.Bongani's Blog.

Current Location: Puerto Bahia Samana

2011-02-08T08:06:00.001+08:00

Wednesday, February 2^nd, 2011 – Day 83, 6:26 PM: Los Haitises National Park, Dominican Republic

Surrounded by lush green cliffs jutting up out of the water in a picturesque cove with a few fellow boaters, our good friends Hejira and YOLO among them, the sun sets over the mountain backdrop, with Rozz by my side, I sip my cocktail and watch the local fishermen. It happened again: perfection.

Thursday, February 3^rd, 2011 – Day 84, 9:20 AM: Los Haitises National Park, Dominican Republic

After our five days at the resort, spent sipping champagne, Pina Coladas, and Long Island Ice Teas, dining at expansive buffets, and lounging in our choice of jacuzzis and bedside beaches, Rozz and I set out for Santo Domingo to meet up with my good friend James's uncle, an older sailor named Ian.

We set out from our safe and comfortable resort life, out to the highway to wait for a gwa-gwa going in the right direction. We hailed the first one we saw, an old van with a driver and two older women passengers. Rozz and I climbed in, and when I went to close the door behind me, it seemed stuck. I pushed harder, and then harder, and then I clear ripped the door off! The old ladies cracked up laughing, and the driver came around to my side, grumbling, and reattached the broken door with the shoestring it had been attached with. Apparently, the door was not meant to close, so I held on tight to my bags as we cruised down the mad ruleless highway. When we got to an intersection, the driver indicated that this was our stop, Caribe Tours was around the way and would take us to Santo Domingo. Note: “indicated.” He failed, however, to successfully indicate how much the fare was, and we managed to get away with only giving him 50 pesos for the two of us. By “get away with”, I mean we probably got grossly ripped off - but I've been trying to stay on the positive side of the language barrier.

With minor trouble, we found our way to Caribe Tours, boarded a bus headed to Santo Domingo for $330 pesos a person, and called Ian to let him know we were on our way. We rode through the center of the Dominican Republic in a nice air conditioned bus, and once we had our fill of the scenery and ate our packed lunches we'd made at the resort, hung over as I was, we took a nap. I woke feeling much refreshed, and began to sew my now tattered only pair of shorts.

Arriving in Santo Domingo, we took a cab to meet Ian at a bar in the heart of the Zona Nationale. Ian met us at the door and, finally meeting in person after several weeks of digital correspondence, we sat down to get acquainted over a few Presidente beers. The bar was an interesting spot, a mariner's club of sorts, and an interesting assortment of clients came in to have a few and chat. We told our stories, and them theirs. With one of these characters, Michael, we became instant friends, and his story proved the best to retell:

Ten years ago, in Texas, he met a – get this – jetpack pilot, by the name of Eric Scott, and..

6:12 P.M. of the same day.

Fast forward to just now. We've just had another perfect day. Here in the Haitises N.P., we woke up, got our outboard on our dingy, and went off to have one of the best days of our trip so far. Everyone met in their respective dingies, five in total, and went off along the cliffs, adventuring. Just for fun, YOLO, Eventide (a new boat amongst the ranks), and Hejira tied their dingies together, with Justin in the kayak holding on, and with Sterling, Rozz, Amber, and me in our dingy and our 30HP Johnson outboard we pulled them along the cliffs party style, with some beers and a bottle of rum passed around. We found a break in the cliffs that opened up onto a protected area with an extensive tangle of mangrove forests.

We made our way down a waterway that eventually led us to a concrete dock that led to a path into the forest. We gathered on the dock, and set off into the jungle. First we came across a cave, where we played on vines and looked for owls. Then, along the path with the jungle all around us, we came across cocoa trees and grapefruit trees, coconut palms and wild banana trees. We spend the better part of the day gathering and eating fruit. We came across some stray roosters and chased them around the cocoa trees, and when we came out to this clearing, we met some locals bringing their cows back from the pasture. Looking out before us we saw horses grazing in the fields and the lush mountains catching the sun in the distance. Eventually, we found ourselves at the eco-resort we'd heard about, and went swimming in their man-made pond and under their man-made waterfalls, played with a beautiful hauti bird (I tried to feed it a dreadlock, but it hopped away and knocked over the milk), and helped ourselves to their complimentary coffee.

It was a good one, today was, but more about Ian and Rocketman another time. Meanwhile, Sterling is sawing his cast off right now. Ciao

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Current Location: Santo Domingo, D.R.

2011-01-29T23:45:00.001+08:00

Tuesday, January 25^th, 2011 – Day 75, 5:10 PM: Lifestyles Resort, Puerto Plata

Oo.. so if you bitch about life enough, eventually, something good will come your way. I get it. Good thing I started a blog – I have my complaints on record.

Hanging out in Luperon, some friends told me about the Lifestyles Resort Winter Deal through Cheapcaribbean.com: Here, at a beautiful resort in the North of the D.R., I've gone from living on a decrepit boat, where I sleep on a damp bed in a damp leaky room and eat Spam five times a week, to living in grandeur and gluttonous decadence. All inclusive package for five days and four nights for $111 a person: a king size bed, complimented with flowers and a plethora of candles; SCUBA, dance, and Spanish lessons; a full drink menu, several restaurants, a sushi bar, and en suite stocked mini-fridge; and, the kicker so far, giant white beds with flowing white privacy curtains overlooking the waves and the mountains. Of course, the best part of the experience is my lovely Rozlynne, who is a delight and says hi to you all.

And so begins our foray out into the Republica Dominca; after this, we'll head down to check out the capital, the “oldest city of the New World”, Santo Domingo, to meet up with my good friend James's uncle Ian, who will then take us to his Bed&Breakfast over on the Samana Peninsula, where we will wait for the We Dont Neaux to sail over the horizon to pick us up.

The D.R. has been a blast. We pulled into Luperon from Big Sand Cay about six days ago, and it's certainly refreshing to be back in a non-firstwold country again. Everything in a place like this is just more interesting, and vastly more interesting than the Bahamas. The Bahamas, though beautiful, apparently had their tourist trade decimated by the war on drugs. The islands are general underpopulated, underdeveloped, and lacking. Although we've yet to see much of the D.R., Luperon seems to be a particularly interesting place. It is where all the sailors come into on their way down the island chain, and is greatly dominated by the harbor and the marina. It's run down and dirty, dangerous at night, and half of the foreigners there can't seem to leave. It seems fraught with stories from an astounding array of eccentric ex-pats, intermingling and intermarrying locals in a flurry of bad English and poor Spanish. (My Spanish gets a little better everyday, but sadly, it's very easy to not speak Spanish here, and the gains in my ability to speak the language are few and far between.)

As usual, there are many things that I should be writing about, but what I want to share the most is the bioluminescent algae in the harbor. I've seen bioluminescence before, but nothing like this. The first night I noticed it was when Amber came to pick Roz, Caleb, and I up from the dingy dock to bring us across the harbor to the marina across the way. As we picked up speed, I looked behind me to see our wake spread out behind us, completely aglow in a magical blue-green. It looked as though our boat was the head to a glowing water dove whose wingspan stretched out twenty feet behind our boat, and it was breathtaking. Two nights later, before the moon had risen and after the sun had set, Sterling was driving Roz and I with him back to the We Dont Neaux, and not only were we again the head to the magic water dove, but this time, the bioluminescence was so intense that we could see all the fish swimming below the surface, glowing in a coat of blue-green stars that left a trail behind them as they shot out in different directions, dodging the glowing jellyfish amongst them. When we got back to the boat, after relieving myself overboard in trails of a glitter, I played with a bucket for at least a half an hour, picking up the sea of liquid stars and splashing them back into the ocean and across our boat's deck.

Alright, it's time for dinner. Adios.

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Lifestyle Photos

2011-01-27T23:16:00.001+08:00

See the full gallery on posterous

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Some Crooked Island Photos

2011-01-27T03:42:00.001+08:00

See the full gallery on posterous

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Roz, Water, Somewhere.

2011-01-27T03:17:00.001+08:00

Taken by Rozlynne

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Current Location: Lifestyles Resort, Puerta Plata, D.R.

