The Alchemist

I flew back into town on Friday night, arriving early Saturday morning. It was a long hard day of travel following the long hours of driving through the DR for two days. My friends put on an amazing birthday/bon voyage party for me and I was overwhelmed at the amount of people who showed up wish me well. I ended up being exhausted by 2 AM due to the jet lag and that time down in the DR is four hours ahead so my body was telling me it was 6 AM. Here's a tip. Don't fall asleep at your own party around my friends. I woke up with a nice new tattoo on my back written in magic marker, I will get a pic and post it soon. Luckily I have managed to wash it off but it was also funny to find several broken bottles from the general chaos of my friends drinking until well after 7 AM. Good times as always.

While I was in Puerto Plata waiting for my flight I realized I hadn't brought a book or anything to read. I managed to find a small store in the airport that had a few books in English and after perusing a few of them I found an old copy of The Alchemist written by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. There is some irony in finding this book. Some years ago, a woman I was with shared several quotes from this book with me and recommended that I read it. Anyway, I never did so reading it now was interesting for me. The book basically is the story of a man who is driven to follow his dreams at whatever cost. He gets help along the way, makes several sacrifices and overcomes tremendous odds to achieve his goals. The irony of me reading it AFTER I had already made the decision to leave my life behind and start a new one struck me as I tore through the book. I had read the entire thing by Miami and I highly recommend it. I also read Bringing Down The House, which is a story of the MIT team of students that played blackjack and counted cards and made millions off of Vegas. This is another good read but I digress. I wanted to share a few things from this book so the following are some quotes from The Alchemist that I found applicable to my current station in life:

On Decision...
"When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision."

On Desire...
"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

On the Language of Enthusiasm...
"Enthusiasm is displayed in all things accomplished with love and purpose and as part of a search for something believed in and desired."

On Living...
"I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, and stars in the heavens, and that the tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival because life is the moment we are living right now."

On Courage...
"To follow your personal legend and believe in it, even when tested, even when your life is put at risk, when your past and future are at risk, when the things you hold dear are put at risk, is to live your life with courage.

On Being Tested...
"Every search begins with beginners luck and every search ends with the victors being severly tested."

On Drinking...
"It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil, it's what comes out of there mouths that is."

On Self Examination...
"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

On Repetition...
"When each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises."

On Bravery...
"Brave men despise cowards."

On Fear...
"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

And my absolute favorite line in the book...
"The World's Greatest Lie: At a certain point in our lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate."

DR pics

Flying home

February 22nd, 2008 3:03 PM Puerto Plata Int’l Airport

Well I am en route back to the States for a few days to try and finish things up as quickly as possible. I’m going to have to hit things hard to get them done in the short time I have. As of right now, I’m uncertain which direction I will be going in the next week. I have e-mailed Brett and Naomi from the Fearless trip a couple of times and as of yet, haven’t heard back. I let them know that they would need to find a new crew member for their trip but I offered to help cross the Pacific if they couldn’t find anyone on short notice. I won’t know for a couple of days but next weekend I will be flying either back down here to the east side of the DR or if Brian stays in company with the other cruisers he might be able to make it to Puerto Rico without me and I will fly in there. If the crew from Fearless are desperate than I will have to honor my commitment and fly down to Mexico and help them cross to the South Pacific. I really hope they are able to find someone because it’s starting to get expensive flying all over the place.

Currently I am sitting in the airport in Puerto Plata, DR. They do not have internet connection here unless you want to pay 25 dollars down in the private VIP lounge but no thank you so I will probably be posting this sometime late tonight. I’ll wait til Houston. The flight doesn’t leave for another three hours and it’s going to be a long day of travel for me. I am flying from here to Miami, instantly connecting to a flight over to Houston, then I have the privilege of a 6 hour layover there until I leave around 6 AM from there to fly direct into Fresno. I land around 9 AM there and from what I was told the big birthday/bon voyage bash for me starts at 6 PM so I should be sufficiently exhausted by the time the drinks start flowing. I’m sure that my friends will accept no less than me being in a hurt locker at the end of the night. Of course, I did a fine job of that the other night during the eclipse. The cruisers put on a big party up on one of the hills overlooking Luperon. It was awesome. There is a nice piece of land up there that one of the cruising couples decided to buy but they haven’t built a house yet so it is still undeveloped. They built a huge bonfire and everyone brought a covered dish to go with the hot dogs that were provided. The food was great. Most people hung out until the fire got into full swing but by the time the eclipse started there were only a few of us left. A couple of the cruisers who have become locals there provided transportation up to the party. Brian and I got to ride in an old Daihatsu work truck sitting in the bed on the ride up the hill. These same people were shuttling people back after the food and during the fire. The eclipse started somewhere between 9 and 10 and was definitely worth checking out. I’m glad I didn’t miss it. After the eclipse, we hung out drinking for a while until we got rides figured out and brought a bunch of stuff back down the hill. I was hanging out with Dave, a real cool guy who comes from Oklahoma and is always the life of the party. He used to own a karaoke business and his wife and him live on their boat, Carry Okies, got that one? Anyway, he is comedy and has been in Luperon since last summer when they originally planned on only a few weeks there. Kenny and Dan were the other two guys who stayed behind and they were fun too. Kenny should be a freaking stand up comedian and Dan is the dude who owns the land we partied at. Dave and Dans’ wives were also there hanging with us so it was a good group. When we finally got out of there, we somehow ended up going down to the Puerto Blanco marina bar to have some more drinks. The really cool English couple that Brian bought the dinghy from were at the bar and a guy named Mark who owns a marina in Annapolis and is planning on upgrading the current one in Luperon. So of course, I just had to have drinks with them too, right? It was already getting very late and I was well on my way to retard drunk so it probably wasn’t a good thing that the owner kept the bar open late for us and I just kept pounding away on the old Presidente cerveza. It was around 3 AM when I finally got a ride back to the boat my extra retard gear kicked in. Now I usually reserve this for special occasions and evidently, a full eclipse qualifies for just that. I hopped in the dinghy and cruised into town. I have no idea what I was hoping to find. Luperon is very small and the bars and only disco close around midnight during the week so I was already just a tad late. I basically wandered around the town for the next two hours trying to find something to do. Defeated, I walked back to the dinghy pier and our dinghy was not where I left it. I searched all over the little dock and could not find it. I thought maybe the line gave out and it could have floated off into the mangroves nearby so I hopped into another dinghy to borrow it just long enough to find ours. I freaking looked for an hour, all over that stupid bay. Nowhere to be found. It was dark so I decided to go back to the boat and wait for daylight. Brian woke up and asked what happened. I told him and as soon as it was light we went looking for it. We ended up finding it UNDERNEATH the pier on the opposite side from where I originally tied it. It was a total fucking fiasco and I felt like a total jackass for the whole episode. As my buddy Banana Dan says, I should have just stayed home and watched Cops. I didn’t know it was possible to consume close to ten 22 ounce bottles of beer but if anyone is dumb enough to try I suppose it’s yours truly. The best part was that Brian wanted to drive to Santo Domingo, the capital city and I had less than an hour of sleep to run on. I’m fairly certain I was drunk until about 2 PM yesterday at which point I ate some sort of miraculous chicken club sandwich that healed me and prevented a hangover. Whatever was in that thing should be bottled and sold to assholes like me everywhere. I’m just glad Brian used to be a hardcore partier and more or less shakes his head at me, knowing exactly where I’m at because he did the same dumb shit long before I was even born.

