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Sailing Solo in Search of an Endless Sunrise

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Tag: sailboat repairs

Posted on April 2, 2020April 7, 2020

From Sun Up To Sun Down

I’m working on Juniper from sun up to sun down. Running myself to the gritty, gritty ground. My dogs are barking. My eyelids are sunburned. I’ve got band-aids and paint everywhere. I’ve lost five pounds and half of a fingernail. And worst of all, the stitches from my surgery popped open and it took me …

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Posted on March 26, 2020April 20, 2020

Fish Out Of Water

I love being on lockdown in Hawaii. It’s an excuse to repair Juniper all day and ignore everything else. I also suppose that lockdown doesn’t feel so severe because my home moves. I moved Juniper today. Sailed her straight over to a shipyard. It’s like a boat hospital. Here, new boats are born and old …

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DIVE DEEP

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I blew a hole in my mainsail & broke my lazy jacks after sailing through a 55 knot squall this week. Here’s how it happened. I was on a close-reach crossing the Bligh Water with all three sails flying. I had one reef in the main, a full staysail, and the genoa reefed a smidge. The sky looked like satan’s armpit and rain was falling in random places across it. The squalls were coming and going above me and they were blowing about 20 knots, then they would suck all the wind out of the air as they passed me by. I was constantly readjusting the sails to keep Juniper going. Then the mothership of all squalls came out of nowhere and she was foul-mouthed & fat & froth-filled. She slammed me with 55 knots of wind (Beaufort scale 10 / whole gale or storm). I had way too much sail up for that! My rails dipped underwater and the sea was reaching for my portholes, Juniper was heading for a knock down. I turned off the autopilot, grabbed the helm, and with a massive amount of effort I fell off the wind to a broad reach, while my friend, Diarm, spilled air out of the mainsail. Juniper was flying at 9 knots speed through the water on a flat sea! She kept trying to round up and it was all I could do to keep her off the wind without accidentally jibing, while Diarm furled the genoa and dropped the staysail. The same storm picked up more 5 more knots of speed as it traveled towards Denarau and ended up dismasting an Outremer and setting three superyachts loose from the dock in the marina. Cruising Me and Juniper ❤️ I captured this yesterday on my way to the Blue Lagoon. An hour later the wind jumped up 10 knots and then came the rain and the world went stone white. I couldn’t even see the island next to me. I’m having the dreamiest of days sailing around Fiji in my hammock. Juniper on a broach reach at the edge of running. This is me, right after a jibe, somewhere in the South Pacific between French Polynesia & Fiji. I am wearing my PFD (personal floatation device) but I’m not tethered. The truth is, it like takes a gale for me to tether. But this morning I woke up to a stark reminder to tether all the time. Another singlehanded sailor that I know @cleverdeer fell overboard off the coast of Panama. It was a calm day, he had just caught a fish, and he slipped off the stern. He was 9 NM offshore & had to swim for 10 hours, only to wind up on a piece of land that he describes as “no-man’s land without any way out. Jagged rocky cliffs fringed by dense impenetrable jungle.” He used his shirt on a stick to flag a passing boat down! Meanwhile, his boat & everything he owns sailed into some rocks and sank with the mainsail and the jib still hoisted and trying to capture wind. This is every sailors worst nightmare! If you are sailing around Panama please connect with @cleverdeer & help him out. All he has left are the shirt & shorts he fell overboard in, plus a toothbrush that a nice person bought for him. ⛵️ Also you should read his full story on his Instagram post. Such incredible bravery! Happy World Ocean Day! 💕Coral Reefs are called “The Rainforest of The Sea” & they produce have of the earth’s oxygen, so the next time you breathe thank the ocean! 🐠 This is a photo of my favorite coral reef. It’s in the Kadavu lagoon & it’s all Easter-egg colored and there are sharks & sea turtles & sea snakes swimming around it. Thank you for fish and flowers and fireflies. Thank you for my eyes that give me the ability to see them. Thank you for the sea and the sun and the carnival in the clouds. Thank you for rain. Thank you for the color blue and the man on the moon. Thank you for volcanos and seabirds and rose quartz crystals. Thank you for the wind and the waves and the wild things. Thank you for my heartbeat. Thank you for books and bugs and bubbles. Thank you for music and plant medicine and magic. Thank you for the air in my lungs. Thank you for sunsets and sandcastles and seashells. Thank you for the stars that fall from outer space. Thank you for the sensation of my lips and all the blood in my body. Thank you for coconuts. Thank you for psychedelic colors. Thank you for octopuses and mushrooms and dragonflies. Thank you for ice. Thank you for dinosaurs. Thank you for