Pangaea's at the dock... The Tanglewood Landlubber Life

2012-01-11T01:04:00.003-01:00

What a journey.
I've been spared.
Whether I believe in a guardian angel or not doesn't matter: an angel saved me from death.
My naivity would have killed me.
We bought a condo and I was in the attic.
The previous owner had left lots of stuff in the attic and I was getting the stuff out.
No one,
no one,
no one has ever told me:
you can't just walk anywhere in an attic.
One minute I was hovered over a box, the next second the floor/ceiling caved in under my weight and I was face down on the living room floor. All the weight taken by my jaw.
I've smashed four or more molars, we won't know for a month because my jaw was fractured in 2 places and needed to be wired shut.

I hadn't been 48 hours back from my fantastc three week trip to Austria.

I didn't mention the 8 stitches to my chin and that my front tooth went through my lower lip, bending it in so much as likely to need root canal.

I am in a peacful painful place. Gratitutde is pouring from every cell as I heal.
I love life with a deep intensity and greatfulness.
Love has flowed from every crevice of this great earth to help me heal.
I feel so much luck.
If I had fallen any other way on my head, you wouldn't want to know what state I would be in. Today, Facebook is Mine. It's my Face. It's my life. I could cry my beautiful 5 year old daughter to sleep in my arms in the kitchen tonight. I could make love to my incredible husband. Yes, I recommend everyone break their jaw if that's what it takes to feel this...
PRAISE be to LIFE!

Frank Schaeffer: Obama Will Triumph — So Will America

2011-09-07T18:50:00.000-01:00

Frank Schaeffer: Obama Will Triumph — So Will America

letter I received from an old copain

2011-01-24T22:12:00.002-01:00

Since I'm on FB, I've wanted to share a letter I received from an old boyfriend to whom I sent one of my good ol' newsletters:
Paris September 6, 1986
Erika, I'm sorry, but I'm very disappointed by this letter-writing system: I don't like being taken "en masse," with a letter which does not reflect a relationship between TWO PEOPLE.
I understand that this is an American methode, but I truly disapprove! (especially type-written)
How could you send a letter to several people, even though each person is so different in their complicity and in personality.
I send you kisses nonetheless, but I will only respond again if you write to me like a human being and non like a number. Kiss on the cheek, Laurent

So: here's my personal message to you, Laurent: Have we come a long way, baby?

2010-12-31T02:57:00.000-01:00

Jammin to Common Sense, summer 2009. Totally unchronological. So what.

Where are you, ARI? You'll be SORRY!

2010-07-02T03:01:00.000-01:00

Story of my son going missing... Published in the local paper, The South Gator.

Session One, Day 4 PM

2010-06-25T23:30:00.000-01:00

Session One, Day 4 PM

2010-06-25T23:29:00.001-01:00

Session One, Day 4 PM

2010-06-25T23:29:00.000-01:00

Session One, Day 4 PM

2010-06-25T23:28:00.000-01:00

Session One, Day 4 PM

2010-06-25T23:27:00.000-01:00

2010-05-29T02:34:00.009-01:00

During a Myakka State Park boat tour last February, a seasoned guide explained to us that the distance between the alligator's eyes and nostrils in inches is an estimate in feet to the alligator's total length.

Yesterday morning, Achim came up from his office to tell me that there was a large gator in our pond.

The week before, we had seen what we thought was a small gator, and thought little of it.

This time, however, we looked at what we could see of the head. It looked like there must be close to a foot between the wider and narrower ends of the trapezoid making up this reptilian face.

A little research online helped me to determine what to do:

"Generally, alligators may be considered a nuisance when they are at least four feet in length and pose a threat to people or their pets or property."

So in this case, this gator was double the minimum size. Did it pose a threat to us? Well, it was right at the edge of our property, hunting. I sat for over an hour, watching this floating head almost at my feet. We were having a kids bash on Sunday, and my three will be out of school in a week. Did I really want to wait until this giant gator 'posed a threat?'

The gator has been living in Sarasota for longer than we have. The gator was in his natural habitat. I struggled with the decision we had to make. We made it, and called.

The trapper came with what seemed to be two kids and maybe grandpa. With very few words and just a few minutes of quick, swift pulls, Sarasota Dundee had the lasso around the gator's neck. He yanked the beast out of the pond, threw a towel across the gator's eyes and had the snout wrapped up with electric tape.

It happened so quick I didn't have time to say, "wait! I change my mind! Let my children risk swimming with a 9 footer! I can't do this to such a majestic creature!" But it was too late; the trapper had his catch.

The only words he exchanged with me was the reply to why he didn't fight more: "this gator is tired."

He focused on the job of dragging the beast over the lawn to the front yard, where they heaved the wrapped up animal in the back of his white pickup and was gone.

I felt like our neighbors were booing and hissing. We were the perpetrators, the wildlife killers. These were neighbors who either had no small children or didn't live on the water. In fact, we are the only people on this body of water, as far as we can see, with children.

Can anyone understand why we needed to call 866-FWC-GATOR? Am I simply to tell my kids not to go near the water, period? It was a sad sight, but I learned that they have "harvested" 9,733 such gator in 2008 alone. That's 26 of these every day! From what I understand, gator are not an endangered species. And I promise, if I see a sweet little gator in my pond, I'll leave it alone. But after all is said and done, I feel relieved that I don't have to fear for life and limb every time I open the screen door to the backyard (this gator would have had the screen door for lunch.)

That's how I feel. How the gator and its family feels, I couldn't tell you.

I’ve been missing the good ol’ days.

2009-05-01T14:58:00.002-01:00

The strange thing is I know for a fact that I’m living the good ol’ days. How do I know that as a fact? Simple: every phase I’ve lived in my life, up until now, has been the good ol’ days. So why should that fact stop now?
I started digitizing my life textually around 1994; I have my old, handwritten diaries up until then. I started digitizing image-wise around 2003. This memory- catching, whether per diary, email, digital snapshot, has made available memories which all make me sentimental. I have no doubt in my mind that, ten years from now, I will think back on these days, with three small children, as another phase of the good ol’ days. This makes me feel good this May first morning.

Why am I stuck on Facebook all day these days?

2009-01-27T14:39:00.004-01:00

Perhaps because the past seems so glamorous, more so than the laundry, shopping list, dishes, homework shuffle I'm contending with now.

The phases of life have struck me so hard lately it's as if I'm not thoroughly feeling the warm sun on my skin or the sweetness of the sugar.

I think of my own mom. She didn't ask herself so many damn questions! Why is that? She just did. I shot out from between her legs and was there to contend with, not to ponder, test, probe, experiment analyze, fear, loathe and focus on.

Not that I focus on my kids; I obviously don't otherwise how the hell would I be writing this email to you? Someone says miserable people go through their lives feeling either guilt or resentment. If I focus on them: resentment. If I don't: guilt. hat a joke. And they become the brunt of it.