We left around 9 AM and cruised through Santiago, La Vega, Santo Domingo, San Cristobal and finally ended up staying on the south shores of the DR near the Caribbean Sea in a place called La Najayo. It was very cool. Driving through the country was extremely interesting. Santo Domingo has so much history and I would love to go down and spend a few weeks just hanging out there walking around and checking out all the old museums and architecture. Some of the buildings there are 500 years old including the old Alcazar of Christopher Columbus’ son. The little hotel near the beach we stayed in was nice. Small, quiet and clean. When we got checked in, we walked down to the beach and got a small table to hang out at. He ordered some food and we just kicked back in the cabana. The beach there is full of Dominican people fishing, swimming, floating, bbqing, and drinking lots of rum. There are people walking up and down trying to sell anything and everything, much like Mexico and the beaches there. One kid who was probably 8 or 9 was trying to sell three coconuts he had climbed up and gotten off one of the trees. He was a persistent little sucker and Brian ended up giving him the rest of his meal along with some Pepsi. He tore into it like he hadn’t eaten in a month. Some of his family came running over and they devoured the food in minutes. It’s a wild place. We were in a very poor area. The hotel we stayed in didn’t even have internet service. Life throughout the country is obviously much different than ours. All along the roads there are random little tilt up and shacks scattered around with merchants trying to sell anything from fruit to rum to little carvings. I drove back today from La Najayo up to Puerto Plata and it took us over 5 hours. The roads we used for the most part were cut through several mountains and the scenery was nice. All along the roads there are little villages grouped together and scattered randomly. Nothing is clearly marked so you are kind of guessing or hoping that you are on the right road. It also helps that everyone here drives like lunatics. L.A. traffic at it’s worst can’t touch this place. In California, most people don’t know HOW to drive. Here, you need to be qualified to race in fucking Nascar in order NOT to wreck. There are motoconchos (little cheap motorcycles) EVERYWHERE. Thousands of them. You feel like you are in a video game trying to dodge them as they weave in and out and drive the wrong way whenever they feel like it. It does make sense that most people drive these though because gas is 165 pesos per gallon which is over 5 dollars U.S. per gallon. There is trash all over the place. They don’t have very good sanitation down here most people just toss things out the windows of cars. You can see huge piles of trash all over due to the fact that instead of being picked up it’s just burned when the pile gets big enough. It was a very enlightening drive and we managed to survive unscathed and got here around 1:30 PM.

As for me, I’m looking forward to getting back home to finish things up. I have been letting all the loose ends nag at me and there are a lot of things I need do. Ideally, I’m really hoping that I can get back down here in a week and have everything done. It will be a massive relief on my nerves and I think I will really be able to settle into the boat and my new lifestyle. I have enjoyed the hell out of the last few weeks down here with Brian but the whole time I have had the little nag in the back of my mind that won’t let me forget the responsibilities of the life I left behind. Once I close that chapter of my life I’m hoping to completely immerse myself in the development of a successful charter business with the boat. I’m confident I will. This whole experience has been one that will undoubtedly leave me forever changed. The simplicity of this life is what I have been yearning for. I’m looking forward to seeing my friends and family one more time before I leave for a long time, it will be a good week back home. For now, I will close saying that I hope I actually live long enough to experience all this. I have no doubt developed some sort of cancer in the last two hours of sitting in this waiting area completely bombarded with the second hand smoke from all these mutants around me. Apparently I didn’t get the memo from the dude who printed my boarding pass that it is a requirement in this airport to chain smoke incessantly with no regard for who is sitting near you. I apologize if there are any typos or grammatical errors in this post, it is difficult to see the screen through the haze.

February 22nd, 8:37 PM Maimi Int'l Airport

I barely made it through customs with enough time to sprint to my gate for my connecting flight to Houston where I will spend 7 wonderful hours waiting for my flight to Fresno. No time to type but just wanted to get this posted.

Hanging with the cruisers

We have been in Luperon since early Monday morning. What we estimated shouldn't be more than two days to get here ended up taking four. Oh well, was still fun. We left Monte Christi around midnight on Saturday and I had figured on an eight hour motor up over to Luperon. About five in the morning we hit several squalls (small localized rain storms) and the seas were building. Using both motors we were making just over 5 knots most of the way but when the wind and current started building it was a struggle to keep the boat on course and even make 3 knots of headway. I finally had to fall off to another anchorage in El Castillo about 10 miles west of Luperon. I couldn't believe that only 10 miles short we had to tap out but the current is unbelievable. It literally feels liks the boat is climbing directly uphill much like driving some old piece of shit up the Grapevine in Cali, just lugging away trying to get there. The problem is that if you can't make the entrance to Luperon by 8 in the morning you don't even attempt it. The wind picks up to much and there are shoals and reefs everywhere so it is very dangerous. El Castillo was a tranquil anchorage even with the full trade winds blowing. We were tucked in under a large reef. There are pictures of it where the locals walk about 300 yards offshore out onto the reef to fish. The beach was busy all day Sunday there and we were treated to really, really LOUD Dominican music until an hour after sunset. This was great especially since I had been up since midnight and wouldn't have minded getting a nap. All in all, I would have liked to go ashore. This is the site of the very first settlement in the New World from Columbus. The anchorage we were in was perfect for their square rigged ships to get in and out of so they thought it was a good place. They ended up moving it south to Santo Domingo later on. I planned on leaving at 3 AM to ensure that we would make Luperon by 8, even though it was 10 miles, I didn't want to chance getting hammered by the current and wind again. I got up, pulled the hook and we were off at 3 and entering the bay at first light just after 6 AM.

Luperon is great. There is a narrow entrance coming from the north to the south and about 1/4 mile then it hammerheads out to the east and west. This entire bay is still in way early stages of development. There are cruiser boats everywhere, as you can see in the pics. From talking to a lot of them, this is a great hurricane hole and one of the few remaining anchorages that haven't gone commercial. The marina here is basically about a 100' long pier. Everything else is only anchorage. The cruising community is very interesting and there are some serious characters here. For those of you who don't really know, let me define cruiser. The traditional definition of a cruiser is basically a person or a couple that sold everything they owned, quit their jobs and cut all ties to where they are from. They get a boat and everything they own is contained on board and they pretty much go where they want. Some of the people here have been in Luperon for a week, some came here last summer and some got here 8 years ago with intentions of heading east but liked it so much that they have become permanent fixtures here. The other night I came in to check out the jam session. One of the cruisers invited me into the little bar in the marina for this. Basically, anyone with an instrument comes in and they do a sort of makeshift concert. Random songs are played and sang and everyone gets piss drunk, way too cool. There were guitars, harmonicas, a banjo, a flute, etc. If you haven't heard Hotel California played on a flute you just haven't lived. The people were from South Africa, England, New Zealand, Ecuador, Russia, Colombia, France, Czech, and of course America. What is great is that no one has any boundaries or cliques here and everyone accepts you with huge open drunken arms. During the day, everyone helps each other doing projects and getting ready for the next weather window so we can jump east. The majority of these boats will be making the same rounds as we will on Rum Boogie so we will be in company with them for the next few months which I am really looking forward to. Before I went in to the party, I was trying to score a new dinghy for us. My new pal Carlos has a little panga boat and for some rum he sped me all around looking for one. I managed to find one for sale and one I was told I could borrow but it was locked and the guy with the key wouldn't be around til Tuesday. Meanwhile, Carlos had two girls with us on the boat, one from Haiti who only spoke Creole and the other a Dominican girl. He only speaks Spanish and I was able to get by ok when I explained to him that I don't pay for girls. We had a good laugh and he is a Kool Kat and gave me lots of advice on what to do and where to go around here. Since we had lost the dinghy in transit from Caicos, I had no ride into the marina for the party on Monday night so I ended up kayaking in with the wind blowing well over 20 knots. Real fun. It was amazing that when we all took off that it was flat calm and I had no problem kayaking back. I had to do some acrobatics to get on the boat without taking a late night swim but I managed it.

