Chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka. I hear scratching on the roof/deck… This is the third time. Tune to go check out what it is. It’s midnight:30.

I pop my head up and see the silhouette of a big fat New York rat. They get the size of cats in the Keys thanks to some exotic pet owner. Instead of scaring him with the paddle, he charges me. I jump up on the skinny gunwale in my boxers like a little school boy bitch. The rat is cornered in the black shadows of the cockpit, but unfortunately for me has David Copperfield skills and vanishes.

I wake up and listen. Great, he’s inside the boat. It sounds like he’s in the cereal box. I grab both boxes, closings the lids and duct tape them. Thirty seconds later I hear him in the motor well and shine his gleaming eyes with my cell phone.

It’s 4:30am now. Going back to sleep is not an option so I quietly scurry out the companionway to scoot down to the nearest grocery store. Four hours later I locate a rat trap.

The next day we find the rat trap set off and the cheese is gone, but no rat.

Three days later Steve dreams someone is combing his hair and wakes up with a large rodent collecting his long, golden hair for nesting material. Steve flings the double pounder into the salon with the back of his panicked hand. Steve is on board for rat elimination.

The next morning Steve wakes up with the rat between his legs. We declare war and oust the oversized mouse in a matter of hours. It’s sad to lose such a worthy adversary. Boat fires are common from chewed up wires and gas lines. It was us or him.

So, I jump in the water with a snorkel, mask, and a foot-wide metal window scraper. After removing seagrass and barnacles from the fiberglass dinghy and plastic kayak, I make two trips around the sailboat, scraping as far down the hull as I can reach without my snorkel filling up with water. I’ve been in the water for about an hour.

The sole of my foot brushes something flat and soft and feels like a patch of grass on one of the concrete pillars supporting our dock. I pull my foot away to avoid cutting it on an oyster, but when I glance up, I see the pillar is in front of me.

I turn around to meet eye-to-eye with a vertically floating manatee, roughly twice as long as my body.

I slowly back away, struggling in vain to take calm, deep breaths. I scuttle up the kayak and rapidly knock on the boat as the underwater blimp follows me, maintaining eye contact. Steve produces from the boat and answers my question with, “It probably could hurt you, but I don’t see why it would.” I splashlessly lower my self back into the water and put my mask back on.

The foggy, blue eyes calm me the way a great-grandmother greets you in the morning without words. I carefully show her my palm and she mirrors with her fin as if she remembers me, but this is the first time I’ve swum with one of these in this life.

My hand rests on the grey, elephant-like skin for a couple of seconds before the manatee does a ballet spin. The centimeter-long gray hairs brush under my finger tips with the subtlety of tickling air bubbles. I cannot detect a heartbeat, ribs, or any change in texture as I feel 180° around the waist of the massive mammal. Just the same heatless leather with the response of a mud-pie.

After a few minutes, my lungs relax enough to fill with enough air to make me buoyant. Floating as easily in the salt water as the beast, I begin to notice small distinctions on the belly including a seam connecting one orafice to another, newly discovered and growing orafice.

The hole opens and something camo-green emerges. She drops a deuce and I vamoose, laughing through my snorkel.

Learning is just plain easier here.  There isn’t a growing frustration when a student isn’t ‘getting it’.  The instructor takes full responsibility.  I’m sure this correlates with Seattle ranking #1 as the most literate city in the United States.  That and annoying weather (It finally got to me after enough bicycle rides and lack of visibility.  It has been unseasonably dry, which explains my initial bias.) 5 months out of the year.  These people are not only kind in demeanor, they also genuinely encourage personal growth.  It’s inherent in the culture.

—

I’m back in the job market with one warm lead on a pizza bar I’ve been eyeing since I arrived in Tacoma.  Along with my favorite coffee shop, Cosmonaut (only three employees, each working there for 2 years and not planning on leaving), Medi’s Pizza is the only place I fully desire to spend hours of my time laboring at.  I’ve been in there every two weeks for the last 12 weeks to check on my resume (resume, right? yeah, the service industry receives a bit more esteem on this edge of the continent).  The owner tells me to come back after my trip to Vegas.

I spent all of my money in Vegas and won $73 on a $20 investment loaned to me by an inebriated Big A after 5 minutes of playing slots.  We split the winnings and I now have cash to get the buses back from SEA-TAC Int’l to the apartment.  Oatmeal and potatoes will provide for my cells until I can unworriedly come across the next solution.

The second day back, fully recovered, I walk into the antique arcade adorned pizza bar and walk out with a schedule of training days.  The Aussie’s I’ve met traveling wouldn’t be surprised that it worked out.

 —

Riding in a small bus through mountains.  Can’t write much in fear of vomiting.  Feels like being back on the boat.

—

There is no, “I’ll do this one day” or “I’ll be like that some day.”  There’s only how and what you are going to do today.

—

San Jose del Pacifico

Not a useful word is spoken as we exit the collectivo in relief.  White seemingly stationary clouds conceal the tops of evergreens at the peaks surrounding one side of the village. Opposite is a glass paneled first floor containing a coffee shop.  Unsure if we should clutter the clean wood floors with oversized backpacks, we form a small mountain on the brick lain patio.  Coffee leads to slices of homemade orange cake, garnished with warm conversation and laughter.  Lovely procrastination followed by a mile long march up a steep, windy road in Forrest Gump “big-ol’, fat” rain.  The girls are congratulated on their efforts.  Our first surveyed cabana turns out to be a dirt floored basement, beneath a humble tin-roofed farm-house, between the chicken roost and dog kennel.  It looks interesting, but we are looking for a peaceful retreat and this is below a family living room.

Half a mile back down, we find the green painted house recommended by the Aussie’s (Luke, Scott, and Jeremy)friends.  Made in hippie heaven.  Stringed instruments lie next to the warm, rounded fireplace pricks.  Two long-haired peace keepers play chess on a table soon to be covered by bowls of hearty soup and forearms of recent friends.  Aromas from the potential and chemical reactions fill the cozy room.  Very appealing,  but quite full, and there are 7 of us.  Reluctantly we divide and continue the quest for the perfect abode.