2011-01-27T03:07:00.001+08:00

Tuesday, January 19^h, 2011 – Day 68, 7:11 PM: The Crossing, from TCI to Luperon, D.R.

For those of you who were jealous before, get ready.

I knew today was going to be marvelous when I wrote my earlier post. In high spirits, I donned my snorkel gear, ran to the edge of the We Dont Neaux, and took a big leap off the side. (Aside: I had a bet going with Sterling. He said that I couldn't poop underwater – after pulling myself down the anchor rope, suspended in mid-ocean with my bum to the water's sky I found it was harder than I'd thought it would be to do the deed, and then I ran out of air. I lost that bet. It's not as easy as you might think.)

So, after trying and failing to poop underwater, I merrily swam around in my birthday suit in the perfect blue waters of Big Sand Cay. Underwater, I didn't see anything of note except for the beautiful white sand thirty feet below, with its undulating surface rolling quietly with the hydrodynamics of the ocean's bottom, and the nothing itself. The pure nothingness of open blue is unsettling, and with the nothing of the bottom and the nothing in all directions as far as the eyes can see, I here deem it note worthy, and have so shared.

Positioned on the ocean floor some thirty feet below, I watched as Rozlynne's nude form, complimented only by her snorkel, mask, and fins, broke the surfaces in a flurry of bubbles. We, Rozlynne, Amber (also naked), and I, swam to the perfect beach that had been beckoning us all morning. On shore, we bathed and washed our hair in the ocean, awkwardly greeting some older woman as she shyly passed. When Justin finally made his way over to the beach, he and Amber set off over the dunes, and Rozlynne and I set off down the beach to feed our eyes on the perfect beauty that is the headland of Big Sand Cay.

For those of you who claim that nothing is perfect, I disagree. Every bend we walked, one after the other, was more perfect than the last. Pristine beach with perfect shells and dunes and little birds that ran along the water's edge gave way to grand rock formations that carved out smaller secluded beaches. I spent a good part of my day today lost in a relived youth, battling the waves as they pounded against my bare body. I dove into them or stood fast to test their strength, a battle that was ended only by Rozlynne's beauty calling me over to her side. We walked hand in hand and lied in a small two-person pool that had been carved out of the rock by centuries of wanton ocean spray and tide. In a sun-warmed embrace, a large wave caught us off guard, and in a flurry of sand and bubbles, nipples and toes, sputtering and groping for solid ground we decided to find a better perch from which to enjoy perfection. Around the next bend, we were met with perfection redoubled: a magnificent stone archway framing the ocean and cliffs beyond. The cliff faces before us with the waves crashing below housed countless crabs that scuttered about, and every wave that crashed at the foot of the archway ran up through holes in the rock, shooting up water and wave in a magnificent display of gorgeous natural beauty.

In closing, we both got sun burned, and loved every minute of it. Off to the Dominican Republic!!

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Current Location: Luperon, D.R.

2011-01-22T23:25:00.001+08:00

Wednesday, January 19^th, 2011 – Day 68, 9:10 AM: Big Sand Cay, Turks and Caicos Islands

Congratulate me, for a sit here before this here keyboard in high spirits with positivity to post. In our saddest times, I've started leading off with a little diddy that goes, “My name is Mr. Postivitiy, and I am positive, and I am here to sing my positive song!” It may be annoying, but it works.

I've just come down from the fordeck, where I was lying in the sun reading The Caribbean, by James A. Michener. Before me, stretching out to my right and my left, was a gorgeous beach, with perfect tropical waters lapping the shoreline. Bright baby blue skies with wisps of white clouds over head, and far to the left: cliffs for effect and the echo of the ocean on the rocks. The plan today: swim to the beach, probably naked, snorkel the reefs along the way. Perhaps I will catch lunch. It will be a good day.

Yesterday was also marvelous. Leaving at around ten, we set out from Ambergis on rough seas. The bow of our boat was repeatedly launched into the air to come crashing down into the oncoming crests, wave after wave, so that, standing midship watching Justin attach the locks of the jib to the forestay, was an awesome and epic scene. On our decents, the background of this image was nothing but the dark navy blue of a turbulent ocean, with white lips foaming in mad turmoil; the foreground was Justin, clothing askew, hair whipping around his face, shrouded in our crimson tanbark jib on the bow of our canary yellow trimaran. Blue, yellow, crimson, and our current buddy ship, the Hejira on the horizon, cutting through each wave and sending flying fish flying through the air, leaving one wave to enter the next: Epic.

It's funny how life works. In the aftermath of a final decision to abandon the We Dont Neaux, our sailing has been magnificent. Sun and warmth, headed for the famed land of Hispaniola. The only recent calamity that befell our poor ship happened on Sunday, and went as follows:

As we cruised across the open blue toward Ambergis, a motorboat with a Caribbean family aboard waved us over. Their engine had failed, and they were stranded in open ocean. We came up along side their expensive motorboat (as Sterling quietly called to Justin for his gun – jokingly, I assume), and asked them what the problem was.

I went below with Rozlynne when we tied up to the boat, but had to run up on deck when Sterling suddenly started yelling. After pulling up alongside their boat, we'd dropped anchor, but Sterling, having forgotten that we'd dropped anchor, tried to drive away with the anchor still securely in the sea floor, and the anchor ripped clean off the bow of our boat.

Well, we'd been begging to stop and swim for a while now, and with our anchor having been ripped off the bow, we had our chance – scavenger hunt style. We and the crew of the Hejira dropped anchor (we have several), and we all jumped in with our snorkel gear to search for it. After an hour of combing the blue expanse, Kaleb of the Hejira found it, and he and Amber brought it up from the bottom, loaded it into the kayak, and brought it safely back. The night was spent without land in sight, watching the moon rise and the sun set around pistachio nuts, guitars, and Justin's famous yuke.

Our life is grand, with struggles to match our moments of glory. So it goes.

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Current Location: Luperon, Domincan Republic

2011-01-22T07:46:00.001+08:00

Tuesday, January 18^th, 2011 – Day 66, 8:28 AM: Ambergris, Turks and Caicos Islands

Chapter 999: Life Continues.

There's a lot in a life; and I find, the more complicated Life gets, the easier it is to be aware, in moments, of how awed you are by the reality of your existence. “How did I find myself in this situation?” you'll ask yourself... “We Dont Neaux”?

So, here I am: Next to an island (the name of which I had to ask Amber; I've lost interest in keeping track of the islands on which we don't actually disembark. “Parenthetically speaking”, with my abundance of punctuation, I'll also add an apology to the world for not being good at keeping a daily log – I just don't really care to write about the day to day, I get bored with it.)

… to an island somewhere in the east of the Turks and Caicos islands, lying in my bunk. I look around me and see:

A cut to size black garbage bag with a smaller catty-cornered smaller clear plastic bag taped to our white ceiling with a poorly-structured array of blue tape. (It's for when it rains, all the water that drips from our ceiling will get caught and directed to our walls, where it will run down, making the wall wet as it runs into the bilge, which fills and sloshes around annoyingly noisily. Funny story: one night, deep into a REM cycle, the plastic bag comes loose and dumps a gallon of water on me while I sleep. I spaz out in a state of stuporous fury, and Rozlynne laughs. Ha, flippin' ha...)

An exposed propane line.

Every concave and convex distortion from countless years of reapplied fiberglassing.

A mound of sand dollars (collected in the nude, while snorkeling with Roz in Mayaguana – this, I must add, was a true delight. There are many true delights that have occurred throughout our voyage: small adventures, nice people, and fire-side jam sessions, etc. It is as Sterling says, “The life of sailing is one of extremes, extreme goods and extreme bads, but no in between” [paraphrased], but more on that later)

An assortment of dried sea-fans, conch shells, coral and other gastropod remnants.

Books, papers, magazines, clothes, photos, candles,other decorative elements, and clustering of stuff.

My bed fell into the ocean yesterday. The main sail ripped. The water pump “fell off the engine into the bilge.” And I laugh.