Yesterday was a fairly lazy day. Just still trying to recover from the weird sleeping schedule from the four day crossing. At the jam session, I was able to meet the people that were selling a dinghy. It belonged to an English couple, Pete and Sharon. They are wild. Pete was absolutely hammered on whiskey and I got a one hour congratulatory talk about how proud he was of me for walking away from my life to do this full time. We waxed intellectual for a while and talked about the dinghy. It was a good deal and I told him I would let Brian know. We raised him on the VHF and he brought the dinghy out in the morning and Brian jumped on it. We spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to get them paid. He was going to wire transfer from Bank of America to their bank online but the money wouldn't have been there until next Monday and we needed the boat. So I called the wonderful girls back home at our firefighter credit union and it was handled in half an hour. They are so bad ass, don't know what I would do without them. We lounged away the afternoon and had a good dinner up in the yacht club overlooking the bay, it is an amazing view and I will get some pics of it later today.

The plan today is to get some work done on the boat. I need to get the bilges clean and replace some lights on the mast, so hooray, I get to go back up and be the mast fairy again. We rented a car for the next two days and it will be here in the morning at 8. We are gonna drive through Santiago and down to Santo Domingo to spend the night. Then we will drive back up around the east and Brian will drop me off in Puerto Plata at the airport so I can fly back. I'm looking forward to checking out some museums in the city. Oh, and if you are wondering what happened last night, sorry to disappoint but I ended up falling asleep on the back of the boat looking up at a huge moon. Tonight, the cruisers are having a big pot luck "Full Moon Party" hosted by one of the boats, Deja Vu. There is supposed to be a big eclipse tonight so that should be amazing here. I'm assuming we will have some internet in Santo Domingo so I will try and post another blog there and add some photos. Keep reading, I'll keep writing.

New pics

The two blogs below contain photos that sort of catalog my previous blog about our trip from Provo to Luperon via Haiti. If you click on the pictures it will link you to photobucket where you can cruise through the albums. There are probably close to 60 or so pictures. You can view them one at a time or in album format, whatever works. Hope you like. I'm currently headed into town, it's 10 PM here, 6 back in Cali. I'll be working on another blog a little later tonight to get everyone caught up with the latest. Discoteca here I come, 2 for 1 on the 22 ounce Presidente beers man, how you gonna miss that? Only 150 pesos, like $1.75 U.S., so sweet how cheap things are here.

Haiti to Luperon

Photobucket Album

Photos from Caicos to Haiti

Photobucket Album

Bananas=Chaos

I wrote the following three days ago while anchored up in Monte Christi. It took us a lot longer than anticipated to get to Luperon but we are here finally. We got in early this morning and spent most of the day getting arrangements with the harbor guys, customs, immigration and just got done having rum and cokes with our new amigos from the agricultural office. They didn't bother confiscating our limes since we were slicing them up and putting them in the drinks. Enjoy the long ass blog I wrote. We were anchored up for so long in the wind and I couldn't go ashore without a dinghy or getting checked in to customs so I got a little carried away writing. I am headed in to the Pueblo Blanco Marina to some jam session that the cruisers (people who live on their boats who do what Brian and I are doing) are putting on.

2-16-08 2:17 PM Friday

I have a new enemy. I am now officially boycotting bananas. More on that later. We just arrived into the anchorage of Bahia de Monte Christi, two days and lot of chaos later. Bound for Luperon, in the Dominican Republic, we left Provo on the 14th around one in the afternoon and made our way west to get to the cut through the reef between Provo and West Caicos. The plan was to get through the Sandborne Channel into the Caicos Banks and make our way southeast to Luperon. The Caicos Banks is unbelievable. It is one of three (two natural, one man made) features of the Earth’s surface that astronauts say looks incredible from space. The other two are the Sahara desert and the Great Wall of China. Guess which one was man made? It is approximately 60 nautical miles across at the widest point and for the majority of the area the depth is no more than twelve feet but in several areas it is less than a foot deep. Imagine being able to see the bottom out in the middle of the ocean, that’s this place. Very beautiful, the water is a rich turquoise color and when we crossed there was little wind and no swell. All throughout the banks it is peppered with shoals, reefs and rocks just slightly under the surface of the water. The keel on Rum Boogie is only 4’ 2” at it’s deepest but I was still uncertain about taking her across these banks at night. We have an excellent book on board that covers the areas we are cruising through and it basically says you NEVER cross during night. He says drop anchor and wait. When you have daylight you can see the dark spots of these hidden reefs and other dangers as you traverse the banks. We got a late start due to customs taking their time to come clear us out. Brian asked three different times for the marina to contact them and have them come. We should have left right at sunrise. We got to the Sandborne Channel at about 5:30 PM, not ideal. The channel is a cut ½ mile wide through a reef that is several miles wide and is the only entrance to the banks from the Northwest. While I steered the boat through it my confidence soared about our night crossing as I noticed a large salvage ship being towed off the reef by a tugboat. No way I would screw up like those guys right? As we started through the banks I was glued to the depth sounder, GPS, and radar as we were treated to yet another spectacular sunset. Just before the sun sank into the ocean I heard a buzzing sound. Took a second but I realized that we had a fish on one of the trolling lines. I reeled in the, as of yet, unidentified fish. It was decent size, silver in color with a very distinct yellow tail. It had the same body as a trevally so I’m pretty sure it was not a yellowtail. Brian had just finished making us a big dinner of chicken, rice, salad and corn, so I released the fish. The fact that I didn’t know what it was also didn’t lend itself to me wanting to risk getting sick from some fish you aren’t supposed to eat. Never know down here. After dinner, we discussed our options and we had good wind and Brian was anxious to get to the DR so I set the sails on a southerly course to minimize the amount of time we were in the banks after dark. I checked all the charts and confirmed on the GPS that if I kept the boat on the line I had it on we could sail straight down the line used for shipping through this area. We were out of the banks and entering the 90 mile wide passage between Caicos and Hispaniola (DR and Haiti are on this island) a little after eight that night from taking this shorter path.