Take this morning for example. There's my 7 year old son, sitting at the counter eating his dry graham cracker cereal. He refuses to put milk in his cereal, never have, never will. He won't sit at the table with Maeva and Antonia because, he says, something stinks over there, and it's just "too complicated." Mom is rushing around the kitchen, making Maeva's lunch, worrying about whether Toni took her Omega 3s, thinking about how she has to walk the dog... and I look at his bare feet under the counter. No shoes on yet. And where's his backpack? I go to his room: A bear pit! I just cleaned it for him last week, that ungrateful little oinker! With pencil sharpenings all over the floor mixed in with clothes and books and blankets and other sludge. No, no backpack in there... there it is, in the living room bay window, his homework strewn all over the place. I start screaming at him! Ari! What is this! And your hair's not combed! And you didn't write in your reading log (the guy reads novels already but they make him write what book and how many minutes in this damn log) and look at your spelling choices! you didn't do them right! and and and! I keep going, I'm on a rollercoaster of Nag.
I hate you, mom.

Yes, I know, I am hateful at that moment. Resentment crashes up against guilt, creating waves of darkness, the darkness that at best is the fodder for sitcom conflicts and at worst the motive for Lizzie Borden. All the self help books, all the yoga, breathing exercises, affirmations, massage therapy, all the wisdom of the ages and knowledge of human behavior, nothing can stop me from wanting to throw both him and myself out that brand new casement bay window that cost us more than a ski vacation in Austria, including the flight.

But I hold back. I withdraw. I pack up Maeva's lunch, I get her dressed against all her protests. I bargain and bicker and bribe and manipulate and prepare until we are all in the minivan.

Then I drive those little mo'fo' to school. God I love em.

Saw Barack Obama Today in Dunedin (N of Clearwater, FL)

2008-09-24T23:51:00.003-01:00

THERE IS HOPE!!!

2008-09-21T22:25:00.004-01:00

Forwarded to me from my friend Margit Pirsch

Once upon a time in Alaska...check this out. I wanted to hug each and every woman there!
W o w! Look at these pictures of a great bunch of people, carrying home-made signs…

ASK YOUR TV STATIONS WHY WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE THE BIGGEST RALLY IN ALASKA ?

Enjoy….pass it on!

[The] Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage. Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee. It's probably an impressive list. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host. Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally "a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots," and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive. I'd been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies. Basically, in Anchorage, if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it's a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren't sent by Eddie Burke, we'll be doing good. A real statement will have been made. I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing "socialist baby-killing maggot" haters.

It's a good thing I wasn't tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody's trunk. When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park. I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn't honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn't happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn't be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you've been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin's rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery.
Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska , who know her best, have things to say.

First Posting in over a year...

2008-09-20T23:06:00.003-01:00

Where to start? Considering I used to consider myself a "writer," I now feel like I can barely walk around the block I'm so out of writing shape. I think this has to do with the constant guilt that I should be doing something else, like making dinner for the kids or putting them to bed or sorting the CDs from music from CD ROMS or cleaning off our desk or washing the floor or laundry or SOMETHING useful.

I'm not complaining, but I guess it's true that I never stop. I listen to lots of NPR lately and avoid the TV. I've tried revolutionizing my google startpage so that I don't get this whole partisan crap but I think the only way is to remove yourself completely from it all.

I've slowly been pulled into this Facebook thing. It's proved fun for reconnecting with old souls. But you can only do so much of that stuff.

2007-01-05T04:13:00.000-01:00

For those of you who never saw my "Swapshop Hawaii" film, you can now enjoy it online.

I've split it into 5 parts and is best viewed with high speed internet access.

The links to the film are as follows, in this order:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXE5FN7pko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l0fHNMn5I4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U79acKikzTs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_MpE6fdn_I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84rqIQBew7w

Enjoy the show, would love your comments!

Weihnachtsmarkt in Luebeck

2006-12-12T19:49:00.000-01:00

Thinking about starting back up in here is different than actually doing it. Here it is, a random day where nothing happened except I started back up this blog almost 2 years since my lsat posting. Gotta start somewhere.

SO I might as well start with the Weihnachtsmarkt in Luebeck. We had been warned that it would be packed, and packed it was. Amy, our dear Australian temporary Kindermaedschen and girlfriend reluctantly joined us on the Ferris wheel.

So here is Toni, Ari and Maeva being dragged around the town by foot, stroller, backpack, bus and train.

we made it!!!

2005-01-17T23:24:00.000-01:00

We are here in Charlotteville!

YAY!

More to come, just wanted to let y'all know!

love the pangaea crew

a day before landfall?

2005-01-17T21:51:00.000-01:00

The end of this passage approaches us in a flurry of numbers and sky. Fate has played a few bittersweet tricks on us in the last 48 hours weather wise. It goes from tropical hot with little puffs of wind to squally heavy rainfall with winds from all sides. On the one hand, Achim and Coby want to get there sooner than later, but reefing and unreefing isn't their idea of excellent recreation after 2 weeks of almost no sleep. So, for example, we just let out more genoa, and we can probably ride this new speed for a few hours, until the next squall comes in and they have to wrench themselves back out to trim...

The kids, meanwhile, are little go to sleep wake up playing pooping machines. I'm amazed at how they both find things to amuse themselves even in these rocky rolly, mommy ain't gonna help conditions. Toni came in a few minutes ago, for example, proudly showing off a sailboat she made out of pink, blue and yellow drinking straws and tape.

"Arts and Crafts," she announces. Legos fly around the cabins along with uncapped felt pens, naked Barbie and Ken dolls, handmade flowers with pipe cleaners. I've given up tidying around them, opting instead for watching the clock's time to go mixed in with a bad thriller and making B L and D for hungry men, less hungry sweet-toothed kids and a noshy mamma.

So, what has it been like? As you will see from the sound of our various updates, my experience aboard may take a different hue than that described by Coby... but we're in the same boat! A lot of time rolling back and forth. An amazement at the amount of vast expanses of water. A feeling of closeness for us with the kids. An excitement to be seeing land again, and not just any land... an enchanted one. We love Tobago and are thrilled to be reuniting with the people (the Daniels and keens-Dumas families in particular) and place (you name it, if it's on Tobago we miss it!)

We have our work cut out for us once we land... but no major deadlines! We hope to keep it that way, too. The first thing I hope to do once we throw the anchor overboard is to jump into the crystal clear waters of Charlotteville.

Today we will eat the last of our prized dorado. Never did catch another bite after that one, but one big one is better than none. I feel so good about everything we've accomplished. Even the bickering between Achim and myself, and with him being so tired believe me there's plenty, has surprisingly became less important and substantial rather than being magnified by our pending landfall. In the old days of cruising, our bumping of heads used to cloud the beauty and enjoyment of the whole experience. I guess my life feels fuller now, and I realize that this too, shall pass, and we won't remember the little moanings and groanings, just the big, swooping, sailing picture. At least that's what I hope.

In the last days, it's been fun to get emails from my parents and sisters. We are organizing a kind of family get together on Tobago for end of March beginning of April. it's great to hear them all into it and know that this is something special we have to look forward to. Not to mention Coby's wife Margit who should be arriving to be with us in about 2 weeks. Carnival begins on the 6th of February and we will be there for that, too!

So looking forward, looking backward, looking all around us even in the moment... it's been a wild ride, and it's no where near over yet! But at least THIS part of the passage is!

Achim says: I'm so grateful for how everything has worked so far. Best crew, best boat!

kisses from a waterlogged chickadee
175 miles to go
12 11 'N
57 38' W

Landfall, not poetry

2005-01-17T15:51:00.000-01:00

It's in sight.
We have to motor. No wind at all.
Almost there
What else to say? Birds now dot the horizon.
Kids are happy.
Caught a Gigantic dorado (called dolphin fish around here) and now the freezer is stuffed with fishmeat.
We hope our friends will make it out to Charlotteville to greet us.

