Blog

THURSDAY AFTERNOON After our tea party at The Consulate Hotel, Chris goes to work on repairing the Laser, and I wander into a market that is buzzing. I find a lady willing to do my hair. She has all of the necessary tools except for a sink and water. She...

Late Wednesday afternoon we head back to Jamestown. The Martian-looking landscape filled with “baby toe” succulents, forest flowers, and birds from the windward side of the island is consuming every edge of my head. I can’t fathom being a fisherman here back in the day, hiking and rappelling down the...

Saint Helena Island is an enchanting time capsule on a 14-million-year-old volcano that rises 5 km from the sea floor. It stopped erupting 7 million years ago, and pieces of it have long been lost to the sea, rain, and wind. What’s left among the jagged cliffs is a utopia...

We can see Saint Helena from 25 nautical miles away. It is dressed in mist and is just a blackened silhouette. The view sparks exhilaration and exhaustion inside of me. We have almost arrived. The island is only 5 nautical miles wide and 10 nautical miles long. The height is...

I feel like we escaped death twice yesterday. The shock of the rogue wave and our colossal broach, which turned my canned food into weapons, has worn off. Admittedly, the absence of my solar panel on the starboard rail glares at me like a lost limb. All the sailors I...

Juniper lurches and rocks, like land would in the aftershock of an earthquake, as the swell from two different angles collides onto her. It’s a rather violent feeling. Occasionally one wave will hit the hull and the sound that rings through the cabin is identical to the sound of a...

It’s raining. Not heavy. Drops the size of sunflower seeds, but still discomfiting out here in the cockpit at 03:00. The wind is gusting 33 knots and in between the rain and blows, it’s sitting steady at 27 knots. I have seen double this wind speed aboard Juniper, but you...

It’s very sporty out. The overall wind speed is only 20 knots, but the gusts are up to 28, so my sails are adjusted for the gusts. The main is double-reefed, the genoa is a little more than a handkerchief, and the windvane is on its most powerful setting. The...

What if you could fall asleep and dream about whatever you desire and come back with a tangible object from your dream? A dream object! For example, what if right before you went to sleep, you could tell yourself you wanted to dream about a wild flower field, and then...

It’s 5 am. There is still light wind from the wrong direction. We have been drifting north all night. I go to turn on the engine. She doesn’t start. Then she starts and I throttle up and she dies. I open up the engine compartment. I put a little squeeze...

I’m caught at the edge of a low and a high and it’s a strange carnival. Just yesterday it was all cold and clouds, and today there is low wind from the wrong direction, sun and heat, and blue bottle jellyfish floating by. I started the day off in my...

I slept for nine hours straight last night due to a sore throat and general malaise. Chris held watch and a solid course throughout the evening. He is starting to sail Juniper as though he’s always sailed her. Sometimes I would wake to the keel shaking and trembling and think...

I keep finding dead squid on deck. Is it disturbing and morbid that I think that’s exciting? I’ve had plenty of flying fish fly to the tomb of my deck, but never in seven years of sailing have I found a squid! I’ve found three thus far, with their sticky...

Juniper is sailing on a broad reach with a double-reefed mainsail and a slightly reefed headsail. I’m sailing slowly to avoid any seasickness for Ginger Jesus. The swell is a little over a meter and hitting us from the side and stern. The wind is gusting up to 17 knots...

I just departed Namibia after spending three months and eighteen days among the moonscapes, the sea dogs, and the ancient crystal dunes. It’s all mist and cold out. I’ve got between 11 and 13 knots of wind at a 50-degree angle. You know I don’t like to sail this close...

I apologize for having disappeared. I have fallen into a ginger-colored undertow. The undertow’s name is Chris. You know, he’s that younger fella I met on the dock here in Namibia. His eyes are chalcedony blue, which is this translucent, cryptocrystalline quartz gemstone that is a soft, milky blue with...

Most of the week I have felt as though I’m in mid-air, as if I’ve had a chill and an ache I can’t shake. Today, I’m crashing down. We put the new furler on. It took almost all day. Every little foil, dog-point set screw, drum, link plate, toggle. At...

At this stage of my voyage I invite each of you to build a small shrine for Juniper in a corner of your home. Place a little homemade boat there made of origami, or toothpicks and newspaper, if nothing else. Surround it with flowers, a sea blue candle, and a...

If the furler saga was like a murder mystery, which by the way has been solved, the shipping of my new parts from South Africa to Namibia has been like a James Bond movie. You would think it was 1960 and I was trying to ship parts from Cuba to...

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...

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...