Let me digress for a moment. As I stated in my last blog, I went out the night before we left. Now, my intention when I went out was to talk with some of the other boat cruisers and captains and get a clear picture of crossing the banks and the passage from the banks over to the Dominican Republic (DR). As per usual when I go out with the intention of having “a few” and “taking it easy”, I ended up getting back to the boat well after 2 AM but that’s beside the point so shut up whatever you are thinking in your head. During my stay in the Tiki Hut that night, I learned quite a bit from local captains and cruisers who have passed through several times. All day on the 13th, we had steady winds above 20 knots coming from the east southeast. These are the tradewinds in this area. That night as I sat drinking and talking with these guys the consensus was the same. Just wait kid. Hang out til the weekend, no reason to push it. Weather is supposed to continue to blow like hell until Saturday. Leave Provo on Saturday, go anchor at Salt Cay and wait for the passage to lay down from the big winds all week. Huh. Makes sense to me. It was probably 12 Jamaican Red Stripe beers later when I wrote the last blog and let’s just say it’s a miracle I made it back to the boat that night. Here is some free advice if you ever make it down to Provo. If you drink in the Tiki Hut and decide in as much infinite wisdom as I did, to go out drinking with E-Z (his name is Izzy but with his accent he sounds like he is saying EASY so hence, E-Z) do not, I repeat do not drink the dark rum shot he hands you in Danny Boys in Grace Bay. Not only do they cost twelve dollars each but he will follow that with the challenge that you cannot drink more than two. I can’t drink more than two? Ha. He doesn’t know who he is talking to does he? Doesn’t he know that a dozen beers and I am invincible? Silly E-Z. I showed him. Ninety six dollars later we had drank four each and it was obvious that I broke a cardinal rule of drinking. Never try and keep up with a bartender when it comes to drinking. Needless to say, my last clear memory is talking to some chick in a wheelchair. Although there are flashes of the ride home with E-Z wildly driving down Leeward Highway in his Suzuki Samurai. I think the combination of being retard drunk and the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the street forced me to yell at him several times that he needed to get over because he was driving on the wrong side. That and his high speed passes of other cars on blind curves made for about as harrowing a ride as the cabs in the DR driving with no headlights (they believe it saves electricity from the battery) during heavy rainstorms. Somehow I survived and managed to scramble back onto Rum Boogie without falling in the water. The next day when Brian woke me up and wanted to leave I didn’t really even have my wits about me enough to pass on the info I had gathered the night before regarding our waiting to leave. He was ready to go. I washed the boat and got the engines checked out and prepped the boat for sea all the while shaking off the cobwebs of the mysterious dark rum shots (I shiver as I write about them). Hindsight is indeed 20/20 and as I sit here typing from this anchorage I can assure you that I should have voiced my findings to him from the night before, prior to getting stuck on stupid. Back to exiting the banks…

Now one of the first rules I learned in sailing was that the wind will always blow from the direction you intend to go and of course, it was no different on our tack to Luperon. From where we exited, the rhumbline (straight shot) would have been just over 90 nautical miles. Now this catamaran hauls ass under sail, easily reaching and maintaining speeds over 8 knots. Given this, I figured we could make it in just over 16 hours (we would have to tack over for awhile and beat into the wind which would inevitably slow us down). Oh how cute and naïve I am. For a while things were ok. 15-20 knots of wind and moderate seas, maybe 6-8 foot slow rollers that we easily climbed over. We made just over 7 knots for a couple of hours. About 20 miles from where we exited I started to get my first lesson in the effects of the equatorial current as well as the reason at the bar in Provo they call this “bashing” into the trade winds. The seas continued to build up until I was forced to alter course to due south just to keep the boat from being beat to death. Brian had long gone to bed as he usually crashes out pretty early. It was about 9 PM and the fun was just starting. I had a nice course set to the south and figured we could tack back across the wind sometime around 3 in the morning when the wind lays down. Think it just might have been a good thing to know that in this area, the wind in fact DOESN’T lay down, who knew? I set the auto pilot, had a quick bite and a Gatorade, set the radar alarm for anything within 6 miles of us and I got comfortable on the port side to take a little nap. I set the alarm to wake me every hour to check everything. I think I was about twenty minutes into my nap when I heard it. The unmistakable sound you hear moments before you are about to get drilled with a lot of water. We were headed south, taking the rollers on the port beam (as suggested in my reading thank you) but because the wind blows so steady and the current is so fast, the swells are literally right on top of each other. So as we surfed sideways down a fairly large swell (10-12 feet at this point) the next wave was taller and was already cresting when it hit the side of the boat and completely soaked everything, including yours truly, snoozing away all warm and comfy with my blanket and pillow. As I type, the blanket is still drying on the stern of the boat. I hopped up to find the wind blowing fiercely and the swells continuing to increase in size and intensity. I got my harness, EPIRB and radio and went to the bow to put the second reef in the main. For non boat nerds like me, that basically means reducing the amount of sail you have up to slow the damn boat down and give you or the auto pilot more control at the helm. I had put the first reef point in prior to laying down for my siesta. As you can imagine, I got hammered on the front of the boat. I was already soaked from the wave that woke me so it didn’t bother me getting drilled by every third wave crashing over the side as I literally had to hug the mast not to get thrown off from the wall of water rushing over me. After twenty tough minutes of work on the bow I got the sail secured (it’s really fun pulling a gigantic sail down in 30 knots of blistering wind, I highly recommend it, really) and the boat slowed some and the bucking from the swells improved substantially. As I scrambled back to the rear something didn’t seem right. I looked around for a moment and realized, oh shit, where the F is the dinghy? We had been towing the dinghy (yes, again even after the motor debacle from our Rum Cay passage) and while I was up getting damn near drowned on the bow, the tow eye from the front of the dinghy simply pulled out of the hull and our little tender boat drifted away helplessly into the rage of the sea. I had no idea how long it had been gone and trying to find it was going to be about as useless as me trying to close the deal with some ass when I’m six shots deep on Jager but, as I would with the Jager, I had to try anyway, just the principle of the thing you know? I fired up the engines, rolled the headsail and dropped the main as quick as I could. I tried to motor back on the drift that the dinghy could have possibly taken but after a good half hour of searching, we were unable to find it. Brian had woken up and came out to inquire why I was staring like a monkey into the darkness. As I informed him of the unfortunate demise of our means of travel to and from the docks, he again laughed it off. I hope I’m half as cool as this dude when I’m 64. I went back to setting the sails and he crashed back out.

