Jun 05 2008
OK, this is hands-down ubercool. I mean, uber, ubercool. Zac Sunderland is organizing a circumnavigation, on his boat, the Intrepid, an Islander 36. (Surely that fact will at least goad Zen into commenting. =) . Check out his website and the NPR interview with him. The interview is pretty lame, frankly, since the interviewer [...]
May 21 2008
Just when you thought it was safe to not research alternative propulsion for your boat, along comes this:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org//display/web/2008/05/16/diesel/
Neato, huh? Up almost 60 percent in the past 12 months, the article says. Now if that isn’t motivation to start looking at electrical, or at least severely reducing your motorsailing, I don’t know what is.
Mar 02 2008
Despite the fantastic weather, through a twist of fate or bad luck, none of the people we’d invited sailing yesterday could make it, so we ended up going out with just the folks who live here.
That never happens. Unless we’re only going to the pumpout, that is.
Because the forecast was for wind and windier, we [...]
Feb 26 2008
A few weeks back, I got an email forwarded from the Berkeley Parents’ Network, from a woman whose family was considering a move like ours, looking for some practical, BTDT advice about making the big leap. We chatted back and forth, and set up a day to have them come sailing.
Unlike our previous adventure [...]
Dec 12 2007
One of the basic tenets of hosting non-sailors on your boat, especially when you’re liveaboards or cruisers, is “Never do anything differently than you normally do.” Well, this weekend, we absolutely exceeded ourselves in sticking to it.
My friends and colleagues Alec and Adriana, and their friend Geoff, came to visit us on the s/v Excellent [...]
Jul 08 2007
Yesterday was the first day we had the opportunity to keep a promise to ourselves.
Since we are clearly novices to sailing in general and to the Excellent Adventure in specific, we promised ourselves that whenever Jason, Marc, and I were all on the boat together working, we’d knock off at sunset and go for a [...]
Jul 07 2007
July 4, 2007.
We’ve been working like dogs on our little boat, frantically trying to get her in good enough shape to move aboard. Jason and Marc have been pulling insane hours doing boat foo while I pull insane hours trying to make the money to bankroll boat foo. Stress levels are pretty high, but [...]
Jul 05 2007
I‘m working on a post about our first big trip out, Fourth of July on San Francisco Bay, Rowan’s early birthday, and all the coolness that happened yesterday, but in the meantime, I thought this one deserved a post all its own.
Oh Captain, my Captain.
May 27 2007
This morning, Jason received a phone call from Chevron, Inc. This seemed, well, odd.
Until he answered, and discovered that Cap’n Ken and Minor had stopped in to this fuel station, “the first thing you see out of Mexico,” to refuel, and Cap’n Ken was in such a hurry, he had the fuel dock guys [...]
May 01 2007
This absolutely beautiful essay, by someone named Andersen at TheWax.com, by way of Zen. Have a great read.
http://www.thewax.com/currents/2_9_zen.html