Coming home...

I'm sitting in the terminal at Grenada's Port Salines Airport awaiting the boarding of my first of three flights that will carry me to LAX. I decided to go home for a few weeks to see my Aunt, friends, family and tie up some loose ends I left when I rushed off for this trip. I probably won't be blogging much during that time but I am returning to Grenada on June 10th to finish the work on Rum Boogie and get underway for the coast of South America and start making my way towards Panama. Things worked out well this way in that I get to spend a few weeks at home and attend a couple of important events for some of my best friends. Of course the main reason is my Aunt who is doing well in her fight.

It is actually funny because I am really looking forward to getting back to see everyone and having access to so many things I haven't had for several months. Eating a ton of sushi as well as avocados is up at the top of my list. There are so many things I have been thinking about that I am looking forward to seeing or doing but I figured a quick list of ground rules for my psychotic friends might be appropriate, so for all of you planning something evil for me please consult the following:

1. We can go to the lake but it will not turn in to a four day bender that takes us from Millerton to Pine Flat or Bass Lake.

2. I am limiting the number of Wassabi-Fridays debacles to two or less.

3. No all night Texas Hold Em games ending in Sawyer getting me smashed and taking my money, I still want my forty bucks back.

4. No bar tabs over 100 dollars, at least not that much over, umm, ok 200 but that's it.

5. Under no circumstances will any of you jerks buy me Jager shots.

6. No drunken adventures in any strip club anywhere.

7. Griff you are forbidden to drink more than ten jack and cokes when I see you.

8. Henderson you are required to drink more than ten jager red bulls when I see you.

9. Whatever you are planning Jeffro, just stop, now, really, I mean it.

and number 10 but possibly the most important one (Puss in Boots pay attention)

THERE WILL BE NO TRIPS TO VEGAS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER!!!!


See you all soon.

Turtle Watching...

Last night was by far one of the highlights of my trip so far. I have been in the boatyard since the 12th and every day has been spent working incessantly on the boat doing various projects and sweating like a convict in the tropical sun. I have a nice German couple on a catamaran right next to me and yesterday Peter told me about this turtle tour they were going on during the evening. I figured why not so I called the lady who sets it up on the VHF radio and secured a spot. The bus arrived to take us to a very special beach on the Northwest side of the island. What makes this place unique is that for a few months during the year it becomes a breeding ground for the gigantic Leatherback Turtles. We arrived close to 8 PM and were given a quick speech full of info regarding the turtles. Shortly after that we took a quick ride down to the beach and we began our walk down the beach.

Last night was amazing. This beach is several hundred yards long with white sand beaches and surrounded by coconut palms that sway in the trades. Last night the sky was clear and we had a gorgeous full moon bathing the entire scene. About 300 yards down we encountered the first turtle. When we arrived they told us that it was hit or miss as to whether the turtles would show up or not. Some nights they had none, some nights several, so it was uncertain if we would even see one. I can't even begin to describe how wild seeing this huge creature was. What happens is these turtles literally swim to the beach and drag themselves several hundred feet up the beach until they find what they deem to be a suitable spot to create a nest. It's incredible watching them as they pull these huge bodies up the sand using only their front flippers. They leave this great track in the sand, looks like the marks left behind from tractors that run through fields. Once they get to the spot of choice, they start to clear the area using their flippers. They will do this for quite a while until they have cleared it down enough to start excavating a nest. When they do the clearing it looks like the are making snow angels except obviously they are in the sand. Then they back up to the location and use one rear flipper at a time to dig down a few feet into the sand. Once the hole is deep enough they begin laying eggs. There was a research team out there counting eggs, measuring the turtles and tracking data. These turtles are huge. They can weigh up to a ton and when they are in the water they can dive up to 3900 feet deep and hold their breath for 72 hours. After they lay eggs they start a journey to swim half way around the world, around 10,000 miles before they return to the very same beach in Grenada where they were born. The first 3 pics of the slideshow I posted I found on the internet to show you what they look like. All the rest that have the red light were from last night. These turtles are very sensitive to light apparently so we had no bright lights and no flash photography.

After laying the eggs and covering the nest up, they drag themselves back out to sea and according to one researcher they believe that the turtles possibly use stars and fixed lights to navigate. Our group of nine cruisers also received another special treat when we got to witness an entire nest of hatchlings being born and making their way into the sea. One lady in our group commented that it was sort of a horror movie scene with the full moon, these huge dinosaur looking turtles dragging themselves all over the beach and then the babies climbing out of the sand like zombies coming out of graves. The babies are smaller than the palm of your hand and when they dig up and reach the surface they instinctively start dragging their tiny bodies towards the ocean. It was a mix of comedy and tragedy watching them as they clumsily fell into footprint holes in the sand and landed on their backs struggling to right themselves to continue on. It was very cool to get to help them turn back over and clear some of the sand for them giving them a clear path to freedom. I guess only 1 in 1000 of them will reach adulthood.

