Blunders That Made Me A Better Sailor
From drifting anchorless overnight to dragging toward a buddy boat at 1 a.m., here are the blunders that made me better at sailing.
Category: Published Stories
Sage Wisdom | National Wildlife Magazine, Fall 2025
Saving the Sagebrush Biome Scientists say it’s time to flip the script to conserve what’s left of the shrinking sagebrush biome FROM ATOP A RISE IN SOUTHWEST MONTANA, silver-colored sagebrush rolls away in every direction. Pronghorn and elk graze on bunchgrasses, while yarrow and paintbrush peek above the bushes. Cold, clear creeks wind through the steppe, forming […]
In Search of Mantas in Wild Polynesia | SAIL Magazine, Oct. 2025
One family treks off the beaten path, on the lookout for some truly special encounters with nature. My 10-year-old son spotted it first as we snorkeled in Taha’a’s sunset-lit lagoon. I saw Talon dive abruptly, yellow fins flashing, before noticing the creature gliding below us with its enormous half-moon mouth […]
Burning Man Tips For Beginners | Forbes, Sep. 2025
How To Survive Your First Trip To Black Rock City By Brianna Randall Last week my husband and I pedaled our rusty bikes into the center of Burning Man’s Black Rock City, a temporary, intentional gathering of 80,000 people in the middle of Nevada’s desert. It felt like entering another […]
Women Leading Polynesian Wayfinding | SAIL, Sep. 2025
Polynesian women are practicing the ancient art of traditional navigation and inspiring seafaring communities around the globe to do the same. By Brianna Randall, published in SAIL Magazine On a recent voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii, Ka’iulani Murphy was starting to get nervous. She was nearing the end of the […]
Crossing Paths and Oceans | SAIL, Aug. 2025
A Sailor’s Reunion Before the Race to Alaska By Brianna Randall, published in SAIL magazine The brothers came to our hotel after dinner, the summer sun still shining bright above Victoria, British Columbia. They were men now, though I could see the echoes of the boys they were below the […]
Lanterns & Lucky Breaks | Cruising World, Aug. 2025
Sailing Baja: Second Chances in the Sea of Cortez By Brianna Randall The last time my husband and I met friends to sail out of La Paz, Mexico, all hell broke loose. A decade ago, Rob and I arrived in Baja with one giant backpack each, ready to hitchhike across […]
Bora Bora Too Busy? Explore Friendly Rurutu In French Polynesia | Forbes, July 2025
Hitchhiking Around Paradise In Rurutu Beneath a grapefruit tree on the road that rings the Polynesian island of Rurutu, my six-year-old daughter stuck out her thumb. The first car, a Mini-Cooper, stopped and the driver greeted us in Tahitian. “Ia orana! My name is Tom. Where would you like to […]
50 years after ‘Jaws,’ sharks face their own terror | Science News, June 2025
Humans have driven sharks to the brink of extinction, but it’s not too late to save them.
How did this bull shark swim a record-breaking 4,000 miles? | National Geographic, May 2025
By Brianna Randall, published in National Geographic. Photo by Ryan Daly. When Turawa Hakeem caught a bull shark near Lagos, Nigeria last summer, the Ghanaian captain had no idea his crew was reeling a record winner onto his wooden fishing boat. The eight-foot-long female had made an epic journey of at […]
Swimming with orcas is ‘out of control’ | The Guardian, May 2025
Can new rules keep tourists and whales safe in Baja, Mexico? By Brianna Randall, published May 27, 2025 in The Guardian. Photo by Andrea Izzotti/Alamy. Just after sunrise in the small village of La Ventana in Baja California Sur, the beach is bustling with wetsuit-clad tourists. They climb into Mexican […]
Liquid Courage | Cruising World, April 2025
Staring Down Sharks in the South Pacific In the heart of the Tuamotus, I jumped into shark-infested waters—and found awe, peace and the power to face my deepest fear. The outgoing tide shot us through the narrow pass at 10 knots, spitting our C&C 43 into the beatific blue of […]
Hitch-Sailing: A Ticket to Cruising Paradise? | Cruising World, Mar. 2025
Hitchhiking the high seas of the Pacific as volunteer crew is an adventurous and inexpensive way to see the world. We sailed into the Kingdom of Tonga at dawn after five days at sea. The verdant shores looked like broccoli tops through the wet haze. Huddled under my rain jacket, […]
Swim With Sharks In Rangiroa | Forbes, Feb 2025
