Chapter 1 Off our starboard side, there's something there, silhouetted against the sun. Slender, and wooden, it comes into view. Three dark-as-night fishermen are on board, two standing and one sitting at the outboard. They stare at us, and we…
A year and a half ago we met a young German doctor in the Azores who told us tales about a foreign land where the children are so friendly that they paddle into the river to your sailboat just to…
Milky sail drive oil is bad. If it's not clear, then there's water in it. Gerty's looks like the overpriced coconut water that sits next to the sports drinks in the health food aisle. You know, the blue bottle that…
Morocco to Canaries Passage Day 3 15:22 POS 32 33.30 N 9 55.46 W, TWS 10.4, SOG 5.0, AWA 178 The best wind-dance song on The Beatles Blue album is Hey Jude. The last 4 minutes or so have repeating…
Some days are good. It's crisp and sunny outside, and I'm feeling smug because I know how to say whip cream in four languages. The obvious, whip cream, plus chantilly, panna, and nata. Some days are shitty, like the one…
Leaving Formentera this morning in the dark, against a lee shore, in twenty knots, was our best situation in days. All we had to do was dodge the lightning bolts. At least we could squeeze in five hours of sleep…
A guacamole stain on my dress is distracting me from the view out the plane window. Part of me doesn’t want to wash it off. We were having a picnic with Zachary and his friends in Central Park just yesterday. …
Two of the three officials that boarded Gerty when we arrived in Monastir, Tunisia had ink on the tip of their index finger. We knew that their new controversial constitution was at stake on the day we arrived. “Did you…
Being in Malta for the second time in less than six months, we considered it a pit stop on the way from Greece to Tunisia. A place to do chores, if you will. We purchased the bottom paint Gerty would…
First Night Watch, N36 8.5’ E21 21.0’ Soundtrack: Big Bad Voo Doo Daddy I figured out how to sit at the nav station without the risk of tumbling past the companionway and into the bathroom. I press my back into…