With the use of fractured German and barely constructed Spanish, I manage to obtain a possibility.  Danny, our ever-energetic Spanish friend discovers something better than a plan B.  The steep road becomes a soggy stone, mud, and occasional tire staircase above the town itself.  Another hundred yards up the cloud forest and a left turn leads to the wood planks of our front porch.  With our own fireplace, a kitchen on each of the two floors, beds for everyone, and a view over the valley and even of the ocean some 60 Kilometers away on a clear day, MX$800/night isn’t bad split 7 ways. (today 1$US=MX$12.9) 

We get settled, encounter some large plants and animals, and take advantage of the fungicidal phenomenon the tiny mountain town is known for.  After reading my friend’s description, there is no point in writing my own: http://nonojalapeno.tumblr.com/post/64790758261

—

You cannot inspire someone.  They can only be inspired by you.

—

Never let someone tell you what you should, cannot, won’t, will, have to, must, or mustn’t do.  Consider their words and decide with your own research.  Now consider mine.  Do it.

—

Mazunte and the Lost Arcade

I do a little rare researching of the quiet, brown sand beach village we are chilling in on wikipedia.  At the bottom of the page (this is no longer there, but I couldn’t make this up) was a bullet point about an old arcade toward Punta Comeda using hacked XBOXes playing gameboy games.  Sounds to good to be true, right?  Well it was actually better.  After the third local looked at me as if I had something growing out of my forehead when I tried to ask where an arcade is, we gave up and decided to check out the peninsula jutting out from southernmost point of the state of Oaxaca.  When our clay and rock path cleared the greeny wood line, it became apparent that we were in the video game.  I was certain at the time that I was looking at the setting for the original Halo’s beach invasion scene on the level The Silent Cartographer.

Life is like a fire in a fireplace.

There are times when it is going pretty good.  There’s good airflow, the flames are spread in a mellow yellow coat covering all the right parts of the wood.  There’s a good balance.

Occasionally there are shifts.  A piece of an older log burns away, taking away the support of the pile.  Sometimes this is a good change and the fire burns even brighter.  Sometimes this is bad and the fire needs tending.

All fires have three things in common: they start, they  burn for a bit, and then they go out.  There’s no such thing as a never-ending fire.

Some fires are tame, burn slowly for a long time and then gradually extinguish themselves.  Some fires burn like hell, are full of pops and crackles, use entirely too much fuel and oxygen too fast, offer grand spectacle, and die at 27 minutes old.

The more you try to contain the fire and direction of the flames, the less enchanting the fire is.  Propane fireplaces just don’t draw eyes the way disappearing logs can.  And a fireplace with fresh chopped wood will never silence a group of humans the way a campfire will.

Patterns in the flames possess the cognitive reception akin to freestyle music because just as our mind begins to get see the rhythm, it changes.  There are big-picture likelihoods, but in essential details, it is forever unpredictable.

Sept. 3, 2013 – Oaxaca

City of colors, art, and chocolate.

7 moles not of the guac variety

Very good chocolate milk

Teachers on strike (not quite as violent as the news makes it look)

I lie in a nylon rope woven type of beach chair on the hostel rooftop, evenly distributing the load through my skin, blue-grey jeans, and prince shirt into a re-bar frame.  The chair frame is fixed and supports itself on 4 triangular legs to a sitting position or, in my current position, can be rocked back to use two rear legs, which results in a view dominated by sky.  Today I am employing the majority of my energy into the vital activity of breathing.  With no intention of contracting unnecessary neck muscles, my head rests on the rear left round of my skull, just behind the ear, and my eyes shift from lap to harmless, clouds resembling white plastic bags carrying grey sweatshirts.  Cars and busses grumble up and down the street behind me and distant church bells echo through the colonial-contemporary bricks as I take as I take turns scribing a few words at a time, resting my eyes for a deep, slow breath, and reaching for the cool, bottled Corona.  The small leaves of aluminum bucketed plants gently caress the ever present flow of crisp Sierra mountain air through the city of Oaxaca (pronounced wa-Hawka).

I chuckle at the thought of how similar my brother and I are.  We champion freedom to the point of inefficiency and obey logic involuntarily.  Presentation of irrefutable information is used back and forth as a means of temporarily enslaving the other.  I again swear to never commit a living situation with him, and, deep down, eagerly await a future circumstance in which I do.

A vicious run up countless flights of stairs to the amphitheater overlooking the artistic, easy natured, foothill city starts the hangover recovery process.  Thirty minutes of cold water allows me to shampoo and condition my dreads and various articles of clothing.  The socks and boxer briefs were left airing on the open window sill, but after a walk to the market, a cup of cappuccino with a dorm mate, and a visit to possibly the most ornately decorated building I’ve ever seen (up there with Grand Central Station and German cathedrals – sorry, no cameras aloud), I find the window closed and no trace of my garments.  Egg sandwich, the 1^st quarter of Pulp Fiction, and up to the roof I go, which brings me to the nylon rope chair.  The Prince shirt has 5 and 8 section radial patterns of royal blue and fire truck red and black, such as a grandmother’s sofa under a black light.  I found it at a Mexican thrift store for 10 pesos. It even has shoulder pads.  All I need now is to get 100 times better on guitar.  After a big day at petrified waterfalls and a big night with my new Australian travel buddies, sitting is all I want.

Jansports last forever

Too much chemical associated with worry floating around in our brains.  People need others to agree.  They feel it’s their work to make others worry.  I want people (myself especially) to lighten up.

I’m starting to get into my groove.

The first type of traveling I experienced (Scandinavia, Europe, Asia, U.S.), I had my savings from a career job, so, I just did what ever I wanted all the time and was totally free.  The second type of traveling (Central America), I was running low on cash, but tried to stretch my time by cutting back on luxuries.  This taught me a couple of things.  One: I can decide which level of comfort I want to live in.  Two: with a passport, a plane ticket, and thousand dollars for startup money, I can survive anywhere there are people.  Before, it was just theory, but I feel I’ve proved it.