On Saturday, In Provenciales, TCI, I had assertively decided to get off the boat. When it rains, our world gets wet. Most homes provide shelter from the elements. Boats get tossed and turned and thrown around by the elements, and ours leaks. Apparently. The countless years of fiberglassing was not enough to prevent water from making its way into the ceiling, and dripping. By this I mean not from one place, or two. It drips from everywhere, leaving a brown residue that smells like sneeze (or at least did; I think that it's been cleansed of stink over the course of several rain storms – do you know what sneeze smells like?). But, it rarely rains. We wanted to leave earlier than we did from Provenciales, but we couldn't. One of the spreader poles on our mast broke off. Yep. “Broke off.” Oh yea, did I mention also that the main ripped? Do you know how many sails have ripped? Did I mention we sew them by hand?! Man.

I talk of it as a matter of collective concessions that tip a scale. I think I've referred to this before as the “scale of worth it.” My dad loves this scale, and references it all the time. It's a little mental scale, where you place the pros and the cons on opposing sides of a scale, and see “does the good outweigh the bad?” If the answer to that question is no, the situation you are evaluating is conclusively not worth it. Note the factor that can tip a scale beyond reason: a loved one.

We'd been talking about getting off the boat for a while now, Rozlynne and I. Actually, it seems like we've been talking about it off and on since before we set eyes on the We Dont Neaux,but it's hard to turn down dreams, even when their manifested reality is a grotesque deviation from your Platonic ideal. And again, Life is complicated.

Among all of the problems of the boat, and the stress it causes, it had been determined that Amber was a leading cause stress, and that it had become a serious problem. So as not to incriminate anyone else, I (and I stress the ego in I) felt that Amber had an attitude problem. She was chronically at odds with either one person of our quintet or another, usually over nothing of importance. It was the way she would say things, the way she would snap at you. She'd criticize most everything you did while you were doing it, and then proceed to try and usurp the task from you, in such a way that you'd usually throw your hands up in disgust and frustration, and let her do it and have it her way, only to later hear her go on about how she's the only one that does anything on the boat. Infuriating. But being beyond the point of specifics, and there are many specific points in favor of Amber, it was the mere fact that she was always in an argument with someone, or that someone was upset because of her. More seriously, Sterling seems particularly prone to her attitude, and will respond in kind when pushed. In Lovely Bay, he was so angered by her that he spun around and shattered his hand against a solid wall. My friends, you have to be pretty upset to want and go do something so dumb. He's admitted it, he just lost his temper.

So, I've spent much time considering the situation, and I've come to the conclusion that everything here is best understood against a scale of stress. No one thing Amber does is really that big a deal, but it contributes, and the measure of stress increases. No one aspect of the boat (except when it rains) is really horrible (having to poop in a bucket is pretty bad though, and Roz has taken to pooping off the back of the boat). You make concessions for dreams. You alter yourself to fit your habitat. You adapt. You overcome. You build stress.

Stress is often best alleviated by distancing yourself from that which makes you stressful. On a boat, this is impossible. Sterling, unable to de-stress, punched the wall in a desperate attempt to destress. Lying in a hospital bed watching TV in Miami, pumped full of medication - it might have worked, I've yet to ask.

So I presented my argument for Amber having to be “kicked off the island, survivor style.” Nothing specific matters, she's stressing us all the fuck out, and we just can't take it anymore. Period. Rozlynne, obligated by the result of a personal internal debate over the course of many days, decides that Amber can't get kicked off, she won't allow it, and if Amber does, then she's leaving too. And BAM! The big golden hand of a loved one comes crashing down on the good side of the scale, and suddenly, beyond all rationale, the scale of worth it reads, conclusively, in the affirmative.

So we decide to let Amber stay, but still get the added bonus of the tears and upset when Sterling, ignorant of the decision to keep her onboard, relays the decision to give her the boot to her mother. We hadn't yet told Amber we'd decided to kick her off, with good reason since we ultimately decided to keep her on, and she finds out that we decided to kick her off via her mother and Facebook. She was crushed. But, it all worked out, she begged for another chance and promised to be better, and she stayed on.

So, the stress from Amber abated a bit, and we left the Bahamas (tried, failed, and then made the crossing the next day). Our stress levels were down a bit, and we were in high spirits. We met up with the YOLO, and watched as the peaced-out straight to the D.R. Grrr. Then, I dunno, more arguing, more broken boat, more stress. I'd had it. Let Amber stay, I was done with it, and Rozlynne was coming with me!

Provenciales was nice. The night we arrived there was a pot-luck at the marina and we got to hang out with some cool folks, have a few drinks, and try to find a way off the boat. We hadn't told anyone yet, but I was sending out my feelers to find the next course of action. For a about a day, I thought I'd be able to get passage to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands with this nice married couple and their super awesome luxury motor-yacht, and told Sterling that we were set on leaving when we could manage it, but the luxury motor-yacht was denied to us, and that was that. Darn. When we considered flying out of Provenciales to wherever, we found it to be prohibitively expensive, but it turns out that my best friend James has an uncle who has a bed and breakfast in the D.R., and he put me in contact with him. I wrote his uncle an e-mail, and happily, he turned out to be very nice, very welcoming, and excited to show us his island. Visions of motorbiking through the mountains of the Domincan Republic, and eating fruit in beach side bungalows filled my mind, and I was sold. Just a few more days on the boat to make it the D.R., and then Samana here we come. BAM! The golden hand comes down again. No money to run off with me into the rising sun of a better tomorrow, must stay on boat. Don't leave. Stay with me. Hmm. Okay. Sure. Just a week vacation from our vacation in Samana. Then, well, it's back to We Dont Neaux.

Wow. That was a lot of writing. I even gave you a little trailer for the next post! Haha, love to you all.

PS: My bed was recovered. It is just still very wet.

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Current Location: Luperon, Domincan Republic

2011-01-21T07:25:00.001+08:00

Tuesday, January 4^th, 2011 – Day 52, 7:51 AM: Waiting for a ride to get our Bahama visas renewed – Acklins Island, Bahamas

Sitting in the lovely dining room of our most gracious and hospitable hosts, the famous Fedel Johnson, Bonefishing Extrodinaire, and his girlfriend Erika, I listen to Digital Samsara, an Israeli album I acquired in Israel from another pair of gracious hosts on the other side of the world.

It's been many, many days since I last wrote, and much has happened. Perhaps too much to try and retrace here, and though I promised Rozlynne that I'd write of the good things that have happened, they are really a scattering of good things against a backdrop of a troubled existence. Much of my happiness is found in Rozlynne, in her smiles and her embrace, dawn Sun Salutations, and trying to kiss with snorkeling masks on surrounded by scores of tropical fish in the mouth of an underwater cave – ah, indeed that is a good memory, let's start off with that..

North of here is an island called Staniel Cay. In the cay's bright blue lagoon lies a scattering of islets that shelf out over the top of the water, leaving dug out over-hangings, eaten away by the ebb and flow of the collective ages.

One of these island-hills, I believe locally known as Thunderball, houses a large cave with numerous underwater entrances colored with coral, sponge, fish and fern – purples and reds, oranges, pinks and greens fading back into a beautiful dark blue expanse. It was one of my best snorkeling experiences, and I believe Justin's first one of note. This is where we first met Mia. Hi Mia ;)

Sadly, and much to my annoyance, with our broken outboard and the confines of weather and water, we failed to make it over to see the swimming pigs or the iguana beach, and had to leave to continue onward to Georgetown.

Like I've said, there have been good times – other fun snorkeling experiences, new friends and parties, delicious fish – but sadly, I find the culture of the Bahamas to be lacking, and it seems like we are missing much of what the Bahamas has to offer just trying to get down to St. Croix. Just recently, the day after Christmas was a local holiday called Junkanoo, a festival supposedly filled with costumes and dance, parades, music, and riotous bacchanalia. We, the crew and captain of the We Dont Neaux, have been anchored in the safety of Lovely Bay, next to the ferry landing of Crooked Island, across the way from Acklins, since the 23^rd, and of all the islands to be stranded at, these are two that don't celebrate the festival (according the locals, it's because everyone is too lazy). Great!