The largest atoll in French Polynesia, Rangiroa is a laid-back island paradise full of underwater wonders Our family spent three weeks exploring Rangiroa this winter, an island 200 miles northeast of Tahiti. We snorkeled with sharks, dove with dolphins, and combed deserted shorelines for shells and sea glass. It was […]
Good news: We didn’t die. | Cruising World, Dec 2024
Spinnakers, Sweat, and Survival: Three women embrace chaos and camaraderie on a 750-mile wilderness race to Alaska. By Brianna Randall, published in Cruising World Magazine I held my breath as I pulled up the sock to unfurl our spinnaker in Haro Strait. Of the five headsails we’d brought aboard our […]
How orcas hunt the world’s largest fish | Nat Geo, Nov 2024
Scientists finally know the clever tricks orca use to hunt whale sharks New, unprecedented images reveal how orca take down the largest species of fish on Earth. For the first time, scientists have captured video evidence of orcas cooperatively hunting whale sharks, the largest species of fish on Earth. This graphic footage […]
To Save Whales From Ship Strikes, Listen Closely | Nov. 2024
Ships tune in to underwater sounds, using acoustics technology to protect vulnerable marine giants. By Brianna Randall, published in Reasons To Be Cheerful On a gray morning this past March, a half-dozen scientists scanned the sea while bobbing offshore of Chile’s Atacama Desert. When an enormous whale surfaced, their small […]
Sea Angels and Devils | The Guardian, Nov. 2024
Could plankton unlock the secrets of human biology? Scientists use new technology to sequence the DNA of microscopic ocean creatures for the first time By Brianna Randall Off the west coast of Greenland, a 17-metre (56ft) aluminium sailing boat creeps through a narrow, rocky fjord in the Arctic twilight. The research […]
Northern Exposure | Cruising World, Oct 2024
Sailing Montana’s Flathead Lake After we left our catamaran in the Bahamas, I had to find my sailing fix closer to home. By Brianna Randall Tiller between my legs, I hold the finicky jib sheet in one hand and my sparkling water in the other. Sueños picks up speed like a horse […]
Three Women in a Boat | The Guardian, Aug 2024
How girl (and pedal) power helped us finish a 750-mile race to Alaska A trio of mothers in their mid-40s were among more than 100 intrepid sailors in a motley armada sailing the unpredictable and spectacular Inside Passage in the Pacific Northwest. By Brianna Randall in the Pacific Ocean As we […]
Dragonflies can reveal mercury contamination | Nat Geo, July 2024
The insect world’s most successful hunters show how the toxic metal moves through our environment—and how we can reduce our exposure. Dragonflies, those colorful bugs zooming around like mini-helicopters, are more than just a spectacular sight. These iridescent predators may also be the best way to detect where and how […]
A remote jungle lodge that only takes 20 guests | BBC Travel, July 2024
The Indigenous community-owned Chalalán Ecolodge offers family adventures and rare wildlife encounters in the Bolivian Amazon. We heard the snorts first, echoing like gunshots through the sauna-thick air. Then eight heads jack-in-the-boxed out of the lake near our dugout canoe. “Wow, giant otters!” whispered Gilder Macuapa, our guide at Chalalán Ecolodge in […]
Reasons To Be Cheerful | June 2024
By Brianna Randall, published June 2024 in Reasons To Be Cheerful We stood on the rocky shore of the Mizque River in central Bolivia, binoculars trained on the towering cliff before us. The summer sun beat down as we scanned for birds. “There,” whispered my nine-year-old son. “A pair is […]
Saving Andean bears with honey | Science News, Apr. 2024
Ximena Velez-Liendo, a self-described “bear-ologist”, has found ways to help rural communities and bears coexist In 1998, at the age of 22, conservation biologist Ximena Velez-Liendo came face-to-face with South America’s largest carnivore on her first day of field research in Bolivia. Her life changed forever when she turned around […]
“Off The Charts” | The Guardian, Jan. 2024
How a Polynesian canoe inspired a renaissance in traditional seafaring A double-hulled Polynesian sailing canoe glides up to a busy dock in San Diego, California. Hōkūleʻa’s two short wooden masts are dwarfed by the historic schooner that escorted the boat into the harbour. Dozens of small outrigger canoes trail in its […]