the kids join in my post run workout.

slangin' plums.

muddy market in eldoret.

this was taken outside my room one morning after this little piggy woke me up. the kids usually pile on top of me every morn.

errol's favorite dish of mine has to be paella. this is one i made last night, one of my last on zephyr. my basque friend would be proud i think.

okay so i just booked a flight up to nairobi and will be meeting matt, jus and the kids on thursday morning! man i get a big smile just thinking about it. of course leaving errol and zephyr is bittersweet. i'm ecstatic to go up to kenya but am bummed to leave south africa so soon and before errol completely finishes his circumnavigation (which finishes once he reaches mossel bay, south africa).

we are in richards bay, south africa by the way. it was only 12 days from mauritius. but we did have to pull in a bit early, as we were hoping to make durban before the weather turned a little hairy. the last day of sailing was a little on the wet and wild side. for a climax a massive thunderstorm with impressive lightning welcomed us to africa. and with that, my time on zephyr comes to an end. but we have come far and seen much and i'll never forget any of it. all told i sailed 9,700 miles with errol - from fiji to south africa (across the whole damned indian ocean)! his around-the-world sail will be around 27,000 miles. that means i sailed over a third of the way around the world with him! and now i'm up to 11,000 bluewater sailing miles. all in the last six months!

some times i think, damn, how in the hell did all of this happen? six months ago i was hitching my way around new zealand with a curious itch to go to sea. no sailing experience? no worries, dude! (i don't think getting drunk on arnold's boat out on lake monroe counts). now i can say i'm a sapient and seasoned sailor. or something like that. anyway, here's to finishing what i've started and sailing the rest of the way around the planet some day!

maeva and i on our last day together in mauritius. not knowing for sure when my departure from rodrigues and mauritius would be, i said 'goodbye, hope to see you again someday' to the girls so many times. but i'd always turn up again and again and surprise them with the news that we'd be staying another few days. "i'm back!!"

the ocean doesn't get a whole lot smoother than that. and this is way out at sea.

just a little squall.

oh hey there. book time is all the time.

some pictures from my time on zephyr over the last few months:

the beauty of cocos.

24?! that's like a real person age. good thing i live in never never land.

my friends paul and sima from boston pose in front of zephyr on the docks in darwin.

maeva, chloe, and lucie. my three friends on rodri and mauritius. i made us paella (which i think was my worst one so far. it was a little crunchy. i choked!) for dinner and they taught me how to do a crepe suzette afterwards.

lots of crops in all the valleys of rodri.

unfortunately i don't speak creole so we just smiled at each other.

big spiders on rodrigues.

i rented a scooter and cruised up and down the windy mountain roads of rodrigues.

one of the better camp sites i've ever stayed at. myself and my three french friends "made sleep under ze stars" (as they would say). thanks for taking me here girls! my time on rodrigues and mauritius would not have been near as special without you.

giant tortoise on rodrigues (mauritius). these guys are friendly. and very lethargic. they also love it when you pet them. this one crooned as i massaged his long, wrinkly neck.

there were so many of these guys in the middle of the indian ocean. up on deck each morning you could find upwards of 100 flying fish. mouths gaping, their big morbid eyes stare at you from their final resting places.

on sailing to rodrigues and mauritius instead of madagascar

so just before leaving cocos - literally five minutes before raising our anchor - we got wind of pirates near madagascar. three incidents to be exact. my initial reaction: "cool!!! that's even better!!! we're still going, right???" but alas, the decision had already been made, and the captain decided it better to sail to the islands of rodrigues and mauritius than to risk battling pirates on the high seas near madagascar. but come on guys, real life pirates! maybe another time.

On the upside rodrigues and mauritius are tiny in comparison to madagascar so it is much more manageable to see these islands in a short amount of time. and i made friends on rodrigues. three french girls who are soon-to-be nurses on reunion island. their english is not bad but certainly not perfect and my french is non-existant so we had a fun time communicating with hand signals and sound effects at times as we explored the island (and to their credit, we often spoke in english as best we could).

geoff said he wanted sushi for his birthday dinner. so i caught a mahi and prepared us some fresh sushi.

a few of my pet sharks on cocos. there were eight black tip reef sharks in total. one time they were all swimming circles around me after i jumped off the boat. this is probably because i often fed them fish scraps. i wanted to hand feed them but i thought better of it in the end. i also tried to pet them but they got scared and always swam away.

it's tough at the top.

it speaks for itself i think.

our anchorage off direction island, cocos (keeling).