But, all that said, the hospitality of the Bahamians is exceptional. Everywhere we go, we are welcomed, offered food, friendship, and lodging if we need – however, dare I say it, it's unclear if a large part of the locals' acceptance of us has been because of the girls. Rozlynne the pretty blonde and Amber the feisty brunette both seem to make an impression, and collect an array of Bahamian suitors almost immediately at the point of land fall.

Wednesday, January 5^th, 2011 – Day 53, 9:20 AM: Another day at Fidel and Erica's – Acklins Island, Bahamas

Another day we stay, and although we try to be the best of guests, picking up groceries and items to replace that which we've used, doing dishes and helping out as much as we can, it feels like we are really pushing the limits of their hospitality, although Fidel and Erica will adamantly deny it, and insist we stay.

We've been stuck here on the two islands of Lovely Bay for days; let me tell you how we got stranded...

Wednesday, January 12^th, 2011 – Day 60, 7:34 PM: West Caicos

Alright, this is going to be the grand summary post, the post to make up for all the posts unposted, all the events unlogged. We've finally made it out of the Bahamas and are anchored somewhere off a town in West Caicos (maybe I'll look at the charts later). Today was a challenge.

Yesterday, we tried to make the crossing from Mayaguana to the Turks and Caicos, leaving at 4 am only to have our jib explode in heavy choppy seas. We gave up and returned to the same spot we'd anchored on Monday, a place called Abraham Bay, Mayaguana, Bahamas. The YOLO (You Only Live Once) pulled in next to us, and meeting its captains, Lance and Andy, we realized that the YOLO was the first boat we saw pull into to Bimini with us (we watched them run aground at the docks in Bimini). It was great to meet up with them and hang out, really cool guys. Later that day we all went spear fishing on the reef. There wasn't much fishing, but the reef itself was gorgeous and exciting in the tumultuous low tide and setting sun.

Before we went snorkeling, we all (minus Justin) went to shore (I followed in the kayak). They needed to check the internet, I needed to send some essays to China, and Amber needed to see the doctor. Amber, tragically, was bitten on the chin by what we surmise must have been a spider, and is having a horrendous reaction to it. Her entire chin has swollen up, and a large wound is forming. She is often in tremendous pain that comes and goes, adding to her list of injuries. She broke both pinky toes early in the trip, is covered in sandfly bites, and while helping me stow are largest anchor, the fluke fell and took off half of her middle fingernail. Poor Amber, this trip has been truly hard for her.

When we were stuck in Lovely Bay with a broken water pump, Amber and Sterling got into some argument (it was early enough that I was still in bed), and Sterling, in a fit of rage, punched the cabin wall and shattered his hand in multiple places. It was a compound fracture, and Justin had to push one of the bones back in place while I prepared a rag with alcohol for the open wound. We spent most of the week waiting for Sterling to fly back from Miami, where he had to go to a VA hospital to have it X-Rayed and put in a cast (Neither Crooked Island nor Acklins has anything more than a clinic, both lacking X-Ray machines). Without an ATM on the islands, we gradually ran out of money, so again, thank you Fedel and Erika for your kind hospitality. That's the story of us getting stranded in Lovely Bay, where we spent both Christmas and New Years.

So, about today. Today, with the encouragement of Lance and Andy, and a desperate desire to get closer to the D.R. (Dominican Republic), we left again at 4 am, and buddy boated out of Abraham Bay. The YOLO, light and with a more powerful engine, quickly put distance between our two boats, and after a few hours we lost radio contact, and then sight of them. Struggling against the current and with the winds not in our favor, we went slow and traveled off-course with the aim of tacking back. When we went to tack back however, the port-side jib-sheet came untied and the jib was luffing freely and violently across the bow. I ran up and grabbed the jib by the starboard sheet as Rozlynne tied her Bowline, but then we saw that the line still wasn't rigged correctly, we having missed passing it through an eye near the cockpit. I grabbed the port-side jib-sheet and lied on the deck with my right foot planted against a deck cable, fighting the wind and holding the jib secure while Amber sorted out the tangle and secured the line around the winch. It was exciting, but our triumph was short lived. We looked up to see that the starboard spreader pole on the main mast had broken, which meant that we couldn't safely tack back to starboard with the jib (mind you, this is a new jib, since yesterday's jib is shredded and stowed in the starboard ama). Thrilled by the excitement, regardless of the broken spreader, we looked off our bow as a pod of dolphins came racing up in front of our boat. The danced and played for a good twenty minutes – our high point of the day. We then proceeded on our arduous 50 something mile journey to West Caicos.

Everything is damp, and the ship is falling apart. Sterling has a shattered hand and Amber needs medical attention (they could only give her some antihistamines at the clinic). Our fridge still doesn't work, and traveling by sea remains uncomfortable.

The day Sterling broke his hand, we'd decided to kick Amber off the boat. Our stress levels had maxed out (though there is no excuse for Sterling's punching the wall), and Amber would fight and argue with each of us all the time. It'd had gotten to be too much, but then, when it came down to it, we couldn't kick Amber off the boat without collapsing our team. So, she stayed on and we continued toward St. Croix when Sterling returned from the Miami. Tears and fears, I'm over this sh*t. I can't wait to get to the D.R. And reassess my life.

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Current Location: Provinciales, TCI

2011-01-16T02:48:00.001+08:00

Tuesday, December 14^th, 2010 – Day 31, 2:38 PM: Sitting in the kitchen of a new friend – Little Farmer's Cay, Exumas, Bahamas

This, I'll forewarn, shall be a somber post. Our travels continue to be a challenge in almost every respect. There are many personal and social troubles that continue to plague our crew, troubles that I have repeatedly censored out of respect for my crewmates and our general privacy, and they are expounded tenfold by the challenges of our life on the water.

I try to justify our strife by generalizing: this boating life is a hard one, and the challenges we face are not uncommon, certainly not unique – a reasoning which, no matter how hard I try, I always fail to convince myself of.

____

Saturday, December 18^th, 2010 – Day 35, 10:48 AM: Just another day – Georgetown, Exumas, Bahamas

Life continues to be a struggle, and though some might say that I should be thankful that my struggles are not those of physical hardship, I respond that physical hardships at least makes you stronger - emotional hardships break you down.

Each of our personal hang-ups and qualms are like the various celestial objects and atmospheric phenomenon, creating temperamental waves that rise and fall in varying degrees with a meteorological unpredictability; and it is all a mind can do to stay afloat. Daily squabbles and arguments, compounded by the tests of storms and the slow degeneration of the old boat we call home, are wearing me down; the scale of “worth it” has been tipped to the wrong side either too often or for too long.

Yesterday, aside from all the problems between us, we (minus the captain, he didn't want to go and had other things to do on the We Dont Neaux), were taken aboard a beautiful mono-hull named the Rapture, and introduced to sailing. I know, you might say, “But Drew, what on God's Earth have you been doing for the past month on that sailboat if not sailing.” The Rapture is not a new boat, in fact it is over twenty-five years old, but it wasn't broken in any way - it was beautiful in design and aesthetics, well maintained and impeccably cared for. It had many, many, many things that we sorely lack here on the We Dont Neaux: It had a working alternator, sound system, and refrigerator. It had a self-furling jib, auto-pilot, and actual seats (with cushions!). It had a table! It had a desk... it had a nice stove and hot, running water (and a water maker). It had a foot button that raised and lowered the anchor (we, conversely, put on torn, dirty, and poorly-fitting gloves and haul our anchors up from the bow by hand, getting covered in rusty salt water every time). And, perhaps most sadly, it had a captain happy to teach and intent on sharing what he knew about the seas and seamanship. Our captain was getting drunk on a beach with his hand-held off. (In his defense, we were supposed to meet him there and get equally drunk, BUT we couldn't find the beach, and tried ceaselessly to contact him from the Rapture once it was clear that we wouldn't be able to make it to him.) I learned more from the Captain of the Rapture in one day that I have in my whole month sailing on the We Dont Neaux, and almost all that I have learned has been from the how-to sailing books that were given to us by our dear friend Nathan. Thank you Chris and Mia for everything, I wish you the best.

There are positive points I should share, but they will have to wait for another day.

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Current Location: Mayaguana, Bahamas

2011-01-12T04:59:00.001+08:00

Thursday, December 2^nd, 2010 – Day 18, 8:03 AM: In the middle of the ocean, 13 or so kilometers from Andros

The ocean is mad, I tell you. Mad.

