Blog

I’ve been up since 0300. I’m a nervous wreck. Today I will set sail down the Wild Coast of South Africa from Durban to East London. It’s 278 nautical miles, give or take, and the stretch of water I’m sailing is referred to as “The Black Hole” on account of...

There is a powerboat blasting through the marina, blaring the song “Let Me See Your Tootsie Roll.” I’m still in Durban, waiting on a long enough weather window to get 280 nautical miles farther south. Durban is somewhat of a drag; it’s known as a “gangster’s paradise.” There are only...

“Durban Port Control, Durban Port Control, this is sailing vessel Juniper,” I say to the faceless human somewhere in Durban over VHF channel 9. A female voice responds: “This is Durban Port Control, go ahead Juniper.” Me: “I am a sailing vessel at the safe water buoy seeking permission to...

I’m back out in the blue. Or grey, rather. Grey is the color of this day. Thunder is rumbling off the land, the swell is a sideways rodeo clown, and I can’t for the life of me slow down. I’ve only got 18 knots of wind and I’m moving at...

I am stepping onto Juniper after traveling through clouds and time. She looks beautiful beyond the layer of coal dust and the tape residue. It’s ninety degrees and my skin doesn’t fit right anymore. Have I gained weight? I feel like a blob shuffling around on tree trunks. I fetch...

Happy New Year. I hope that 2026 is nothing short of dazzling and that every day looks like the cover of a catalog you’d tear out and tack onto the wall. I am about done dogging around in Arkansas. As I write to you, I am by a lake in...

I’ve been hiding since I got home. I’ve only seen my family and one or two friends. Why am I hiding? I don’t know. I just really don’t want to be seen by strangers at the moment, and almost everybody feels like a stranger. I have a strong desire not...

I set sail from California six years, three months, and twenty-six days ago. I can’t believe it. All I set out to do was cross the Pacific ocean to Hawaii, but I’ve been living a nomadic life among the stars and saltwater ever since. I don’t even know how to...

“When I was a kid, we used to tie cotton to the leg of a dung beetle and fly them around like a kite,” Norman says to me and Magnus. He’s an Afrikaans man with a pot belly. He’s fluent in Zulu, Afrikaans, and English. He grew up in the...

I would have overslept had your voice not come to me in a dream. Much happened this week. Too much. I have a lot to tell; about the place of miracles and wonder, the hippos of St. Lucia, the bolts in my transmission, the 50-knot blow, the sailors found dead...

A hippo attacked and mutilated someone’s dinghy. It was red. The person got another red dinghy and the hippo came and ate that one too. Maybe the hippo thinks the dinghy is a big bowl of cherries. People around here tell me that the hippos are meaner than the crocodiles...

If you want to feel like a king or queen, or a blessed member of the royal court, just sail to South Africa. They treat you like you’re something here. They had a ceremony the other night just to present all of the new sailors with a bottle of champagne...

Day 2 on my way to Zululand. There is not much wind at the beginning of the day. Sunny. A yellow jellyfish-like thing just floated past me. I’m sailing across the invisible border that separates Mozambique from South Africa. It’s mystifying that I’ve sailed my 34 ft. boat all the...

I am back on the lam. It’s me, Libre, and a French boat captained by a man named Lionel who collects seashells like a bird collects twigs. We all went to shore together on Inhaca Island to pay off the Mozambique official who is a petite woman in a Navy-style...

Halloween on the high seas is unforgettable. Me, in the Mozambique Channel, with only sixty hours between southerly blows to get farther south, going as hard as I can. I am not sleeping much. I never do near shore. I am on the edge of hallucination, jittering, feeling exactly how...

The sky has been one long cloud all day. Now there’s twenty-two knots of wind on my beam and a little rain. I’m moving at five knots—sometimes more, sometimes less. The clouds shift, and when they do, everything in the sky changes for a moment. It goes dry, the wind...

The sunset was subdued by clouds, and with the clouds came wind. I was magic-carpet-riding through the night on a steady 15 knot breeze off my beam and 1.5 knots of favorable current. Sailing in the current feels like being on a slip and slide. It’s such a rush, addictive...

After 9 days in Linga Linga I have departed. The wind is 12 knots on my nose coming from the southwest. The swell is dead ahead. The sun is fire. I’m motor sailing because this channel is so chaotic with the wind always switching this way and that, plus there...

I don’t know how long I’ve been in Linga Linga. Too long. Not long enough? Just enough to Linga. Sometimes I think I’ll never get out of this paradise. I only have 386.5 nautical miles between me and South Africa, but looking at the wind forecast, it’s all so grim...

After two nights in Baz I get a 30 hour window of favorable winds. The next safe harbor is called Linga Linga and is 160 nautical miles more south. I don’t know if I can make it, I hope I can. I should be able to. I need to average...

Sometimes the wind sounds like a lady. Truly it does. A sexy lady talking, whispering, giggling. Other times it sounds like a lady moaning in an embarrassingly breathy and passionate way. The worst times are when it sounds like a lady in a full-on fit of hysteria. My last day...