All is well, healthy happy.

40 miles and counting, The Pangaea Crew!

Report from the Forepeak: Our Money's Worth

2005-01-16T21:53:00.000-01:00

Our Money's Worth

What would a sailing trip be without a few rough spots? Smooth sailing? What
fun would that be?

Last night's early watch (22:00 - 04:00) began like a honeymoon postcard -
quarter moon in a sky cloudless but for a few decorative cumulus, tops lit
pinky-orange tones by the last of the sun, off on the northern horizon,
stars by the fistful, calm sea and gentle following air. Didn't have to make
any adjustments to self-steering or sail all watch. In the last half hour,
though, I started having trouble seeing anything south of the boat. It felt
after a while that we were sailing along the edge of the world, so thorough
was the lack of anything at all off to port. Then everything astern started
following suit. By the time Achim came on at 04:00, it was pretty obvious
that we were being overhauled by a rather large, thick, dark, threatening -
if not actually evil - cloud. It was the great-grandfather of all the little
puffy Buffalo clouds (the Puffalo?) I had been chanting to on previous
nights to bring us a little wind and perhaps a shower or two. It appeared as
though the message might have been passed all the way up the line to the
home office, and the CEO him- or herself had come out to handle the order
personally.

The cloud swallowed us whole. It then proceeded to rain on our stately
parade. We weren't sure whether we should reef sails or not yet, the wind
remaining very light and seemingly unchanged in direction. This was probably
a cloud tactic to get us to relax our guard, which we did - somewhat. Rain
fell, gently at first. We battened down hatches and hung out on deck a while
to see what would happen next. We got wet and nothing much seemed to be
going on, so we went below. A word about the weather: Warm. Both wind and
rain. And soft and friendly. More cloud tactics.

I like to engage with the water, if it seems reasonably possible and not too
terribly uncomfortable to do so in whatever natural setting I find myself.
Often I chicken out, because of some failure of the comfort control or risk
management departments. But nearly as often I don't, and take the leap, into
lake, river, bay, ocean or creek. Here I was partly wet already, and
thinking "If you don't get out there and take advantage of this, you're
gonna wish you had." So I went outside to take a rain shower, stripped down
to my skivvies (kept those on so as not to shock the, what, fish?). Raised
arms to the sky and let the gentle rain rinse me. It wasn't quite
satisfying, though - not quite enough flow or volume to really feel washed.
Not to worry. Went back below decks, wind condition not having changed much,
to dry off. Achim went topside.

I was headed for bed when the hatch opened and Achim poked his head below,
and about seven gallons of driving rain came with him. "Coby," he asked,
"could you please come up and help reef?" Achim's a Horatio Hornblower type
skipper - always polite when giving orders, so that they sound more like
requesting cooperation, regardless of the situation. I went back on deck and
found all the fresh water in the world waiting for me. And the wind had
finally showed its colors, so that the fresh water component of the current
'natural setting' was moving mainly horizontally, from various directions.
In a fiftieth of the time it took earlier to become delicately dampened I
was soaked to the skin. Well, of course, this was admittedly an easier task
since I came on deck in only the aforementioned underwear and a flotation
jacket - but it wouldn't have mattered. Once over the initial shock at how
quickly the weather had gone from friendly to frenzied, I started to get, as
I am wont to do in these situations, giggly, followed by gleeful. It's a
weird reaction, but I enjoy it very much. I remind myself of Slim Pickens
riding the hydrogen bomb to glory at the very end of Dr. Strangelove.
YEEEEEE HAAAH!

We got mainsail double-reefed with no trouble. I stood at the mast afterward
coiling the main halyard and tidying up the reefing lines with the rain
pelting down, just grinning like a fool, when suddenly, with a lurch to
port, the mainsail poured about twenty gallons of fresh rainwater that had
been accumulating in its newly reefed folds onto my head. I cackled
gleefully. One of the Kodak moments. Another one would occur shortly. Achim
yelled from the cockpit "What's going on?" "Just playing with the water!"
says I. I found that the stuff tasted good. In fact, it would qualify,
without qualification, as the finest beverage I'd had to drink in - well, a
long time. I figured this filling and dumping phenomenon would probably
recur shortly, so I positioned myself strategically to benefit from the next
serving, with my mouth just under the place the last had issued from and
waited. Didn't have to wait long either, but the next round sluiced from a
couple folds lower, full onto my chest. My disappointed lips closed and I
looked down to see where the new source was, and as I did, the old one came
back on line, depositing its load on the top of my head. The scene was
straight out of early Loony Tunes. I heard an odd sound from the cockpit.
Our polite captain, it was, howling with mirth, wishing for a video camera.
I joined him, and we howled together into the gale, creating gales of
laughter that will be discovered, I'm sure, by future sailors who visit this
spot. The laughs will beget little chuckles that will land on their decks
and flop about, like flying fish.

We believe, in fact, that this storm is a resident of the area, not some
itinerant that blew through in the night. We are convinced of this because
the thing didn't appear on any of the half-dozen sources of weather news
that have served us amazingly well during all our travels so far. And
secondly, because it didn't seem to move at all, beyond the act of
enveloping us in its folds. After the initial blow, the wind started leading
us around by the nose. We were taken on a tour of all the dark
neighborhoods, which left us heading two knots per hour back the way we had
come. Suburbs. Bobbing around like the last apple in the tub at a large
Halloween Party, not enough wind to steer by, we took a break to dry off a
bit and wait for developments. I wound up passing out on my bunk (just
wanted to lie back for a second and shut my eyes), and woke to the sound of
our trusty friend the Iron Genny starting up. Achim had furled the jib, and
switched the main over to catch what turned out to be a fickle and useless
wind, and finally fired up the diesel determined to stay on course and get
out of this unsavory neighborhood. I fell back asleep - sounded like
everything was under control - and woke up three hours later with Erika
conveying the Captain's respects, and would I please join him on deck to set
the sails again? I did, we did, and are continuing on our course as I write
this. We looked back and saw, by the almost dark of the first light of 9:45
in the morning, the cloud we had been under, just sitting there, smirking,
waiting for the next hapless boat to come along. I suggested that the reason
we weren't aware of its presence was that we were looking at weather reports
instead of navigation charts. We have since checked and found no sign of the
thing, so I am taking this as an opportunity to warn everyone sailing the
Caribbean in the vicinity of 12Â°31'1N latitude by 56Â°46'8W longitude to
Beware! Copies of this will of course go to the appropriate government
agencies.

last update before landfall?

2005-01-16T18:19:00.000-01:00

I figure we are so close to land now I can show pictures of land again. SO this update is riddled with images of the canary Islands, the last land we've seen since a few weeks...

The end of this passage approaches us in a flurry of numbers and sky. Fate has played a few bittersweet tricks on us in the last 48 hours weather wise. It goes from tropical hot with little puffs of wind to squally heavy rainfall with winds from all sides. On the one hand, Achim and Coby want to get there sooner than later, but reefing and unreefing isn't their idea of excellent recreation after 2 weeks of almost no sleep. So, for example, we just let out more genoa, and we can probably ride this new speed for a few hours, until the next squall comes in and they have to wrench themselves back out to trim...