And it is exactly such fickle and illogical behavior in the world around that makes one religious, makes one believe in the divine, makes one god-fearing – Pick your gods as you will. Yes, we all now pray; to each of us our own deity, and though perhaps silently and without ritual, against wind and seas, you secure lines and leads, and then you pray.

The night before last was spend in turmoil and tempest, and last night was the same. Tuesday night, before crossing the Great Bahama Bank to Andros, we traveled south to get a better heading with the southerly winds, and set anchor off the shores of a strange island. The islet wasn't residential, and seemed to be entirely rigged for the mining of minerals and the housing of its workers. A basketball net here, bunkers there, and an array of cranes scattered about the eastern end. About a kilometer away from the island, as we made our way around the sandbar barring us from a direct access, a strange occurrence met our path. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere (though, not quite as near to nowhere as the location we anchored last night, from which I now write), an expensive motor boat, with its cavalry's worth of horse power strapped to the stern came racing up behind us. Geared up for fishing, two jovial fellows pull up along side us to inquire, “Hey, sorry.. you wouldn't happen to have any double-A batteries, would you?” Of course, I replied that, sadly, we didn't, but we had a healthy stock of Grey Pupon mustard in the galley below.

So I went below to my room to fetch the batteries, laughing to myself at the strangeness of my new existence, then went topside and tossed them the batteries. Supposedly their handheld GPS had died, and I was doing them a grand service, saving them the two hour trip (which took us days upon days of travel, mind you) back to Miami. In return, they asked if we like Heineken, and then proceeded to throw us six bottles and two bags of ice. In high spirits, I set up a cooler, put the beers on ice, the coconuts Justin had gathered the day before, and an assortment of other beverages I deemed better cold, including a large bottle of Rose Zinfandel. The girls laughed, and said that they really only came over because they'd been sunbathing topless on the foredeck...

After getting more than just a little tipsy (strange how alcohol can affect the body differently in different circumstances) off one beer each (one and half for the girls and me), Sterling got to work replacing an engine belt, and Amber popped open the Zin. By the time the engine was all set, and the light was fading, the bottle of Zin was almost gone, and we were all pretty well off. Justin and I played our first real game of chess, and then everyone called it a night at around seven PM.

About an hour or so later, a squall came in strong and started to toss our boat around like a plastic steamboat in a bathtub. Again, the lifeboat started to smash against the hull by our cabin, the lines of the mizzenmast vibrated a cacophony to be amplified by our walls, the rudder creaked, the mirror banged, and the bilge water sloshed ceaselessly (it takes hours of sleeplessness to pull apart and identify all the sounds of a cacophony). The winds tore around our boat with fury, and I tried my best to go out and identify sound producing items, and make sure that we weren't going to lose anything else in the night. Some hours later, the tides changed so that our boat was situated in the surf off the island, and then the true tossing and yawing began.

The night was stressful, and in the lurching and rolling and yawing, the strong cable lock that we'd attached to the dingy ripped one of the seats clear out, and we were grateful for the other line securing it to the heavy cleat at our stern. We all emerged from below bleary-eyed, grateful to the sun for not failing to rise, and set out. The ocean again became tranquil, and the detour south proved to have been the perfect choice; we had clear perfect sailing the whole day. With the engine off and the mizzen up, we barely had to mind the helm as she sailed straight and at a swift four and a half to five knots for several hours. We lounged around, taking turns at the wheel and fishing, reading and playing music for the length of the day. I caught two small fish none of us could name, the first I let back, the second I used as bait, and a third larger fish I lost off the line. Sterling reeled in a beautiful barracuda, but he explained to us how barracuda that's too large can be toxic, and we had to toss her back.

The long crossing, though longer in distance from Miami to Bimini, is a calm and shallow. It makes for crappy fishing, but at sunset we were able to simply drop anchor. I was reading an interesting article about the fallacies and truths about how the English founded Jamestown, and then looked up to watch a beautiful sunset before dropping the Danford anchor and getting ready for the night.

Just before bed, Rozlynne, in response to the complaints of the captain and the crew, went to take the stinky conch shell from dinner two nights ago, and find a better place for it until it was to be cleaned, and accidentally spilled the remaining innards of rotting conch all in the cockpit and on herself. An atrocious smell filled our little world, and Roz and I spent the next thirty minutes or so cleaning her and the cockpit. Finally, we all said goodnight, and thanked our good fortune for the calm seas and promise of a much needed good night's rest. No more than fifteen minutes after we'd all gone to bed did the winds pick up a fury tearing across and around our boat the likes of which we, the novice crew of Captain Dore, hadn't yet seen. The waves began and the boat began to toss – all hands came racing from below to check lines and items to be secured. Satisfied that all that could be done was done, we retreated back to our berths to weather yet another tempest, and cursed ourselves for so foolishly bringing a jinx upon our heads.

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Island Daze - Queen's Dock

2011-01-08T01:10:00.001+08:00

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Current Location: Acklins Island, Bahamas

2011-01-08T00:35:00.001+08:00

Tuesday, November 30^th, 2010 – Day 16, 9:05 AM: On the way to Andros, Bahamas from Gun Cay

PART II

Tired, sore, or glum as I may try to be, it's gorgeous in all directions, and impossible not to smile when I look around us. Two days ago, on Sunday, when we made our way to Gun Cay from our first landing in Bimini, we took a detour out to the wreck of an old concrete and steel tanker. A sight to behold, the tanker was a hollowed rusted shell with gaping holes and rusted columns of monstrous ribs. The bow stretched easily a hundred feet out of the water, was covered with graffiti, and apparently begged Justin to climb to the top.

I (and later Amber joined me) suited up in snorkeling gear to explore her depths, as Justin suited up in full clothing to scale her heights. Taking the kayak, he found his way into her belly, and secured the kayak to a rib. He then climbed up and up, through a hole only he could squeeze through, and spent the time exploring the top deck and taking pictures. Envious as I was, with only a tanktop and swim trunks, I couldn't fit through the hole, and didn't want to try for fear of getting sliced up by the concrete and tetanus laden rusted metal.

I was contented by exploring the world under the surface. The hull was almost as large under the surface as above, stuck down into the sand over fifty feet below. Fish and coral ran up along the sides, and the hollowed holes of her ribs extended down below the surface as large, taunting doorways into her darkened belly. In the shadows amongst mammoth fallen gears and pipes, I explored with a racing heart; behind every corner I expected a shark, an eel, or worse. I found no such horrors, except for in the main chamber. There I found a large stingray circling along the bottom. I kept my eye on it as it made its rotation; clearly agitated, I thought for sure it was just relocating, and explained as much to Amber. I noticed another stingray buried under the sand, and after some laps around the basin of the hull, the larger first stingray started to make clearly more agitated laps around the cavernous hull, each time making its return leg directly at me, even ascending toward me from below. I retracted my early assurances to Amber, and swam backwards away from the it, keeping my fins between us and the angry ray. Keeping my distance, every loop brought it closer to us as we moved to the exit, until a final quick offensive show of aggression and intention to attack made me decided to leave the belly of the ship. Justin, now safely back in his kayak, and Amber and I safely away from the confined ray and again in open waters, made our way back to the We Dont Neaux, perfectly thrilled with the new lives we now found ourselves living.

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Current Location: Small Farmer's Cay, Exumas, Bahamas

2010-12-14T08:25:00.001+08:00

Tuesday, November 30^th, 2010 – Day 16, 9:05 AM: On the way to Andros, Bahamas from Gun Cay

PART I

The sorrow of yesterday's morning was overcome in concert with the continued rising of the sun. Rozlynne took the kayak over to the islet across the lagoon, while the rest of the crew prepared the life-raft to go ashore (the loss of the little yellow dingy has forced us to resort to using the 300lb life-raft exclusively, minus the exception of the one-man kayak).

