For we never know how long we have…
My thoughts and love and heart and prayers are with all those affected by the events on Thursday…I cannot put sense to this kind of tragedy. From afar, the most positive way for me to deal with sorrow is to transform it into motivation. For those who won’t have the chance, I can further seek […]
Surf it for me, Katie!!
I limped off the plane and found myself in a new land, New ZEALand!! I limped onto the ‘people mover’ and the escalator, contemplating the bewildering speed of air travel. The Auckland airport was cool and neat, and the Queen’s English leapt boldly off the lips of airport officials, tickling my ears… When I saw […]
POP! A case of the back-leg blues…
A day before my flight, I jumped on my a friend’s boat who was headed toward the airport as an island version of ‘carpooling’…After a lovely passage, we dropped anchor and headed out for a sundown surf at the nearest pass… The afternoon crowd was thicker than my liking, so I decided to float on […]
Surrender to Impulse!
Every now and then, I find it healthy to succumb to urgent spontaneity… All points have converged on a small town in New Zealand, where two of my best friends BOTH happen to have ended up with their significant others, totally by chance…I’ve been telling Katie (my fondest female surf buddy) that I’d be arriving […]
Bilge Babe versus the Sanitation Hose…
Meet standard marine sanitation hose, my dreaded nemesis: At first glance, you don’t think much of it—it’s a blandly white, 1 ¾ inch-diameter plastic hose reinforced with wire. How evil could it be? It serves important plumbing functions, usually the dirtiest jobs aboard boats. But despite its beneficial qualities, the task of removing it or […]
From a day in the ‘Vortex’
Somewhere in my subconscious, I know its dawn. Force my eyes open, I roll out of bed for a peek…What? It’s pumping, again?! So much for sleeping in…Part of me hoped it would be flat after the week or more of non-stop swell… I wonder if my arms can take another day of this? Of […]
The First Rule of Sailing…
“You know what the first rule of sailing is? …Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘verse, but you take a boat to the sea you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her going when she oughta fall down, tells you she’s […]
Could it be? 5 years at sea?
On the 30th of January, Swell and I celebrated 5 years of voyaging together! Top 5 lessons I’ve learned: Be grateful for what’s good and find the positive. Try first, then decide if you ‘can’ or ‘can’t’. Hard work will almost always get you there. Even when it all seems impossible, TRUST that everything will […]
I Fell into a North Swell Vortex…
Apologies for the silence…time just seems to stop when the swell turns on!?!…And when it stays on, life gets really basic: surf, eat, sleep, and surf some more…nursing some reef wounds and a thorough sun baking…gotta fill the water tanks, do some provisioning, ding repair, clean the hull…and write some blogs! For now, check out […]
The Captain and the Kid…
With the New year came lovely weather so Dad and I sailed off to tour the outer islands. On our various passages over the next week, the ocean showed us a bit of everything. We had a glorious 15 knots on the stern quarter, some squally 30 knot upwind slogging, rain and rainbows, gusts and […]