We were fortunate enough to witness and participate in this spectacle for several hours and we weren't dropped off until after 11 PM. All this was very cheap and just an amazing experience. I could go on and on writing tons of obscure facts and info I learned regarding wonderful beasts but I will spare you. If you are interested there is a lot of good info if you google Leatherback Turtles and the company that spends every night during this season out working and protecting the turtles is called Ocean Spirits and they are doing good work. Unfortunately they don't have enough people yet to patrol all the areas the turtles use and they still find dead turtles occasionally in remote areas of the beaches. The locals come down and butcher the turtles, slicing off their fins to use for food and leaving the turtle for dead with no means of returning or surviving in the sea. After spending a few hours out there it's hard for me to imagine anyone doing that but it's the sad truth pretty much anywhere in the world with countless species. Overall though, the whole night was a grand slam getting to witness every phase of the process from arrival to the laying of eggs followed by the return and capped off with the hatchlings. Overall I would say there was probably around a dozen of these animals that were on the beach last night. Like I said, a total highlight on my Caribbean cruise.

As for me, I'm doing well, still keeping plenty busy with the boat. At the moment I am listening to Nina Simone and looking at a full moon that has the whole boatyard lit up like a stadium so I have no complaints.

Leatherback Turtle pics...

Just some cool stuff...

Well it is 2 AM my time. I went to sleep around 11 my time but woke up an hour ago and haven't been able to fall back asleep. Usually when this occurs, I read for awhile until I can't keep my eyes open anymore and I crash back out. Tonight I was reading one of my books containing a collection of various writings by Henry Rollins, possibly my favorite writer. I have read his books many times and for some reason they just never get old. Each time I read a little from one, I find some new meaning in one of the lines here or there. Most of his books are eclectic collections of journals, poems, quotes, dreams, just pretty much whatever. So in light of my unexplained insomnia, I thought I would share some quotes and a poem with you.


"I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone."


"The more you own, the more it owns you."


"There are so many hammocks to catch you if you fall, so many laws to keep you from experience. All these cities I have been in the last few weeks make me fully understand the cozy, stifling state in which most people pass through life. I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup."


"You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others."


"Half of life is fucking up - the other half is dealing with it."


"Go without a coat when it's cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it's all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you're made of and what you're capable of. If you're never tested, you'll never define your character."


"Scar tissue is stronger than normal flesh."


Below is one of my favorite poems from Rollins, there are some great lines in this...


I KNOW YOU

I know you
you were too short
you had bad skin
you couldn't talk to them very well
words didn't seem to work
they lied when they came out of your mouth
you tried so hard to understand them
you wanted to be part of what was happening
you saw them having fun
and it seemed like such a mystery
almost magic
made you think that there was something wrong with you
you'd look in the mirror trying to find it
you thought that you were ugly
and that everyone was looking at you
so you learned to be invisible
to look down
to avoid conversation
the hours
days
weekends
ah the weekend nights, alone
where were you
in the basement?
in the attic?
in your room?
working some job?
just to have something to do
just to have a place to put yourself
just to have a way to get away from them
a chance to get away from the ones that made you feel so strange
and ill-at-ease inside yourself
did you ever get invited to one of their parties
you sat and wondered if you would go or not
for hours you imagined the scenarios that might transpire
they would laugh at you
if you would know what to do
if you would have the right things on
if they would notice that you came from a different planet
did you get all brave in your thoughts
like you were going to be able to go in there and deal with it
and have a great time
did you think that you might be "the life of the party"
that all these people were gonna talk to you
and you would find out that you were wrong
that you had a lot of friends
and you weren't so strange after all?
did you end up going
did they mess with you
did they single you out
did you find out that you were invited
because they thought you were so weird
yeah, I think I know you
you spent a lot of time full of hate
a hate that was pure as sunshine
a hate that saw for miles
a hate that kept you up at night
a hate that filled your every waking moment
a hate that carried you for a long time
yes I think I know you
you couldn't figure out what they saw and the way they lived
home was not home
your room was home
a corner was home
the place they weren't- that was home
I know you
you're sensitive
and you hide it, because you fear getting stepped on one more time
it seems that when you show a part of yourself that is the least bit vulnerable
someone takes advantage of you
one of them steps on you
they mistake kindness for weakness
but you know the difference
you've been the brunt of their weakness for years
and strength is something you know a bit about
because you had to be strong to keep yourself alive
you know yourself very well now
and you don't trust people
you know them too well
you try to find that "special person"
someone you can be with
someone you can touch
someone you can talk to
someone you won't feel so strange around
and you found that they don't really exist
you feel closer to people on movie screens
yeah, I think I know you
you spend a lot of time daydreaming
and people have made comment to that effect
telling you that you're "self-involved" and "self-centered"
but they don't know, do they
about the long nightshifts alone
about the years of keeping yourself company
all the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself
so you could imagine someone holding you
the hours of indecision
self-doubt
the intense depression
the blinding hate
the rage that made you stagger
the devastation of rejection
well
maybe they do know
but if they do
they sure do a good job of hiding it
it astounds you how they can be so smooth
how they seem to pass through life as if life itself was some divine gift
and it infuriates you to watch yourself with your apparent skill,
and finding every way possible to screw it up
for you, life is a long trip
terrifying and wonderful
birds sing to you at night
the rain and the sun
the changing seasons
are true friends
solitude is a hard won ally
faithful and patient
yeah, I think I know you