the cocos to rodrigues passage was quite a quick passage with strong winds and a sizeable swell especially at the beginning. It was my first time experiencing seas of up to 6 meters. makes me want more! well, not really. I take that one back. although many of the bigger swells were just gentle giants, and certainly weren't breaking, it's still strange to be looking up at the sea. other events on the sail from cocos? Early on when the weather was really squally and it was an uncomfortable ride i proclaimed myself a witch and set out to cast a few sea calming spells. by morning, what-a-ya-know the swell has abated! My revelry is short lived though. Over the course of my next four or five shifts on the following days i am hammered by numerous squalls and drenched by their rains. "yeah, don't fuck with me" says mother nature.

whew! after sailing 2,000 miles in 16 days zephyr makes landfall at cocos keeling. after a long passage any piece of land - even hell itself - would be a welcome sight (not to say i don't love the sea and the sailing, but i need a little bit of earth to grab onto every now and then). so long as it's solid and stationary i'm down. that being said, cocos is no ordinary place. five tiny white sand islands speckled with palm trees. in the middle of nowhere. the water is as clear as i've ever seen. the fish life is prolific to say the least. i have 5 pet black tip sharks whom currently live under our boat. eventually i'll put up some purty pictures for ya'll to look on but right now, with the internet as such, it's out of the question.

we will be here another few days and then set sail for madagascar. it's only 3,000 miles. i'm running out books and that would be very, very bad. i've already resorted to reading the dictionary from time to time.

the passage from darwin to cocos was alright. a little bit of everything. we went from no wind and stifling heat to fresh trade winds and cooler temperatures five days out from the mainland. what can i tell you? at one point we heaved to in calm waters and were able to partake in a refreshing dip in the middle of the indian ocean. that was nice. we caught a few fish of course. i can make a wicked paella now after learning traditional basque style from some friends in darwin. my repertoire is steadily increasing!

okay i have to go do boat chores and such. i will write more later and put up some pictures eventually, but that may have to wait until africa. but for now, know that i am well and loving life while basking in the sunshine that drenches the beautiful cocos islands.

quote of the day:

"as bokonon says: 'peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.'"

kurt vonnegut jr. from cat's cradle.

amen mr. vonnegut, amen.

news out of darwin:

so we got our third crew member - geoff from cairns who i believe is 58 and is an accomplished sailor. he'll be here in a few days time. i'm looking forward to meeting him. once he's here, we'll finish stocking up and get zephyr ready for the indian ocean. hopefully we'll pull out of darwin by the 1st of the month or thereabouts. the sooner the better. it is so hot and humid here. it must be in the 100s. i am forever swimming in my own sweat in this god forsaken land. drip, drip, drip. it's necessary to take two cold showers a day at least. so, the fresh sea breezes of the indian ocean will be a welcomed change to say the least. where are we headed you may be asking? well, let me tell you. we are headed to either christmas island or cocos keeling (wind depending) where we'll spend a few days resting. i shall most certainly be spending most of my time there underwater as both christmas island and cocos are world renowned scuba sites. i think i was a fish in a former life, no?

from cocos we'll head to madagascar, most likely direct, although there is a chance we'll stop in either mauritius or seychelles before hand. we would love to stop everywhere but we kind of need to be clear of the area around northern madagascar by december as the hurricanes start to play then. we'll spend about a week in madagascar and then head to south africa! so errol is on the home stretch for his circumnavigation! only 6,000 plus miles to go! oh dear god. from south africa i think i'll head to kenya via plane because i'm oh so ancy to see my fam there. after some time in kenya my rough plan is to travel over land back down to south africa for the world cup in the summer of 2010. errol has said i can go to a game with him! (he's got 2 tickets to 2 games). so listen errol, i will hold you to this. okay, deal. after the world cup maybe i could go up to cairo. i've got a friend (miguel merino) studying there. plus the red sea is superior. i would really like to train to be a divemaster so i can lead dives and make some money during my travels before going to grad school. on that note i'm thinking about underwater archaeology! how cool would that be? i could supplement my income by being a scuba instructor on the side and, i don't know, maybe doing some underwater welding as well (very lucrative i understand). the other option is cultural anthropology, focusing on the south pacific island region. studying food procurement there. learning about fijiian spearfishing fleets? who knows? on the other hand, i could always go with my original plan of law school. but i must say, i think that interest is fading fast.

okay, that's all for now folks. it's time for another cold shower.

and now...for some words on fruit.

