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.

quote of the day:

"...I loved that sea, and once or twice,

I touched at Isles of Paradise..."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

to andy de freitas.

fbc for life my man.

barracuda: the wolf of the sea. andy turned this guy into sushi the first night and then curry with roti the second. i doubt i'll ever have a chance to eat barracuda sushi again.

andy had a hell of a time gutting this guy. it was a tad rough on the ocean that morning.

the intense look of an elevated fruit hunter.

ripening papayas.

yadua is pretty magical.

stro's succulent skip-jack simmer

1 pineapple (and mango if you wish)
8 cloves garlic
equal amount ginger to garlic
2 onions
1 chili pepper
(all finely diced)

2 cassavas (fijiian potato)
any other fresh veggies your heart desires
(cut into small chunks)

take these ingredients and sautee for 10 minutes.
next, add coconut cream (1 can, or, preferably the fresh stuff) and sweet chili sauce to taste. simmer all of this for another 20 minutes.

next add skip-jack tuna filets. simmer another 30 minutes. just after this last simmer sprinkle a generous amount of fresh coriander into the pan.

serve over a bed of rice (with generous helping of cream sauce). garnish with pinapple ring, lemon and lime wedges, and perhaps a tropical flower or two.

eat and enjoy!

sagas in hitchin' (new zealand)

1. a mom on her way to pick up the kids from school picks me up because she "feared for my life" whilst i hitched on the expressway.

2. a very rough looking guy in a beat up pink muscle car stops for me. "where you headed?" i ask. "get in" he says, "be hard for me to be a criminal in this thing, eh!" okayyy then, i think to myself as i climb in. soon, i learn the man is a pig hunter and he has just killed a pig he'd been tracking for nine years. just like captain ahab me thinks (via lauren robel's insight).

3. a junior church minister picks me up whilst spreading the good word.

6. a one-legged geezer in a tiny pick-up truck takes me a few miles.

31. a small sports car with an older woman inside pulls up next to me. "my husband tells me not to pick up hitchers, but what the hell, get in!"...later she admits that i "didn't look so scary". we cruise for an hour or so with the top down, the wind in our faces, and the mountains rushing by.

33. A thirty-something-year-old gives me a lift in his big pick-up truck (or,ute in new zealand). he's a builder but also spends weekends training with new zealand's military. what's amazing to me is that he wants to go to iraq before the troops are pulled out. "yeah man, i just wanna blow some shit up. there ain't no repurcusions there." um, in all due respect mister, that's not really how it works...

38. an elderly aussie couple offer me a lift after having passed me 3 different times the day before. they were slightly skeptical, even scared to stop for a hitchhiker they eventually admitted. by the end, after a long flowing conversation, they were well pleased to have met me and couldn't wait to brag to their daughter of their "adventurous spirit" in picking me up.

40. an aussie financier travelling solo gives me a lift. first he asks, "get in, as long as you aren't a mass murderer or something..." "um no i'm not," i say " are you??"

55. a young guy in a terribly unfit car pulls up. over the course of the ride i learn he has no liscence ("very suspended," i think he said), registration, etc. he quickly veers into pull-offs anytime he spots a white car (potential police car) in the distance.

60. an older guy stops and says "get in!" i get in. soon after he leers my way and shouts "hope you don't mind a drinkin' driver!" as he takes a big gulp from a beer can. oookay then, i mutter to myself.

61. an irish man named paddy takes me a ways. later i learn he is known as "mad paddy" and that the word is that he is an ex-ira informant who lives in new zealand as part of a sort of witness protection program. he adamantly encourages me to have a whistle when ever i go tramping. "don't laugh, i'm not fockin' jokin', it could save your life!!" he insists

65. an old man offers me a ride and the chance to spend the afternoon goldmining with him. i gladly accept.

77 rides in all. this is just a mere taste. not one the same. all unique in their own way. the best way to travel hands down.

on the outside looking in or vice-versa:

so i was hitching once (well this happened more than once for sure) and a japanese tourism bus (there are many such companies that cater only to the japanese in new zealand) passes me in fiordland national park. with all of their faces glued to the windows, in unison, each person generates a gaping smile and vigourously waves a hand or two at me. it's funny, but in that moment, i felt like a wild animal being viewed from a jeep-safari window. i had become a part of their tour, as it were. i could imagine them scrolling through pictures of their trip with friends back home. "and this one here is when we drove by the hitchhiker!!" "wow!!" their friends might say. this memory always makes me laugh.


finally, here is a poem i found in my journal...

hitchin'
with a thumb as my sail
i let the winds take hold.
for chance shall do what it may
but fate, well fate has the final say -
in the who and the how and the what and the when,
of the where-ever-where i may find myself in.

it took seventy seven cars, two boats, and my feet,
to happen upon who i've happened to meet.
there were pig hunters and preachers and technicians and teachers
old salty sailors and swedes with good features.
and "what," you may ask, did i find down that line,
perspectives a plenty that's to be sure, but more often than not, a damn good time!

ruminations on new zealand ramblings

distinctly kiwi sayings


good/well on ya!
heaps (as in they say heaps heaps of times)
ta (for thanks)
no worries
eh
good as gold!
sweet as
mate
bro (said like brew almost)
isn't it
reckon'
how you going?
choice (that track is choice! ie: nice, good, etc)
fuck all (nothing)
flash (that car is so flash)
keen
cheers (for thanks)
on the piss (getting drunk)
smoko (break from work)
i can't be bothered
i'm not fussed