can you leave your patients?" Or, more surprisingly, "how can you leave the institution of medicine and the status you have in the system? How can you become just an average person?"

Then there are the implied, unspoken questions. You can see these questions in people's eyes in that moment when people are most baffeled and at a loss for words. Questions linger in the air, like: how can you sell your georgious lake house--the one you so proudly designed and built--and "buy down" to a modest midwestern ranch-style home? How can you possibly live on a fraction of the income to which you have been accustomed? How can you retire in this uncertain economy?

The saddest and most troubling question, one people struggle to voice, is the one that is most difficult to answer: "how can you leave me when I have come to depend upon your friendship?" Those are the questions that wrench at the heart.

Dave and I have spoken at length about our decision to move aboard a sailboat and venture off. In some respects, our decision to retire and relocate is ordinary; many people reach a time in their lives when they are called to sunnier climates and a life of increased leisure. In our case, however, it was unexpected by all. We made the decision in the prime of our careers. We were both "in the middle" of wonderful and rewarding lives. Having accomplished the American dream of a big home, fast cars, two dogs, and two healthy, successful children stretching their wings in college. How could we want for anything more?

In many ways, we left because we were happy. Lulled into a life of habit and routine, we found ourselves living rewarding but parallel lives. Our paths crossed at predictible times of day. Our conversations centered around important but comfortable topics. Even our stresses followed tiresome and well-worn patterns.

One day nearly two years ago, Dave came home from work and told me that it was financially possible for him to retire at 55. To top that, he said that he wanted to spend his retirement with me. He wanted to do something together, something that we couldn't accomplish seperately, and he wanted it to be challenging and rewarding for both of us. For us, our pre-wedding dream of sailing around the world was a logical choice.

I was profoundly flattered. My husband was in essence proposing to me all over again. The idea of committing anew--after more than twenty-five years of friendship--was beyond romantic. The possibility of shaping a new life together evoked all the hope and promise of youth. Suddenly, a treasured and time-tested love affair was refreshed with that "new car smell."

That's how we can leave. That's how we can disassemble the things in our material lives and live on a fraction of our income. That's how we can walk away from rewarding but all-consuming jobs. That's how we can start from scratch and earn a foreign set of skills that constantly challenge and humble. And because our first committment is to each other, that's how we can--for the moment--seperate ourselves from our closest friends. We are confident that our dearest friends will understand, be happy for us, come and visit, and be there when we return.

Adventures of Wild Hair is a tale of extraordinary love and romance.

Robin Goodfellow (aka "Puck")

2008-07-07T18:53:00.000-05:00

Our engine, a 63 horse power Yanmar, has earned a very special name: Robin Goodfellow. Shakespearian buffs need not be reminded that Robin Goodfellow--aka "Puck"--is the Fairy King's helper in Midsummer Night's Dream. He, like our engine, is the mischiff maker and source of many plot twists in the story. Over the course of 10 months, our Puck

Repeatedly overheated
Sucked fish into the raw water intake valve
Shimmied and literally shook off the refrigeration compressor, and
Refused to shut off upon command

This last prank caused us to take drastic measures; we killed the beast through starvation by disconnecting the fuel injectors as it gasped for life.

Early on in our travels, a helpful mechanic told us, "don't worry. This happens to everyone. It'll take about two years."

Filled with hope we replied, "two years before all the bugs get worked out?"

"Why no!" he stated. "Two years before you know how to fix everything yourself!"

Groundings

2008-07-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

Aboard the lovely sailing vessel Wild Hair, Captain Dave and First Mate Heather have carefully navigated into soft groundings, hard groundings, and near salvage conditions. Yes, I mean we have run our five foot keel aground not once but dozens of times in the past 10 months. Most of our groundings have required little more than the influx of tide to lift us off the bottom. Several groundings have required the rescue services of Boat Tow US. One "near grounding" necessitated that we sit patiently in low water on anchor for 3 days, riding out heavy weather, before we were skillfully towed through a narrow creek and back out into the deeper waters of the ocean. How, you might ask, have we accomplished so much chaos in so little time? The answer: this is tougher than it looks!
Alas, Dave and I have been mostly day sailors with experience on the inland lakes of the midwest. There, tides are not an issue and the only currents to concern ourselves with have been those associated with the Tenney Park or Chicago River Locks. We are new commers to the ways of the ocean.
Further, we have never manovered a boat of this size. A 45.5 foot sailboat feels small in the open water, especially when there is no land in site. However, a 45.5 foot sailboat when it is only inches from other vessils in a marina can be a terror--especially when the mystical forces of tide and current float your boat at great speed into non-moving elements of the surrounding environment. Every day we are humbled by this new life.