So there's a small portion of what I read tonight. I realize that his style is probably a little too intense for some but since I thrive on intensity, I'm sure it goes without saying for those of you who know me why I dig it. It's rare to find in writing the kind of intensity you can feel. I can tell you from seeing Rollins live at a spoken word performance that he is one of those people who you instantly know when he enters the room, regardless of what you are doing and he commands your attention through sheer will but it amazes me that he can carry that over in text. What a gift. Alright, I'm gonna give it another go. Electronics guy will be here at 8 in the morning and I have another full day ahead so I need to attempt to sleep if I can keep the mosquitoes from devouring me.

Taxi amigo?

Here in lovely Grenada, public transportation is fairly easy to find. There are an abudant amount of taxis/buses in the form of vans covered with crazy stickers like "Jah Love" or "Me Kool Strength" and other random statements that are lost on me. On any given day as you walk down a street, hundreds of these pass by. As they approach from behind you they beep the horn twice to signal to you that they have room if you need a ride. They typically flash the high beams as well. If you signal to them they will stop right in the middle of the road, regardless of time of day or traffic flow and the door will slide open to reveal anywhere from 2 to 15 passengers already inside. It's a shared ride system, inexpensive and easy to use. Except for last night of course.



Down the street about two miles from the boatyard there is a small DVD rental shop. I have been jogging over there every other night and renting a movie. Movies are super cheap there and they have a good selection of new movies I haven't seen. I have been living on a boat since the beginning of November of last year (save for the five or so weeks I spent back home) so it's kind of cool to rent some new releases and sort of catch up a little on the crap Hollywood still puts out. Ok, so, last night my latest rentals were due so I filled my Camelbak backpack with water, strapped my Ipod on my arm and jogged on over to the store. I swapped out the movies for two new ones, put them in my pack and walked the couple hundred yards over to the Spiceland Mall. Now the mall isn't anywhere near the size of what you envision a mall to be but by Caribbean standards it is pretty big. The important thing is that they have a huge hardware store and adjacent to that a large grocery store. Well last night I made the wise choice to restock the fridge. This last weekend was a 3 day weekend here (every other day seems to be a holiday and everything will be closed) so I spent the last week eating out of a can. Normally, after I swap my movies, I jog the 2 miles back to the yard but my plan was to buy some essentials and then just grab one of the endless taxi buses that seem to follow my every move, and by the way if you see a guy RUNNING down the street with workout clothes and a headset on, why do you slow down and honk and stare at me offering a ride, I digress. So bags in hand I walked into the parking lot to find my ride. Hmmm, no drivers there. Ok. Let me go across the street. Five minutes, not one damn bus. Well, these bags aren't that bad, I thought, I'll just start walking back that direction and eventually one of these lunatics will come up flashing lights and honking. It might also be pertinent to mention that several times I have taken these the van was filled with the unmistakable smell of that special herb that is so popular down here and I'm not talking about nutmeg. Somehow I doubt that the drivers are "randomly" drug tested in this area. As you can probably tell, I walked the whole damn way back to the yard never seeing one van. This just baffled me. The good news and the reason I write this is that I woke up today and have been outside working for the last hour and my shoulders feel like they are on fire. I forgot to tell you that I carried chicken, beef, milk, eggs, 4 cans of chili, two two liters of soda and various vegetables back that whole way. I also forgot to tell you how the bag with the chili and sodas broke open and I had to do this funky cradle weirdo carrying technique to get all the crap back to the boat. My favorite part that I forgot to tell you was when I walked past the Texaco station and there were FIVE of these buses parked on the curb with all of the drivers sitting on the ground in front of one of them. I don't suppose you know what they told me when I asked for a ride back to the yard. Four of them stared at me with deeply bloodshot eyes while the fifth, obviously the spokesman for this particular union, instructed me to keep going mon, you find a ride soon. So as I work today on the boat, every movement is going to make me dislike the evil taxi drivers of Grenada who I am certain conspired against me last night just so they could laugh at the crazy white boy. Having no truck can suck sometimes.