The kids, meanwhile, are little go to sleep wake up playing pooping machines. I'm amazed at how they both find things to amuse themselves even in these rocky rolly, mommy ain't gonna help conditions. Toni came in a few minutes ago, for example, proudly showing off a sailboat she made out of pink, blue and yellow drinking straws and tape.

"Arts and Crafts," she announces. Legos fly around the cabins along with uncapped felt pens, naked Barbie and Ken dolls, handmade flowers with pipe cleaners. I've given up tidying around them, opting instead for watching the clock's time to go mixed in with a bad thriller and making B L and D for hungry men, less hungry sweet-toothed kids and a noshy mamma.

So, what has it been like? As you will see from the sound of our various updates, my experience aboard may take a different hue than that described by Coby... but we're in the same boat! A lot of time rolling back and forth. An amazement at the amount of vast expanses of water. A feeling of closeness for us with the kids. An excitement to be seeing land again, and not just any land... an enchanted one. We love Tobago and are thrilled to be reuniting with the people (the Daniels and keens-Dumas families in particular) and place (you name it, if it's on Tobago we miss it!)

We have our work cut out for us once we land... but no major deadlines! We hope to keep it that way, too. The first thing I hope to do once we throw the anchor overboard is to jump into the crystal clear waters of Charlotteville.

Today we will eat the last of our prized dorado. Never did catch another bite after that one, but one big one is better than none. I feel so good about everything we've accomplished. Even the bickering between Achim and myself, and with him being so tired believe me there's plenty, has surprisingly became less important and substantial rather than being magnified by our pending landfall. In the old days of cruising, our bumping of heads used to cloud the beauty and enjoyment of the whole experience. I guess my life feels fuller now, and I realize that this too, shall pass, and we won't remember the little moanings and groanings, just the big, swooping, sailing picture. At least that's what I hope.

In the last days, it's been fun to get emails from my parents and sisters. We are organizing a kind of family get together on Tobago for end of March beginning of April. it's great to hear them all into it and know that this is something special we have to look forward to. Not to mention Coby's wife Margit who should be arriving to be with us in about 2 weeks. Carnival begins on the 6th of February and we will be there for that, too!

So looking forward, looking backward, looking all around us even in the moment... it's been a wild ride, and it's no where near over yet! But at least THIS part of the passage is!

Achim says: I'm so grateful for how everything has worked so far. Best crew, best boat!

kisses from a waterlogged chickadee

175 miles to go
12 11 'N
57 38' W

tired captain, wet bed

2005-01-15T09:45:00.000-01:00

we are surfing, flying, blasting through the lumpiest seas you can imagine. Well, that's not true, I am sure there are lumpier seas than this. But somehow a wave managed to fling itself onto the bed last night and the back cabin feels soaked. The kids just keep on going. I'm literally counting the hours now... three more days of this to go.

I'm uninspired to write much right now, might have something to do with barely being able to hold onto the keyboard and the boat flies around everywhere, and the kids interrupting me every few seconds. Toni has taken this dressing Ari up as a girl thing to an extreme. They now both insist he is in fact her sister. He only wants to wear dresses and princess crowns.

More to come when I feel more up for it,

13 10 ' N
52 56 ' W
473 miles to Tobago

Report from the forepeak - The Washing One-step & Sky Buffalo

2005-01-15T06:48:00.000-01:00

We passed the 1000-mile-to-go mark today, also the 45th meridian. The 50th
meridian of longitude marks the beginning of the Caribbean Sea. The weather
has been squally. We had, so I'm told, a heavy rain this morning between
08:00 and 10:00 while I was sleeping following my 2:00-8:00 watch. I was
sorry to have missed the chance to be on deck during a daylight rainstorm.
This weather - very warm to uncomfortably hot at around 99% humidity
whenever the sun is out - started to remind me of Pennsylvania and Delaware
in the summer, with a storm brewing. You just wanted it to start raining so
you could go out and play in it - making little dams and bridges over brand
new little rivers, squishing mud between your toes, feeling the fat drops
cooling your sticky, sweaty skin, watching little "people" pop up out of
puddles wherever a drop landed, smelling the deliciously charged freshwater
air, tasting it running into your mouth over your upper lip.

It occurred to me that I could hang up my laundry and let the rain wash and
rinse it for me, and then it'll be pre-hung so the sun can dry it. So I hung
up my stuff on the after deck, and lo - no rain all day. Even though there
was a steady supply of rain clouds, and I could tell that some of the
distant ones were dumping rain, all we got were a very few scattered
sprinkles, not even enough to make me put my book down, which I was reading
on deck in a deliberately provocative sort of way. Well, it ain't over yet.
I'm leaving that laundry right where it is, by golly.

That was yesterday, though. The rain finally came in the night, with
repeated heavy squalls making us shut all hatches and sleep in a warm, damp,
dark place, like mushroom spores. And the laundry, although it might have
benefited by a soak and some scrubbing in a soapy solution, smells fresh
and clean, and is folded and stowed. I wonder if there's a way to market
this? One-Step Washing. Hmm.

A couple days later (less than 500 miles to go!) - we've been traveling
west in the company of a migrating herd of rain clouds, like fluffy buffalo.
They seem mostly benign and uninterested. When they pass directly overhead
they each bring their own wind and we scramble to reef in the jib. The main
is already running triple-reefed, in case of a sudden strong blow, which
hasn't quite happened yet. We seem to be at the southern edge of the herd,
but we hear from other boats both farther north and farther east than us
that they've had 35 knot winds. Looks like this might be our escort into
Tobago. Our speed has been very good - we're averaging nearly 170 nautical
miles/day, made good to our destination. Check our course online at
http://www.intermar-ev.de/. The ship's call sign is AC6IH.

Have I mentioned that Pangaea performs like a thoroughbred? She's a real
lady downwind, even under self-steering. When we do our job well with sail
trim, and the sea is not too confused, we sometimes feel like we're riding a
big powerful animal that knows its territory intimately. Sometimes she feels
like a racehorse, sometimes like a train, sometimes like an elephant,
sometimes like a Porsche, flat out in a curve.

More to Come!
Coby

Report from the forepeak: Ari at the wheel. (or Art Therapy)

2005-01-14T20:45:00.000-01:00

Ari at the Wheel (or "Art Therapy")

We've been pushed increasingly southward, which meant our ability to avoid
the more tropical becalmed zones is being compromised. So we shifted sail
today to steer a more westerly course.

This we did in the afternoon after a very quiet morning watch in very light
wind and full cloud cover. I spent the morning on deck reading. Erika needed
to get onto one of the radio nets, so she dumped Ari and Toni into the
cockpit with me. "Well, there goes the neighborhood", I probably muttered
internally. But the kids (For anyone who doesn't know, Toni's 5 and Ari's her
3 year old little brother) were in a somewhat calm mood, and didn't mind it
when I went on reading. I think I only got called "poo-poo bottom" once or
twice before they busied themselves with the steering wheel.