Rozlynne spent the morning meditating, collecting sea-glass, and writing messages to the heavens in the sand, and when the rest of us made it over to the island, I went and pooped in a hole. (Hey, it's better than a bucket, there's a nice breeze and I had a great view; “Pooping in Paradise”, a novel by Andrew Garde Joia...) This, of course, made me feel much better about everything in general, and Sterling was proud of himself for having known that that was the cause of my sour mood, above and beyond the general gloom from the loss of the yellow dingy.

Afterward, I went to go say a proper good-morning to Rozlynne, and the rest went hiking and exploring, making their way to the lighthouse at the far end of the island. Sterling later came and scolded Roz for going off on her own, reeling off on some fear-fueled rant about dehydrated, saltwater maddened dogs running loose on the island. Ironically, Sterling and I then left Roz (again by herself, to stew in unwelcome state of paranoia that the Captain had just imposed upon her tranquility), and went spearfishing.

Sadly, while spearfishing, the elastic on the Hawaiian sling broke, and we didn't catch any fish, but we did catch some lobster and a small collection of conch and conch shells. I spent the rest of the day lazily frolicking in the water and sunbathing with Roz. Justin and Amber, having thoroughly explored and traversed the harsh terrain (barefoot) over sharp volcanic rock, returned with some coconuts, and we all went back to the We Dont Neaux for a late lunch of coconuts, lobster, conch, and beef stew. About an hour and a half before sunset, we went out, and did it all over again.

Despite the great day, the winds continued to pick up, and the waters became maddeningly choppy. The large life-raft continuously banged against the side of the boat where Roz and I share a cabin, and the lines of the mizzenmast (directly above our cabin) whipped and banged. Already paranoid about losing yet another dingy, especially one so valuable as the life-raft we now relied on, every large bang and whap jumped me awake, and I made several trips out under the stars to put a stop to them. After a fitful, sleepless night, I got up, helped straighten up the boat, pulled up the plow (an anchor), helped Roz pull up the Danford (another anchor), helped pull the motor off the back of the life-raft, drank too much coffee, and again, we were off on another day.

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Current Location: Little Farmer's Cay, Bahamas

2010-12-14T08:08:00.001+08:00

Monday, November 29^th, 2010 – Day 15, Sunrise: Honeymoon Harbor, Gun Cay, Bahamas

Of all the glorious things that I was waiting and wishing to write for your eyes, a sad morning in paradise greeted mine own. This morning, the dingy was gone. Sterling has had this very same dingy, a little yellow fiberglass dingy, for over fifteen years, and our second night in the Bahamas, our first real morning out in the world of perfection that we all sought, this grand tragedy befell our crew, and more importantly, our captain: “Fifteen years.. fifteen years, I've had that dingy. Through hurricanes and... Shit!” As the one who tied it up last, even though it was the wave action that snapped the line and not my knot that came undone, I feel a terrible remorse.

But the larger news is, of course, the success of our second crossing attempt. We awoke at 4 a.m. Saturday morning to face the East, pulled up the anchor, and tried again our fate. Our luck, though apparently spotty at best, decided to come to us in full force; the winds changed to a favorable direction, the waves died down, and, literally, it was smooth sailing the whole way. We averaged around 4 and a half knots, pushing up to 6 at times, and made good time, pulling into Bimini, the site of the famous Ernest Hemingway Blue Marlin Tournament, well before sunset. Aside for perhaps some tornadoes off in the distance behind us in a storm we gladly missed (though the rain reached us), the tempest that fought us back the first time, thank Poseidon, was no more; blue skies, and I tell you, the bluest blue waters I've ever seen, painted our day. The blue of the waters out at 1100ft are a perfect navy blue. Perfection, to you nonbelievers, is found in bounty here; pulling into Bimini, a huge marble ray jumped clear out of the water, clearing at least 3-4 feet from the surface. And we begin again.

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Photo - Drop!

2010-12-08T07:25:00.001+08:00

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Current Location: Nicholls Town, North Andros, Bahamas

2010-12-07T03:13:00.001+08:00

November 25th, 2010 – Day 11: Returning to Miami

Epic perhaps, but we were challenged; challenged beyond the standards of normalcy from which I hail, and may the gods bless those whose understanding of normal surpasses the extremes and challenges of last night.

We fueled up and had a light dinner at Boater's Grill out in “No Name Harbour” (around the way a few clicks from Coconut Grove, Miami), then returned to the We Dont Neaux to rest before the crossing. After we'd all made the necessary phone calls to friends and family, telling them of the potential end of our cell phone usage and of the imminent crossing, we pulled the dingy out of the water (no small task, I assure you), secured her to the foredeck, snuggled down below, and closed our eyes.

Just before 1 a.m., I arose to the sound of the engine roaring to life – an it was indeed a mighty roar from the cabin just behind the mighty Isuzu's lair – threw on some clothes and went topside. I was able to make out the Captain on the bow, readying the anchor, and called out to him, “Morn'n Cap, I'll pull up the “Bruce” (our main bow anchor, as opposed to the “Plow” anchor, which we'll use for rocks and reef anchoring) - if you'll work the helm.” He smiled a good morning at me, as I slid on my pair of “borrowed” Home Depot gloves, and made my way to the bow. I unsecured the anchor line from the cleat, and began to pull her in. Then, well, we were as ready as we were, and we headed out the channel for deeper waters.

Up until now, the time we've waited has been essentially spent waiting for a window, a window of opportunity where the winds - and the winds' obedient children, the waves and the current - would let us cross the Inter-coast waterway out the Bimini Islands of the Bahamas. We've waited and fought-out storms and choppy seas, high winds and impossible currents, to get far enough north to make the crossing, and we'd heard on the radio that the winds would drop down from 15 knots to 5 sometime the next day, gradually getting better as we pushed our way out. We had a good start out of the channel, but soon we were met smack with strong 15 knot winds and a strong current. We smiled at the roaring waves under the bright moon, and looked back to the city. It's a beautiful sight, a city at night, from two miles out to sea. It glows in its own dome of light, painting the clouds above pink and golden hues, and twinkles as bright as the heavens. Before it lies open waters – there is something divinely surreal about open waters under the moonlight, a milky black glimmering living mass that seems to breath and flow. The ocean screams out with the power of its existence, and the wise bow before her.

With the current against us, we were inching along at around 2 knots, something comparable to around 1 mph. Two hours later, after we'd made it less than 10 miles, and our speed was dropping down below even 1 knot. We decided to throw up the main sail, so I readied the life jackets and harnesses, our safety lights and all. Justin and I were going out on the top-deck; we'd done this before, but never like this.

Safety was our first priority, and we weren't going to go out without life jackets and harnesses, but we'd never used the harnesses before, and they needed to be untangled and set up. The clip for one of the harnesses had ceased up from corrosion, so I took the better of the life jackets, and tied myself to Justin's harness.

The boat bounced, and lurched up crests and down troughs coming from all directions in front of us, five to seven foot waves means ten to fourteen foot rises and falls, and the bow crashed into the waves as though it were a battering ram, sending up spray and soaking us as we worked. A simple task on land by day seems an Olympian feat under such conditions, especially for the inexperienced, and we struggled to rig up the main sail.

Having secured the line with the main sail hoisted, I took off my safety equipment in the cockpit just before the seems in the main sail parted, and the girls pointed out the rip. We had to pull her down.

The waves grew taller, but we worked harder. We pulled down the main sail, and later, still barely covering any real distance, we tried the jib. The jib is the sail raised off the bow; it's harder to get to, set up, and to secure, especially with a five hundred pound safety boat (our dingy) strapped smack in your way. As the bow would fly up into the air, and then come crashing down, I held on as Justin held on, and rigged up the jib in the bow, screaming exultations into the night; I was alive and loving it. We clambered back to the main mast to hoist her, fighting off surges of nausea as the sea-sickness began to dig her teeth into our guts. Just as before, by the time we'd safely made it back to the cockpit and I'd taken off my safety gear, the Captain told me to pull her down. We couldn't hold our baring; the winds were pushing directly from the East. We could only fill the jib with a northern heading; we couldn't advance eastward toward Bimini, and if we tried, the wind would start to whip the jib around so terrifically that it was unclear if it would tear, or tear the rigging right out of the hull.