"Hard" pics

Living "on the hard"...

Hello everyone. Happy Mothers Day to all you hot mamas that read this. Sorry I've been off the grid for a couple of weeks. Been a little busy. Time has been flying by at break neck speed. A few weeks ago I sailed up to the Southern Grenadines to hang out and check out the Tobago Cays. It was fantastic. The pics that I posted recently have several photos from the Cays and some of the smaller islands, you can see how incredibly beautiful that area is. The diving in there was unreal. The water throughout the Cays varies in depth from around 30 feet to less than a foot and the snorkeling is first rate. It's basically like swimming around in a huge aquarium. During various dives I saw everything from reef fish to eels to shrimp and of course the best was the turtles. They are everywhere in that area. The anchorage is surrounded by a huge horseshoe shaped reef that provides a wall of shelter from the barrage of the Atlantic swells but also has created a home for these big turtles. During the day they just cruise around in shallow water with grassy spots and they just munch away. Everyday off the back of the boat there were 3 hawksbill turtles that had a particular patch of grass right near where I was anchored that they fed at. I would watch their heads pop out of the water to get another breath before heading back down to feed. I snorkeled out and basically just hung out with them for quite a while. They were unimpressed with me to say the least. I swam down and would lie on the bottom less than 3 feet away from the big one and just stare at him as he chowed down on the grass. I would go up for air, come back down and it never fazed him. Very cool stuff. I managed to get several photos with an underwater throw away camera I have so someday I should be able to post those pics. One night I ventured out to the reef to look for lobsters. I should note here that I dive fairly regularly back in California for lobster and have gotten pretty good at spotting them, even during the day when they are hiding in holes and usually all that is visible is a tiny bit of their antennaes. I have dove several reefs and rocky areas from the Bahamas all the way to here and still had not seen a freaking lobster so I was starting to doubt my skills. Well now I have my good dive light strapped on my mask and I thought it was time for a little night recon to find some bugs. I'm happy to report that I finally found some. Unfortunately lobster season ended on May 1st and to be honest, I'm not quite sure that it's even legal for visitors to take lobster so in the interest of not incriminating myself, I'll tell you that all I did was "look". I mean, it's not my fault if half a dozen of them ended up on the boat somehow. I wouldn't want to get in trouble, you know how I like to follow the rules. While I was out that night, I saw a huge turtle just floating along in about 4 feet of water. I swam next to him for twenty minutes just watching him glide. Then somewhere in there I saw a baby turtle maybe a foot long sleeping under a huge coral fan, I swear to you it was laying on the bottom with it's head on a rock, like a pillow. It was awesome. I narrowly avoided crashing into a rock covered with sea urchins at one point. The current was pretty strong and after I swam down to grab, I mean look, at a lobster, when I was coming back up the flow of the water was taking me directly at the rock. I was probably a foot away from landing like a pincushion on all those spines. All in all, it was bad ass and dinner was good. Just pasta you know, wink wink...

There are also some pics of a deserted island. That is the island they filmed in the first Pirates movie where they left Johnny Depp for dead and the chick burned the rum. I walked all over that damn island but those pricks from Hollywood didn't leave any rum behind. It was a neat little island with a nice long sandy beach on the northwest and a long beach made of dead coral on the southeast. One of the guides I read said that all of that area was hit hard by the hurricane in the 2004 so a lot of the coral reefs were broken up and washed ashore. I also visited several of the islands surrounding the Cays. I just took the dinghy and cruised around to the various ports. It was all great and I was bummed the day I had to weigh anchor and start heading south again.