The boat has a steering system that operates the tiller by a regular wheel
via a hydraulic pump and ram. When the wind vane self-steering is active, as
it is in our story, the hydraulic system is disengaged, allowing the nice,
big, shiny, stainless steel wheel to spin free - a dream toy for bilge
bunnies! So - all well for fifteen minutes or so - Ari steering on one side,
Toni on the other, Ari trying to tie the whistle on his flotation vest to
the spokes, Toni moving the wheel so he can't - but he hasn't figured out
why yet and Toni giggling at his silliness, and me reading my book, not
really paying any attention.

Suddenly Ari HOWLS. I look up, and there he's hanging by his left leg with
his foot stuck through the wheel jammed up against the wheel post. Toni,
looking a bit panicked, is trying to turn the wheel, perhaps trying to free
her little brother, but going in the wrong direction.

I go into parental time-warp (having raised a daughter of my own, I am
always to be a parent, apparently), that special place available to people
who are often called upon without notice to extricate small humans from
precarious places their fearlessness, curiosity and relative incompetence
have gotten them into. That place, whereby the granting of some temporary
cosmic special permit we are allowed to view an event spanning seconds, or
fractions thereof, as much longer moments, and at the same time to act with
a speed and efficiency that only seems possible with the normal rules of
physics at least bent severely, if not entirely suspended. Whatever. I had
Ari out of his latest fix before I could really register what had occurred.

He wasn't making a sound - yet. I held him, waiting for the siren to go off.
When he finally let loose, it was with a sobbing, yet clear and imperative
voice, saying "I gotta go DRAW!" Toni and I looked "huh?!" at each other. I
said "Ari, you gotta go draw?" He said "Yeah, I gotta go inside and DRAW!" I
said "OK, let's get you unhooked, then" (the kids are always clipped into
lifelines on deck, of course). I figured, wow - he really doesn't want to
deal with what just happened, I guess. So he and Toni went below and I went
back to my book. Ten minutes later little heads appeared in the hatch next
to me, and there was Ari, with a big grin, holding out the picture he had
just drawn. Very clear, in green marker was a big steering wheel, and Ari
stuck in it, with Toni and Coby watching. "Now I happy again!" said he.

under 600 did you say?

2005-01-14T05:00:00.000-01:00

Yup. We are cruising now, folks. The boat's innerds are as damp as a marathon runner's dolphin shorts. (For those of you who know what I'm talking about I'm reading a Tom Robbins novel so please excuse the simile runoff)

So I'll take you through the day, if I remember. First I must admit I allowed the men to take the entire night shift while I shifted around in the back cabin bed with only one squirmy boy. Toni abandoned us last night to the front because of a scuffle she had with Dad ("I will NEVER cuddle or sleep with either of you EVER again!" translates to "ahhh, more space for us tonight"). I schlepped myself to the galley and created granola out of muesli mixed in with some oil, honey and cinnamon over a flame. This stuff gets inhaled so I can't make too much of it.

I then gave it a break before I knew I must find the energy to create something special for our 3/4ths arrival. So I made ice cream, which turned out delicious but basically tasting like melting and refrozen icecream, which is better than no ice
cream at all.

I then proceeded to make hummus from chickpeas and tahini, which ended up garnishing our falafel and pita bread gorge this evening along with the last fresh tomatoes and chinese cabbage, which lasts much longer than lettuce. So food has been plentiful. With four more days to go, I figure we might keep it simple the last days, but I'm determined to keep the fresh stuff going to the end. We still have a melon, potatoes, a few lemons, onions garlic ginger and a few heads of cabbage. You do what you can with what ya got.

Winds are strong and steady from the east and the seas are rough. If you sit outside you can watch the breakers creep up on our stern like a gigantic hand ready to whack us down the street. The lack of sealife since the dorado has been palatable, although Antonia spotted an albatross today, my first seabird of the passage.

The kids still play like there's no tomorrow. I've been trying to stagger out surprise gifts to break up monotony, and then I cursed myself for having chosen fair weather toys. Today for example I broke out the dominoes. Neither of the kids had played with them before, but with the boat rocking and rolling like this it's hard to play with such things. I wish I had brought a library of read along cassettes. They love their Dr. Suess ABC cassette and book. What we've been doing is actually recording me reading them a story, and I have a whistle I blow every time I turn the page. So we are upping their repertoire of these read along cassettes that way.

Every day we have a wonderful talk with our friend Jerome, who will be awaiting us when we arrive in Tobago! It's so great to hear his voice and know he is where we'z gonna be soon! Over ten years ago, Jerome became a close friend when we burnt out the old Pangaea last time we were in Scarborough (the story can be found under www.pangaea.to/earlier, then click on Atlantic). We nicknamed him "the Inspector" because he would come down to the dock to see how our progress was coming along.

Right now we hope to land in Charlotteville, the Northeasternmost anchorage on Tobago. It'll be sooner than we all think!

XOXO Erika and the aboard Tribe

13 41' N
50 51' W

599 miles to go!

rocking and rolling picture show

2005-01-13T06:04:00.000-01:00

yes we're still out here with under 1100 miles to go.
so from my standpoint I have nothing extra special to report from out here today. cooked a gourmet chicken dinner. Set up a basketball hoop in the back cabin for the kids. Baked a chocolate cake with them. Let them watch some video. Retrimmed the sails. SO instead let's go back to the days of dry land... i will assume that these pictures are visible for you.

This is pretty much what we look like from the bow right now. You are looking at our inflatable which we resurrected from the garbage in Port St. Louis. Whoever abandoned it had tried to glue it together with the wrong kind of glue; we used the right stuff and now it's like new. Most other people's trash are our treasure.

Achim says he's surprised how little time we end up actually spend playing with the kids out here. We are either busy sleeping, fixing stuff, or just conserving our energy for the tasks at hand. The kids are so busy trying to burn calories on this 50 feet of boat. I can only read so many stories or do so many arts and crafts projects with them. is this what one would call "less quality time?" I figure being around each other 24/7 is always going to have its bad sides.

Here's Toni in her first pair of heels. She wore them until the first day of sailing, when she realized there isn't much of anything practical in such shoes. On the side you see our tree; I have a better pic of it somewhere, but stupidly not already uploaded...

Coby, able to lift princesses with a single hand... really he has been so much fun to have around with the kids. Every morning he wakes up to their greeting, "poopoo bottom! poopoo bottom!" They really love him and already look forward to meeting his Margit, whom they've heard so much about.

In a little bistro in Valverde (El Hierro) the kids ordered empanadas and juice. they share just about everything.

The kids walked to school everyday in La Graciosa. I never tired of watching them run down the dock.

So tomorrow we will come under 1000 miles to go. Piece of chocolate cake...

smooches,

Erika and her entourage
15 42' N
42 31' W
1092 miles to go
We have been hearing fun things about watching us move around at www.intermar-ev.de, look for AC6IH!
more about what's going on out here at www.pangaea.to click on "latest"

Triple digits is better than quads

2005-01-12T20:01:00.000-01:00

Now we are at the distance from our goal where most of the other sailboats who were crossing were as I began to listen to the trans-atlantic radio net's. "Here's Sea-Dancer, we have 948 miles to go to Antigua..." and there we were, blocked in El Restinga by roaring winds, knowing that we had 2,600 miles ahead of us!

But now I can be grateful that we left when we did, at least so far. Not a day of dead calm or serious storm has or likely will cross our path... of course never say never, but the count down really has begun, like they do before the launch a spaceship.