pineapple is my favorite fruit. it's probably my favorite food. it may even be my favorite thing. in the whole world. i cook with it a lot. i put it in curries, stir fries, soups and simmer pots. you can put it in a cake, on pizza, salads or ice cream, or just eat it straight up. pineapple liqueor is good, and pineapple juice is even better. you can use it as a delicious garnish for a fancy dish or a tasty drink...this all begs the question: what doesn't pineapple go with? the answer, of course, is nothing. below is a poem i wrote whilst sailing which expresses my love for this fantastic fruit.

ode to the pineapple

o what pleasures hide 'neath your prickly skin!
thy is drunk on the perfume that outranks the scents akin.
a sweet boquet not found in all the king's wineries,
and lush golds that shine more brilliant than the finest of fineries.

redolent of shimmering sun swept beaches,
thy would seek'est thee to the farthest of reaches.
and take thou in dressed or naked
o! to taste a flesh so sacred

(this is the second version, after some suggestions from my mom. here's to around the world poetry collaborations!)

...and, more passage poetry...

the one that got away

with a whump or a whir or even a whine
a booming voice bellows "what is this thing that tugs at my line!?"
a BIG fucking fish, a creature so fine?
and moments from now, you shall be mine!
that is until it gets gone as quick as it came

leaving our hero to forlornly proclaim:

"oh shit my china, i'll git'ya next time!"

i'm in darwin now, after another long passage (1370 miles, 12 days) from cairns. it was nice to be on the inside of the great barrier reef and enjoy the relative luxury of smooth sailing through calm waters. we have to get ready for the indian ocean crossing now and will probably be here for a week or so as we stock up and fix the boat. zephyr's fridge is busted which ain't so cool. pun intended! we also have some engine and battery issues. it's an expensive lifestyle living on a boat, that's for sure. good thing i'm not paying. thanks for that, errol.

we also need to find crew while we're here as our last crew member jim, who we picked up in cairns, decided that sailing is most certainly not for him. he got seasick soon after we left cairns. "is it always like this!!?" he lamented, referring to the swell. "umm, no, it's usually way way more rough dude." oh well.

so i think i'm going to walk around cairns with a sign - "ever dream of sailing across the indian ocean? well here's your chance!!" it should make for a fun filled afternoon anyway. i'm sure it would generate a lot of interest around all of the hostels in darwin. we could sail on as a crew of two, but well, the indian ocean is big and one more crew for watches equals more rest time and i'm a big fan of rest time...

we are anchored in the bay just beyond the sign. i'm almost positive i saw a croc dive as i motored to shore today in the dinghy. maybe not the kind of anchorage where you jump off the boat for a dip. which is too bad, really, because it's oppressively hot in darwin. 95 degrees all the time?

every sun-down we watch to see if there's a "green flash" which errol insists really does occur. apparently if it's really clear (as in no coulds around the sun) a very quick (like blink and you miss it quick) green flash will happen just as the last bit of sun goes under or down or wherever it is that it goes.

we saw dolphins almost everyday on the 12 day sail from cairns to darwin. this particular time it was a group of about 10 (it's hard to count them accurately when they're zig zagging all over the place as they play) with really large adults and some babes as well. one of them was swimming right under us as we looked down at it from the bow. it kept turning on its side so it could look up at us as if to say "oh hey there!!"

fish jerky...not quite sure if i'm a fan or not. it's a good way to preserve your catch when the fridge is overflowing with fish though.

i want gills now.

the austrian brothers. i went on a few dives with these guys. they are way more experienced than me so it was good training. i got in trouble for going to 22 meters when i was with them. technically i'm only supposed to go to 18 meters with my open water certification but whatever. we also stayed down for 49 minutes on a couple of dives which is quite long for a single tank and takes some good breath control.

more reef. but never enough.

the great barrier reef. my home for 3 days and two nights. i did ten dives and am now a certified diver - aw yeah! i should have done this when i was like eight, but it's ok i'll just have to compensate for all my lost time underwater from now on.

cairns has pianos around town. just sitting there waiting for people to play them. it's beautiful. errol said it would't last two mintues in africa. they'd be stolen so fast. but it works here. i could live here. maybe i should go to grad school here. artsy, hip, young crowds with a vibrant social scene it seems, the waterfront, the reef of course, and a good school (james cook university) nearby.

this side of the world has some seriously fantastic markets. although not quite on the same level as the fiji marketplaces, cairns' fresh fruit and veggie stalls are impressive. fresh stuff is a luxury after a long passage, believe me. you know what else is nice? not getting thrown all over the place by a swell whilst cooking. i made this salad tonight and it was delicious if i do say so myself. but it's all about the ingredients, clearly. bed of fresh lettuce, green and yellow capsicum, cucumber, tomato, onion, avocado, pineapple, carrot strips and fresh coriander (which as my former crew mate andy would say, is "a dream") all tossed in a balasmic vinegar, olive oil, honey, dash of lime juice and salt-pepper dressing. topped, of course, with grilled chicken breast marinated in a soy-honey-ginger sauce. i've got to deliver now that errol has named me the "offical cook" on board.

