Blog

The space between breaking and leaving is liminal, and the people that surround me feel surreal. There is a sailor in the marina who looks like he might worship aliens and always wants to show me something onboard, like his batteries and other things I honestly have no interest in...

Everything is romantic on a sailboat until something breaks. It’s been a whirlpool of brokenness here in Saldanha Bay, followed by me chanting to sea gods with petals, roots, salt, sage, and spells. I think I might have just made it through to the blinding bright side, where angels sing...

I think I might have upset some Sea God because there is a gremlin haunting my engine and monkeying around with my rudder. Or maybe some witch along my path cast a spell upon me with leopard toad tail and tortoise shell, in an attempt to disrupt my future. Or...

Don’t you sometimes wish there was a button that you could press and fate would open up for you and reveal everything all at once? Would it be soothing or overwhelming? Would it make you want to sloth around or set fire to your feet? What is my fate? I...

I’m on the hard again. My boat looks gorgeous on the water and on land, so I took a photo of her with some begonias in the foreground. A man came up to me and asked, “What are you capturing?” I said, “See that boat right there? She’s beautiful, and...

The clouds are on the verge of dripping in the dying red light of the day. It’s going to rain. I always know because my left foot aches so badly I have to hobble. They had to fix some ankle bones down there when I was a kid and I’m...

They say that sailors write their plans in the sand at low tide. There are plenty of reasons for that. It’s because we are bound by the wind. It’s because one minute Mother Nature has the face of God and in a flash she’s got the grin of the grim...

There is polar air blowing up from Antarctica and straight into my bones. It is a deep glacial chill that slips in through every crack and is amplified by the water. My whole body responds, quivering, shaking, shivering. It is midday. I departed Hout Bay an hour ago on the...

I can’t move without bumping into something wild in this country. It’s like make-believe. Imagine walking along the beach and seeing this creature called a dassie, something that looks like a large rat but is most closely related to an elephant. The dassie is sitting there and then another one...

Hout Bay is drop-dead gorgeous. A little seaside fishing town surrounded by green and pink mountains on all sides. It reminds me of Colorado without the snow. It’s summer here, but at night I sleep beneath five wool blankets. The locals say, “the wind was made in Hout Bay.” I...

The moon is new. I sleep hard and long and sail slow into the night. Celtic. Star Calypso. Dominator. Cape Sunrise. Golden Karoo. All traveling beside me. I rise before the day turns to gold. There is still an hour before sunrise and 17 NM until I’m at the Cape...

I missed the sunrise. I was sleeping. It’s high in the sky now. The wind is blowing harder and the water is getting bumpier and bluer and colder as I sail west. It is all a shock to my system. I had a lot of cargo traffic last night. I...

When the west winds blow across South Africa, the air and water are freezing cold, and I have noticed more rain during those times as well. Right now I am out here riding a south wind that is slowly turning more east, but I am cold now too. That is...

I love Mossel Bay. I don’t regret that the lightning drove me here, to this space where the world ends and the ocean begins, yet somehow there is no entropy. So far it’s my favorite place in South Africa, and I have the strange feeling of “belonging” here. As if...

I was fishtailing and surfing my way into Knysna, and I see-sawed and pancake-flapped my way out. I didn’t want to leave on a forecast that showed heavy thunder and lightning, but Libre did, so we did. We got seven different people’s opinions before departing. Some said, “Go, it’ll just...

I’m still on a mooring in Knysna, where seals play around my boat all day long. Where the seahorses cling to seagrass beneath me. Where the sea around the entrance can be a devil or an angel, depending on the wind and the swell. Where the Stone Age people painted...

I weigh anchor in Plettenberg. I’m all rested up, so my mind won’t play any more tricks on me. The sun is dazzling high, and the seals are all over the water, waving goodbye. My reality feels like a fantasy. I’m almost to the exit, with a thousand waving seals...

Seabirds have been flying low all day. One just took off from the water and he was so close that I could see the droplets of water dripping from his wings. A really pretty day out here today. Sun and blue. The wind is mild and the swell is still...

I am so tired that I forgot I was heading west and found the sunset surprising. I thought maybe something was on fire on shore. I’ve slept three hours and jibed 100 times in 36 hours. I’ve only consumed water, grapes and a few ginger cookies on account of my...

I’m sitting in my underwear on the settee eating ginger cookies. It’s 21:44 and I can’t sleep. It’s raining out and the wind is light but frigid. The sailing is smooth. I’m on a close reach with 11 knots of wind and what feels like a bit of current. I’m...

I have arrived up the Buffalo River in East London. Japie, who runs the Buffalo River Yacht Club, said, “You survived the worst of South Africa’s Wild Coast. We lose a vessel once every 18 months on this stretch of water.” The Shangri-Las are signing on the radio. Behind Japie...