We’re Built For This

We’re Built For This

…sailors are, my mentor and friend, Nancy Erley said, when we spoke the other day. Nancy is a two-time circumnavigator, and the logistics of isolating in our homes is not unlike that of crossing an ocean in a small boat. Nancy is most certainly built for this. We’d...

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Feeling Small – Part 2

Feeling Small – Part 2

Aside from the majesty of the land- and seascapes, there are other ways I feel small during the summers on Kagán. Some feel good, some are less comfortable. Like everyone, what feels good to me is easy to think about and look at, like feeling small in my current...

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Feeling Small – Part 1

Feeling Small – Part 1

A workboat motors east along the base of Estero Peak, a 5,500-foot high mountain with a spectacular rockfall on its upper face that rises from the north shore of Cordero Channel. With AIS (shipborne “automatic identification system”), an electronic system that all...

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What a Gifted Teacher Can Do

What a Gifted Teacher Can Do

She can change your life. For me, that teacher’s name is Nancy Erley. The first time I met her was brief, just a short exchange after hearing her insightful presentation on crew communication at a sailing expo. But I never forgot her. The next time I met her was years...

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Wax On, Wax Off

Wax On, Wax Off

“Don’t you get bored?” a coworker on a field job asked. “Just sitting on a boat all summer?” Clearly he had never owned or lived on a boat. There’s never nothing to do. “Just sitting” only happens at the risk of enduring substantial guilt, induced by the as-yet...

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Flying into the Ring

Flying into the Ring

In my last post, I reflected on moments in nature that felt transcendent to me. I listed many of them, but one, though very much in my mind and heart, I did not, could not, write about. Until now. It’s been a long time coming. Decades ago, for not-quite three years, I...

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To Skipper

To Skipper

To skipper a boat is to take on a role that’s well defined. To skipper – to command, to be in charge of, to run, and to lead. But to command or be in charge of what? Certainly not the wind and the sea. It is to command the boat, and her crew. It means that the...

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Magic Carpet

Magic Carpet

Kagán is a bluewater cruiser, a stout and seaworthy sailboat. If we, her crew, are prepared and courageous enough, she can take us around the world. The sailing instructor who gave me the know-how and instilled me with the confidence to singlehand Kagán when I took...

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Going Slow

Going Slow

I feel like I'm going in three directions at once these busy holiday days, all at 75 miles per hour. It got me thinking about life on the boat, where 6 knots (that's almost 7 mph) under sail feels fun and fast. On an early July day last summer, Eric, his son John, and...

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Geologists study the earth and the processes that shape it. Writers study the human heart and the processes that shape it. The GeologistWriter builds a bridge between the two. Come across it with me!

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VENUS & MARS GO SAILING: Life. Intensified. On the Salish Sea.

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