The night I returned to Key West, I walked up to my brother’s place of work with $10.55 to my name.  This was extremely irresponsible and I normally would not have put myself in a position to mooch off of someone else.  Since he’d been living on my boat for the past 6 months, and he would only be supporting me temporarily, I felt it was fair.  Within a week, I had two jobs.  In a month, I was comfortably supporting myself and enjoying going to work.  It wasn’t always this simple and enjoyable, but this is how I am choosing to remember it.

On my third travel, I have limited spending power and time, but I am strangely okay with it.  The reason: comfort.  I had pancakes, eggs, coffee, orange juice, and a big bottle of water for breakfast.  My meals often cost twice as much as the people I am dining with.  I could save more and travel longer, but then I wouldn’t be doing what I want.  When it feels right, I will move to a place I really like, get a job I really enjoy, and live the way I want.  I’ve learned about myself that above seeing, knowing, and experiencing everything this world has to offer, my top priority is feeling good.  I want to feel good today.  I might not be here tomorrow.

—

Eric and the Cenote

The road from Piste to Merida is about 160km.  After 17km, we took our hotel manager’s advice and hopped off to find a less expensive, less touristy cenote.

On the bus, we start chatting with an ex-American.  It’s pretty obvious, right off the bat, because his American accent has been taken over by a Mexican one and his clothes and bicycle are too worn to be in his first year of backpacking.  He produces a corner-less, crease-holed, ancient, paper map and starts explaining the geology of the Yucatan Peninsula.  The land formation is the same as Florida, a sedimentary reef formed by wave deposits.  There is no bedrock.  It’s not a real landmass like Georgia or southern Mexico with rock and clay and topsoil.  It’s just limestone.  The northern Yucatan landscapes are very boring to Julie and I, because they look almost exactly like southern Florida.  Same mangroves, same trees, the birds and fish are even the same.  There seems to me to be a topographical reflection somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, as the landscape transition moving southwest through the Yucatan is remarkably close to that from Florida to Tennessee although the Sierras are slightly more pronounced than the lower Appalachians.

The big difference between Florida and the Yucatan is an asteroid struck just off the Mexican coast 65 million years ago, which coincided with the extinction of non-flying dinosaurs.  When the ground was struck, it shattered into a bunch of relatively small rocks.  Picture the structural foundation quality of Florida as a graham cracker and the Yucatan as a bowl of Coco Pebbles.  For this reason, no rivers or lakes or ponds can exist in this part of Mexico.  When it rains, all of the water goes straight down into the ground water system.  This is also why the rocks are ALL abrasive like broken concrete that hasn’t had time to erode.  At one time or another, there is a river everywhere, so stones are typically rounded and smooth.  There is circular outline of the massive, asteroid impact crater made of hundreds of cenotes.  A cenote is basically a sinkhole, most of which are 100ft or more deep, filled up to sea-level with fresh water.  These are the voids between broken rock.  Picture the bottom of a bucket covered with golf balls and then covered by a one inch layer of dirt.  The voids between adjacent golf balls represent the cenotes on a small scale.

After grilled chicken quarters, seasoned white rice, and half a football sized plate of roasted, juicy vegetables, Julie and I follow Eric to his hut down the road to check out the t-shirts he sells.  This is the trade he learned when he started touring with The Grateful Dead in Rochester, NY in 1980.  We ask him why he is in Mexico.  He says the last show was down here in 1995.  “These ******* cats are why I can’t leave!” he explains.  “Two showed up one day and now there’s 6!  I can’t leave for more than a couple weeks.  I have to check if they need to go to the hospital or something.”  He gives us the scoop on half of the country, which coming from someone who has bussed and bicycled from Cancun to the Texan border multiple times, everything he foretells proves accurate.  Never overbearing and extremely polite, the gaunt tradesman never asks us for anything and is careful not to keep us at his humble hut longer than we want.  He even avoids bringing up whether or not I paid for the shirt yet.

Fern gully.  We are looking forward to a fresh water swim at a local swimming hole.  We are not prepared for one of the coolest things either one of us have ever seen.  I make my entry from the 20m high platform where only a few people have jumped.  It doesn’t look that high compared to the bluffs we jumped off, on Watts Bar Lake in Tennessee.  After signing a waver and drawing all 5 of the staff maintaining the cenote, I begin to wonder if my eyes are deceiving me.  I move my arms in tight forward circles, in an attempt to fly, as I fall silently toward the center of the massive pool for a good 3 seconds.  It is higher than I thought.  Good thing I kept my shoes on and only landed slightly off vertical.

—

Merida

Colonial city near the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.  Charming, relaxing, and stylish.  Amy is also heading to Palenque and joins our rambling.

—

Palenque

Hippie retreat near famous ruins.  Site of 2012 Rainbow Gathering.  Julie gets dreads

—

San Cristobal de Las Casas

After the 4^th, I close the windows on my MacBook and eject Amy’s external hard drive.  The clock reads 10:00.  We gotta book it.  Shuffling bags, frantic purse searches, shoes without socks, socks in flip-flops, pancho under my arm, I can’t fit through the fence door with my bulky backpack and duffle bag sprouting a guitar neck.  I squeeze through, banging the tuning pegs on the wooden gate and give a pathetic tooth whistle to a cab driving up the shiny asphalt street.  He stops.  We load up and head for the OCC terminal laughing about our irresponsible, yet sufficient travel methods.

Even in traveling, monotonous days dull the sense of adventure, which only excite us after the fact, slightly revised and re-emphasized reminiscences.  Tonight I feel the electrical anxiety of adventure behind my ears.  I just changed my flight from the 7^th (a sound financial decision) to the 17^th after hearing that the biggest party of the Mexican year falls on September 15^th.  When I asked if it was bigger than Cinco de Mayo, our young hotel manager laughed.  The craziest place to be is downtown Mexico City, which is where I’m flying out of.  Hence the need for flight change.  Cost of changing flight: $1.58 U.S.  Cost of adding 10 days to my trip: $200 to $800.  With a bucket list party included, I’m sure it’s closer to the latter.  As much as I wanted to come back with good start-up money, the message of the poem below is echoing.  The veins of my comfort are pronounced after cinching down the survival budget.  This is fun.

