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sailing in search of an endless sunrise

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The Voyage

Wilderness of Waves is a blog by solo sailor, filmmaker & artist Olivia O Wyatt.

She is sailing her 34 ft. boat, Juniper, to destinations guided by humpback whale migration patterns.

In August 2019, she single-handed from San Diego to Hawaii. It took her 23 days. She and Juniper are now in French Polynesia.

Follow along as she wanders the seas in search of magic.

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Last week’s office looked like this. My life is so far from vanilla that it’s turning turquoise. At the moment, I’m sailing around the islands of Fiji, working full time, taking a writing course, and maintaining a boat that keeps trying to sink itself. Boats aren’t easy. Taking care of one is like trying to hallow a hole into a mountain with a wooden toothpick... for me anyway. Boats are work, then there is work. I’m directing a video series. I’m working L.A. hours from the future. I get up every morning at 4 a.m. when the angels rise. I get online. I work. Come every Sunday I crash down hard onto the settee in a good for nothing daze. Frazzled and fried and feeling like somebody done popped part of my brain out my ears. Everything moves in real slow motion. But as long as the wind is in my hair and sand is between my toes, I can handle the delicate decay of a slow Sunday.

The sun drops into the sea. Juniper’s spooks razzle and dazzle in the night. Engine oil leaks from a forgotten hose and my bilge becomes a putrid black swamp of eternal stink. Home is where the honey is. Have you seen my crystal voyager? It’s summer here and the whole atmosphere is wet with fever. The pressure drops. Water falls. Life absorbs and amplifies in bursts. The paradise of flowers blossoms. Grottos, rainbows, plumerias, thorns. I wander into blue lagoons lit by moondrops. I follow meadows to their edge and back. I bathe in a fluttering of emerald. Touch me. Touch me not. Touch me. Turtles swim under the boat looking for jellies. And the dragonflies are all hot to trot, they do the reverse cowgirl mid-sky, wings flapping, eggs forming. Did you know female dragonflies fake their own death to avoid having sex with aggressive males? They’ll just freeze, fall out of the air, and lay limp on the ground. I must start doing that to avoid aggressive things like hurricanes and lighting and blue giants. I wonder if their paths would stray, should they think I’m already dead? I wonder if anything dangerous would exist if you or I did not exist? I wonder why the things that make us bloom can also make us wilt? Wilt. Wilt! I wonder how much of my life is wasted in wonder?

Planting a bunch of blueberry colored staghorns in a coral garden of the coast of Fiji is one of the most rewarding things that I’ve done. Staghorn is an ancient stony coral that grows as fast as human hair. It is a nocturnal predator that uses tiny tentacles to sting & eat zooplankton. Staghorns provide a critical habitat for over 150 species & are a direct food source for nudibranchs & butterfly fish. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers staghorns to be near threatened. If you see one broken on the sea floor, you can help it grow by finding a crag in a piece of coral and sticking the staghorn in there up right & cover the base with sand. Be sure not to lift the staghorn out of the water during the process. ❤️

I captured this on my solo sail from French Polynesia to Fiji. I lost the use of my engine day 1 of the crossing. I got caught in 3 days of non-stop gales with a huge swell. I don’t know how big the waves were, but were way taller than the bimini when I was in the trough and they were coming at me from every which way to Sunday. Those waves are the “giants” that I refer to in the video. I was hand-steering through it all and I only ate 2 oranges, 5 crackers, and slept for 3 hours over the course of 72 hours. Right after that, I had 3 days of next to no wind & all I could do was wait for it. I love the force nature & I love being at mercy of the elements, especially because it keeps me vulnerable & connected to all that is. So here I am, crying in front of you.

Love these women. Together we chase dolphins, and surf, and scuba dive, and stare at starfish, and play with paper umbrellas.

The sun rises the color of jelly. I watch it bleed into the sky from the cockpit. Spilling onto the water beneath me and shattering into mystic lines with hot red hues. I could blow away just staring at the waters edge. It’s that special place loved mostly by outlaws and dreamers and pirates and legends. When I look at it, I can see nothing but possibilities on the horizon. It’s such a spell. Have you ever noticed that linger is one letter away from longer? Linger longer. Longer linger. Longer. Linger. Linger.

Dive Deep

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