But nothing happens that fast out here, of course until emergency situations occur when suddenly everything is lightning fast. Today was a particularly slow day. it was a typical day of food, radio, straightening as much as my energy level will allow, bread baking, replenishing of stores like milk, juice and flour from bilge areas to accessible areas, reading books to the kids, Watching megawaves go by. We passed through a few serious rain showers and Pangaea hasn't been this clean since we left South of France. Goodbye all that Sahara gunk, hello a tropical heat baseline which accompanies all feelings in the air now.

It's brilliant not to be seasick anymore. I want to preach to all of those whimps like me out there who says, who me? Never on a boat! And let them know, I swear swear swear your body does in fact adjust. it's not that the movement doesn't frustrate me at times (like this afternoon when my entire chocolate cake fell in my lap and down onto the floor, between the cracks of the floorboards.) Nausea is virtually a thing of the past for me now. I still am tired and prefer laying down much of the time, but the sickness in the tummy feeling is thankfully gone. And I am quite a motion sensitive person, the kind who needs to either drive or sit in the front seat in a car.

We are back on the butterfly, with the mainsail jutted out on one side and the genoa poled out on the other. For whatever reason she's moving nicely, rocking back and forth most of the time and rarely falling into the crevices of the giant Atlantic rollers. And now the kids have finally keeled over, something I should try to do. Achim and Coby have been sharing the late night watches, letting me take over in the early morning. So with that, g'night.

14 30' N
45 15' W
928 miles to go

track us on www.intermar-ev.de
more to read and see at www.pangaea.to

Report from the forepeak - A Sailing Day (and midnight mischief)

2005-01-12T07:44:00.000-01:00

First, from Coby:

Achim said we were going to have a sailing day when he got up yesterday, and
he was right. A sailing day - you know, moving, striking and setting sails,
trimming sails, trying out different configurations, tying knots and other
sailorly activities - just for a change. We get used to the OTHER kind of
sailing too easily. The kind where you spend fifteen minutes thinking about
what or whether you want to eat or drink, another half hour contemplating
the clouds or deciding what music we want to listen to, or whether should
take a shower, or play the guitar and sing old folk songs, or change the
tackle on the fishing rig, read or write or play with the kids...

I had just gone on night watch this night, and was using my time
constructively, writing to Herb, my sponsor and an avid tracker of Pangaea's
doings (and don'tings). I had just finished a paragraph detailing how nicely
Pangaea feels on her new tack - we turned due west today under a new sail
configuration (wing & wing and dead downwind for the first time). We were
all very pleased how well she steered on this course, and how well the
self-steering worked. Immediately on finishing the last the last sentence of
the first paragraph to Herb, something made a loud "whump!" and the boat
heeled hard to starboard. I've had to leave the poor guy on tenterhooks 'til
now for news of what happened. I decided to post the tale to the website to
save on upload time. Here's the story:

Going on deck, I got a heavy jolt of adrenaline, when I saw the boom backed,
trying to push us around to the south. Just minutes before, I had written to
Herb that the course was 266, so I was perplexed as to why we were suddenly
trying to go round in circles. Fortunately, we had a preventer set, so the
boom didn't get to swing all the way round, doing we don't want to think too
hard about what, still, it's mighty unnerving to see the sails all filled
the wrong way and the boat coming around beam to the sea. A rogue wave
encountered in this vulnerable state could conceivably be enough to swamp,
or possibly even capsize the boat, giving everyone sleeping the wettest
dreams of their lives, if not a downright rude awakening.

Achim popped his head up from the after hatch (nicely designed and built by
himself to make it possible to stand night watch from bed), and assessed
what was clearly obvious by then - the fact that we had to disengage
self-steering and get her back on course. I held my breath while he loosened
the Aries' chain from the tiller (Pangy has hydraulic wheel-steering
operating the tiller during manual steering) and flipped the hydraulic back
online, and we brought her back around under sail.

After a few deep breaths we looked around for the culprit, which I surmised
was probably the self-steering up to its old tricks again - we hadn't clamped it
on course since setting the new sail configuration and I thought it might
have backed off enough to let us jibe. A little closer investigation
revealed the pendulum rudder of the self-steering system trailing, in a
lazy, semi-retired sort of way, behind the boat at the end of its safety
line. This is not quite a disaster on the same order of immediacy and with
the same potential for catastrophe as an impending jibe, but for us, the
notion of standing steering watches on deck, with no weather protection, for
the remainder of the 1700 miles/11 or 12 days or more left to sail, well it
was a sinking feeling, shall we say.

I steered while Achim fetched the broken piece back aboard for a look. Turns
out the pendulum rudder ( the part of the self-steering gear that applies
force to the tiller) had snapped off at its shear link. This is a piece
built to break in the event of a collision between the rudder and a foreign
object - tree trunk, packing crate, whale, etc. - so that the whole
steering gear is protected from being ripped off the back of the boat. And,
true seaman that he his, Achim had a spare! They've used this steering
system for years and never had this happen before, but Achim had, and acted
on, the feeling to find this piece, (which is a rarity, since this system is
out of production) while they were in the South of France last summer before
leaving to begin this trip.

So now we had our work cut out for us. The job was to remove the two halves
of the broken shear link from the upper and lower shaft sections. The link
is simply an eight inch long piece of thick aluminum pipe with bolt holes
drilled in it, and a groove around the middle deep enough to weaken the
piece at this point relative to the rest of the pipe. The link slips over
the upper and lower shaft sections and is attached with 10mm bolts.

It was obviously going to require some time, and some dicey operations to
get everything back together, we decided to shift the sail configuration. We
pulled another reef into the main, rolled in the big Genoa to about half
size, and dropped the #2 Genoa. We didn't want to have to worry about sails
if the wind came up, which it felt like it was doing.

Back in the cockpit, the lower section of the broken shear link was still
bolted to the lower rudder shaft, and came off easily enough. The upper link
was still in place on the upper rudder shaft section - on the steering gear,
about half a foot over the water (some of the time), hanging off the stern
of the boat about two feet. Retrieving this piece meant somebody (me in this
case) clipping on a safety harness and going for a bit of a stretch off the
swim platform to unbolt the thing, while Achim steered. The nut came off
easily enough, the bolt wouldn't budge. Had to get a cheater pipe on the
allen wrench to get it to turn, which it did, reluctantly. Got the bolt out
eventually, then found that the upper shear link piece was seized onto the
shaft. Not hammer, nor chisel, nor monster pliers, nor any word in the
sailor's lexicon would arouse the slightest wiggle. OK, then, the angle
grinder with a cutting disk, says Achim. In my ex-repair shop at home I
would already have been there, but using a 220V power tool inches away (most
of the time) from the water while dangling off the back of a boat in the
dark at 6.5 knots in a following sea - and carving up Achim's self-steering
with a heavy duty grinder in constant unpredictable motion - well it made me
nervous and I said so.

So Achim went at it, while I steered. He managed to cut a couple slots in
the shear link, but was unable, due to the position of the material, to
knock it loose.

