Blog

It takes me two days to gather enough strength to blow up my dinghy, Daisy, and row to shore in Fakarava. The day we arrive, I just work and eat and sleep and call Te Mana’s mom to apologize for the rough sail that made the cousins sick. She was...

The cousins and I pull into Toau around sunset. The pass is a piece of cake. I catch a mooring just in front of Inapo. I dive up and down the mooring to make sure it’s safe and there are so many sharks that I wet myself, but I’m already...

I left the boatyard on Saturday. On my own. The steel boat will now be destructed and the preparation for that will take time; removing all diesel and other fluids, belongings, etc. and I was itching to get back on the sea. The cost of the my mistake- leaving my...

Dream the dream. Dream, dream, dream, dream. Make me the moon and let the sea spill out of me. I am laying down on the bow of the boat. It’s 1:11 a.m. and I’m wearing sunglasses. It’s the Super Flower blood moon lunar eclipse and my eyes are all over...

I feel as though I bored you to bits with my quarantine story. Quarantine is a new part of my adventure from now on, for who knows how long. And honestly, I don’t know what fascinates you about me, so I just tell you everything and let whatever sticks, stick...

I went from agates and salt ponds in the Sea of Cortez, to quarantine at a luxury hotel in Tahiti. Seven days down. Three to go. Then, if I pass my fourth COVID test, I will be set free. Free to catch a plane to the Tuamotus and reunite with...

Tuesday: The morning catches fire and blooms all kinds of blue and pink on the white sands of the crescent beach. It’s 6 a.m. My head is a jubilee. I’m remembering all the nights that I spent in Bangkok. When I was a feather and anywhere was an oyster. When...

Sailing the Sea of Cortez is like sailing on another planet. Cherry-colored-cactus-flower-desert-mountains pile up past the clouds, plateau into mesas, then drop down into seafoam water that’s as smooth and transparent as sea glass. And there are sirens and mega-toothed monsters and THIS is my Shangri La. The sun shines...

I step aboard the 52 ft. Catamaran. It’s unearthly; part-spaceship, part-skyscraper. I can’t see my own face, but I’m pretty sure that it looks just like the face of an animal that froze inside a block of ice- a lot of fight mixed with frozen flight.  A man named Carlos...

I dream about a Tahitian man singing over a hard-boiled egg. It’s a wild kinda singing. More like high-pitched shrieking. I like him. I want to follow him wherever he goes. A bunch of green flashes before me. Then I’m on the catamaran in Mexico and it’s really a spaceship...

The Sea of Cortez, where to begin? At the beginning. I flew into Baja like a cold wind, drunk on exhaustion and high on the smell of sea salt.  It took me 9 hours, 4 planes, two airlines, two cities in Texas, and the threat of being reported as a...

After Juniper crashed into shore, the pearl farm and I decided it was best that she move elsewhere. She was like a parentless problem child, who got restless, snorted salt, snuck out, then got caught climbing back into her best friend’s window after a long night of misbehaving- lipstick stains on...

Dear Diary, I felt sick all day. Nauseous, exhausted, jittery, spun- like a spinning top in the hands of some aggressive kid on too much Adderall. I should have known something was brewing, cause the full worm moon was on the rise and that marks a time of transition. It’s...

OTHER THINGS I am sorry that I don’t write to you as often. Here is my life in a nutshell. I received notice that yet another flight to French Polynesia has been cancelled. The country is now closed until May and no flights are flying until then. Rumors of mandatory...

PART III – Fools Gold I am not new to New Orleans, but it feels new. Like fresh air. Like a crash of light. Like a neon dream. My days here have got more phases than the moon and I blow through them like the wind blowin’ through the pines...

*It must be noted that unless I write FICTION before a piece of writing, it should be assumed that everything on Wilderness of Waves is NON-FICTION. And thus, everything I have told and will tell you about my trip to Louisiana is true, in fact it is truer than true;...

* I traveled to Louisiana because it’s got saltwater and French roots and I was drying up and my skin was cracking in the landlocked state of Arkansas. PART I – The Alligator Kiss I’m about to kiss a wild alligator in the swamps of Louisiana. I’m standing on the...

I got a call from French Polynesia. The wind kicked up so hard in the lagoon that Juniper sawed and popped through one of her mooring lines. On top of that, my friends went to start her engine and the starter button fell straight through the panel, then she wouldn’t...

Hi Buttercups, I am still here in Arkansas. I was going to go to French Polynesia yesterday. I wanted to go. I needed to go. But I can’t go. People were getting turned back home as soon as they land in Tahiti. I heard that a plane came from Paris...

I left the pearl farm four Wednesdays ago. Goodbye blood, sweat, and oyster iridescence. The Ahe airport was it’s usual party scene; beers before noon, dancing, giggling. Someone kept yelling “Biden stole the election,” into my American face. I smiled back at their French face with my lips sucked tight...

“There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect’s wings.” Chief Seattle’s Speech – The Earth is Precious Chief Seattle’s speech hangs on the wall at the pearl farm. I first read it...