science and religion. Thank you for prayers and mythologies and mermaids. God bless the mermaids! Thank you for gemstones and rainbows and our ancestors in the Milky Way. Thank you for oxytocin and dopamine and serotonin. Thank you for dreams. Thank you for fire. Thank you for the Southern Cross. Thank you for contrast and creativity. Thank you for tropical islands. Thank you for mountains and mud and men. Thank you for vegetables. Thank you for feathers and opals and the mother of pearl. Thank you for wild horses and whales. Thank you for gurus and ghosts and spirit guides. Thank you for yoga. Thank you for laughter. Thank you for friends. Thank you for for all of my experiences, especially humility. Thank you for high vibrations. Thank you for the light and the dark. Thank you for order and chaos. Thank you for above and below. Thank you for rhythm. Thank you for right now. Thank you for guitars and dances and poetry. Thank you for somersaults. Thank you for Africa and Asia and America. Thank you for adventures and sailboats and writers like Mark Twain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this odyssey into the cosmos. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.…. Long before I bought a sailboat, I was buying coffee mugs with sailboats on them, because it’s the only sailboat I could afford and staring at the little sailboats on the mugs made me smile and dream bigger about one day crossing an ocean on my very own bluewater sailboat. I encapsulated myself in visions of that sailing dream. My rented studio apartment was littered in tiny sailboats made of glass and wood and paint, and they dangled from the celling and the shower and the shelves. I lived like this until my dream became my reality and my home was a 34 ft. sailboat setting out to sea. I am not luckier than you, or richer than you, or wiser than you, or braver than you, I am just like you. I want to help you live your dream life. I want you to tell you that if you dream of it enough & believe in it enough & drink it enough, then it can become your reality. I want to tell you to stop listening to any friends or family or strangers that have anything negative to say about your dream. I want you to know that the only thing stopping you from your dream life is your own disbelief & worry. I want to tell you that life should be a dream sweetheart! Message me if you need someone to tell you that you can do it, because I know you can do it. ⛵️ Also I started a Patreon and do live monthly Q&As to help wilderness of waves patrons reach their sailing goals! (Link in bio) It’s been a wild week on the water here in Fiji & I’ve been feeling like such a billygoat. It started with my engine exploding oil & ended with all the bolts that connect my prop shaft to my transmission shaking loose & me running aground. I have been towed three times in less than seven days by other cruisers & I just don’t know what I would do without such a generous community as this. I’m grateful to each person who has pushed & pulled Juniper along this week & especially the folks who got all down & dirty in my engine with me. ⛵️All I know is that I hardly know nothing about nothing without y’all & it’s a damn miracle that I made it out of Arkansas & sailed halfway around the world. 🌊 Woooooooo. Pig. Sooie! A few years ago I got burnt out on life because I had zero balance. I was working myself to the bone & stressed out, yet constantly broke. I had just made a movie that was screening at the Smithsonian, but somehow I could only find a job working as a cashier at a ship chandlery for minimum wage. At the same time I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that left me lethargic and overweight and caused giant wounds to burst out across my face. I was making desperate decisions in the department of love too. I asked myself what made me happy and set my spirit free. I realized the answer was sailing. So I took out a loan, bought a boat, named her Juniper & moved aboard. I spent a year or so prepping Juniper for an offshore voyage & taking her out in every gale that came the California way, then I sailed solo across the Pacific Ocean from San Diego to Hawaii. Three years later Juniper and I have sailed halfway around the world together and we are currently floating in Fiji. 🇫🇯 I love sailing because it sets me free and keeps me in harmony with nature, and forces me to slow down. It has also taught me the importance of creating space for play. I have found that carving out time for play each day has created more balance in my life. I am more joyful, more creative, more energized, more abundant, more relaxed, and I am able to work at a faster pace within a shorter amount of time. My favorite playground is the ocean. What’s yours? I open my eyes, all I can see are shades of blue, erasing me, blueing me. Everything is a swirl. If I had one wish, I’d wish for papa sky to make me a flying fish. If I had two wishes, I’d wish for Leonard Cohen to dance me to the end of love. If I had three wishes, I’d wish for three more. 🐠 New blog post up on WoW also tomorrow is the last day to jump into the sea and rinse your mind with me for free. My eight  underwater meditations can be found online at @alomoves

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