BREAKING BREAD

St. Helena, CA

When we were searching for a rental house, we looked at a beautiful cottage here in St. Helena. It was tucked behind the house of an elderly Swiss couple, Teresa and Rudy.

Rudy had recently suffered a stroke, and Chip, being Chip, wanted to do some chores for them. We stopped by today and chatted about life and wine and sailing. Rudy was interested to hear of our sailing and told of a long trans-Pacific sail he took with his nephew in 2000. He showed us photos, an actual album, and watched with delight as we looked at them. Then he shuffled across to a corner bookshelf, rummaged around and came back with a small, worn spiral notebook with weathered pages. Printed on the front it said, "Nothing Happens Unless First a Dream." Inside, in a careful hand, all capital letters, was a log of 58 days at sea.

He loaned it to us, so from our landlocked cottage, we can feel the wind pick up at 4 a.m. on day 35. We can taste the fish stew Rudy cooked for dinner after seeing the first ship in more than a week. Do you think we miss being on the water yet?

When we first met Teresa last month, she told us Rudy was a baker and confectioner before retiring.

"He gets frustrated since his stroke. He can't do what he used to."

"Can he still bake?" I asked.

"He can't bake bread, but he can still break it," she said. "That's what's important."

Today, as we were leaving, Rudy shuffled into the garage, past a sprawling world map taped to the wall.

"I still shudder when I look at how huge that ocean is," Teresa said, looking at Rudy's route marked with a highlighter.

Rudy came back out and handed me a white paper bag.

"I baked this loaf this morning," he said. "I can't work the dough like I used to, but it's okay."

Cross an ocean. Bake a loaf of bread.

Nothing happens unless first a dream.

Today, I'm grateful for: bread and fellow dreamers.

ON THE ROAD: ARRIVAL IN PARADISE

Seattle to Vashon Island, Washington | 17 miles

When we moved off the boat last month, we went to Chip's parents' house in Delaware to ponder our next move. Our belongings had been pared down to a scant few bins, now mostly tucked in the attic, a few in the car. The immediate plan was to visit my family in New Mexico. After that, the future had not even been sketched in, not even in pencil.

"How about Vashon Island in Seattle?" I asked Chip a few days later.

We had been exploring the idea of housesitting, looking through the listings on various sites, wondering what it would be like to live in someone else's house. I had signed up for MindMyHouse.com and filled out a profile trying to make us sound mature, responsible, attractive. It all felt weirdly like online dating.

Looking through the listings one night, I came across a small lodge tucked into several acres of forest land near Seattle. It was on an island in the Puget Sound that is accessible only by ferry. The ad said it was available for January and February. Perfect.

Chip said yes. I sent a message and moved on, my expectations low.

Two days later, I got an email from the owner of the lodge. He wanted to talk to us.

After a Skype date, several emails, and a reference from friends, he offered us the "job."

The property was 2,857 miles from where we sat in Bridgeville, Delaware. It was owned by someone we had never met on an island where we'd never been.

We said yes.

Today, we boarded the Vashon Island ferry to see what we'd gotten ourselves into.

Driving around the island, we found a couple of tiny villages, with coffee shops, restaurants, pubs and shops. The undulating hills are dressed with towering pines that every once in a while step back to show off vistas of water and distant snowcapped peaks.

A coffee shop, roastery and handmade goods shop.

Just after three, we pulled up to our new address and had our first look at home for the next two months.

Inside we met the kind and intelligent couple who showed us around the grounds. This evening, in front of a roaring fire, we laughed and talked politics, philosophy and hope over a savory lamb dinner.

Our new friends head out tomorrow, leaving us in charge of our new retreat. Our treehouse bedroom overlooks the forest and sunset beyond. Down the hall, we have a yoga room and a separate exercise room. Downstairs, our little lodge built in the early 1900s has wood floors, two fireplaces and a rambling foodie's kitchen with a window box looking out over the veranda and front lawn.

On this, my third day of being 54, I am ponderously grateful for this life of adventure and my fellow adventurer. In our continued attempt to craft reality from fanciful dreams, we have found paradise once again.

We will be plodding here for the near future. Thanks for coming along.

Our sitting room.

The view with a tiny splotch of blue water.

A reminder of our roots.

A SAILOR GOES TO PARIS: KINDNESS ABROAD

Paris, France

Parisians have been incredibly kind to us. I had emailed our apartment manager during our hellish Monday before leaving. But, on Wednesday morning when we arrived, I had not been able to check email for instructions. We walked up to the apartment building, the kids carrying our bags, hoping to find the manager's name on a doorbell button. Alas, only a number keypad.

