We have been anchored the last two nights in a large bay called “Long Key Bight”, (does anyone know what “bight” means?) where there are an unusual number of “flying fish” that leap out of the water. Pelicans, my favorite bird, seem to love these fish, and are busy diving for them here. These fish are most active at night, and last night we were startled by loud splashing outside on otherwise calm water, and went to investigate to find our boat surrounded by hundreds of jumping silver fish. We then went to sleep and both had very strange dreams all night….maybe it was the influence of the flying fish….They have been so enchanting, that I was inspired to write this wee poem that I am daring to share with y’all. Enjoy.

Strange Night in Long Key Bight

Darkness descends through a blaze of fire
New moon sliver rises higher
Flying Fish flash silver
splish splash splish splash
Silver flash of flying fish
splash splish splash splish

Darkness drives us into sleep
and dreamtime comes like a circus train
Vivid dreams flash in and out
and back in again

Strange night in Long Key Bight

Morning light rises through a blaze of fire
Warm breezes lift my spirits higher
Out of darkness dreaming

Another day dawns serene
surrounded by aquamarine

This morning we said good bye to our friends aboard Good Goose, the boat we have been traveling with since North Carolina. The crew started out as Roark, a good natured, intelligent computer programmer from Vermont, and his new girlfriend Sherri, who he had just picked up from the airport when we met them. Sherri stayed for about 3 weeks, braving incredible days of cold wind and long miles motoring through swamps and marshes on the ICW. She thought she was going to be sailing in tropical sunshine, so what she ended up enduring was admirable!! Then Roark’s mother Claudette came for Christmas, followed by Roark’s daughter Aishling and her fun friend Morgan. We have loved all the members of the changing crew aboard Good Goose and have really appreciated getting to know all of them. We’ve shared some good times and some challenging times, and through it all we have watched out for each other, traveled amazingly well together, shared food and beers and probably too much wine! Our boats rafted up together for weeks on end, and I think that even our boats will miss each other, as they were a bit like sister boats, both being the same size and style of boat. It was so wonderful to make such good friends, and we are looking forward to meeting up with Roark again back in Vermont, or next fall in the Bahamas!
Traveling together made figuring out all the details of navigating so much easier. Sharing the planning of deciding where to anchor, sail trim and boat details, warning each other of shallow areas, etc. made our trip so much richer. We thank Roark for his great companionship! We have met a lot of great people on our trip, but I don’t think we could have traveled so well for weeks with any of them like we did with Good Goose. (although we know he was just putting up with us so he could use our big powerful dinghy!)

Some of the highlights of our time together included eating oysters in the middle of a great expanse of marshlands, surviving gale winds and storms, enjoying a marvelous Italian dinner on Christmas, sailing our spinnakers together on sunny days, and last but not least, on one of our last nights together, we spun fire on our dinghy and introduced Roark to fire spinning!
Here are some photos of our Good Goose friends:

We thought we were going to the land of endless sand beaches when we decided to go to the keys!

Turns out we were completely wrong. There are no beaches here. There often is no land. Many of the islands are just solid mangroves, a pictured above. They are so dense that you can not walk through them. They are an impassible tangle of thick brush. They don’t need soil above the water line, so they aren’t even technically on “land.”

We are hungry for a beach and for easy places to go ashore,but the mangroves make this territory very difficult to touch!

Capt’n K & Lala

We’ve been pretty happy about our recent upgrade into glorious weather, and our arrival into aquamarine waters and gorgeous sailing grounds. A few weeks ago, I was convinced that perhaps somehow we had angered the wind gods, and we were doomed to forever be attempting to sail in winds going in the wrong direction, or no wind, or too strong of winds…..but the last few days have been perfect and wonderful winds on calm waters. Just my kind of sailing! And the sun has been shining, the air is warm, and even at night the temperature is just about perfect. We were so happy to have all the hatches open when we went to bed last night, and fell asleep with the warm breeze caressing our faces. Ahhh, bliss! Perfect paradise!

And then we were awakened by buzzing. The unmistakable buzz of mosquitoes. Wee Happy was invaded in the middle of the night by a bloodthirsty army of huge mosquitoes! It felt like a nightmare, but it was true.

We did not passively submit to their terrorism. Blood was shed on the walls of Wee Happy as we aggressively fought back. Today we rigged up a screen over the door and hatches, and are further scheming ways to defeat the bloodsucking offenders. How dare they invade our happy space!!

Tonight, we watched a glorious sunset, and then as darkness fell we were immediately attacked again…..perfection is elusive.

Well, our windvane blew off in the last gale. So Capt’n K went up the mast to install the replacement.

We’re in Key Largo now, and mangroves are everywhere. Land access is difficuult because there are no beaches. There are great coral reefs, but the water is cold if you don’t have a wetsuit. The reefs keep the ocean from bringing sand ashore to create beaches. So we are just enjoying the nice sailing!

