Category: Juniper’s Journal

All attempts to rebuild my roller furling have failed. Unfurling it in zero wind leaves me breathless and looking like I just climbed Mount Everest. It’s been a total head twirl, and figuring out what went wrong has become a full-blown murder mystery. Here's all the drama and dreamscapes that have happened in my life...

This post is for members only.

Rebuilding this furler has been one of the most physically and mentally demanding repairs I’ve ever endured aboard Juniper. More labor-intensive than removing the teak decks in French Polynesia. More complex than the repairs I did in Thailand after that tug boat nearly wrecked me. We got the entire furling system back up, and I...

This post is for members only.

I think the African spirits have fallen so in love with me that they are tangling up my boat life in an effort to keep me here forever. It matters not, for I have grown addicted to the dunes. They are a sea of sand, glowing with crystals and reptiles, and they make me feel...

This post is for members only.

I’m truly about to depart Namibia. I don’t really want to leave this place that is more ancient than the extinction of the dinosaurs. I could live here. I could become a desert bunny and drink mist like all the other creatures that survive among these semi-precious gemstone dunes. Or I could marry a Himba...

This post is for members only.

I’m driving towards Walvis Bay, wondering what it would be like to be the chief’s fourth wife. Would I be treated like one of his cows, or like a chiefess? Would the dance be mutual, and would he be all animal or soft and gentle? Would the other three wives get jealous, band together, abduct...

This post is for members only.

WILD CATS I see a sign for wild cats and a lodge. I pull over and bump down a dirt and gravel road. The place is called Eldorado. It’s very Mexican-chic, with flowers everywhere. I ask the receptionist about the cats. A blue tractor towing a metal trailer with seats pulls up. Two men in...

This post is for members only.

I feel like a stripper when I write to you, so truthful and vulnerable, not just atmospheric and reflective, but what's really going on in my head. It's as if I have taken all of my clothes off and you can see way beyond my skin, all the way to my bloody heart. DRIVING TO...

This post is for members only.

So much has happened in the span of four days that I feel as if years on the vine of time have come and gone. There was romance. There was a world of red boulders covered in petroglyphs painted by ancient men. There was an animal utopia where I got chased by a black rhino...

This post is for members only.

I arrive back to Walvis Bay all desert-dirty, with my head still soaking in that sci-fi world of acid sunsets, dunes, and ice plants. A desert is an ocean without saltwater, but its rainbow is flashier. Dramatic, colorful, stunning, vast, strange. Is there any part of the ocean that isn't always shifting? Tides, currents, waves,...

This post is for members only.

There are more colors in this desert than there are names for. The colors evolve, twisting, turning, and bending with the sun. There are shadows too. There are always shadows. Plenty. The desert shadows are long and dark, but never wicked. I sit on a hilltop and watch the sunset drench Moon Mountain in hues...

This post is for members only.