As we were standing in the street contemplating our options, two things happened. First, the mail carrier came around the corner, so Casey went to ask him if he knew our apartment manager. Then, a mysterious man in a small yellow car came zipping around the corner, stopped and told us the code to the door before zipping away again. We never learned who he was or why he was doling out the code so freely.

We opened the door, the mail carrier abandoned his mailbag and escorted us inside. He checked the mailboxes for our manager's apartment numbers, then led us across the courtyard, and up three flights of stairs, right to the apartment manager's door.

Amazing.

So far, this has been the norm, not the exception. Parisians have embraced us and made us feel so at ease. What a lovely city they have -- especially since both our kids are here!

Our street -- and warm baguettes!

Happy, happy father.

Dylan, me, Chip and Casey, our Parisian reunion.

I hope they can't track me using nose prints.

WAYLAID BY A CHIPMUNK

Brunswick, GA

We had a lovely evening on Friday with brand new cruisers, Bill and Susan, on the Island Packet Grace docked next to us. They are setting off this fall for the Bahamas, so we went through charts, sharing great spots, just like others did for us two years ago.

When we got home, Chip said his cheek had started hurting during dinner. By Saturday morning it was swollen and terribly painful.

The doctor thinks it's an abscessed tooth. We'll see a dentist Monday morning to confirm. Antibiotics and Vicodin in the meantime.

We don't know anyone here in Brunswick and don't have a car. The health clinic is four miles away. I went into the marina lounge and asked the only person in there if she had a car. Carol and Dave on S/V LightHeart drove us to the clinic and then picked us up two hours later, wanting nothing in return.

That's how the sailing community works, give where you can, take when you need help.

AUSSIE BRASS

Fort Lauderdale, FL

This Catana catamaran called Mistral pulled in next to us at Lauderdale Marine Center. I caught the docklines for them and started chatting.

This was the first time the new owners had docked the boat having just purchased it. The husband and wife from Australia have been cruising for 17 years, most of it on a steel boat he made himself and later sold. He told us when they surveyed his 10+year old steel hull, they could not find any rust. Truly remarkable.

After the steel sailboat, they bought a canal boat in Europe and tooled around there until he got the ocean bug again. They sold the canal boat and have now switched from monohulls to this cat, which the wife reports has "a lot of things not working for a 10-year-old boat," including a broken $7K daggerboard snapped by the guy delivering the boat from South America.

They plan to spend a week doing some chores and are then setting off to spend next season in the Caribbean and then through the Panama Canal and back to Oz, as he calls Australia, as if they are taking a stroll to grandma's house.

He wants to get in some more ocean sailing before he's too old.

They flew in a few weeks ago with backpacks.

Bought a boat.

And off they go.

LAUDERDALE'S WARM EMBRACE

Fort Lauderdale, FL

The other day during our exciting transit of the East River, I was grumbling about not feeling all that welcome in Fort Lauderdale.

That evening at our anchorage I looked out to see a small yellow powerboat anchored just off our port side and shouted a simple 'hello.' That's how it all started.

Yesterday morning, we heard a tap-tap on the hull. Meet Bob of the yellow powerboat.

Meet Bob.

He had come bearing a sailboater's frankincense and myrrh: a 40-pound bag of ice (huge) and a 12-pack of beer. Really? Geez, thanks, Bob. Come over later.

Thus we became part of the family of Bob, his wife Etel, John, Lily, Paul and Sherry plus two dogs in bags. They rafted up to Cara Mia, this time bearing a whole case of beer and plate after plate of food, which they ate very little of and then insisted that we keep. Enough food and beer to send our marine refrigerator into a 24-hour recovery frenzy.

Then they insisted that we come aboard for a joy ride around the very busy weekend waterways of Fort Lauderdale, stopping at a bar where we met Gabriele from Venezuela, who drew us a cocktail napkin map of the best sailing spots in his country and subsequently bought us a round of drinks.

Etel and her doggies visit Cara Mia.

I had a chat with Etel once we were rafted up again to Cara Mia. Her family fled political unrest in Nicaragua when she was young, taking refuge in Honduras. Her parents sent her to Guatemala alone to attend a girls' boarding school, then to Mexico for college. In her twenties, she came to the U.S. alone seeking political asylum. She lived for two years in San Diego before moving to Fort Lauderdale, again on her own, where she met Bob. Her five siblings still live in Honduras, and her parents have been able to return to Nicaragua and reclaim their property.

Etel is a sweet and inspiring reminder of how very much we take for granted.

Bob, the self-appointed aquatic emissary of Fort Lauderdale, insisted that we must come visit his home, was offended that we might not spend the night (or two) and promises to come hang out again today with Venezuelan Gabriele in tow.