On the eve of the New Year, we begin a new phase in our travels. We have escaped the madness and congestion of southern Florida, we are off of the Intracoastal Waterway, we are no longer pushing to stay ahead of the cold winter. We have arrived in warm, turquoise blue waters and we are SAILING!

We are now in the Florida Keys. Yesterday we escaped from Miami and headed across the Biscayne Bay to Key Biscayne, the first of the Keys. Navigating through Miami was absolutely stressful. Every mile or two is a bridge that requires waiting for an opening. All around are speeding power boats and mega yachts. The waterway is narrow and congested. It was fabulous seeing all the high rise buildings towering above — Miami has some of the most unique architecture of any big city I’ve been to in the U.S. It was fun to see so many creative interpretations of the rectangular skyscraper: bright pink ones, blue ones, ones with curved archways on the top featuring gardens and patios and sculptured accents. After 3 failed attempts to get gasoline at crazy and crowded Miami marinas, we made a dash for the open waters of Biscayne Bay and had a gorgeous sail to Key Biscayne, where we tucked into a sweet but very crowded anchorage in No Name Harbor. (yes, that is actually the name). If we had been in a different mood, it may have been wonderful to spend some time exploring the city of Miami, but instead we got out as fast as possible. Here is our travel companion Good Goose dashing under the bridge from the Miami Madness:

Several of my friends and family “back home” have asked me recently “what is our plan”? What is our plan?
Well, our plan upon departure was to head for Florida and then see what happened from there. Our plan has always intentionally been left open. That was the whole point: open the door to allow God to work His plan. Meet the mystery of the world without a major agenda of our own. So now we made it to Florida and our “plan” looks like this: enjoy where we are. Because we worked really hard to get this far and it’s time to sit back and chill out for a little while until the next phase of our travels presents itself. So Florida Keys, here we are!

We made it past Fort Lauderdale and caught up with Sam and Roberto in Hallandale, FL. Roberto has a slip here where he keeps his boat, Dream Catcher, and he has a condo in a high-rise overlooking the ocean.

Sam just flew out to Vermont this morning to pick up his car and paraglider.

We went out to a fabulous Italian dinner last night as a reunion feast.

Roark’s mother flew out yesterday to go skiing in Vermont too. His daughter Ashling and her friend Morgan are here. The plan is to cruise to the first of the keys tomorrow: Key Biscaine.

We got to have some spinnaker therapy yesterday on our way here. After passing through the Fort Lauderdale inlet on the ICW and passing two humongous cruise ships, we inflated the new gennaker.

Roark and I had talked about him getting a gennaker also, but he already has a symmetrical spinnaker. I said we should just try flying the symmetrical spinnaker like the asymmetrical gennaker that we have. After some research it turns out that other people have done it successfully. So we looked up the rigging in the Harken catalog, and then Roark decided to try it. After some trimming, tweaking, and fussing, it finally flew beautifully! It’s vintage 1972 also!

So we had some lovely spinnaker therapy!

The day before, we ran through Boca Raton, which really surprised us! So many of the homes that were right on the waterway were spectacular creations! Seeing them from the waterway rather than the road was wonderful. One after another they amazed us. Here are a few that really stood out!

Here we are, spending Christmas while traveling. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas: there is no snow, we are far from family and friends. It’s just been another day on the boat. This year Christmas feels like an arbitrary date without a lot of concrete meaning. But we wish you all a warm and wonderful holiday nonetheless!! We really wish you were here!! This is a time to reflect on our blessings and appreciate our loved ones. We send our love to you all out there, wherever you are!

Here is a little glimpse of our Christmas: Last night on Christmas Eve we had a yummy dinner on our boat with our friend Roark and his mother Claudette. I made Oyster Stew, which was a Christmas tradition at my grandparents house as a child. Now that I’ve become a fan of oysters, I made this soup for the first time to carry on the family tradition. Everyone loved it! We woke up to a spectacularly bright morning of glassy water and blinding sun. It made me think of entering the gates of heaven.

Roark gave us a wonderful book on Knots for Christmas, and we spent a good part of the day learning and practicing new knots. I am rapidly expanding my knot making skills beyond the basic bowline, and K. has already mastered several very complex braid type knots that are seriously impressive.

Tonight are going out for dinner with Roark, his mother, and his daughter who just flew in to visit today.
We are probably going out for Chinese food!!

You are all in our hearts today! Merry Christmas!
To

The other day we got to further participate in car culture, when we rented a car for the day in order to retrieve mail that we had missed picking up in Daytona Beach. Here’s my main observation about that experience: Driving down a highway in a metal box at 80 mph, surrounded on all sides by other cars going 80 mph, many of them paying more attention to their cell phones than the road, seems to me WAY more dangerous than traveling in a sailboat. People think that we are so brave to go on this trip, but it takes a certain insane courage to get on the highway every day as well. The split second decision making requirement while going at such high speeds is remarkable, and the potential danger at a moment of inattention is much more lethal than traveling in a slow moving boat. I was very happy to get back on our slow boat at the end of the day!

