Blog

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...

It’s the beginning of day 5 in the Mozambique Channel. My position is 20°0.320’S 36°47.754’E and a thousand leagues from Atlantis. I flew inside a 2 knot current, that spiraled in a never-ending circle, for an entire day and night. It is current that is shaped just like a cyclone...

The sun is rising. It’s the beginning of my fourth day and my position is 17°3.620’S 40°6.930’E. I have three and a half days to make it to a safe anchorage before the Southern Ocean starts blowing a southern wind straight up the channel. When it blows, it is going...

Have you ever seen a wild flock of flamingos fly? It’s the trippiest, most magical, mesmerizing thing I’ve ever seen. Their little legs run on top of the water, just like Jesus, as they take off, and then the sky is all fast-flapping hot pink feathers, and you feel so...

The super moon just flung itself into my cabin and is crooning songs made of blue grass and indigo gypsy jazz. The moon is making everything act strange. The sea state is all short and steep. And the tides are submerging land on the high and excavating earth on the...

This is the greatest fairy love story I’ll ever tell you. I leave the island where my name is written in the sand before it has time to disappear on the high tide. I sail on south and spend two nights anchored off Nosy Lava, the old prison island. The...

I leave Honey River dripping with memories. I will miss it, like I miss every place I’ve ever sailed to on this fantasy landscape known as Earth. The wind is above the beam and howling in the gusts. Local boats are sailing to one of the myriad of nearby islands...

RUSSIAN BAY I never found the wild river hog ham in Russian bay but it was there somewhere waiting to be hunted. I suppose everything is somewhere either waiting to be hunted or hunting. Think about all the energy on this earth is made up of hunt and survival! The...

I said goodbye to the homemade guitars and flower faced women of Nosy Komba. Gosh that was hard. It hit me like a gust. Anyway, I did it — I departed and made it all the way to Nosy Mamoka, which is only 30 nautical miles south of Komba. I...

It’s been too many heartbeats since I last wrote. Not because I forgot you — I think of you each time the wind blows — but because transitioning from sea to land is always exhausting, a little uprooting, and space alone is vital. You know how I like to cocoon...

The rising light and the dying light are both gorgeous here in Madagascar, where water costs more than beer. I fill my boat tanks with river water gathered high in the mountains and even that comes at a cost. Strange how a basic need became a commodity, because somewhere along...

I drop my anchor in Ampanakana Cove around 16:00. Libre is anchored just off my port and has been waiting for me here for a day. I have just gotten off the phone with my mom, and she is crying because she is so happy I made it to Madagascar...