Blog

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...

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...

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’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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

I’m in the front seat of a 4×4 shuttle bus heading south towards a desert with a fossilized landscape called Sossusvlei. It means Dead End Marsh. The driver is letting me DJ. He particularly likes Billie Eilish and is from a part of Namibia that speaks in a series of...

The moon is full and there is a winter tilt to the earth. I’m riding a camel named Smoke through an ephemeral river in the desert that looks like a little moon landscape. There isn’t any water in the river, only sand. This entire part of the sphere that I’m...

I’m in the front seat of a 4×4 with a man named Connie Burger. His daughter Nikki is in the backseat. She’s about my age. Gert, who is helping me repair Juniper, is also back there. Speaking of repairing Juniper, I forgot to tell you that my Hydrovane was making...

Everything in Namibia matches my pink engine. The jellyfish. The pink pelican named Lady Gaga that lives on the dock and is the size of a miniature horse. The flamingos. The pink salt lakes. The desert sand that blushes pink at sunset and moves as if by sorcery in swirling...

I think I have spent 99 percent of this voyage horizontal, under a pile of blankets and a teal down feather sleeping bag named Moonshine that I’ve had since I was 14. Moonshine has seen bears in Alaska with me, swaddled me as I’ve slept on mud, spoon-fed me alien...

I’m heading west looking for wind. West is also the opposite direction of all the “Caution / Waarskuwing : rocks and shoals” warnings on the chart. I’m not going anywhere fast, I can tell you that much. I feel like a cowgirl on a three legged horse, just inching my...

I have been eagerly awaiting dawn. The sun is supposedly up now, but you wouldn’t know it. The sky is muted by a thick white haze. The days out here feel short and the charcoal nights are excruciatingly long. The wind and sea are back up and this sea is...

I passed the Orange River Mouth. That’s the dividing line between South Africa and Namibia. On my charts there is a long red line drawn from the Orange River. On the south side of the line it says “Provisional Boundary of the Republic of South Africa” and on the north...

It’s night and I’m on pins and needles. I’ve got 21 knots of wind and almost a 10-foot sea. Juniper is sliding all over the waves. They are smashing into the sides of the boat and rocking me back and forth. Sometimes the genoa backwinds and the sheet slaps. The...

The world is still here. This is not a dream. I’m back at sea with Harry the garden gnome on Artemis as my buddy boat. I just went up to the bow and a whale looked me dead in the eye. I saw its eye! He was right there, so...