in other news, i started my padi scuba course today. i was the only person that signed up for today, so i had one on one instruction as opposed to the one on twenty the day prior. after another day in the pool and classroom i'll have three days and two nights on the great barrier reef. dream. then i think we'll pull out of cairns and head west along the north coast towards the indian ocean. long passages upcoming. africa upcoming!?

wait a second who's steering?? oh that's just our wind vane. so we're using the wind to propel us forward and to steer. heck yeah, wind! i believe we're moving along nicely at about 5 knots on our starboard tack here. sorry the quality is such crap, my little camera apparently cannot handle the intense rays of tropical sunshine.

this bar is connected to the marina where we're staying right now, on the waterfront in cairns. after three months in the islands it's a wonderfully refreshing modern rendition. outdoor couches with pillows and trees coming up through the decking? yes please. andy and andy - please note, and incorporate the following into your bar: long colorful bed-like couches and fluffy pillows. and plant life is a must....i was laying here sprawled out on a couch reading with my beer in hand and a local tradesman walks past. as we make eye contact he says, "you got the good life there, isn't it mate?" "yes, yes sir it is."

this is a free public salt water pool right on the edge of cairns harbor. again, love the art work.

obviously i like what the artist has done with the bench here.

our first glimpse of australia as errol and i sail into cairns.

jesus rays at sea.

boat-made pesto pizza (from scratch). i have discovered a new passion! i love to cook. i am the unofficial "cook" on zephyr which i relish 'cause i'm perpetually refining and expanding on my skills in the kitchen.

yes, another picture of a dying fish. perhaps too many? this is a good sized mahi and she was delicious. i don't have a good enough picture of the big wahoo we caught, but who needs to see one more dead fish anyway.

barracuda-snake-monster-thing. apparently they have green bones.

ocean passages

so we just got into cairns today - august 31st. first impressions of this place: it's wicked cool, but not really cause it's damn hot. seriously though, it's a very modern, artsy and hip town. and we are so close to the reef!

the passage from fiji to vanuatu was a mixed bag : no wind, good winds, way too much wind. it only took five days to cover the almost 600 miles though, so no real complaints. we did, however, have to deal with the tail ends of some big systems that turned some of asia into one big swimming pool. one night time squall we had winds of 42 knots, with a decent size swell coming in. during my off-shift i was trying to sleep but having no luck when crack! something big hit the boat and all this water came pouring in on top of me in bed. the big thing that hit us was a rogue wave. and it was really small as far as those things go. anyway the seas soon subsided and it was smooth sailing as they say.

the passage from vanuatu to australia was twelve days (1290 miles) and it was easy peasy. well, weather and wind wise anyway. i began to feel a little claustrophobic being cramped up in the boat for so long, but i was usually able to fight it off by escaping into the pages of a good book. i read six books in twelve days. what else happened? we caught a 30 lb. spanish mackerel, which we ate, and two barracuda-snake monster-things which we threw back in a hurry. i also hooked the biggest fish, by far, that i've ever had on a line. it took all my line out. i struggled to get half the line back over the course of two hours, and after all of that, the line snaps. i blame myself though, i became impatient and didn't let the fish run with the line so it snapped. so in the end, that monster of monster fishes - which i never even saw - returned to the depths from whence it came.

okay enough fish stories. what else? five birds commited suicide by flying into our wind generator. three of them were family, one right after the other. yes, i know, very sad stuff. sorry birds. anyways, we also saw quite a few super tankers and errol saw a submarine that was under us for a while. oh yeah, i saw a whale too! just a small one though. kind of like a really big dolphin.

and now we're in cairns and i want to get back onto a reef where i belong. good thing the reef is here.

fun on the high seas

i like to play a little game i call 'adventures in pissing' whilst sailing. the game starts when you begin pissing off the back or side of the boat. the object of the game being not to piss on yourself or the boat, and more importantly, not to fall into the ocean as you rock and roll with the swell. it's very important not to lose in this game. there are no sore losers, only wet ones!! and yes i'm aware that's not funny.

fiji time

so i know i'm a big advocate for hitching rides, but in fiji it wasn't a practical mode of travel for me. i was usually on a time budget and thus didn't have the freedom to wait for a kind hearted soul to pull over and pick up a complete stranger. that, and an overwhelming percentage of the cars in fiji are taxis and they ain't picking up nobody fo free. so that being the case, i took a few cabs when i needed to get around the island. i was soon to learn that taking a cab in fiji does not always lack the lustre. two rides were particularly interesting.