Back on course I continued to bash across the seas, constantly trimming sails and altering course slightly to adjust for the wind and swell combos. As I plotted the course I watched helplessly as we smashed and fought our way south, and against the plan, we were making slight southwest progress instead of southeast. As I calculated where we would end up at the rate we were going, I was shocked to find that we were going to be 80 miles to the west of Luperon, our intended destination when we left. Navigation skills right on point as usual. Now I knew we were going to be at least 40 miles off due to our south heading but because I’m so smart I just knew that we could tack back and make those miles up by running hard northeast against the trades and then once we had a good line, tack back across the wind to the southeast and bam, hello Luperon. As it turned out, I beat and bashed this damn boat into walls of water and wind until just before 6 AM when we were just about 30 miles from the coast of Haiti. I had decided earlier in the night that even though we would be drastically off course, I was going to sail the boat on the line that was easiest for her to handle. We probably could have made a better heading but I think it would have broken something, possibly torn a sail or something worse, so being that far off was the consequence of trying not to push the rig too hard. Brian had woken up around 6 and offered to take watch for a bit. I headed down to get some much needed rest. About 7:30 or so, he woke me and asked me to take down the sails. I hadn’t slept much from the ruthless onslaught of the swells pounding the side of the boat during his watch and with every wave I cringed so I wearily got out of the bunk and headed topsides. I checked the GPS and saw why we were making such slow progress. Brian had tried to alter course to take us really tight to the wind and therefore give us a better, straighter shot to DR. Problem is, Rum Boogie slows WAY down at this point of sail and the direction of the swells would beat us to death this way. I had forgot to tell him that before I went below. The wind had slowed considerably so I rolled the jib and went forward to drop the main. As I continued to fight with the halyard, I futilely tried to pull the sail down a little at a time. So like a typical firefighter, I kept tugging away until I finally thought, huh, something must be wrong. So I stepped back and saw that the halyard (rope that pulls the main sail up) was caught about 45’ up on one of the spreaders off the mast. Perfect. I tried everything I could think of, pulling the main back up, letting it down again, tacking the boat back and forth, loosening other lines around it, anything to get that damn halyard free but it was all to no avail. Only one choice and Brian was less than excited by that prospect. I was going to have to put a harness on and he was going to have to raise me up the mast in the wildly pitching swells on the spinnaker sheet, a rope that hasn’t been used in at least two years and looks like it wouldn’t even work for a tire swing at the river. He protested but there was no other choice. I convinced him because one way or the other we needed the line loose, we couldn’t raise or lower the sail without it. Of course, we don’t have a Bosuns chair (used to safely raise someone to do high work) on board so I had to use some old rescue systems skills and I made a waist harness out of a chest harness we had on board. All I can say is I’m glad that ropes and knots are something I am really good at. He started cranking me and I did my best to stay as close to the mast as possible. With the 15-20 foot swells that were blowing down on us coupled with over 20 knots of relentless wind, just keeping your balance on the deck can be a challenge. Try it 30-50 feet above the deck. The mast threw me around like a rag doll. I smacked off the spreaders, crashed into the radar, bounced off the sail and got wound around the wires and sheets. Not to mention it was painfully slow progress to get to the spot I needed to reach and to make it more fun, the harness I made managed to just about eliminate any further aspirations I may have had about fathering children. Once I reached the spreader I couldn’t budge the line. The wind pressure was so immense, I had to literally hug the mast and use BOTH feet to leg press the freaking rope off the spreader. Finally done, I yelled to be lowered. I managed to hit less objects on the way down although I did manage to sprain two fingers on my right hand after a particularly violent lurch threw me around and back into the mast at high speed. Once I reached the deck I just lied down on the deck breathing heavily, sweating profusely and unable to make a fist from hanging on so tight. No amount of rock climbing I’ve done (albeit, not a whole lot) has ever been that tough. I got the sail down and did some checking on the charts. Brian came out sweating heavily from having to winch me up and down the mast. We had a great exchange.

Brian: Man, next time you need to take a VHF radio up there with you.
My dumb ass: Why?
Brian: Dude, if I had a heart attack on the deck you would be royally f@#$ed up there! You would be stuck!
My dumb ass: ………

I got an overwhelming sense that he was right and that I had possibly just gotten very lucky. Then I was overcome with laughter at the thought of me in a brutally uncomfortable nut crushing harness, hanging 50 feet above the deck of this boat, ruthlessly being throw around from the huge seas, 30 miles from Haiti and waiting for an unknown amount of days to see if I would be rescued or if, when the seas calmed would I be able to somehow climb down without killing myself. I can honestly say that doing that is not anywhere as cool as several thousand other things I have done in my life but oh well, it had to be done.

After the excitement, Brian fired up the motors while I started straightening up the boat. Everything was a mess from the rough night and given my theatrics while becoming the mast fairy, everything on my body hurt and I wasn’t ready to try and sleep anymore. Then I heard Brian ask me to go down and check the oil on the starboard (right side, geez just google it) diesel engine. I said sure and asked what was up. He said that when he put it into forward gear we lost oil pressure. I knew the oil was ok but I went down to check everything again. All systems seemed in working order except for the bilge pump in the engine room. There was a decent amount of water, nothing too bad but it needed to be pumped. I didn’t want to risk getting water in the engine so we ran with the port side engine only. At this point, we both were looking at each other wondering what was next. I had been at it for nearly 30 hours straight with very little sleep and now we had a motor out. There was no way I could get down and work in the engine room in the wildly pitching seas so I consulted the books and charts and found that we were only about 20 miles from a small anchorage in Haiti called La Badie. It is about 2 miles west of Cap Haitien, one of the main ports in Haiti. Neither of us were too hip on the idea of checking into Haiti. There is a lot of political unrest there and security is a major concern. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor and read about the history of Hispaniola and the amazing hatred that the DR and Haiti have for one another, it’s fascinating if you enjoy history at all. Haiti is the poorest nation in this hemisphere and has something like 7-9 million people there. I really wanted to go to Haiti when I was in the DR in October of last year but the person I went with was a little too into the bullshit all inclusive resort travel and too afraid to go check out the country so I didn’t get to. Haitians are renowned for their art, music, and literature. Truly, what I have seen has been great. Anyway, the uncertainty of checking in and what rules, fees, problems and possible corrupt officials we may encounter in Cap Haitien, I figured it a safe gamble to nose into La Badie and anchor up quietly so we could try and figure out the motor problem. Everything I read said that La Badie is a tiny village of fishermen and that government clearance was usually ignored here. When I went to the GPS to figure out a course and see if that was the best choice, my decision was made for me. The radar now would not scan. Huh, wonder why. Maybe the 180 pound moron swinging around bashing into it? Yeah. More good news. That made it easy. I reset the sails and it was a straight shot into La Badie. We made it in just over three hours and as we approached we were welcomed with the sight of a large Celebrity Cruise ship. Small fishing village huh? Shit. I put the yellow quarantine flag up as we were stopped by a water taxi carrying security personnel and a large bald black guy looking very gnarly standing on the bow of the boat. Way to go Shane. I was waiting for the inevitable announcement that we were going to be boarded, searched and probably thrown in jail for some bullshit charge that it’s illegal to have a speargun or something when the big boy spoke.

Huge guy: Bon jour my friend!
Me: (probably dumbfounded look on my face): Hey, how’s it going?
Huge guy: Very good man! (in perfect English) Can you do me a favor and go around the rear of the cruise ship? As soon as they leave, you more than welcome to anchor in that part of the bay. (Big smile the whole time).
Me: Uh…No problem! (big smile back) Is it cool if I anchor back there in that (south) part of the bay?
Huge smiling guy: Of course my friend! Please make yourself comfortable, if you want to move here later you can, if you want to stay there, no problem. Maybe I see you at the party later, yes?
Me: Maybe, I’m pretty tired bro, been sailing for almost 36 hours straight from Provo. If I get some rest I will kayak in and hang out, thanks for the invite.
Huge smiling guy: Thank you for moving, maybe I see you soon, have a good time in Haiti, welcome!