Moments

Nadine Stair


I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
 I’d relax.  I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
 I would take fewer things seriously.
 I would take more chances.
 I would take more trips.
 I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. 
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I’d 
have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly 
and sanely hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I’ve had my moments and if I had it to do over 
again, I’d have more of them. In fact, 
I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments.

One after another, instead of living so many 
years ahead of each day.

I’ve been one of those people who never go anywhere 
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat 
and a parachute.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot 
earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.

If I had it to do again, I would travel lighter next time.
 I would go to more dances.
 I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
 I would pick more daisies.

I would push more red buttons (Just kidding, I added that line)

Sailing south of the U.S.

Finally ready to go

Julie is ready…she thinks

Late the second day, Steve pilots us into Marina Hemingway, roughly 15 miles east of Havana, Cuba.

When we arrive, we are bombarded by Cubans asking, “Would you like to give present?” with those pouty little disengenuine eyes that make you think: no wonder these people are so poor, the’re a bunch of babies!  This is our first impression of the forbidden country as we get settled in the massive marina.  I understand communism doesn’t work very well, but wielding a member’s card to the top ranked species on the planet, I expect a little frontal lobe activity.  Then again, getting relatively astronomical bonuses for the display of a little false humiliation could be a most clever use of resources.  Everyone and their brother come to the boat with a sob story looking for handouts.  They have all managed to survive to the age of 40 and all have large beer guts, so I’m sure I’m not their last link to survival.  Some random uniformed man with a 9-month-old Springer Spaniel searches the boat on the 2^nd night for drugs.  The dog sits on the salon rug, licking his fleas, while the guy asks us for money.  Our neighbor (ironically, also kept his boat 8ft from ours in Key West) was smart and brought small U.S. bills.  When he handed a “gift” of $5, the authority grimly answered, “I want $20.”

The Cuban payroll system is baffling.  Only in a communist country can you have more employees than customers around the clock and stay open for business?  I see a select few performing actual work and from what they tell me, the going wage is $2.00/day.  Castro hooks everyone up with a monthly ration of rice, beans, cooking oil, soap; whatever the prisoners citizens earn on top is for luxury.  Hence, the quest for handouts.  In my experience, the times I go without working, the less luxuries I want myself.  I just want more free time before I have to go back to work.  When I am working, I want to earn and spend and save more.  It’s just momentum.  Some people in Havana have it and it shows.  New European or Asian cars cruise between the typical winged 1950’s Chevrolets and Fords.  Artists and artisans dot the streets of Havana, many with jaw-dropping skill and seem to do better than the hustlers.

We were hustled once in the downtown tourist district of Havana.  Our guard was down from our visit to the village of Santa Fe.  We went there first to see what small town Cuba was all about before visiting the capital.  When we told the driver of the classic pink Cadillac with a hand made TAXI sign we want a ride to Santa Fe, he asked us, “Por Que?”

Bright orange dirt edged in green patches of grass, wild yellow palm trees, and matching blue skies and ocean front.  Bottom right side if you stand on a globe at Key West looking south.  (This is how I interpret geography when floating slowly from place to place)  The townspeople are clearly unspoiled from tourism.  Concrete ruins stretch out over the beach waves full of kids and teenagers unsupervised.  This feeling of freedom reminds me of summer days on the Ogeechee growing up.  *Growing up is the real regression and everyone knows it.  Sophistication is great, but the real loss of innocence is the gain of etiquette.  Gag.)  The temptation of wiry little athletes doing backflips off a dilapidated 12ft concrete pier into 4ft deep water is too much.  I do a front flip into a fairly deep spot with relatively small chunks of concrete at the sandy bottom.  The water feels fresh and salty and I walk away with only a couple of small blood blisters under my right heel.  No limp.  The kins and we shared mutual entertainment, but I screwed up when I took a pack of 6 cookies from my backpack and gave it to one of the young locals.  Like a flock of seagulls, the other 15 kids began squawking.  I tell Steve I don’t know what “hooREE-ohs” means.  He corrects me, “They’re saying ‘orEos, orEos’.  Two things I should have known: (1) Bring enough for the whole class, (2) It’s dumbasses like me that cause 40-year-old fat men to walk around Havana with their hand out.

Part II:  The Cuban Hustle.  20miles east of the quiet township of Santa Fe is the bustling metropolis of Havana.  Early 20^th century architecture gives a historic feel similar to St. Petersburg, Russia.  Nearly massive columned government buildings *they have a scale model of our capital building) with connected 4 story apartment buildings like Chinatown, Manhattan or San Francisco.  Forgotten colorful classics putt and cruise the streets.  Pink Cadillacs, teal winged beauties, and eternally glossy moonshine runners are everywhere you look.  There is no denying Cuba’s beauty.  The depth of this attribute is debatable.

Like yesterday, strangers walk up and talk to us with curious ears.  In Santa Fe they are interested in you.  In Havana, they want you to believe they are interested in you.  A man and his wife join us on a sidewalk with smiles and questions.  He is a school teacher, his wife a nanny.  They seem nice and we escape the heat to a cool bar with live music.  The teacher offers us a famous drink and asks if we want to see a cigar shop.  I don’t really have a good reason for why I followed him around the corner to his friend’s apartment except curiosity.  The $500 box of cigars was offered for $100.  I bought them for $40, but didn’t’ wake up that morning with the intention of stocking up on Cuban tobacco.  When the man and I return to the bar, we are greeted with the bill.  The drinks are $5 each which is equivalent to $20 in the States.  As Steve, Julie, and I exchange confused glances, the ‘teacher’ and his wife make their swift escape.  Class dismissed.  The next hustler has the pleasure of joining us as we slowly peruse art galleries for 45 minutes until he loses interest and leaves.

Riding in the air-conditioned, empty bus from Old Town Havana back to Marina Hemingway, I see our driver exchange impatient gestures with the driver of a packed local bus.  After almost having to fend off the blood-spattered loser of a small brawl in the park this morning along with other aggressive demonstrations, Havana seems to be a bit dog-eat-dog.  Compared to the almost unmapworthy town of Santa Fe, Havana is extremely affluent and developed.  But, just because the locals don’t own computers (exchanging info with a local dude got awkward when I gave him my email) didn’t keep us from having a great time.  There was no hustle.  In the city, we were the hustle.

