…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...
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...
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...
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...
In the San Juan Islands of Washington state, there are many lovely anchorages to drop a hook. Some would say Sucia Island is one of the loveliest. Part of a three-island marine state park, it has trails, campsites, mooring buoys, and anchoring room galore. It’s also a...
“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...
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