They sped off, all three guys waving and smiling. Yeah, Haiti is SO dangerous. I felt like a jackass for having any reservation about going there. Later I read more and found out that the West and South parts of Haiti are known for the violence while the North, where we were, are said to be some of the most generous, fun, and accepting people around. I soon found out why they have that rep. We motored in and tucked well back into the bay, got the anchor set. I dove down to make sure it was dug in well and I went about getting the boat settled and ready to set out the next morning early. The whole time I was stowing the sails, rolling sheets and stowing all the gear, people of all ages kayaked or rowed small wooden boats right up to our boat. I greeted all of them but the conversations were usually lots of smiling and hand gestures because most of them spoke French or Creole, a very corrupted version of French. Some even tried speaking in Spanish. I tried my best to talk but only a few of them spoke English well enough for us to understand each other. Most of them wanted to sell something small they had. A painting, a small bottle of honey, a large bottle of some sort of wine, even a fish. I politely said no and even after that most of them offered me a ride into the village. Several of them asked me to come into the village to hang out for the party. Friday night in La Badie, you know that’s got to be going off. It killed me not to go but after dinner, I was wiped out. The engine turned out just to be a bad oil pressure gauge. The radar thankfully regained its’ scanning ability after I messed with some of the connections. I was glad to not have to go back up the mast. La Badie is a beautiful little bay in about 25’ of water. I will post several pictures of the village, the fishermen who set nets at sundown, the old dhow rigged sailboats and the mast of a sailboat that is sticking up about 20’ out of the water where it obviously wrecked on a reef. After we ate, Brian went to bed to read and I made a hot cup of tea and sat on the back of the boat taking in another peaceful sunset, reading, sipping tea and just taking in the amazing scene. Very few lights dot the coastline and the high mountain to the east shields the wind. The moon was big and bright and lit the bay up beautifully. The slight smell from the cooking fires wafts in the air even miles off of Haiti. Some of the pics that I will post you will notice several columns of smoke and that’s what they are. Apparently, the name buccaneer comes from back when Haitians used to smoke a certain type of highly prized meat with these fires high in the mountains and they would sell it to passing ships. The French word for the meat is “boucain” (not sure on spelling) hence they got the name “boucaineers” since they peddled the stuff. Either way, the name was corrupted to its’ current spelling and from what I read I guess they still cook the meat that way today. I finished my tea and debated on kayaking in to the village. I could hear the festive music rising and the sounds of people laughing and singing and I was dying to go. I wasn’t overly concerned with the fact that I would have technically been an illegal immigrant, something told me nobody there was gonna care. Plus, I planned on taking a bunch of candy bars for the kids and a bottle of rum as a gift for the party. Then of course, who knows what devilish booze or concoction they would have that I would no doubt end up hammered from drinking and would feel ten times worse than I already did. On the other hand, Brian really wants to get over to Luperon since I have to leave next week so my plan was to get up before sunrise and get over 27 miles to Manzanillo Bay to get fuel and anchor up before the tradewinds get into full swing in the late morning. I read a lot more in depth in the guide book we have after the ass beating I got handed in the channel and I was resolved to follow his advice and run the island only between midnight and 9 in the morning. So I reluctantly took a shower and went to bed. It was a perfect end to a brutal crossing. After all, this was the perfect place for me to be anchored so how could I miss a party? For 200 years this bay was used by privateers and buccaneers as a watering hole and bordello as they patrolled over 100 miles of coastline between Ile de la Tortue in Haiti down to Puerto Plata in the DR pillaging any ships foolish enough to come near. So I am making a solemn vow that someday I will sail back into that bay and hang for a week or so, cause come on, what better place for me to party?

I slept well. I got up and checked the anchor twice during the night and all was well. I got up around 5:30 AM and fired up the motors. I weighed anchor and we were off. The morning was great. Very little wind or swell and the area around the point was full of Haitian fishermen out in 8 foot long wooden boats using oars and setting nets for fish. Really cool. Every one of them waved cheerfully as we went by. As we rounded the point it was 27 mile run to Manzanillo Bay in the DR. We passed by Cap Haitien and threaded the boat in between all the fishermen just outside that port. There is a very old fort built into the hill just west of the entrance to the port. I couldn’t find anything in the books we have on board about what it was used for but I’m interested in finding out. Then we got to see the actual reef that Christopher Columbus wrecked the Santa Maria on. It’s called Limonade Reef and it’s around five nautical miles long and guards the entrance to Caracol Bay. The pics I will post don’t do this huge reef justice. It was very impressive to see the waves breaking on it and the reef is over a mile from shore. I couldn’t help but stop and appreciate how lucky I am to be sailing the same exact waters that they sailed more than 500 years ago, just an amazing humbling feeling to know they did it when it was all unknown and with none of the crazy gadgets we have now. After passing Fort Liberte east of the reef we entered the waters of the DR and discussed what to do. We had great weather and could possibly make another 17 miles to an anchorage I read about located in the Monte Christi shoals. It would put us 40 miles from Luperon. So I added the 10 gallons of diesel we had in reserve and we motorsailed from Manzanillo up into the shoals of Monte Christi. The shoals are interesting. There are several random small islands situated in this area. They have pretty beaches and bring to mind the true definition of a deserted island. This whole area is littered with reefs and rocks as well, big surprise. It also shelfs up so fast from deep water that the current moves unbelievably fast. When I got the boat into the shoals from around the point at Manzanillo, we were headed directly into the increasing trade winds and the current was headed directly at us, of course. We went from motorsailing at 7 knots to doing less than 4 knots the moment we got into the current. Freaking unreal. I zigged and zagged her through the shoals and we arrived here just after 2 PM and anchored about 300 yards off the marina (if you want to call it that) in Monte Christi. We are anchored in ten feet of water but it is good sand and we are holding well. I dove the anchor and went back to getting the boat ready to leave tonight at midnight. The wind has increased steadily all day as the trades do from what I read. The guy that wrote the guide book suggests that you leave here at midnight and use the lee of the island to hug the coastline and make progress towards Luperon. Since we didn’t follow his advice in regards to crossing from the banks and got our asses handed to us, I figure I will listen this time. If all goes well we should be pulling in there tomorrow at 8 AM and sometime tomorrow I should have internet.

You may remember 100 pages ago when I wrote that I am not on good terms now with bananas. Three days ago in Provo, Brian rented a car and went grocery shopping while I slept. Sometime in the afternoon that day, I noticed a fresh, nice looking, brand new bunch of bananas in the basket located in the galley. I smiled and off handedly asked him if he knew about what happens when you bring bananas on a boat. I grew up around some real true salty dogs of the sea. My Dads’ best friend was known as THE Skipper. He spent his whole life on the sea. I’m not sure where the superstition comes from regarding the bananas, I just know that since I was a little kid, you would get crucified if you brought bananas on a boat. I am not overly superstitious but I personally have never done that. Some of you may have heard the story from early last October when I sailed a boat full of my friends over to Catalina for Buccaneer Days. The boat was a 47’ brand new, half million dollar yacht. We had one debacle after another for the first day and a half. From running out of fuel in the dinghy two miles from the boat at 3 AM with 6 guys and 50 lobsters and having to row back to almost wrecking the boat on Indian Rock because the mooring we were tied to literally drug underwater to getting separated and everyone sleeping in different places (including some of the homeys spending the night in the local Laundromat feeding the dryers quarters to stay warm, which sorry guys, is still pretty damn funny every time I tell that story). The morning following the Coin Op disaster I figured out why we were having such bad luck. I glanced down into the salon of the boat and noticed one of the guys that had come along eating a banana. I naturally flipped out and asked who brought the F-ing bananas on the boat. When he innocently said that he had, I promptly grabbed the whole bunch, including what the one in his hand and threw them into the drink. From that point forward, no more problems and we had a bitchin trip and he is now known as Banana Dan. So this freaking novel I just wrote about the chaos that has ensued since Provo is entirely Brian’s fault. He bought the bananas. He brought them on board. I told him when we dropped anchor last night that he should have gotten rid of them, he laughed at me and had some choice words, all in fun. But…there is still one banana left down there. I think it will mysteriously find its’ way over the side tonight while he sleeps.