#1

i took one cab from suva to lautoka which is a long, winding 3 hour ride. (having already done the trip once i knew not to take the bus). the driver, a big fijiian man with an even bigger belly made the time fly by though. we kept passing this middle eastern guy whose license plate read "2 fast". appropriately enough, my cabbie's plate said "who cares". so naturally, we would zoom past the 2fast driver with a roar of laughter and a message: who cares. inevitably, the 2fast driver would counter and the process would begin anew. 2fast....who cares!!!! when the cabbie tired of this game he moved on to a new one. being that this guy's cousin is a cop, he knows where all of the speed blocks are. so...he would creep up right behind some slow moving tourists in a rental and make them speed up right before a trap. we never got anyone pulled over, but as the rental cars passed the cops the cabbie would yell "arrest this man!" with an eruption of deep melodious laughter. cruel? yes, but damn funny to watch this guy in action.

#2

my friend andy and i got this one taxi from lautoka back to the marina where we were staying. the cabbie was a heavy set indian man with tired eyes and a talkative tongue. we made small talk about travel, politics, and the routines of taxiing people around. what was funny about him was the way he explained where places were and what it took to get to them. "where do i live? yeah, it's like 4 dollars that way." "all the best mangos? it'll cost you ten dollars to get there." "no" we'd say "where are they?" "yeah maybe twelve dollars actually." "where is my home village? oh i'd say at least 100 dollars away" and so on...later he asks andy, "so you two live on a boat?" "yeah," says andy "you can check it out when we get there, it's only 50 cents from bow to stern." the driver releases a hearty belly laugh from the depths of his belly. but then turns serious again, "so how much does it cost to take the boat around, diesel is expensive no?" we explain that usually we just use the wind to get from place to place, and that the wind is free. "yes, yes i must get this sail for my cab..."

so tomorrow i will sign off with ferdinand and captain dave and tuesday will head to suva to sign on with zephyr and captain errol. many thanks to dave for the opportunity to sail on ferdinand over the last few months. i greatly appreciate you teaching me to sail and although there is always more to learn, i am now a tolerable sailor. and dave, please develop a little sangfroid for your own sake as well as others! i wish you all the luck in the future...

as for zephyr (a 38' sloop), i will be helping errol finish the last leg of a circumnavigation that he started all the way back in december '07. errol is a retired mechanical engineer who worked on prosthetic limb technology in south africa throughout his career. he seems a fantastic guy - very intelligent with a wicked sense of humor. it's just him and i (and zephyr and the fishes!) to australia, but once we're there we'll be looking for more crew for the indian ocean passages (so any friends of mine who'd like to do some seriously amazingly sailing you'd better get on it in a hurry and get ahold of me).

here is the updated, although still subject to change and weather depending, "flight plan" for the coming months.

august -

suva, fiji to port villa, vanuatu (590 miles)
port villa, vanuatu to cairns, australia (1290 miles)
cairns to gove harbor australia (804 miles)

september/october/november -

gove harbor australia to christmas island (1870 miles)
christmas island to cocos keeling (520 miles)
cocos keeling to seychelles (2525 miles)
seychelles to madagascar (610 miles)
madagascar to richards bay, south africa (1100 miles)

this is a dream. for the first time in my life, there is absolutely nothing i can think of that i would rather be doing. i am exactly where i need to be.

*(to matt and jus and the kids! hopefully i'll at least be on the same continent as you starting in december. i'll then make my way towards kenya! wish me luck...)*

i love you fiji. the sunset and the crop burning fires on shore were competing that night.

wahooooo!

this is everywhere we have sailed since entering fiji on june 11.

so i shot this coney (much the same as a grouper) and bam! literally 10 seconds later a white tip reef shark is on the scene. he circles me and the fish for about 20 minutes before andy finally comes to rescue me in the dinghy. for those 2o minutes i retreated a little to the shallows of the reef as i watched the shark hone in on the speared fish. he made a few very close passes but was apparently too taken aback by the spear sticking out of it to take the fish. so when andy got there, i quickly made a dive down, grabbed the spear with the fish, swam up and threw the gun to andy as i jumped aboard. we then pulled in the fish before the shark munched. so we munched instead, and ate the fish for dinner. i am proud of this one for sure.