Land-Lubbing, Do-Gooding, & Dirt-Dabbling
It’s been a while since I wrote a personal update. It’s taken me a long time to process all my feelings surrounding this big life transition from more than a decade as a permanently nomadic sailor, to a land-lubber living on a small island in the South Pacific … It’s no surprise that after […]
Swell Posters for a Good Cause
Swell Posters for a Good Cause: Limited Edition, Signed Photo Posters! In an effort to raise funds for my non-profit here in the South Pacific, A Ti’a Matairea, I’ve printed & signed some limited edition, fine art posters. They are 20″ by 16″ and ready to add some dream-chasing inspiration to any wall in your […]
On the Move + Steer with Your Heart Film Trailer
Swell is on the move! After 3 years of writing my book (to be released April 2018!), I’m finally free to roam the sea again. Getting Swell back into voyaging mode over the last couple months has been both exciting and frustrating, but the projects were ticked off one by one, and Swell took to […]
Special Delivery: 400 lbs of fruit for Puka Puka
Note** This story, from last year’s circle of French Polynesia, was too good not to share, despite happening nearly 9 months ago. My neck is healed and I’m back in Tahiti, catching up on some writing before heading to the boatyard…:) March 2012: And so the time had arrived. Cyclone season over, it was safe […]
Giddyup! ‘Back to Nature’ adventure revisited…
Lost in the stars, I lay huddled on the port side of the cockpit in my sleeping bag. The eastern horizon hinted the coming twilight, but my gaze was fixed skyward. Swell’s soft rhythmic lurch through the small upwind chop, told me I could relax. I didn’t want to jinx myself, but intuitively I anticipated […]
A Pain in the Neck!
As some of you know, I recently suffered a cervical spine fracture of my C3 vertebrae. In other words, I broke my neck! Don’t worry, I’m ok! I was extremely lucky that my fracture did not effect the spinal column, so there was no nerve damage and I will recover fully and relatively quickly… So […]
Bait for Breakfast
Back in the islands, the cyclone season dwindled to a thankfully uneventful close. Swell had sprouted sea ‘roots’ after nearly 2 months in the same rolly bay. Algae swayed on Swell’s waterline, while resident bait fish circled below. Mornings would begin with the sound of thrashing water near the hull–a tuna or the likes–chasing the […]
‘Stuck’ in Paradise
“Lose yourself and find the key to paradise…” –Jimmy Buffett Cyclone season was soon upon us, so I relaxed into knowing we were too north for cyclones and shouldn’t be heading anywhere south or west for a while. We came upon a bay with a long righthander and a hollower left. There was a vacant […]
Plastic-Coated Paradise??
…Yet another plastic-ridden beach thousands of miles from any significant metropolis… Mckenzie and I hiked over the hill from where Swell was anchored hoping to find some wind-swell peaks to surf one morning. Instead, we discovered this spectacular 1/2 mile-long beach coated in plastic trash (and Portugese man-o-wars!) from end to end. This beach faces […]
