Blog

I become a sea flower again today. I’m bouncing like some toad-loving-something towards Fiji. I feel the blush and the rush. The sun is up and the rainbows are rocking. I have 8-10 knots apparent off my beam, swell from the north, and I’m averaging 4.3 SOG (speed over ground)...

I’m sailing on a beam reach towards Bora Bora in a bathing-suit. I’m dancing around to 90s music and I scream from the top of my lungs. My hair is blowing around like women’s hair often does in one of those shampoo commercials that you see on the TV. My...

Once upon a time, a giant eel ate a disobedient girl and one island turned into two. The priests were building a temple in Raitea and nobody was to stir nor speak during the construction of something so sacred, but this girl went to swim in a river, because she...

Buttercups, it happened, I twisted around the sun and am no longer melting down. To celebrate my birth, I ate chocolate cake for breakfast with nine of my anchorage friends. It had sprinkles on it. There were handmade cards that sparked tears. “Happy Birthday” banners strung up with depictions of...

It’s 5 a.m. I am a breeze, upside down. At this moment I want to throw up, but the sun will be here soon enough and everything will feel different then. I hear the splash of waves, the static of the sky, the roosters cry. Why are roosters so confused...

I find out what happened to Juniper after rowing to see some boat neighbors. I ask, “Did the bridle snap and the chain let itself out?” No, but what did happen, happened only ten minutes after I rowed to town. A big gust came. They think 30 knots. Everything was...

So much has happened since I last wrote to you, both glamorous and grim, that I don’t even know where to begin, but I will try. It will have to be broken into parts, because within 24 hours I went from a thick forest to a meadow to a hot...

I told you about the man who got possessed by the female water deity. But I didn’t tell you everything. I didn’t tell you that I played an African song that unintentionally provoked it. That in the midst of the beats for Mami Wata, he ran into the ocean and...

I will not leave today. Chitchatty did and I hope he is ok. Remember the swimming man? I found out that he swam from Chittchatty’s boat, but Chitchatty left the swimming man swimming somewhere in the Tuamotus. I have called no less than 15 people today looking for someone who...

I hand crank the anchor up. The mud of Mo’orea is flying everywhere. Black mud. All over me. Like cake. And just when my anchor is up and I’m busy locking it in place and the mud is the muddiest, my neighbor starts chitchatting from across the water. “Where are...

Morning was about to break and the strawberry full moon was hanging above the jagged peaks of Mo’orea like a prayer. I have lost track of days, months, and moons, and this moon was not the flower moon, as I have been calling her, but she bled across the sky...

Every time the sun goes behind a cloud, I realize how cold and colorless the world would be without it. Tahiti is 30 nautical miles away. I can see the outline of it’s shape rising up from the sea and disappearing into the sky. I will sail past it through...

The sea is blistering and I’m cooling off inside of a memory. I am sitting in the kitchen of the first house that I ever lived in. My sister is there. We are making pom-pom art. Our dad comes home with some VHS tapes and tells us to look out...

We hoist anchor at 10:30 a.m. Downwind on a flat lagoon. Bliss. The anchorage near the south pass is hot. Boats and people have exploded like firecrackers along it’s shore. They are waiting for Flower Moon. I think about stopping, even furl the jib, but I have a hard time...

Here are more of my musings, ramblings, wanderings. Last night I dreamt that the wind picked up something fierce. 60 knots. When I “woke up” both whisker stays were broken and the whole anchor chain had popped. I had only 10 feet of chain left and nothing tethering me to...

I fall asleep not long after dusk and wake while the world is still colorless and the last star has yet to fade. I watch the sun open up it’s golden eye and splash, drip, drench, it’s rays onto everything. Grey to green. Black to blue. Purple to white. Morning...

It is raining cats and dogs and they’re getting all hot and heavy with Juniper. I let the rain loosen me. I whistle back at the wind that carries it. Raindrops slide inside my butterflies. I‘m a puddle. Liquid and languid. But the fish, they are flying. The rain stops...

I am water camping. In a salt desert. Rich in fish and sharks. It is moon faced and next to nowhere. I drink drops of rain. My power is the sun, and the sun is a speckled sun. I’m living the slow life. I wear only a loincloth aboard Juniper...

South Fakarava is a cold drink and my first day is dream pop. I wake up after visions through the night that I am hunting for a purple pearl in a cold lagoon. The dream told me, “Do not pick the pearl, let the pearl pick you.” I Make coffee...

It’s 9:30 a.m. The sky is white with clouds. Storms breaking between. I want to sail the lagoon south, but need sunlight to see all the coral along my path. I spot a sailboat heading into the channel. I will follow them. I turn the engine on and run up...

Sixty black birds with white heads have been circling Juniper for days. Fishing the fish that swim beneath us at anchorage. They perch on the bow pulpit, then pounce; water flies, wings tangle, fish freak, guts get gulped, birds laugh. Only my boat. Only this spot on the water. All...