Once again, Justin and I made our way to the bow. Pulling down the jib proved to be an epic battle, with the boat lurching and the launch in the way, I couldn't get to the front to get any leverage. The wind was fighting me, and I was splayed out across the top of the dingy pulling with all my might and full of fear that I'd tear the jib. Justin, clipped to rigging by the main sail grabbed my leg as I pulled myself body and soul farther out onto the bow, and when I was able to finally get her down and unclipped, he used a strength I didn't knew he possessed and dragged me back toward him by my ankle to where I could again find proper footing.

Returning to the cockpit, a solar panel popped over the rail that was holding it, and was almost lost to the waters. Justin moved fast and got it, but then the seasickness finally overcame him. I worked securing the solar panel while Rozlynne helped to keep him hydrated. We were spent.

About an hour later, having covered about 15 miles of our 50 mile journey to Bimini, we made the decision to turn back. Justin had seasickness bad; Amber, exhausted after a heroic battle to steady the main boom during the battle to bring down the main and re-secure her, had gone to her berth to sleep; I felt that it was too much to push through in the night; and Sterling was exhausted from manning the helm for hours through the crashing waves.

I woke up just outside of the harbor we'd left out of hours before to Sterling screaming my name. Rozlynne had seen that one of our other anchor lines had fallen off in the night, and was being dragged out behind the boat. We were lucky that the anchor didn't fall when the last 5 feet of chain and rope caught a cleat. I jumped to my feet to help her pull it in, and then, back in the safety of the cove, I lowered the Bruce, and climbed below. We'll try again tomorrow.

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Current Location: Nicholls Town, North Andros, Bahamas

2010-12-06T23:27:00.001+08:00

November 19, 2010 – Day 7: A Small Lake in the South of Key Largo

A sleepy day of sailing. We are still fighting the current and dancing along the skirts of storms. For most of the day we faced off with a wall of rain stretching for miles across the horizon.

Roz developed a migraine, and after the strenuous everything of life on a boat, I gladly accompanied her for a much needed nap this afternoon.

Seeking shelter from the wind and the waves, we took anchorage behind a small island. About a mile from the shores of the islet (we were unable to anchor any closer due to the shallows), conversations began about an exploratory excursion, and the hopes of coconut palms. It was decided: two would take the kayak, and the other two would snorkel. It was a daunting distance, and to add to our anxieties, Sterling told us to remove our jewelry for fear of a barracuda taking off one of our fingers, or a shark becoming overly excited by our glittering limbs.

Undaunted, though not entirely unafraid, I began to remove my jewelry, and watched as my most precious ring (and probably my most precious poseccion – a ring my grandfather made himself, and which bears his initials - fell through the air in apparent slow motion, landed cleanly on the inclined plane of the backside of the boat, and rolled off the edge into the hungry, all consuming waters. My mind went into calm alarm, and I called out to Roz about what had happened, asking her for my snorkel and mask – she is the only of the crew who would understand the importance of the ring, and she redirected all of her faculties to supplying me with what I needed to retrieve it.

“St. Anthony, St. Anthony, come around; something's lost, and can't be found.” Rozlynne's somber prayers directed my eyes, and after fifteen minutes of calm worry, and an encounter with a large hermit crab, my ring was restored to the white band of tanless skin about my thumb.

Excursion canceled, anchors up, and into the wind we ride.

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Present Location: Key Biscayne, Fl

2010-11-27T05:05:00.001+08:00

November 19, 2010 – Day 6: Plantation Key Inlet

It's the sixth day, and it already feels like at least half a lifetime has gone by. All of the anticipated challenges of this epic adventure have seem to come to us without haste: failed motor, ripped sail, crew squabbles, storms, crab-trap buoy attacks, and a confrontation with the wildlife protection agency... there is even a shark encounter to to speak of, though that took place before Day 1(, on Day -1)? It's getting harder to keep track. I should write more.

Let's see if I can't catch up on my delinquent loggings:

Day 2: After making it only as far as Lois Key the day before (a whopping 18 miles from our starting point), we set out on the blue ocean in high spirits, pushing our way farther up the coast. With the perfect turquoise bottom sliding fluidly under our three hulls, we laughed and dipped our feet in the ocean, all slightly anxious about losing a toe to a passing shark.

Fast forward sometime: we get caught on not one, but two crab traps. Using an extending house painting rolling poll and an altered roll attachment as a hook, I leaned body and soul over the bow of the We Dont Neaux, hooked the ropes and pulled for my life. Turns out, “for my life” was too much pulling, and the extension on the poll ripped off, hook and all, and sank to the white sandy bottom. Amidst a flurry of apologies, I gleefully ran below to get my swim trunks on, excited to jump into the gorgeous tropic waters, retrieve the captain's makeshift mooring hook, and make amends on my folly. While I'm below, Sterling kicks the We Dont Neaux into reverse, frees us, and off we are again, sans hook and poll, and with my folly unamended.

Sometime later, after an extended nap, I climbed sleepily out of my bunk to the sight of my skipper at the helm of our racing trimaran, full sail, and Justin standing proudly on the other side of the cockpit, having, singlehandedly, raised both sails under the captain's commands. A brief moment of glory took over the boat - less than ten minutes later, a stitch in the sail popped (we were relieved to find it was only a stitch, and not the actual canvas of the sail - I don't doubt that Captain Sterling, now affectionately referred to as “Poppa-Cap” by his crew, knew better than to be so full of hubris under full sail), and the sail seem ripped its way open from bottom to top. Sterling begins shouting commands as we gather our wits and eventually the main sail down from its perilous position and out of the the roaring wind so determined to literally tear her apart at the seems.

I forget if we pulled the jib down immediately after the main sail, or if the motor died first. Either way, we were dead in the water, floating slowly back the way we came less than fifteen minutes after the height of glory. The next few hours were a test I'd anticipated, but surely hoped would wait to come until we'd first made it to the Bahamas. When the ship breaks, can Sterling fix it?

It's been a reassuring philosophy of mine to think that a capable captain is more important than an expensive new vessel. On day two, that philosophy was tested. After countless tests and trials and tubes and pumps, filters, chokes and valves, both oil and water found their way to their respective places, and the engine roared to life. Turns out fungus can grow on fuel. A lesson learned.

Day 3 and 4, for the most part, were uneventful. The ripped sail and a temperamental motor of Day 2 was followed by an unwelcome forecast of a large storm coming in, and we headed into the port of Marathon to regroup, refuel, make repairs, and wait her out. I did take the dingy out for a short excursion to land, where I docked illegally in a marina, was promptly confronted, and characteristically talked my way out of trouble to subsequently get directions to the closest ATM. I needed to clear my Payoneer card of my returned Birthright deposit, but found it already empty. I spend too much.

Yesterday, Day 5, was a good day. We left Marathon before the storm arrived and made it up the coast a bit to a better spot, the spot from which I now write. We made it into a little inlet/canal, past million dollar homes and hidden among the mangroves in waters that let out to the gulf; welcome to Plantation Key, Fl.

I'd been dying to get into the water for what seemed like days and days, so now, in this little inlet, I took the opportunity, geared up in my mask, snorkel and fins, and jumped into the water. Exploring the ecology of the mangroves, I came across Nathan and his make-shift spear gun (a thin PVC equipped with about 10 feet of rope, a bungee cord, and what looked like sharpened chopsticks) and asked him for a go. I no joke spent the next like 10 hours spearfishing. Between myself, Amber, an Sterling, we caught seven fish. I, stupidly, like the “wild hunter” I imagine myself to be, went body and soul deep into the mangroves, trying to find the secret hiding places of the fish – the mangrove roots are covered in algae, sponges, and godknowswhat other life forms, and servesmeright, I came out with pins-and-needles all over my hand and a good rash formed the next day. The rash, luckily, doesn't hurt.

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Location at time of post: "No Name Harbour" - Outside of Miami

2010-11-27T04:10:00.001+08:00

Sunday – November 14, 2010 – Lois Key

So, our epic journey begins. Today, we set out from our mooring at Flemming Key at around 9:30am in the midst of a major boat race in the Key West harbor, an hour and a half behind the Waltzing Matilda, the sailing vessel led by the courageous Nathan, a French Canadian from Arkansas in a small sailing boat with a little dog, whose name sake is the boat she lives, eats, and poops on. She's really cute, but she can only spin in one direction. She's a mono-directional spinner. They are going to Cuba.