He pressed me for a grocery list, so he could bring us a 'few things,' but I refused (several times).

After we waved goodbye and they motored off, I said, "What's in this bag?" It was a plate of fresh calamari.

Welcome to Fort Lauderdale!

MUSIC IS HER NAME

Marathon, FL 24º42.366N | 81º5.669W

I have my ship
And all her flags are a flyin'
She is all that I have left
And music is her name.

Southern Cross, Stephen Stills, Richard Curtis and Michael Curtis

Of all the threads that bind us together, music is one of the most enduring -- and endearing.

Music made a 30-year arc this week in the Keys.

After several near misses over the years, we finally got together with Chip's friend from high school, Mike Dann, who plays music in Montauk, NY, in the summer and in the Keys in the winter.

Mike spent an evening with us on Cara Mia, reminiscing with Chip, filling in 30 years of blank pages. We ambled through tales of high school antics, aging parents, unrequited love and the finer details of harmonica theory. We talked and laughed into the night, shedding a few tears along the way.

Tonight, Chip and I took a one-hour bus ride to Sugarloaf to hear Mike play in the tiki hut at Sugarloaf Lodge. He is a sweet, sweet soul, and I could tell you that he has a sweet, sweet voice to match. I could also tell you that he and Chip played together as if the 30 years that have passed since their last gig was only 30 minutes. But I don't have to. Even on this crude video taken with my little underwater camera, you can hear for yourself.

ADVENTURES IN SLOW MOTION

St. Augustine, FL 29º53.747N | 81º18.607W

Silly boys.

After anchoring 6 miles outside of St. Augustine, Dale and Chip decided to have a sailing race into town -- in 5 knots of wind. Perhaps it was their way of extending our last trek together for a while.

And so we ghosted into the mooring field at 3 knots, taking a pleasant two hours for a 45-minute trip.

It's always thrilling to ride into St. Augustine, a cool city and home of our friends David and Barbara and their son Seth, who used to live in the Outer Banks. We have a lot of tales to tell.

Chip and I have traveled past the Tropic of Cancer and back since we saw them last fall.

Barb, to celebrate her 50th birthday, traveled from St. Augustine to San Francisco -- on a bicycle.

She dipped her tires in the Atlantic and biked solo across the entire country in less than two months to dip those same tires in the Pacific. Amazing. Inspiring. Fantastic.

You can read about it in her blog.

We compared notes on our unmechanized, slow-paced adventures, the joys of plodding oh so slowly through nature's grandeur, listening, feeling, breathing it in.

Kindred spirits.

Seth, David and Barbara at the end of the road.
*photos borrowed from Barb's blog.

ON TOP OF THE WORLD

Hopetown, Abacos, Bahamas 26º32.228N | 76º57.53W

I've loved the Hopetown lighthouse since the first time I saw it three years ago. It's hard not to love a lighthouse anyway, but climbing this one makes me feel like Dr. Dolittle. Did he live in a nautilus shell, or did I make that up? Either way, check this out:

Inside the Hopetown lighthouse.

I'm pretty sure, had I been asked, I would have totally poo-pooed painting the inside of a lighthouse pink and green, but leave it to the Bahamians to slap together two unlikely colors and make it fabulous.

As we were leaving the lighthouse, we saw this guy sitting on the dock.

Jeffrey, the lighthouse keeper.

The lighthouse is across the water from Hopetown, only reachable by boat. He was looking, I thought, longingly across the water, so we offered him a ride.

"No thanks, that's me," he said, pointing back at the lighthouse over his shoulder.

"Can we watch you light it?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "Go on up. I'll be there in a few minutes."

So, all alone, we climbed to the top, leaning precariously out the open windows to take sweeping photos of the glory below.

At dusk, overlooking Hopetown harbor and Cara Mia and the ocean beyond.

At the top, I crawled through a Hobbit-sized door (yes, mixed literature) and onto the open observation platform.

Looking north from atop the lighthouse.

Jeffrey joined us and dropped the curtains that cover the Fresnel lens during the day.

Known officially as Elbow Reef Lighthouse, it was built in 1863 to warn ships off of the reef just offshore, much to the consternation of the "wrackers," who made a living harvesting booty from wrecked ships. It is one of the last remaining kerosene lighthouses in the world, an actual flame lit and monitored by humans. A Fresnel lens concentrates the flame making it visible 17 miles offshore. The entire lens apparatus, 8,000 pounds of it, floats in a mercury bath allowing it to spin at the touch of a finger. Every two hours, all night, the lighthouse keeper cranks up 700 pounds of weights that slowly drop, spinning gears that turn the lens.

