Blog

I can’t sleep. This light keeps turning on. It’s right above my head. Literally and figuratively. And last night I dreamt that someone put an armadillo in my hair. It wove it’s hard body into my strands and secrets started rising and I couldn’t get it out without getting bit...

Being here, in Ahe, is like being beneath an umbrella in a world without shade. New Years Eve is a splash. It‘s fish and fireworks and a dance floor full of florescence. Everything is decorated in palm fronds, and the moon wears her silver halo. A boat of nine is...

Now the moons flower is full. It’s light sinks down from the sky and stirs the lagoon into a field of yellow sparkles that leave me spellbound. Open-mouthed bliss, eyes swimming. Or rather my one good eye is swimming. The other is pink and puffy and swollen half-way shut. It’s...

We left Tikehau the morning of Christmas Eve. The wind was coming from the northeast, so we rounded the north side of the island and shot over from there. Sailing towards Ahe like an arrow, not like a long and lost lightning bolt, as I had sailed two weeks before...

I didn’t mind sailing to Tikehau a second time. I enjoy it there; the swell, the sun, the swarm. The surf was on its way up and so were the holiday spirits. As soon as the anchor drops, I swim to shore. A woman in the fishing village feeds me...

I am a boomerang inside of a wormhole. My indecisiveness has led me to begin again on a journey from which I just came. Even though I am turning in a circle, it somehow feels as though there is a fluid forward motion to it all. This I can’t fully...

We have laughed about being lost on the lagoon every day since. It became a joke that grew wings and flew from every lip and oyster on the farm. The farm sits stilted above the water. A wooden planked bridge connects it to the two motus belonging to the farm...

I have never seen underwater realms as alive as I have seen here in Ahe. It’s like swimming in outer space. From the fish, to the coral, to the oysters. I saw three sharks in water that wouldn’t go past your ankles. That’s how lush even the shallows are. Brianna...

I’m in a zone beyond all zones. I don’t know how my body is still moving or how the light bulb in my brain hasn’t burnt out. I have slept little… four hours in 48 hours. I am writing to you now at 10 pm and I’ve been up since...

After I wrote, what I last wrote to you, the winds got light, sometimes non-existent. And whatever wind is out here, is coming from Ahe. We are only 23 nautical miles away, but let’s go ahead and call it 2,300. This is the longest two day sail of my life...

It took forever to get around Rangiroa. So many tacks. We finally made it around at 11 pm last night. Trying to sail the direction from which the wind blows doubles, no triples, no quadruples, the length of any journey. We passed within a few nautical miles of the eastern...

I stare at the sky for hours. I watch the sun drop into the ocean. I watch as the blue heaven flowers from yellow to tangerine to pink to grey to black. I watch the stars pop bright against the moonless night. Such a glow, I feel as if I...

The new moon is here or near to here and the tide all around the motus is lower than low. We walk from one to the other along the break. The coral sounds like glass beneath my feet. The shallow pools of water distort the coral beneath me and at...

I found a baby gecko onboard today. I named her Beebee, after my cousin. She is brown. She is smaller than my pinky. She hides inside a wooden ledge above my nav station. I think she’s been with me since Tahiti. The waves went to sleep. Rain and rainbows come...

Brianna went to surf at sunrise. I wanted to go, but rain was building on the horizon and the voice inside my head shouted, “Don’t go, you must stay with the boat!” When it comes to sailing I listen well to that voice, it’s always ripe with wisdom. Not long...

Tikehau is a multitude of magic. The water is the tone of turquoise. It is surrounded by coral and palm tree covered lands. Below the surface there is the beautiful and the dangerous and the beautifully dangerous; unicorn fish, sea snakes, white tip reef sharks, manta rays, puffer fish and...

It’s our third day at sea. I am bruised and blistered and skin is missing from my fingertips, but my head is rinsed. The wind and the sea blew all thoughts beyond the here and now away. We see the palm trees of Mataiva for one hot blue second. These...

The puffy clouds grow high all around. They look like people. They are my television. I see a giant, his knees are bent and his hands rest, palms up, upon them. There is a bird in his left hand. The bird sings the giant a song, “la-da-da-da-de, you are a...

We didn’t leave on Tuesday, we waited until Wednesday. The full moon left it’s effects on the sea inside of us for days. We are both Cancers- moody, soft, loving, crabs and our ruler is the moon. We are moon sisters. Anyway, the moon made us very yellow for some...

I am tired and torn. When I close my eyes, I see a man making faces. Popping his eyes out. Contorting his tongue. One eye brow up. He is old. Black hair. He is trying to funny. But his face leaves me with such a strangeness that I can’t sleep...

I have never seen more rain. A strong ephemeral wind blows. The boats bounce vigorously. The drops and drips fall down at first a drizzle and then a cacophony. Thoughts try to take shape but escape half-formed beneath it all. People bike in bathing suits with naked feet and wet...