Travelers I’ve spoken with who’ve recently visited Cuba agree.  If you have a chance to visit this vast island, I recommend planning a trip east or south of Havana.  It’s a big country and the tropical, mountainous landscape is breathtaking.  We missed the opportunity to stay with a family with only the excuse of already paying nightly rates at the marina.  This option is available with very little effort in finding.  Good food and good people.

Leaving Cuba

First deep breath of the day although the sun is already ½ way on its decline.  The 12” Cuban courtesy flag, tied as high up the stainless steel wire shroud as Steve could reach, dances around and occasionally ignites in its attempt to conceal the fiery ball of our solar system’s center.  Breaking crests mist my neck and ear.  I watch the sizzling waves roll out from under the port side of the cockpit, white gassy mountains hissing and then submerging like sudsy serpents into the hauntingly pure blue.  A couple miles further the razor thin line of sand lines the rolling hills of tropical trees, shadowy mountains behind.  We are heading west at the moment to round the north coast of Cuba.  A current promises to help until our crossing of the Caribbean to Belize.  We decide to skip Mexico because the bribes and other forms of annoying corruption is supposed to be just as bad as Cuba.

I get to use one of those useless talents of mine tonight and it makes me feel proud.  I have a couple unique abilities like touching my toes while my heels are against a wall.  Try it.  I’ve only met one person with the shoe size to height ratio required.  Tonight’s skill is writing in the dark.  I taught myself to do it in high school to take notes without removing my eyes from the projector.  In college Advanced Steel Design called for it and many late night song writings.  I am in the dark to keep us incognito.  I hope that a boat with radar doesn’t need to steal money to sustain their desired luxuries.  Hustlers are fairly lazy, let’s hope the same is true of pirates.  If they have the wherewithal to invest in radar, they should be able to come up with better methods of generating income.

Distant fireworks from what turned out to be a floating shopping mall, aka cruise ship, gave me the idea to turn off our mast and cabin lights.  I first thought the fireworks were flares at a distant.  Deception to get aid is sometimes used by pirates to lure in helpful victims. The short length of water between Cuba and Mexico is also notorious for traffic routes of narcotics, so our best bet is to just stay away from other boats.

It’s hard to tell what are reflections of stars on the glassy surface and flashes of bioluminescence.  Orion just joined the party and moving satellites don’t blink.  We have a great view of the Milky Way tonight.  The point of the top of the mainsail is faintly silhouetted by the absence of sky diamonds.  Planes move faster than satellites, but slower than shooting stars.  The first night on open water is always thought inspiring and spooky.  Occasionally you realize the only thing keeping your 7,000lb lead keel from taking you to the bottom of 2,150ft deep water is the ½” thick fiberglass hull.

So we are sailing right along, Steve and I are out in the cockpit stargazing when, what appears to be, a commercial jet due to green lights and velocity hums horizontally about 4 fingers above the horizon.  It looks too bright to be a jet and doesn’t blink.  We get Julie out from the V-berth to marvel at this oddity as it slows down and breaks off into a dozen emerald lasers streaming through the velvety walls of our atmosphere.  Then cosmic fireworks spectacular lasts a full 20 seconds.  One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in a night sky.  Afterwards, we paid close attention to channel 16 on the VHF for news of an alien invasion.  That’s all I have to say about that.

People write about how you should bring an extra autopilot.  Well guess what; they cost 300-600 bucks for a used one.  Ideally, we would take that advice along with an extra chart-plotter ($1500 new – we use a $200 tablet with $50 downloaded charts) and an extra everything else and a-whole-nother $30k boat, but we don’t even have one $30k boat.  We have a $3k.  To address the haters and curious, no I am not independently wealthy (yet), I just don’t consider “No” as one of the possible outcomes in my adventure planning.  Just like in billiards and engineering, there is always a solution.

We are not over-prepared, but we have done some homework and exercise safety measures.  Steve knows a lot.  I used to think it was selfish that he stayed up all night surfing the web while I disciplined early bedtimes and wakeups to labor on the boat.  He stayed up night after night for months and years, feasting on information, which he spouts at times of crisis.

I got about 5 hours of sleep and though the heavy breathing of mild fatigue are tickling the base of my brain, the sky is slowly illuminating.  I anticipate a morning breeze and the black cloud cutouts suggest delivery confirmation.  Time to sail.

5 days on the Gulf/Carribean.  Half a dozen consecutive storms push us north and we change course for Mexico.  We see some cool stuff.  A dozen spotted dolphins snack on the keel buffet under our boat.  Two dozen whales come within a mile, migrating south for warm water.  It must be nice to be a submarine in times of fowl weather.  A couple of water spouts and a bunch of squall lines keep us busy and on Saturday, we sail north between Cancun and Isla Mujeres.  Our crank battery is dead, so we tack back and forth into the bay of Isla Mujeres and reach a good spot to drop the hook.  Our new neighbors tell us it is laid back and we can check in on Monday.  We paddle our kayak to a restaurant.

Side note: If you die in a hammock, you win the game.

Julie explains it as such, “Steve and you are very accepting of each other and want the other to do what they want, but when you are together, you are constantly reminding yourselves to let the other do what they want.  You end up just grinding gears.  It’s just time to go separate ways.”

We’ve done some cool stuff and now we diverge.  Tomorrow, Wednesday August 14, 2013, Julie and I head out with packs on our backs and feet on the street.

Look back at the things you did with contentment.  If you changed the smallest bit, you would change everything.

Brief Political Commentary

We have to stop raging.  It’s been going on since Thoreau’s time and before.  Raging doesn’t cure control.  The fastest way to end a game of Monopoly isn’t by buying the right properties and bankrupting the rest of the players (which is really a brutal game for a 9-year-olds.  LIFE is even more messed up!), but to stop playing.  We have to stop going along with the bi-partisan struggle that has existed before the U.S. was a country.  SEE Jeffersonians vs. Hamiltonians.  Same stuff in a different bag.  Passionate activists exaggerating flawless policy commitments are bound to make hypocrites out of themselves (I am definitely guilty).  Ghandi didn’t fight the British Empire.  He showed the people of India how to dry seawater on rocks to get salt.  He got them all making their own clothes and grow their own food.  They no longer needed to barter with England.  He stopped playing the game.  For example: it doesn’t make sense to pay sales tax on a private negotiation (selling boats on Craigslist are in no way facilitated by federal bureaucrats).  Gifts are not controlled by the law and there’s no definition for how long it takes to become friends.  One by one, senseless tangles in economic processes can be simplified as knowledge spreads.  It just takes a step back to see what makes sense.