Sitting in the tiny, round room with Jeffrey as he methodically cranks up the weights, just as his father did for decades before him, you just melt into the powerful calm that surrounds him like that cloud of dust around Pigpen in Charlie Brown. It must take a certain temperament to live the storied and solitary life of a lighthouse keeper. Contemplative Jeffrey obviously has it.

Once the weights were wound up, he told us to climb up a rickety green metal ladder, right up onto the platform with the Fresnel lens.

So here I am, waiting to observe the lighting of the flame, camera in hand, thinking, "Dang, the lighting's really bad here. How am I going to get any good shots?" Sometimes I really frighten myself.

Jeffrey took care of my lighting problem, and our last night in Hopetown turned into pure magic.

"This is the best job in the world," Jeffrey told us, and standing there watching that spectacular lens cast a shaft of deliverance into the gathering darkness, I believed him.

THE WOMEN OF FREEDIVING

Salt Pond, Long Island, Bahamas 23º21.4N | 75º8.23W

Interviewing Junko.     Photo by Chip

Sweet and gentle Junko, the Japanese freediver at this competition, quit her job as an account manager to give herself time off to pursue her passion of freediving. This is her first competition in a year, and, wait for this: she had brain surgery 6 months ago. When I asked how her first 50-meter dive since brain surgery went, she merely shrugged her shoulders, put her hand on the side of her head, and said, "It feels like it's okay."

Junko was the first female diver I interviewed, and I was surprised, shocked really, to find out she is 42. Then I met the other women in this competition.

Carla demonstrating the only thing that kept her from a national record.

Carla Hanson, the lone U.S. diver at Vertical Blue 2011, is 55. She has her own visual design firm and has been freediving for only two years. In her younger years she hovered on the surface as a competitive swimmer and at one time held the women's butterfly world record. During this competition, Carla doggedly attempted five times to set the national record in freediving with no fins. On her closest attempt, she successfully reached her depth but was unable to rally at the surface to complete the three simple steps to prove lucidity: remove your face gear (goggles, nose clip), say, "I'm okay," and make the okay symbol with your hand. That little hand signal was all that stood between Carla and her national record.

I could go on and on. These are inspiring and colorful women. There is Lena, the 33-year-old former actress from Serbia, Linden, the professional, freediving mermaid, who serves as a judge, and DeeDee, the self-proclaimed "shemale" in gender "transition," a standup comedian and freediving underwater photographer. And then there is the ultimate freediving goddess:

Natalia Molchanova.

The indomitable, intimidating Natalia Molchanova from Russia came to Dean's Blue Hole on a mission: to seize the only women's competitive freediving world record that she doesn't already hold, a record she set last year but then lost later to a judging technicality.

In a sport of mind over, well, everything, where the brain must override utter panic and the body's belief that death is imminent, Natalia is a champion. When she dons her wetsuit and enters the water, her unshakeable focus is so intense, it's as if she has stepped into another dimension. Even though I could see her, it seemed to me she had gone so far into another place that she couldn't see back.

Natalia in her other realm. That's her lying on the surface in a pink wetsuit,
with her head resting on a yellow noodle swimming toy, preparing to enter the abyss.

On the first day of competition she went right for that world record, no messing around, making her depth of a stunning 103 meters -- that's 338(ish) feet, more than a football field down -- then the same distance back up, all on one breath.

On her way to the surface, she suffered a frightening (to me) blackout well below the surface and had to be ferried up by safety divers who then shouted at her, "breathe, breathe, breathe!"

Natalia Molchanova, center, returning to us from the abyss.

Undaunted, Natalia, the aquatic bulldog, kept at it, three days, always making her depth and then blacking out, although after the first day, the blackouts were at the surface and less frightening to us as spectators.

Today, on the seventh day of the competition, she donned her old, thicker wetsuit, dove to 100 meters successfully retrieving the tag, just as she had done on the previous three attempts. (Although this was three meters less than the first day, it was still enough to set the world record.)

We all waited at the surface for an astonishing 3 minutes and 42 seconds as Natalia fought the demons of the underworld.

"10 meters. 8 meters. 5 meters," the announcer called out as she approached the surface, all of us holding our breath, or at least I know I was.

She came blasting out of the water, and with the 15-second clock ticking, removed her face gear, gave the hand signal and said, "I'm okay." The judge flashed a white card giving Natalia every world record in women's competitive freediving -- at 48 years old.

The press box of one, gasped for air, and the crowd went wild.

Lena, the lovely and perpetually happy Serbian actress, who turned back
early on her dive one day, because "there were demons down there."

DeeDee, the spectacular.

