Blog

It’s day 14. I am more than halfway to Madagascar. The conditions have been on the rather violent side for the majority of this sail. There have been highs and lows and moments when I can’t discern if I’m having states of delirium—or is it perhaps clairvoyance? What’s the difference?...

Day 13. The boat is no longer a death trap, though it is still a flying fish burial tomb. The sea appears to be subsiding slightly, but moving about the cabin is still dizzying. One 13-foot wave pushes me to starboard, the next to port. They are coming at me...

Forgive me for not writing yesterday. My mom always said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, and I didn’t have anything nice to say about the ocean. But now I can tell you. Day 12 out here and hell’s bells, it is really...

I’m on my 11th day out here in the Indian Ocean. I finally make it to 10° South and clear of the convection clouds. I fall off the wind and start breathing again. Day drifts into night and it’s all a real dream. I can see the stars for the...

The day shows no sign of rain. The swell reminds me of a precipitous country hillside and occasionally a wave crashes onboard. There are clouds but the sky is blue and bright between them. I sleep and sleep some more. Now it’s sunset and there is no sunset, only a...

Sometimes the only way to get around something is to go through it. I have been watching this strange-looking area on the GRIB (weather) files for a while. I kept thinking I should go more south, but I was doubting myself. Then all morning yesterday Juniper was trying to sail...

I am near the Afanisy Nikitin Seamount. The exact position of my sailing ship on this spinning planet that orbits a blazing, gaseous star named Sun — known for its solar flares and magnetic mischief — which drifts in a galaxy that is just one among billions in a universe...

The elements around me are constant — the sky, the sun, the sea — yet they are forever evolving: bigger, smaller, wilder, dreamier, higher, heavier, redder, bluer, deeper. Each day feels like I’m sailing into a new dimension. This dimension I’m in now is moody — like a wild animal...

The night started out dazzling. Winds in the teens, a sky laced with celestial bodies. I was lying beneath it all, sleeping like a dandelion drifter, until a squall hit me hard. I couldn’t see boo turkey. No moon, no stars—just darkness. Black. So much nothing. So much confusion. Wind...

The rain takes the wind from me for most of the day yesterday, but I find it again around sunset. That’s when life gets all wonderland. Rainbows in the sky, dolphins jumping at my bow, wind in the teens, sun setting. An intoxicating voodoo spell made of all my favorite...

I’ve spent all day on a beam reach with the wind between 13–16 knots and Juniper averaging 5. No rain, no other boats, just blue and blue and blue — and thoughts of you. The swell is a little over 6 feet high, and the sea is a touch lumpy...

The afternoon sky went muddy with rain clouds. There were fishermen up ahead and on the patch of blue beyond them all I could see for miles and miles were these white balls floating on the surface of the water in a uniform fashion. I figured it must be some...

This forecast wasn’t the Tooth Fairy — it didn’t vanish in the night. And so, darling, I’ve finally departed for Madagascar. Farewell, you perfect waves and palm-tree-covered beaches with sand as white as snow. For the past month, it’s been: Hurry! Wind’s coming! Get ready! Then the forecast would fall...

I am floating on five meters of bright blue water, wedged between reefs and a tiny new-moon-shaped island that’s home to a saltwater marsh — and a crocodile. The name of this place is Scarecrows. There are two other sailboats anchored here — my friend Todd on Galatea and Magnus...

I made it south to 2 degrees of latitude. I waited for wind and moved a little, then waited for more wind and moved a little, and it went on like that for a week. There is much to gush about—all the birds, fish boils, palm trees, clear waters, dolphins...

 I stripped off my winter clothes, left the mangroves, and floated down to the bottom of the saltwater river. It wasn’t far, only took a few hours. Let’s call it a bunny hop. Bunny hopping is all I have the energy to do without wind. Sometimes, when I close...

Sometimes I feel lost, as if I’m reading a myth that I’m trying to find the meaning of. I’ve just been absorbing life, or rather letting life absorb me, while waiting for the wind at Latitude Zero. When you are right in the sweaty belly button of the equator, the...

I’m making moves further south and having one rodeo of a day on the water. The wind is a firecracker and the swell is so high it just almost completely covered another sailboat that was passing me by. Sad to say, I’ve already broken something today. I spent the night...

I don’t even know where to start; is it with the fireflies in the forest lighting up the night, or this beautiful perfect wave that I can’t stop surfing, or the karaoke party at the Warung on the beach that I just had with all the other sailors, or the...

I want to write to you flowery things, but I am sailing—or motor sailing, rather—and I am so tired that I am seeing triple. Three bows before me, three morning stars in the sky, three fishermen fat on flying fish. Also, I swear up and down and on my grandma’s...

There I am—soaked in oil, sweating, and swatting away these black bugs that are as big as horses. Next to me is Phil from Sunbird, and we’re aligning my hot pink engine. It’s hour five, and we don’t know when it will end. We keep pushing and tweaking the engine...