Today we passed through the section of the ICW that goes through North Palm Beach, where there are miles upon miles of palatial mega mansions. We have seen many gorgeous homes along the ICW, but this stretch definitely topped them all. We had clearly arrived in the exclusive land of the rich and famous. These were not your average cookie cutter McMansions.

Each was is uniquely stunning, and clearly designed by top notch architects. Each one was perfectly manicured, ready to be photographed for some magazine featuring luxury homes. And each one was empty. There was almost no sign of any human life in hardly any of them. For several hours we passed by dream home after dream home, and even on a major winter holiday, a time it would seem that people who have luxury vacation homes would be there enjoying them, we saw only two of them that had people around. Wow.

There were plenty of people, however, out enjoying their speedboats. One after another screamed by us with no regard whatsoever for the effect a huge wake has on a sailboat. We got rocked and rolled all day long. WhooHoo! Merry Christmas!

For several months now we have been surrounded by water, and by nature. Recently, we have been also surrounded by dolphins and an incredible number of birds: osprey, pelicans, terns, herons and more. Most of the time, the only “traffic” we encounter besides other sailboats going 5 knots, is the occasional powerboat or fishing boat. We have been completely removed from what I call “Car Culture”. The harbor towns we have been stopping at, for the most part, are old towns that were built BEFORE the advent of car culture, when the main form of transportation was BOATS, along with walking and horse drawn carriages. These historical towns have their center oriented on the waterfront, and they are easily navigable by foot. We have been delighted at the number of times we have been able to anchor for free in PRIME waterfront real estate, take our dinghy to shore and walk around some of America’s most charming cities, all without having to deal with parking, traffic, etc. (I guess we do have to deal with gale force winds and freezing cold…..but hey, who’s complaining?) Pre-“car culture” cities are built on a more “human” scale, and a person walking around in such places feels at ease and a part of the surrounding landscape. Other people in a “human” scaled city also seem more approachable and connected to each other. There is a coherent “Pattern Language” in the architecture that makes things feel balanced and harmonious.
In contrast, “car culture” cities are built to the scale of large American cars, and large American appetites. Yesterday we arrived in Some Florida Town, and anchored our boats in the harbor with dolphins swimming all around us. The local long term boat resident of the harbor (he has been living on his boat for 15 years in that spot) came over to our boats in his dinghy to introduce us to the area and tell us the lay of the land. Our goal was to go to the beach and get some food. The beach was not far away, and we figured we could walk there quickly. We found the “parking” area for dinghies and made our way ashore. Immediately we found ourselves on the side of a highway, with cars speeding by. We were near a large strip mall complex of big box chain stores. It looked the same as any other one in Anytown, USA. There were no sidewalks, or if there were they were partial sidewalks, that went on for a random length and then suddenly stopped. There were no crosswalks, for this place was not designed for pedestrians. It was not designed for humans, actually. Alienation and depression seem to be inevitable by-products of this style of urban design. We immediately felt like we had arrived on another planet, the culture shock was so great. Cars driving by honked and yelled at us like we were strange aliens to be actually WALKING. The beach was about a half hour walk down the “strip”. Normally that wouldn’t be a bad walk, if we hadn’t been out of place pedestrians in Big Car Land. Miraculously we stumbled on a bus stop with a bus arriving in a few minutes that could bring us closer to the beach. We all hopped on, and soon I was freaking out about how FAST we were going! We have been traveling at 5 miles per hour for months now, and 35 miles per hour felt unnatural and rushed! Funny!
Those of you who know me know that I have a hatred for cars: a car killed the person I love most in the world. I have always felt a frustration with the alienation and stress that seems embedded in the world we have built up for ourselves to accomodate cars. I remember a particular day right before we left on our sailing trip, when I was in my car in Big Box Store Strip Mall Land, and was absolutely HATING it. All of it. The cheap Chinese crap that is sold to us in all these stores, the pushing of stuff and more stuff that we don’t need, the waste and inefficiency of the whole system. I vowed to stop participating in this part of our economic system. (as much as one can, when it is so big a part of our way of life here). One of the big reasons I am on this trip is to STEP OUT of this part of American culture and live in a different one. And I’m happy to say that for now at least, we have. We have discovered an absolutely delightful culture of boaters who manage to live extremely well without cars. The norm in this culture is to talk to each other, help each other out, and to assume that a stranger is a friend. Having the comparison yesterday of what it feels like to be in Car Land, I am even more happy today to be waking up on a boat.

(And today was a particularly sweet morning as we woke up to find at least a dozen dolphins playing right next to our boats, and one of our sailing companions Sam brought us delicious hot oatmeal for breakfast!!)