Natalia Molchanova after her world record dive and the professional
mermaid judge flashing the white card, symbol of a successful dive.

And then everyone lined up for a photo with the champion of the deep.

p.s. -- There were some men at the competition as well. And my article about freediving was published in the New York Times Sunday edition with a photo by the fabulous DeeDee Flores.


More on Freediving and Dean's Blue Hole:

My photos of Dean's Blue Hole.

Thoughts on Freediving.

The Men of Freediving. 

Freediving Board on Pinterest.
My column about Freediving in Classic Yacht.

who are these people? me | chip | cara mia | my column |
 | my pre-cruising blog | contact me |

THE RIDES

Salt Pond, Long Island, Bahamas 23º21.4N | 75º8.23W

Chip surviving a high speed ride in a pickup bed.

As Americans, we are just naturally averse to hitchhiking, certain we'll be kidnapped, tied up in a damp basement and/or just plain disappeared. But we're on Long Island in the Bahamas, where hitching is just offering locals a chance to say hi.

Every day, with Chip (the best reporter's assistant in the world), I hitchhike 20 miles from our boat to Dean's Blue Hole -- and back -- to work on my article about freediving. We average three rides each way. If the folks here can't pick us up, they stop to apologize and explain why.

"Sorry. I'm turning off at the next street."

"Oh, I'm only going up here to the liquor store! I'm sure someone will be along soon."

Others take us part way and then wave down relatives to take us the rest of the way. A few have driven several miles off their path to make sure we get to our destination.

Dean's Blue Hole is a good mile off the highway down a sandy road. Every day we've been delivered all the way down the road, right to the edge of the blue hole.

"I'm not supposed to take riders, but my boss is on the other end of the island," the guy from the power company told us.

He laughed as he talked about his rambunctious 5-year-old son. He cried as he told us about his 8-year-old daughter who can't walk and barely talks because of a genetic disorder. We cried a little too.

Later that day, our same power company friend picked us up once again. Old friend.

A regatta boat builder and captain took us to see Rupert's Legend, a four-time winner of the national regatta, where we chatted with Edsel, one of the owners, and his daughter Savannah.

"Are you gonna help your dad sand the boat?" I asked Savannah.

"No," she said emphatically.

"What if he changed the name to Savannah?"

"YES!" she said in a hell-yes sort of way.

Rupert's Legend getting new paint for the regatta.

We rode in rusty, rickety compact cars, souped up pickups, tricked out SUVs, family sedans, working vehicles, everything. We met fishermen, government workers, chauffeur moms and real estate developers. We shared laughter, tears and stories.

The only common thread running through the diverse bunch of drivers is their pride in this beautiful island of theirs and how very glad they are that we stopped by to see it.

NOT FOR TOURISTS

Salt Pond, Long Island, Bahamas 23º16.7N | 75º6.9W

Traveling by boat, we often skirt along the edges of the land, rarely penetrating the barrier between land and sea, between water people and land people. But sometimes, and not often enough, we find a doorway and sneak through, even for just a few hours.

Last Sunday in one of Long Island's tiny towns, I was looking at handmade straw purses in the back room of a small marine store.

"Those aren't for sale," the purse maker told me. "They're for the talent show at the church this afternoon."

So, at 4 o'clock, we paid our five dollars at the door, me and Chip, Karen and Dale, stood in line for our plates of homemade cake and cookies, and then awkwardly wedged ourselves into the last four plastic chairs near the front of the room, the only foreigners, at the Holy Cross Talent and Fashion Show.

Laughter, singing, prayer, babies, great grandmas, sulky teens, bright dresses, sweet people who didn't seem to be bothered at all by four white people in shorts crashing their church party -- or taking pictures of their children.

Husband hunter.

Not even the lady at our table who drove some 30 miles hopefully canvasing the gathering for a husband.

In finery from local shops, the islanders, young and old, promenaded across the stage, some shy, some buoyant, all relishing the coos and applause of an adoring crowd.

Between fashion sets, a thin teenage boy quietly sauntered onto the stage, while the announcer told us he was dedicating his song to his little sister, Zena.

The preacher's wife leaned over from the table next to us to inform us that his 10-year-old sister Zena died just a few months ago.

And through clear despair, without a hint of teen bravado, he labored through a recorded song by a rapper who lost a sister too. At the end of the song, he stopped by his grandmother's side for a long embrace. Though he never shed a tear, his face, his whole body exuded profound grief, and for just a moment, we felt it too.

And then, just like life, the show went on.

The whole scene a reminder that what is paradise to us is real life to those kind souls who live here.

Hat making contest.

The winner.

"Can I have this dance, for the rest of my life."