—-

I had a hole in the water, I bought a hole in the water

We bought the Pearson 30 because we wanted to move up in size and it was an incredible deal.  $1500.  It comes with a dinghy and motor (a working dinghy motor is at least this much), running diesel inboard, snuba setup, solar panel, extra sails, and stereo.  We anchor it a few hundred yards from the marina and get the Catalina ready for sale.

We spent most of the day cleaning the Silent Runner.  After the sun goes down and we turn off the headlamps, we sit around with the most pirate-like person I’ve met in all of my life.  Floyd may be taking off for Panama soon because he has fines in the U.S. he doesn’t want to pay.  He has done time in various countries for smuggling, is an artisan leather craftsman (a skill he developed at a Federal penetentery), construction and carpentry journeyman, and a distinct member of the Key West Sea Turtle Committee.  His gaunt figure and cane-aided limp is quickly forgontten by his attention commanding presence, powerful jaws, white handlebar moustache, and deep, resonating raspy voice.  Aboard his beamy Rapscallion, we share a little peace offering and ideas about distant lands and other ways to live.

Floyd to Bird

I promise, this bird is even cooler than he looks. He acts like Bart Simpson and never makes a sound. His name is Bird.

After we return to the Silent Runner, we go through the usual repetitive pep-talks about ebay auctions and market prices on Craigslist for the boat.  The conversation at Floyd’s is still rotating the circular movement devices in Steve’s head.  He asks me out of the blue: “If we showed up at a hostel and we had a boat nearby, could we find backpackers to sail with us somewhere for $20?” Absolutely.  All we have to do is make it not make sense not to go.  Give them an offer they can’t refuse.  If it costs $10/day to eat in Granada and $5/night to stay at the cheapest hoste in the city.  We will offer a sailing trip for $10/day per person (pooling groceries and fishing make this possible) including a place to stay and meals.  Moving Hostel, Sailing Hostel, Backpackerferry.com  The name and getting rich from the idea is not important.  Backpackers come in all sizes and standards, so anything extra than sustaining travel is cake.

Originally, we were trying to get the absolute most $ out of the boat instead of getting enough $ to make something happen.  We decided we need a month and a half of food per person = $700.  I know from experience, I can show up at a country I don’t know the language with $1000 and live there.  Total = $2700.   I know the SR can sell tomorrow for $4k.

We want to sell this week and sail in the regatta from St. Petersburg, FL to Isla Mujeres, an island off of Cancun, Mexico on the Pearson.  By leaving from Key West, we estimate having a 2 day head start.  We are leaving in 10 days.  The Ships Log has 44 entries outlining our progress from Savannah, GA to KW.  Typical entries are:

–       Sailing into a storm, heading north to escape 20-30 mph gusts.  No damage, heavy lightning

–       Big day! Built a net, caught bait fish and almost a shark.

–       Anchored in Cocoa Village.  REBELUTION is playing a concert right in front of us.

–       Femi and Steve explored a nearby island.  Found conch.  Tasted terrible.

The last log entry: MF 9/10/12 12:30 – Sascha left this morning.  Steve & I are going into town to find work.

Almost a full year since we arrived in KW.

The auction ended and the reserve was not met.  Three days before the regatta, one of the bidders sent a message to buy it for $4500 including delivery to Fort Myers.  The weather window coincides with the regatta so we change plans.

Owning a boat is a unique thing because of the simple fact that on day one of buoyancy, the ocean , the ocean begins ceaselessly and assuredly to take her back,” I nod in agreement at the thought while calmly trying to stomach a few saltine crackers topped with whatever potted meat I can scrape out of the can.

The wind has not begun to subside and the 4-6ft seas occasionally toss the Silent Runner off her bearing.  With the aid of a fluorescent cabin light, I scribble these notes and the boat roars through another of Steve’s forecasted warnings, “Big wave!”  My stomach is a little on edge, but belly breathing and pride keep my nerves dry.  Delivering the boat that you are selling is a bad idea because anyone who’s spent time on the water knows it is not spent without some tragedy, no matter how small and inexpensive.  My 4-hour shift begins now.

Each time Steve and I regress aka live less and less affluent, the more we feel alive.  My sense of humor is at its peak.  At every new place I reach, I immediately begin to improve my life and luxuries.  Once I reach a certain point, I lose interest in the game.  It get’s stale and I get antsy.  I’ve often wondered who had a better ride: the tramp worn blue-collar working class drifters (the one’s whose skin is different because they don’t take enough showers for a decade or two), live paycheck to paycheck, but always make the best of the present situation – OR – the nicely dressed, clean, soft skinned man living in his comfortable 2-story house with a new F150 in the driveway.  Answer: it depends.  Depends on the person and their disposition, but I think more importantly, it depends if they are living the way they want to.

—-

Checking the definition of “avail” inspires a small revelation about how I victimize myself.  I was about to write about how having time to myself is important.  Taking time is important.  The resource is available for everyone.

—

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  If you begin to resent a person more the longer you are away from them, that is an indicator that you don’t respect their morals.

