“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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

I unzip the door of the giant blue canvas cover that blankets her through the winter, and step up onto the deck of the boat I’ve called my summer home for twelve years. Soon, the work will begin, but I settle for a moment in the blue-tinged light of the cockpit. I am...