It became clear we would need to disassemble the self-steering to the extent
necessary to remove the rudder pendulum assembly to work on it in the
cockpit. This, although none of us said it aloud, is a bit scary. Standing
on a moving platform in a following sea, removing very smooth, slippery,
non-replaceable parts (the shear link is the ONLY spare we have for the
Aries) over thousands of feet of water... ...you get the picture. With
neither of us mentioning the probability of old Murphy rising out
of his musty old crypt (he must be dead by now, right?) and laying the evil
eye on our operation, Achim did it, I steered. He got the pendulum on deck,
cut the slots deeper, knocked the broken piece off. We found the holes in
the spare part too small for our intended bolts and had to be redrilled.
With everything ready to go back together, we approached the last task -
putting the rudder back in place.
This we both though might be impossible without heaving to, due to the
pressure of water flowing past, pushing the rudder out of position, since
the thing had to line up fairly exactly with the hole it had to fit into.

We decided to slow the boat down as much as possible, and try without
heaving to, since the boat, hove to, would be bouncing around so much the
procedure might be just as hard to carry off. We struck the Genoa, and Achim
dragged the repaired pendulum rudder assembly astern. I was amazed when
about two minutes later I watched him climb back over the stern rail without
the rudder. The thing had given in without a fight, at the end. And the real
fun was in watching the self-steering carry right on with its job,
flawlessly, as though nothing had happened. This meant sleep was not far
off, after putting away tools, resetting the Genoa, rechecking everything
and cleaning the metal shavings, sawdust and grinding grit out of the
cockpit.

The foregoing operation took us from around 11:00 PM until 6:00 in the
morning. Erika, who had probably not had much more sleep than Achim or I,
valiantly took an early watch so we could get a little rest.

I woke at 10:00 to the smell of fried flying fish - which I wasn't quite
prepared for, but which made an interesting or d'oevre. I had thrown a
couple overboard during the night while steering. It's an interesting
phenomenon, hearing a thwop in the night as a thing falls out of the air
next to you, and is suddenly a fish flopping around there. For people who
don't live life on the sea, it's a novelty. I imagine it happening while
chatting with the guys of the 7AM Fairfax Fellowship at the cafe one
morning. Flop! A fish on the table. Certainly a topic for conversation!

More to come -

Coby

Now, From Erika:

We are racing along. The wind picked up and boy, if I thought we were in a washing machine before, I didn't know what I was talking about, especially now that we are on butterfly sails. Now we whack around on both sides. Whackiddy whack. Nowhere to hide, no "lee shore" so to speak. But this is how we will get where we want to get fastest.

I realize Coby is writing his own piece to culminate the last few go to sleep wake ups. As for me, I will focus on the FISH story.

Started out this morning when I discovered that flapping in the cockpit was in fact a relatively nicely sized flying fish which I decided to go ahead and fry. I shared all 3 bites or so with Coby and proceeded to defrost the chicken, which I thought could partake in the a halfway celebration.

We noticed earlier this morning that the lure had broken off, so Achim reeled it in. Try another one, I suggested, so he rigged up a pretty yellow one with a big hook and threw it over. Within 5 minutes we had a beautiful yellow dorado hanging and flying from it! We woke up Coby and got the kids outside... a fish! We finally caught one!

And such a beauty. From afar I wasn't sure if she would be enough for a full meal, but once we reeled it in closer I could see how weighty, meaty... we poured alcohol in its gills to stun it before we commenced the hacking away. Coby got out his knife sharpener and went straight to butchering. I plopped the head into some broth and threw some of the steaks into the freezer. I then chopped up several cups of the chewy flesh, squeezed 3 lemons onto it until white, then added onion, green pepper, coconut milk and fleur de sel. Insanely delicious! So we are pleased with our food situation once again.

I suggested throwing the lure back in, which Coby did. Within 5 minutes, the brother of the first was hanging on for dear life! As Coby was reeling her in, we were so excited and thought about the kind of fishy feasts we could be having for the next god knows how long. BUT, just before getting her on board, she bit through the lure and was home free! The one who got away...

Now what to do with the defrosted chicken??

Such worries.
more at www.pangaea.to/latest
follow us on an actual chart at www.intermar-ev.de

1260 miles to go

15 31' N
39 30' W

Report from the forepeak (Strangers in the Night)

2005-01-12T06:23:00.000-01:00

Strangers in the Night

1/10/05

I was just thinking, in the middle of the 10 to 2 watch last night, that Erika has
been the one to spot all the new, first time stuff during the crossing -
ships, flying fish - and thinking how childish of me, when what to my
wondering eye should appear but a light, off the port bow, bearing around
240. It was bobbing in and out of view over the horizon, occluded and
re-revealed by taller waves passing line of sight. It looked to have two
white lights, a higher and lower fore and aft arrangement typical of
freighters. During the course of my watch it appeared to move farther abeam
and appeared to be headed east or southeast. Visibility was sketchy, though,
and the ship so far off, that it was really difficult - no, impossible - to
tell which way she (the ship - that's old school sailor talk) was moving. I
tried binoculars and couldn't see any colored lights, but I didn't really
expect to. I noted the position and pointed it out to Achim, went off watch,
climbed into my bunk and drifted off to sleep. I was awakened by Erika
saying something about a ship being very close, Achim wanting me on deck,
that they probably weren't pirates this far on the ocean, etc.

Given that this mode of travel is commonly said to consist of long periods
of tedium interspersed with moments of sheer panic, I was beginning to feel
that we may have been shortchanged on the tedium, or we accidentally
acquired somebody else's share of the panic. Anyway, I got on my
boarder-repelling costume and reported for duty. It was pitch black on deck
and raining, but we certainly could see the ship Erika was talking about -
the same one I had spotted earlier, maybe a quarter mile away and looking
pretty much like on a collision course. At this point, one has to wonder
whether there's anyone on watch on that, whether they actually ARE pirates,
and so forth. I mean, out of the entire available area of the mid-Atlantic,
why would we wind up sharing such a small section of it, if both parties are
awake and paying attention?

To make things even more interesting, it turned out to be a sailboat,
apparently bound for New York if she maintained that heading, and with the
wrong lights showing, at that. She had on an anchor light (white at
mast-top) and some kind of deck light (white, on deck), which configuration
gives a pretty good impersonation of a freighter, and NO red or green
running lights that we could see. We had the dickens of a time figuring out
which way the bugger was gonna go, although it was clear we were crossing
paths. The tricky bit is deciding who's going to go in front of whom.
Normally, the boat in the starboard tack has the right of way, and so the
other boat will pull up and drop behind - but this fellow was changing
course in a rather annoying, not to mention frightening, way. Ultimately we
stepped on the brakes and let the other boat pass, which she did about 200
yards ahead of us.

Although the situation was a little dicey, there's something special about
meeting another sailboat out here. I mean, days go by with the occasional
flying fish the only sign of life at all - you get a taste of the
shipwrecked mariner's sense of solitude, and a certain longing, even if it's
very subliminal, for other life. I was thrilled watching this fellow
traveler pass us in the rainy middle of the night, bound for who knows
where, and somewhat wistful watching her sail on.

More to come...

Coby

quality - quantity - quackery

2005-01-10T03:50:00.000-01:00

Brace yourself because I'm probably gonna get a little philosophical today. It has to do with where we are, only 150 miles from our half-way point. Smack dab in the middle, sandwiched, between a rocking and a soft spot, neither here nor there, just over the hump, all downhill from here, etc. etc.