There is an intuitive reckoning of another person’s approval when people speak to one another.  If a person disapproves on the inside, but approves verbally, there is a conflict of information.  Waves do not complement but cause interference.  If a person disapproves on the inside and verbally disapproves, it is much less instigational because truth resonates.  As a logically progressing species, valid information is a succulent fruit.  This is why I admire a person who, in the face of someone they don’t like, can say, “Don’t talk to me, I don’t like you.”

living-happy-striving-struggling-growing-difficult

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easy-stagnant-complacent-unmotivated-unexcited-dying

So the SR sold for $4500.  I gave Steve $1500 for buying the rigging.  I bought it two years ago for $6500.  A few days after the boat delivery and we move the Pearson into the marina, Steve finds a boat for sale in Marathon.  I don’t see the potential of the boat at first, but my brother’s round, sober eyes indicate value; this is what he wants.  Without hesitating to count my money in my head, I give him $2300.  I try my best to keep emotion out of the decision process.  It’s a good boat at an insanely low price.  We’d be stupid not to jump on this.  So we are broke again, but with a $3000 35-foot Morgan on the hook and living on a $1500 30-foot Pearson.

Big A approves our lifestyle on the pre-renovated Pearson

If it runs and is clean, it will sell

After 2 months of renovating

A friend of a friend at work agrees to buy the Pearson for $7k and I put in my 3 weeks notice at Island Dogs.  On the morning of finalizing the Pearson sale, Steve and I get into a strong verbal battle and say things that have been echoing in our heads for years.  Neither of us apologize.  After my brother helps move the Pearson to the new owner’s marina (just 250 yards as the crow flies) we paddle out to the bird guano covered Morgan.  3 hours of pressure washing the boat and only a little residue remains on the windows.

An ugly exterior is like bug spray for pirates

After pressure washing the thick layer of mold off the entire inside

We can finally breath on the boat!

The bulkheads are painted David Bowie Blue and Steve scores memory foam being discarded from a KW strip club

—

Been busy.  In the last 4 weeks, we have pressure washed the boat inside and out, replaced the transmission linkage, refitted the windows, sealed the deck, installed various deck hardware, added a biminy, added dinghy davits (big steel arms on the back), mounted a solar panel, rewired the boat to 12V DC, bought new batteries, painted the bulkheads, ran new halyards, destroyed the perfectly good front sail (my $1000 F-up), bought a new front sail, straightened the anchor, mounted the autopilot, corked the walls, stocked the boat with food and safety supplies, got charts of the Caribbean, and made cute little curtains.  Today we will get a new VHF radio, finish the freshwater plumbing, get the gas stove working, and organize the contents of the boat.

It’s hard not to get distracted.  There is an opportunity to buy a $25k boat for $5k.  There is a massive flotilla party (thousands of people find anything to float themselves and a cooler) at Higgs Beach and all the friends we’ve been neglecting to work day after day, week after week on the boat.  Almost there.  Gotta go buy stuff and work in the scorching sun another day to try to get her done.  Rent ran out the 19th and we are pro-rating day by day with no more sources of income.  Every day we spend $100 on parts, rent, and food and our savings are rapidly depleting.  It’s time to go.

—

This is weird way to spend your 20’s.  My brother, girlfriend Julie, and I are reading books and floating around on a sailboat, learning to say right-on.

7 Mile Bridge going south on the bus through the Keys

I want to sit around all day and write.   A lot has happened since the last post.  I’m working at Island Dogs solely, changed homes twice, have an out of control, complicated life full of events and tasks that I have no genuine interest in undertaking, and am leaving in 2 weeks to go south.  I gave into another opportunity and at the moment have much respect for those who can say ‘no’ and keep their lives simple and linear.

The water of our marina

I’m unfocused, constantly interrupting myself with curious googles and how to’s (right now reading a facebook zen quote, airline tickets, and the difference between a latte and a cappuccino.  Shortly, I will leave Dunkin’ Donuts and go back to the new boat searching completion of tasks deemed absolutely necessary to take the boat south.  These are really unnecessary comforts, since the boat is already capable of movement and habitation.  Truthfully, any obstacles encountered underway will be negotiated, simply because they must.  My desire to take it easy is overpowered by my instinctive sense of duty to prepare to the highest degree given the time to do so.  This means searching for anything to do which will make life a little easier while we are sailing, even if we don’t really need it.  It’s too bad I am currently living this way.  Living with this self-shackling demeanor makes life no different if you are in a cubicle in Detroit or riding a zip-line through the jungle canopies of Cambodia.

I wrote on my inner forearm in size 48 font, “It’s not life and death”.  This is my attempt to keep the aerial view of my present situation.

—

Tick tock.  11:42, 11:43.  The rubberband under my diaphragm is stretching, telling my mind that I am running out of time.  I have the day off.  It’s Saturday and the sky looks magnificent.  I must be late for something.  There’s so much to do.  Such an OPPORTUNITY to get stuff done.  If I don’t get something done, will the continent suddenly sink and introduce the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?

So here is the present situation:  Planning to sail south with Steve, Julie (my lady friend), and possibly Kris (dude I used to work with at Vitos), with possible destinations on the gulf coast of Mexico and further to the Bay Islands in Honduras.  From there I could stay on the 35’ Morgan sailboat or jump off and hit the backpacker trails (busses and maybe a bike purchase) and allow Julie to discover how simple and satisfying the world within worlds of hostel living is.

Big A approves on the pre-renovated Pearson

—

The past 5 months have had lots of ups, not too many downs, as always is true, but not apparent,  My spoiled tropically flooded eyes were somewhat greyed to the winter flowers of Key West after passing violent violets and other intense floral spectra for a hundred days in Central America.  That was then.  My eyes have adjusted and this is the wettest season in KW for 140 years.  There are Flamboyant trees on every street showering the streets and sky with mammoth explosions of orange trumpets.  The palms range from fire hydrant height to skinny sky scrapers like in Malibu.  Some have trunks as big around as a smart car and the royal palms give the fullness vista of the wall to wall skyscraper density on midtown Manhattan when looking from Hoboken across the Hudson.

Flamboyant Trees are unreal.

No photo adjustments.

—

Typical buildings downtown

The chickens.  My god, the chickens.  I cautiously circumspect whether it is good use of time to get into this discussion.  I love the chickens in Key West.  Along with my favorite coffee shop and cruising around the back streets on two wheels, these little poofs of feathery frolicky are one of top echelon in my personal favorite KW qualities.  The descendants of fighting cocks in the keys before it was outlawed, they maintain the pure Spartan bloodline and it is displayed in their sound aesthetics.  Take the top 100 paintings of a rooster on top of a red barn.  Magnify and isolate the bird and reduce the collection to the best 10.  These are the chickens that are seen plucking around gas pumps, hauling ass across streets both busy and vacant, and sometimes creating death implying colluseum spectacles on sidewalks downtown.