The past week has been utter ridiculousness, for the most part. The two girls and I, and now under the leadership of our beloved Captain Sterling, spent endless hours wandering around stores and shores and the dingy dock, trying to prepare for our departure. Motors broke, things filled with water, and sanity waned. But there are moments and stretches of perfection. Perfect turquoise waters, under perfect skies. We've started waking up at sunrise and getting more into the rhythm of the solar day. The other morning, in the glow of the waking day, dolphins came to play by our boat, and tonight at sunset, we were greeted by a curious sea turtle. With high hopes we set out for Elliot Key, but we were going into the wind, and even with both sails up and open, we were only going about 3 knots. A whole day later, we made it a grand total of about 18 miles, with about 86 miles left to go to Elliot Key, and then at least a million miles more to the Bimini Islands.

We are all excited about the trip, but each with his/her own mostly unspoken reservations. The trip will undoubtedly be a trial for us all, and a undoubtedly a test on the relationships that hold us together, as well as the sanity that holds each person together. Undoubtedly it will be epic.

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I have a SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger. Find me now!

2010-11-12T02:34:00.001+08:00

Sup sup ya'll!!!

I have a SPOT Messenger. I am sharing my location information with you. Click on the link to see where I am.

Feel free to forward to anyone you think might also want to follow us!!

Love, Light ~

Sterling, Andrew, Rozlynne, Amber, and Justin

Just follow this link to see my location updates:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0kR4lgeJuYDSbu5j8...
If the link doesn't work, try copying and pasting it to your browser's address bar.

P.S. To learn more about the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger, visit
http://www.findmespot.com

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October 28th – Haifa

2010-11-11T00:06:00.001+08:00

October 28^th – Haifa

After an intensive 2 days of new friends and diving out of Dahab, Sinai, (a refresher check dive, a night dive under the waning fullmoon at the Lighthouse, the Canyon, and the famous Bell's Blue Hole – the second largest blue hole in the world, a 30m dive down under an arch into open blue and a sheer wall of fish, anemone, and coral...) Miss Borealis and I gathered our belongings, said our goodbyes, and took a taxi for 200EGP to Taba and the Egyptian border. We crossed into Eilat with hopes of a spiritual retreat of a friend of a friend, but it was not to be...

After passing through customs (Israelis are super friendly, btw) without a hitch, we found an outlet for my long unused Israel cell phone, charged up, and hoped to connect. If I had stuck to my plan and gone straight to the bus station (anticipating problems), we could have caught an earlier bus and bought tickets in advance. But, no, instead we sat on a bench next to the border fence, and I listened to the voice of my Aunt's friend in Eilat explain to me how she got caught up in Tel Aviv, was not available to meet us in Eilat, and offered only apologies and a suggestion that we sleep on the beach. We missed the 8pm bus, and spent the whole taxi ride listening to the cab driver tell us how screwed we were. Anyways – hardened travelers that we are, we buckled down, investigated the situation, and decided to bypass Tel Aviv, and go straight for Haifa on the midnight bus north. After four anxious hours of waiting and hoping that there was still a spot for us, we climbed aboard, high-fived, and passed out. Six hours later, arriving just before sunrise, we looked around the bus station and said, “now what?” Perhaps sometimes inconvenient, it's refreshing to not know the answer to that question sometimes. It invites the impossible to happen.

We asked around, and found out that the best place to watch sunrise was from atop Mt. Carmel. We hopped the language barrier and caught a bus there, only to find that it was nothing but a ritzy area on a hill, and fell asleep knee to knee on a bench behind a tree. Four hours later, foggy, slightly sore, but much refreshed, we stumbled over to the cafe down the way, ordered a double espresso and a latte, and got the low down on the town, contacts for our Haifa connects, and plans to travel farther north to meet up with a long lost friend of mine from Magnetic Island, Australia. Now, a thousand miles north of where we were this time yesterday, I sit outside of our new friend's Yoel's Ruben shop, writing to ya'll, eating a Ruben, drinking a pint, and smiling in the sunshine.

Just catching you guys up – but now I gotta get back to editing the onslaught of essays that is financing my life!

Peace and love.

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Eden

2010-11-07T04:41:00.001+08:00

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Going back... 10/24 - Eden, Sinai

2010-11-07T04:08:00.001+08:00

10/24 – Eden, Sinai

Life is pretty damn good. I'm right this moment lying in a hammock in the porch of my hut, looking out across a turquoise and blue ocean, kite-boarders, and new found friends and family.

(Frantically) Leaving Michmoret (I think this is how you spell it) at around 10:30 or so to catch a bus from Tel-Aviv at 12:30am, we said good-bye to our wonderful hosts and friends, and sped madly to the bus station. As we watched the bus drive away without us from the overpass, we said fuck it, and stuck our thumbs into the air. The first car we saw stopped, but they were going to someplace else, not Tel-Aviv, so we said “thanks anyway” and bid him adieu. Israeli drivers are nicer, though they are terrible drivers.

Amazingly, we watched as every car that passed slowed enough to show us their apologetic faces and hand signs, until a nice woman sans surfboards and other passengers stopped, and we got in. During a nice and congenial conversation - she understood our need to catch a bus - she sped us to Netanya. The bus to Tel-Aviv pulled up behind us, we got on, made amazing time to the Tel Aviv Central bus station, and, astoundingly considering the amount of distance we'd just covered via public transport from Michmoret, boarded the bus bound for Eilat with the remaining group from Birthright. The trip to Michmoret took us a good like 3 hours; the trip to Tel Aviv from Michmoret took us like.. 45 mins.

Pulling into Eilat, we watched the burning sun descend behind the mountains, and briefly expressed our anxieties of crossing the Arab Egyptian boarder into the Sinai Peninsula. The less traveled among us said no way, but we, the lone two with our Jedi-Ninja travel skills just from Michmoret, waved a “see you tomorrow” into the air, and hailed the next taxi, bound for the border.

The boarder crossing was undoubtedly the chillest, easiest crossing of my life. There was practically no one there, except of course, given our luck, a friendly group of Israeli's and a Frenchman bound for a quaint and perfect collection of bungalows right on the beach, just 40 mins south. We exchanged names and smiles, paid the border fees in the alien currency, and set off.

The past two days have been under the glorious sun, wrapped in a perfectly tempered ocean wind, with the mountains of Sinai watching over us. Feasts and dancing under the stars, and swimming with the fish. Kite surfers dance upon the water itself, doing acrobatic stunts in concert with the wind, with Saudi Arabia as the backdrop. The full moon of last night lit up the beach with such brilliance that the sky was turned to shadows, and the real world beyond our mortal imaginations was reveal to us through a bright white hole.

Love to you all, my family and friends, and thank you for sharing all that you have shared. ~

For my friend Ms. Borealis's birthday, we had a special Magluba feast (chicken and veggies and rice and tahina and pitas galore), and then, led by our new Bedouin friend, Jooma, we went out to sit under the moon on an open structure floored with pillows and rugs. He told us stories and gifted Aurora a picture book for her birthday. Jooma and I, working in cahoots, had a surprise cake brought out at midnight.

Jooma's collection of huts, aptly named Eden, where I now recline, is next to the place we first arrived, a place called Sondos. When our Israeli friends invited us over to Eden for Magluba, I worked out a deal for the nice bungalows on the water: 50 Egyptian pounds (approx. $7) with breakfasts included. This was a considerable upgrade from the horrible bed-bug ridden ones at Sondos. When I was haggling for this deal, Jooma pops up in the kitchen window and says to the other Bedouins, “You give him what he wants. This is a good man, I like him.” Jooma and I, and the rest of the Bedouins at Eden became instant friends, and now, we all recline and live the life we love, on the Red Sea of Sinai, surrounded by the rest of Egypt behind the mountains, Saudi Arabia on the far shore, and Israel and Jordan situated a small taxi fare away.

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The boat

2010-11-07T03:29:00.001+08:00

Miss Rozzie Roz.

Potable water?

The dingy

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