I've been back in Grenada for the last week and I spent most of last week anchored up in Prickly Bay preparing the boat to get hauled out for the work with my favorite task being when I finished scrubbing barnacles off the bottom which was a 6 hour job, hooray, that was a fun day. It was a good productive week and Friday morning at 8 AM I pulled the anchor and motored up to the dock. Of course, about 100 yards from the slip the starboard engine shut down so I got to put this 24 foot wide boat into a parking space that is 25 feet wide with only one engine. Oh and did I mention the wind was blowing well over 20 knots that morning? Murphy's law I suppose but I managed. She was up and out in no time, pressure washed and put up on the chocks. The work commenced immediately. Sails were pulled off, they started prepping the bottom for paint, I yanked everything out of every locker to start working on my two page project list. I spent 14 hours on Friday and 13 yesterday doing various tasks and jobs on the boat and I don't even feel like I have made a dent yet. And Brian, you will be happy to know that I haven't spent any money yet. I am scheduled to splash down on the 23rd so I'm hoping to be out of here by the end of the month to start my trek towards Panama. Barring any unforseen problem I think I should make it.

So for now the excitement of the trip is on hold as the boat sits here in it's cradle. I will be working incessantly on the boat for the next two weeks. The sailor slang for having the boat up out of the water like this is "on the hard" and so far it sucks. First off, obviously you don't hear the water lapping at the side of the boat. Friday night I was so tired I almost went to the back of the boat to jump in the water to cool off, something I do all day normally, but now I'm 15 feet off a solid ground full of gravel. I went to use the shower tonight and there is no handle for hot water, wanna know why? Yep, cause there ain't no hot water. The wind has been heavy for the past week and there is a lot of dust kicked up from a construction site nearby so everything is dirty. I actually found a bunch of red dirt all over the front of the boat this morning which I'm told is dirt that is blown all the way across the Atlantic from the deserts of Africa. I guess it's pretty common down here. Anyway, life on the hard is not ideal. The worst part is the damn mosquitoes. I want to be the first to congratulate Grenada. Their mosquitoes officially have the itchiest freaking stings in the world. I'm not kidding but not five minutes ago as I was typing this, one of them landed on my laptop screen. I smacked it and it instantly popped, leaving a small spot of fresh blood on the screen. My blood. The little bastard had apparently just bit me prior to his demise. The other sucky part is that I don't have internet here. The yard hasn't finished installing the Wifi connection and my laptop can't pick up the signal from the Bay that I was using last week. Luckily, I have a nice German couple as boat neighbors and tonight he lent me an antennae that plugs into the computer and can get wireless from something like 2 miles away so for tonight, I am connected. That about catches everything up, as per usual, there have been plenty of great and amazing things to write about but it would take forever and make these posts longer than they already are. Also, there is a bar/club right up the road that is really nice and last night was packed with medical students from the nearby university. I went in and had a few beers before coming back and crashing out. It was a cool place, good music and the food was great. I only mention this place because of the name. It's called Bananas. Isn't that just perfect?

One last thing. I get a lot of e-mails telling me that people admire what I did and how much courage it took to do it. People say that the can't believe how gutsy I am or that they wished they possessed "big enough balls" to do what I did. I am always grateful for the well wishes and compliments from people regarding this, it helps to reinforce to me that I made the right choice. I recently learned where I get a huge portion of my courage. My Dad's sister is Sandi. To me, she has always been Aunt Nani. She is a dynamite lady and I have great memories of growing up around her. She taught me how to swim (which is obviously helpful right now), we got to go on trips with her, Disneyland, Mammoth, etc, and we always looked forward to Christmas at her house. Through all the bullshit I have pulled over the years, she was always a friend to me. Instead of downplaying things, she listened and always made me feel good about things. I have always loved her a ton and have ALWAYS admired her. She won a battle with cancer a few years ago but now it's back. I wanted to fly home to see her. I called her and she told me to stay. She told me not to worry about her because she is going to beat it again. She told me that 47 people visited her in one day at the hospital (what does that tell you about what people think of this woman). She told me that she was proud of me for what I am doing. She told me that she is so happy that I am following my heart and to keep going. That's fucking guts man. That's "big balls". I have fought many fires, swam with sharks, wrecked trucks, jumped out of planes, and pushed things to the edge many times. Never have I faced a challenge as terrifying as cancer. I wonder if I could. I wonder if I would have the resolve to say to someone not to worry because I'm going to win my fight against this terrible illness. I'd like to think so but even the thought of having to face that sends a chill down my spine. Aunt Nani, you are a bad ass. I love you so much and I believe what you told me. I know you will win. Fuck cancer. You are way stronger than cancer and thank you for giving me a small measure of your immeasurable strength.

Tobago Cays pics...

Cruising the Southern Grenadines...