So, anyone ready to come join us for a cruise? Don’t let the fact that I have bruises on every part of my body and everything hurts deter any of you. Sailing is fun…and easy.

Finished at 9:09 PM 2-16-08

Drinking in Provo

For the last two days the wind has been blowing like hell, upwards of 20 plus knots. We were wanting to leave tomorrow morning for the Salt Cay but I have talked to a lot of local Captains and they say to wait til the weekend. The Caicos banks are 60 nautical miles across and it's only 8-10 feet deep all the way. Gonna be wild. Right now I'm sitting on the rear of the boat waiting for my new buddy E-Z to come pick me up. He is the bartender at the Tiki Hut, the bar right next to the marina. We are going to some bar called Danny Boys down in Grace Bay. He is closing up shop at the Hut and it looks like it's gonna be a long night for old Shane. I'm already well on my way to being shit-housed fucked in half drunk and I'm sure it's not gonna stop early. At least I get a little break while I'm waiting for him to finish.

Bahamas-Turks Caicos Photos

Bukowski

I'm getting a lot of reading done and I read this poem by Bukowski and thought I would share it. I read it several times, hope it hits you like it did me.

The Genius Of The Crowd
Charles Bukowski

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Landing on my feet

Once again my life has changed course. As if the past few months I haven't agonized enough about the decision to leave the fire department and in doing so, my entire life behind. Now I have been faced with another life altering choice. More on that in a bit.

The Caribbean is bad ass, plain and simple. I have been here a couple times before but there is nothing quite like sailing through the unbelievably beautiful water here. We left Georgetown and the Great Exuma islands behind on Friday morning after the fuel ship was finished. We motored out through the chain of islands and cays (pronounced keys, duh) and we were out in blue water by about ten in the morning. We didn't have much wind so we ended up motoring to Rum Cay which was about 50 miles away. We were trying to make it before dark because there is a large shallow reef that basically guards the entrance to the docks there and it is marked with small buoys that may or may not be in the right spot because storms move them and the lights used for navigation in and around the island may or may not work, gotta love it. All the charts I'm using pretty much say to ignore any lights as they are useless and even if they actually work they are typically functioning improperly. So we made it there around 6. Right at dark. Perfect. I gotta say that I was pretty stoked when we cruised up smoothly to the dock and tied up. The dock master said he was impressed and some English dude came over from his boat and told me that the entrance through the reef was textbook. I shrugged, said thanks and went about tying the boat up. I didn't bother telling any of them that I was ready to shit my pants and that it was one of the most nerve racking things I have ever done on the water. It was like a freaking minefield. Literally changing course back and forth to get through the shallow channel with a boat that is 45' long and 25' wide. Oh yeah, and the water is only 7' deep. Unreal. Rum Cay is nice. Very chill place. They have a small residential area, 2 bars, 1 store and a couple of places to eat. I got some decent pics of it and will post them as soon as I can. We put the dinghy in the water during the day and pulled the brand new 20 hp Yamaha outboard out. We motored around the bay just staring in awe at the beauty of the reef. Up near the old rickety pier there was an F-150 truck being loaded with cement bags that had been dropped off by a supply boat at some time. We watched as they finished loading, started driving up the pier and bam, the rear right wheel of the truck went right through the pier. The driver got out, laughed and started slowly unloading bags. I cruised up and asked if he needed help and he said "Only if ya got a beer mon!" .

Back on the boat, we left around 5 that afternoon. The plan was to run all night and get to Mayaguana, the last island in the Bahamian chain. We thought we needed to check out with customs and this was the last place to do it. We arrived there the next day around 3 pm but Brian was itching to get south to Provo. I found in one of the books for cruising that it isn't required to check out of the Bahamas so we blew right past Mayaguana bound for Provo. I sailed the boat from about 4 until 9 and had a blast. This boat hauls ass. I had her reaching speeds of up to 9.5 knots at certain points throughout the night, was so much fun. It was a great sail and much faster than I thought so around 9 I hove to about 20 miles off the island, caught a couple hours sleep and got up around 3 am to set a course for Provo. Providenciales is the most populated island here in the Turks and Caicos Island chain. It is known as Provo, it's 14 miles long and 6 miles across at it's widest point. There are about 18,000 people here. We got here yesterday morning and again, a two mile long reef protects the shallow islet that leads to the marina Brian wanted to stay in. After 30 minutes of negotiating that nightmare we reached the entrance to the small waterway that snakes back into Turtle Cove Marina. There is a freaking reef on the right side exactly at the entrance. Such a pain. Once I finally got the boat backed into the "slip" (basically four large wood posts sticking up out of the water with a small dock tied to it), I think I finally stopped holding my breath. These reefs would be intimidating in my own boat much less a 400,000 dollar catamaran that doesn't belong to you. We had a couple of really good meals here, checked in with customs and I hung out late last night with some of the locals at a place called the Tiki Hut. We ended up going across the street to a casino called, I kid you not, The Players Club. It was way too fun. Today, Brian rented a car and we did a little cruising. Only took about an hour and a half and we had driven the whole island. The drive was great though because on all sides you can see the turqouise blue waters. The plan is to stay here til Thursday then cross the Caicos Banks and head to the Salt Cay island. From there we are putting out to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. He wants to fly to Cuba for a day or two and then we will be back in the DR. On a sidenote, when we left Rum Cay Brian wanted to leave the dinghy with the brand new motor, tied to the back of the boat and just tow it to Mayaguana, 130 miles away. I have never been a fan of towing dinghies for long distances and I asked if he was sure. He said he towed it from Belize to Panama so I just shut up and sailed the boat. He took watch about 3 am and sometime between then and 6 am he looked back at the dinghy and noticed, hmmm, that's funny, where the F is the motor. The freaking brand new 3000 dollar outboard that had maybe an hour of use from us in Rum Cay is now somewhere at the bottom of the ocean passage between Mayaguana and Rum Cay. It just simply fell off the transom of the dinghy. He laughed. I couldn't believe it, I would have been suicidal. He just said oh well and laughed. This dude is hilarious.

On a personal note, I am doing well. I think my nerves have finally calmed down enough that I am actually sleeping and eating well again. I look forward to seeing everyone at the end of the month. As for my news. Brian wants me to be the full time Captain on this boat. We have been talking since I arrived in the Bahamas and in a nutshell here is the plan. I am going to fly and help the crew get Fearless to the South Pacific. Once I'm there, I will fly back, probably to Puerto Rico and meet back up with Brian on Rum Boogie. From there, we will sail the Virgin Islands and end up in Cartagena to have a bunch of work done on the boat. I will stay with the boat. Brian will go stateside. When it's finished I will sail the boat to Panama and we are going to start a business together doing charters. The plan is Panama in the winter, Costa Rica in the summer. Everything is still in the beginning stage of course but it looks good. This is crazy. I have known this guy for 5 days and I will be living on his boat in Panama. How the hell do I end up in situations like this? It was funny. Right before I left I had several conversations with good friends about the decision I was making. The fear of the unknown and the prospect of having no income is not a pleasant thought. All the people who I talked with said the same thing. They all said that I'm the type of guy that no matter where I end up landing on my feet. I guess I'll walk this path for a while and see what happens. But that means a lot of you get to come down and visit the Caribbean and play pirate with me for a week or so. I figure if we make this work for the next few years I can buy him out and then start my own circumnavigation with this boat. Wow, so much to do I need to clone myself. I have no idea how I'm gonna get all this done and still find time to climb Everest with Jeff. Screw it, I'll get it done, I always do.