—

My eyes keep checking the clock.  Time to go to the boat and put in some hours.  I added the note on my arm, “More than 4 is not efficient”  It shouldn’t take more than two hours per task anyway.

—

A slow motion glimmering katana silently gliding, end over end, through the air of a candle lit alley way under the starry black air, above the water covered cobblestone in the downtown backstreets of a nearly ancient south European city.  This is what Steve looked like taking the kayak for a midnight paddle out of our marina, one island up from Key West.  It’s a little quieter on Stock Island, and even though it is often called Rock Island for all the crackheads and hookers, I kind of like it.  I don’t mind the Conchs either.  They actually succeeded in declaring war with the United States back in the 80’s.

Key West is a very welcoming community.  I really like New York, but the one-upmanship gets old.  You have to live there for 10 years to be “a New Yorker.”  The first day in Key West, people talk to you like they’ve known you since elementary school.  If you tell them which part of Key West you live on, they assume you are transient.  If you tell them you live on Stock Island, they assume you are a Conch.

Being a bum is acceptable. Having a white collar job is frowned upon.

—

It is true, although we rarely realize it, that we are living the life.  Julie is driving us to FIVE GUYS and telling us how fast paced and overwhelming Ft. Lauderdale is, having just come back from a massage licensing seminar.  She says how much she likes the 2-lane roads and slow, simple traffic.  When you stay on an island for months at a time, all you hear about is how it’s all going downhill and about the glory days.  The detail left unmentioned is that all other places are also relatively evolving so that the ratio of rat-race to relaxed pace stays fairly constant.

The wavelength has gotten long these days between the productivity analysis and discoveries of the magic world we get to walk around in.  It really is time to go. I still drift off and stare at high up palm fronds, cutting like scissors out of the construction paper blue sky, between filling up water glasses on the front porch of Island Dogs.  I never really had a bad day at work.  My feet hurt a lot and I have been mildly fatigued, but I always appreciated spending time there.  Waiting tables at what I consider the coolest bar in Key West has to be in my top 3 jobs ever.  That’s about a 20 strong list these days.  Cool managers, everyone is professional, and you are expected to party like a rock star on a regular basis. It’s not like the usual wait staff that is working through college or waiting to graduate highschool.   More like a cruise ship staff.  Anyway, I didn’t party too much here, so me being a bad waiter, was overcome by uncommon diligence and work ethic.  I was told that I was a “badass waiter” a couple of times and made good money, so I know I improved.  These kinds of multi-tasking, multi-interfacing, sometimes multi-lingual, pressure-dissipating jobs are very rewarding and rarely praised.  I got to laugh at the awkward things I would say to my strange, foreign guests and also feel that warm and fuzzy pride when I successfully diffused an awkward situation.  Great practice directing conversation.  In the busy season, I made almost as much as I did in engineering.  Key West is a battleground between two small armies: the locals and the tourists.  You can screw up everything with a customer and each member of the organization has your back.  Then they will talk badly about the customer you just pissed off to make you feel better about your mistake.  It’s great!  So I take my time, the best I can.  Occasionally, when it’s completely packed and I have literally 14 tables to myself, one of my nerve-racked tourists tells me they have a trolley to catch in 15 minutes, then spend 5 minutes asking me to explain every soup, salad dressing, drink, menu special, and market price, AND THEN ask how long it’s going to take to cook their well done pizza, I just stare off, watch a painted bicycle ride by, shuffle condiments around at the host stand, then look the customer in the eye and say, “That is the single longest cook time on the menu.  Maybe a half hour.  I’ll give you a minute to figure out what you want.”  And then walk away before they have a chance to ask another stupid question.

That’s how some businesses have to operate down here.  I didn’t understand on training day when the server I was shadowing told me he doesn’t mention promotions or even happy hour to the guests.  Try explaining happy hour to Chinese tourists who don’t have the English vocabulary to tell you which kind of beer they want.  It costs the restaurant money to spend time on trouble tables.  If they ask to try a blueberry ale sample, I let them sit there for 5 minutes.  Usually they are ready to order by then.  Sometimes they get mad and leave before I get the drinks to them.  Then I sigh in relief and sell their drinks to guests who ask fewer questions.  I know, I sound like a jerk, but anyone that has worked in a heavy tourist district knows what I’m talking about.

I realized why we have taste buds.  Might be common knowledge or sense, but I never really thought about it.  The 5 taste sensations we have are sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami (the last, ‘savory’ one was discovered around the turn of the 20^th century, but only received global recognition around 1985).  If you get “the shakes”, your blood sugar is low.  Sodium is used for muscle contractions.  Your tongue tells you what your body wants.  Whether we listen is up to us.

People ask me if I’m afraid of pirates or getting my head chopped off in Mexico or mugged in Guatemala, but my biggest fear is being uncomfortable.  I am very afraid of being temporarily stuck in a situation that I can’t get out of.  Like claustrophobia of the will.  I have pushed myself through quite a few projects and crunch-times.  When I like what I’m doing, it’s pure euphoria.  When I’m trying to finish something that my heart isn’t into, it feels like I am wasting my time and hurting myself.  The boat scares me because of the commitment it requires.  There is no absolute freedom, in my opinion, with regard to the boat.  You either don’t have one, or one has you.

This thought led me to a conclusion of why people don’t travel.  The fear of danger is nothing compared to the fear of discomfort.  Our most active instinct is making life easier.  That’s all we do.  We buy stuff when an advertisement uses logic to convince us that our life will be easier if we have the product.  Done.  It’s that simple.  Traveling means moving ourselves and stuff.  That requires work.  We have to find new resources.  This is the opposite of being lazy.  The weird thing that happens when you start traveling is what keeps me addicted.  Something wakes up in my brain.  Something that stays partially dormant when I’m settled.  I’ve tried to identify this phenomenon.  All I know is it’s there when I’m moving and fades the longer I stay still.

Places seem the most beautiful when you are leaving