It’s a luxury to be totally irresponsible. I’m not taking it for granted, either. For someone like me who was a workaholic and a (slight) control freak during my academic and professional careers, it’s totally novel to just sit back and do nothing for a change. Sure, I’ve always been […]
Imagine doing yoga without ever finding stillness in a pose. Imagine your downward dog is always walking, rocking, swaying to and fro. Imagine that your greatest accomplishment during practice is holding chair pose without doing an accidental somersault. Imagine going back to the beginning after you’d been advancing through a […]
And…we’re on another new boat! Are you dizzy yet, keeping up with our moves? We are. That’s why we plan to stay put for a bit, right here on Compass Rose(y). Why the parenthesis, you wonder? Because in many countries, especially British-related ones, no two boats can be registered with […]
We got this awesome email from Paul Parsons here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Paul replaced Rob at Trout Unlimited, and sent this great update on Rob’s old stomping grounds fixing streams in the Ninemile Valley just west of Missoula in Montana. We appreciate hearing the news, and […]
Rob’s writing a song. He sits on the bow, bent over the small nylon-string guitar we bought in Panama City, humming softly to himself: “Duh duh duh, dum dee dum dum, ba-daaaaaa.” I smile as he ends with a flourish. Rob’s only been playing guitar for two months, but the […]
I’ve come to peace with sharks. They still give me pause when I see them coming toward me underwater, and they definitely earn my cautious respect. But I’m over the hump on my fear factor. The turning point — besides the shark immersion at Kauehi pass — was scubadiving the […]
A lone sailboat speeds from the lagoon to the open ocean through a narrow pass in a remote island. Waves break on either side of this pass, crashing on pink-white sands as the sea floor rises abruptly from 2,000 feet deep to zero at the shore of this Pacific atoll. […]
I’ll tell you one thing about Polynesians: they can dance like nobody’s business. Luckily for us, July is the best time to watch them dance. Every island in French Polynesia celebrates heiva this month, which is a version of mini-Olympics here in paradise. Professionals and amateurs of all ages vie […]
Happy 4th of July, friends and family! First off, Tahiti says hello. She asked me to reach out palm fronds and rainbows, and blow wet sandy kisses toward you. It’s a cool volcanic island. Big. And way more crowded than we’re used to, after our month at sea and another […]
The blue-green waters surrounding French Polynesia just turned into a yellow brick road. Rob gets to be the Scarecrow, and I’m gonna try my hand at Dorothy. We’ve nominated a blacktip shark to be Toto, and the thousands of coral heads lurking just beneath the surface play the Wicked Witches […]
Ok. I take back everything I wrote about tough sailing passages. Was that me moaning over rough seas and flogging sails? And did I really write a tongue-in-cheek remix to the lyrics of Crosby Stills & Nash’s “Southern Cross?” (See below for the remix written about 3,000 miles into the […]
Ka-chook, ka-chook. Sshhhh. Sshhhh. Ka-chook, ka-chook. The sound of the paddleboard on the flat, calm surface of the water seems too loud in the so-still night air. I paddle farther from the dark sailboats anchored behind me, looking for more quiet. More alone. More space. More uninterrupted moonlight to glide […]
We’ll be writing more posts about our underwater adventures soon. Meanwhile, check out this video that Rob put together. The music is from a jam session in our Missoula living room this winter … thanks to Cassidy Randall and Ali Soloman for their talent!
Sorry for the long radio silence. Turns out that paradise doesn’t include internet. Plus, Rob and I have been a pretty distracted the past few weeks. Why? Because we’re in love. Giddy, giggly, bubbly blissful love. Not necessarily with each other, though our giddiness certainly overflows into more hugs and […]
Imagine your house. Now shrink it down to your living room and kitchen. That’s the size of the boat we lived on for 60-odd days with 7 people. Now take that space and shrink it down to 40 square feet. That’s the size of the space Rob and I shared […]
You might be asking yourself: is the title of this post an oxymoron? The answer is: usually. It depends upon a few things, like 1) the length of crossing, 2) the type of boat, and 3) the cleanliness habits of the sailor. Ours was one of the longest crossings you […]
Many people envision sailing as a romantic and relaxing hobby. I still do, too, even knowing from experience that the romance and relaxation account for about 10% of the actual time on a sailboat. It’s easier — and more fun — to talk about the sunsets and stars, or even […]
Today’s my birthday. 33 years old, just after our 33-day Pacific passage. I’m in paradise for my birthday, sailing to a tropical island to snorkel with sharks and gorging on mangoes (my favorite fruit) to celebrate. I feel blessed. I have only one wish for my birthday from readers: check […]
We have a new address here in French Polynesia. Instead of telling people to find us “on the light green ketch called Llyr,” we now give directions to the “dark blue sloop named Kayanos.” Last night we schlepped our shit over to Ben and Sarah’s 42-foot sailboat. Somehow our belongings […]
I know many of you who followed our voyage across the Pacific are secretly asking yourselves this very important question:how the hell did Bri and Rob keep from losing their minds during while bobbing around the ocean blue for a whole month? First off, don’t kid yourselves: we definitely lost […]
The last 33 days at sea seem lost in space. May evaporated like the spindrift from the waves we rode to the Marquesas. Where did those days go? What the hell did we do that whole time? Well, a lot of the same thing. Mark Twain summed up passage life […]
WE MADE IT! 33 days at sea. 52 days total on the boat. 4,178 miles of ocean. 2 full moons. 3.5 time zones. 1 proxy high school graduation ceremony. 25 pounds of rice. 3 minor sail repairs. 4 avian hitchhikers. 8 new constellations. 18 degree shift in water temperature. Dozens […]
Feeding 7 people for 40 days requires roughly 1.5 feet of grocery receipts per person. It also pencils out to about $6 per person per day. Pretty cheap, right? Especially if you totally ignore the thousands of dollars spent on other parts of sailing a boat across the largest ocean […]
The Steele-McCutchin family is awesome. Rob and I feel fortunate to have found such good people to spend a few months with, and such capable people to sail with across the largest ocean on the planet. They bought Llyr 4 years ago because they were ready for new expeditions. None […]
A gyrating merry-go-round, we teeter-totter across the sea. 60,000 pounds of steel turned tiny rubber duckie at the whim of wandering waves. The American flag whips in tatters, the stripes stripped into ragged ribbons. Persevering. Presiding. Present. Like the rest of us. Each day a repeat of the next or […]