This link is a site about the islands we are on. http://www.wherewhenhow.com/Excursions/Sailing.html

Georgetown

Just a quick update. Made it to Georgetown late last night. Got to fly in a tiny little jet that was colder than a damn meat locker but I survived. Passing through customs here was hilarious. I had an entire suitcase full of food that I brought for Brian and when the customs officer checked it, he was too busy yelling at some other guy that I probably could have had about ten pounds of cocaine in that case and he wouldn't have noticed. Got a good night sleep, the boat is bad ass and so is Brian. We are getting ready to leave for Rum Cay. We are waiting for a fuel ship to finish taking on it's load so we can get out of here. We were up at 6 am, 3 am back in Cali and the ships crew had run two large fuel lines up to the dock and pinned us to the dock so we can't move til they are finished. Anyway, life is good, and this dude is nuts. The next three weeks he wants to make it all through the east islands, Turks, Caicos, then into the Dominican Republic. He also wants to hop a flight and go stay in Cuba for a few days. I told him that I am down for whatever so we will see what happens. Not sure when we will have internet again, maybe tonight, who knows. Just wanted to let everyone know I made it and once again it's on.

CARIBBEAN BOUND

So I have been asked several times recently just what the hell this whole undertaking entails so here it is. Side note- those of you who have read my earlier trip journals can probably skip this part.

In early October 2007 I was in my underwear on the couch dicking around on the internet and I found a couple advertising for a crew member on a website. This crew member was to help them circumnavigate the world over the course of 3 and a half years. It looked interesting and I have been dreaming, reading, and planning on doing this exact thing so I thought what the hell and e-mailed to apply. They replied that they had picked a guy the morning following my mail and thanked me. I said best of luck and didn't think about it. A few days later I got a follow up e-mail saying that they were talking it over and that having an alternate wouldn't be a bad idea and given my resume they would like to meet me. I was headed to the Dominican Republic at the end of October so I swung by the boat to meet Brett on my way to LAX. By the way, don't take sand to the beach down there. There are insanely hot European and Dominican girls all over that place, so unless your girl is into girls, go with the bros. When I got back, Brett called and asked me to come meet Naomi. I drove to Marina Del Rey and met her during their Bon Voyage party. He called me the next day and offered the alternate position to me and asked if I would be interested in crewing along with the other guy up until Cabo. This would take from early November until about x-mas. I jumped on it and you can read all my blogs from that portion of the trip at www.myspace.com/oceanhuntersb

Then things got difficult. When I started the trip I was merely second string. When we arrived in Cabo, I was asked to step up and do the first two years of the trip. The other guy did not mesh well with the dynamic of the crew and things were tense for a bit. At that time I could not commit to the whole two years. I promised to return in late February and help sail the mighty Pacific Ocean down into the South Pacific islands. If I could get my affairs in order I would stay, if not I would fly back from Tahiti in April. I flew home, worked a ton and started slowly trying to figure out what I was going to do. I had a very nice house, a truck, two boats, all the normal bills everyone else has, and of course, my constant companion Drake the dog. Not too mention I had a great career that I was going into my eighth year at. Being a professional firefighter is not something many people walk away from. It's much like the mafia, once you are in, you're in for life. I considered jet-setting, couple months on the boat, couple months at work. Then Nick had to open his mouth at work one day.

I worked on Ladder Truck 3 downtown in the busiest fire house in that area. That truck is 50 feet long, weighs 82,000 lbs and has a 100 foot aerial ladder on it. When we drive down the street women weep and men tremble. I also happened to work with some of my very best friends. Nick is the Captain and he mentioned to me that I needed to call a friend of his wife's. This guy has a boat down in the Caribbean and needs some help with it. Apparently he doesn't have much experience but has the dough. So I called. Brian automatically asked me if I wanted to join him for a four month cruise through the Caribbean starting in the Bahamas and ending in Cartagena. I would have been all over this but I committed to the crew of Fearless to help sail the Pacific and those of you who know me understand that I can't break my word. But this opportunity is too good to miss so I told Brian I would come down and sail with him for 3 weeks in February. He said no problem and the proverbial snowball ensued. Things have been absolute chaos since that point, mostly because instead of lining up my affairs appropriately and tying up loose ends, I spent most every waking moment off duty out getting obscenely drunk with my friends in a last ditch effort to spend some time with them and probably in my warped mind find some "clarity". This culminated last week in the most raucous Vegas trip I could imagine and I still fear that I may never recover. In the end, it came down to serious soul searching and ultimately, I'm married to the sea. I had to go. None of this has been easy. I sleep in intermittent bouts of forty or so minutes, eat very little, drink way too much and just generally try and avoid having a freaking panic attack each time I think of what I am giving up to chase this dream. This is more or less a condensed version of what has got me here.

Currently here is Fort Lauderdale and I am in Terminal 1 awaiting the boarding process for my plane to Georgetown, Bahamas. It has been a long journey thus far but it is really only the beginning. This whole process of getting here has just been utterly draining. Yesterday I ran some errands, stopped by Station 13 to finish some e-mailing for department business, grabbed some lunch and was at home for a bit. I had to meet Brian's girlfriend to pick up a big rolling suitcase full of frozen food so I could take it with me. Brian has been in Georgetown for about a week and has reported that the market there has a pretty limited selection. After I met with her I went home and started the task of packing. Earlier in the week, sometime in between binge drinking and trying to sleep, I decided that there was no way I was going to get everything done in time to go and that I would have to forego my original plan of going to Austin to hang out with some friends before sailing the Pacific. So I will be returning for one last bash at the end of this month. My 30th bday is the 23rd of this month so my friends are throwing me a dual bday/bon voyage party. I shudder to think of the brain cells I will kill and the irreversible damage that will ravage me after that night.

I pulled it off. I'm here. I got packed in time. About half my shit is sold, the rest is in some form or another handled. I am no longer able to say that I am a firefighter and that is a fucking weird feeling. That's all I have been for 8 years of my life now. The support and sentiment from some of my brother firefighters was more than I expected and it's difficult to read the e-mails from them without having that twinge of doubt knowing what a great thing I am leaving behind. No matter what, I will always be their brother and I hope that as they read this they can live some of this with me.

I wanted to get this journal entry in before I get down to the Bahamas, not sure what the internet situation is down there. The plan is to get down there tonight and we are setting sail first thing tomorrow morning for the Turks and Caicos islands so I won't get to kick it too much in Georgetown but I'm not gonna complain. If you are interested in seeing the catamaran I will be on tonight and for the next 3 weeks, http://www.ed-hamilton.com/yachtlink/Two_If_By_Sea~4015-2.html Click here. This is the same make and model boat that Brian owns but the boat on the site is a charter boat down there. Also, for those who don't have it, the site for the other trip is www.fearlessmdr.com
Talk to you later, oh, and someone tell Puss in Boots they have Agavero in the Tequila bar in the Phoenix Airport, sweet.