How many things in life do I do half-way? Probably too many, but still chances are, if I've made it 50 percent, I probably will continue the other 50. In this case, we KNOW we're 50 percent, unless we got blown off course or some other unspeakable tragedy should occur between now and then. What a thought; should I expire tomorrow for some reason, the halfway point of my life would only be 19 years old. I say only, although that means I will have spent half my life as an official, non-teenager adult. Just as bad, there would be people twice as old as I was when I died who are still running marathons. Are these good parameters to determine whether I've reached the end- vs the middle?

These are quantitative reflections, something of a hot issue these days with Southeast Asia. Am I the only one who listens to the news the last 10 days and recognize that the primary horror of the situation has to do with numbers? I almost wish I knew of someone personally who was affected by the tsunami; if six degrees of separation really does exist between all of us, I probably do know someone, but just don't know it yet. That so many have perished and so many others are in danger is what makes the situation so... noteworthy. Important. (Incidentally, the word important has different meaning in French, implying bigger, having more import. An important city in French necessarily means a bigger city.)

And yet we know the importance of the death of JFK, of John Lennon, of our dog Frisky. Turning towards these more qualitative reflections, we can liken them to our speediest days out here, or the day we catch our first fish, which at this point will probably be never.

So, quality vs quantity or a combination of both? Which one rings truer to my heart?

My heart says quality. Mass tragedies such as 9-11, World War Two, the Tsunami... they are quantitatively mind boggling, but touch the heart mostly when there is personal connection involved, a family, a country, a people, a loved one, myself.

Even the reflection upon being almost 50% there (AHH! Still way over 1000 miles to go!) only has meaning because we WANT to get there. If qualitatively I were extremely comfortable bobbing around out here forever with a lifetime supply of water nutella and sirloin steaks, I might not care whether I was half way there and might even change course so I can just sail around out here AD NAUSEUM (no pun intended).

Another case in point: two children. I am one of three, Achim is one of three, so why am I convinced that less (two) is more? I am presently boggled by even the concept of a third. This morning I slept with a child in each arm, which felt great.

I know, I know, you adapt, you make due, when that third one comes. this is what would happen:

In case you can't see that image, it's Toni playing mama.

By the way, they are adapting in Southeast Asia right now, too.

So quantity doesn't strike me until it becomes so massive it's unbelievable (my mom has a friend who was one of 18 kids.). For example, infinity is a good example of a noteworthy quantity concept. Anything less is just numbers, days, miles to go, ashes to ashes...

SO it's not all the millions of gallons of water that have already passed under our keel and all around us. It's the few drops that somehow are leaking through almost every one of our vertical hatches that get to me. Another example of personal experience changing the quantity into quality: it's CRAPPY water! It's driving me crazy! It's ruining my towels, our stores, molding my mattresses!

In the absence of lightwind sails, we have Arthur's old genoa (picked freshly out of the garbage) which we set on the inner forestay with piston hooks. The genoa is boomed out with a spinnaker pole which is too big, but it seems to be working. Physical manifestation of this new sail config: better angle to Tobago (we were starting to veer too far south) and no longer leaning to one side. Achim and Coby insisted we would be more uncomfortable sailing butterfly like this, but I knew differently from our last Atlantic crossing. Pangaea takes to butterfly like well, a fly to you know what. The boat is stable enough for the kids to do "arts and crafts" today; we actually did a "project," making ducks out of cardboard and paper that say Do Not Disturb. Wasn't entirely my idea, came out of a craft book. But now they are getting ambitious and should weather permit, tomorrow we will be building a castle out of a shoebox and toilet paper rolls.

From Out Here,
16'07" N
36'52" W
1423 miles to Tobago

More of course at www.pangaea.to, click on "latest."
You can also follow our progress on a visual basis at www.intermar-ev.de

COBY'S BAPTISM AND FLYING FISH

2005-01-07T20:29:00.000-01:00

OK, plotters, here we are at noon on the 5th of January:

POS: (Position) N21deg57' x W29deg00'
COG (course over ground): 245 deg
SOG (speed over ground): 6.5 KN
DTW (distance to waypoint - Tobago): 1934
WIND: E, 4-5
SEA: 2-3 METERS, MODERATE
SAILS: Main, double-reefed; Genoa, full
DMG (distance made good, 24 hours): 181
MGTW (made good to waypoint): 168

and here on the 6th:

POS: (Position) N21deg07' x W21deg21'
COG (course over ground): 245 deg
SOG (speed over ground): 7.0 KN
DTW (distance to waypoint - Tobago): 1779
WIND: E, 4-5
SEA: 2-2.5 METERS, MODERATE
SAILS: Main, double-reefed; Genoa, full
DMG (distance made good, 24 hours): 155

Our course has been bent south a bit by a bit of a creeping northerly
element in the wind, but this seems to have corrected itself, and we are
creeping back to our original great circle route. Fixed the creeping head
ring of the Aries self steering, meaning we have not had to make any further
manual corrections. The "repair" is extemporaneous - a cheap carpenter's
furniture clamp to keep the bugger from slipping - but it works. We keep
wanting to rig a jib boom for the Genny, but everytime we think about it too
hard, the wind picks up.

(This is an excerpt from a letter to my darling wifey, at present at play in
a pond of her own on the other hemisphere)

If we keep up our present speed (it could happen), we may be in Tobago
before the 20th. We crossed the 20th parallel today, which means we're
officially in the tropics! But we knew that already - the night air has been
softly warmish-cool for a couple nights now. I go on deck for night watches
with only shorts on. Today Erika saw the second ship we've seen in five
days. I saw the only bird we've seen - some kind of petrel, maybe, flying a
drunken course somewhere. You'd think a bird way out here must be going
somewhere, and that the most effective way to get there would be a straight
line - apparently this one had another agenda, or was coming home from a
really wild party. Around noon, we were startled and delighted when the
first bright flock of flying fish exploded out of the water just off to
starboard, gliding gleefully into the wind, twisting and turning and finally
slipping back under water, returning to their schools like good little fish.
We are likely to find some of them on deck in the morning - if so we'll
invite them to breakfast!

Also, I got baptized today, thought you should know. Dressed in fresh, clean
clothes, I was repairing the dock lines that got chewed up by The Grinder
(the wharf at La Restinga harbor), with my back to the sea, when I heard a
big "whump!" - I knew without having to look (not that I would have had time
to, or been able to do anything about it if I had), that I was about to have
a religious experience. Sure enough, in about .3 nanoseconds I was as wet,
cool and salty as it's possible to get without actually being a dill pickle.
I finished my rope work with all clothing dripping, and a smile on my face.
I have been officially blessed by the tropics. All praise to the civilized
impulses of the owners again for the shower, and lots of fresh water
storage! I was all fresh and desalinated a half hour later, my rinsed
clothes a-flappin' in the breeze.

All for now -

Coby

Not yet half way, but cheery anyways

2005-01-06T17:58:00.000-01:00

Perhaps the body, as it gets older, reflects an actual political body. The longer elements are in power, the more stodgy and inflexible they become to new ideas. Making peace with foreign elements becomes more difficult as notions of correctness and balance become deeply engrained. If so, this is certainly why the infamous diplomatic immunity I've been waiting for between my inner ear and my tummy has finally taken place. The all-reigning brain which has been fighting the presence state of bobbing-up-and-down-hood, finally gave up in its realization that it can't win, or if it tries to win, it will kill the community entirely, namely me. I thanked my inner ear for standing down and allowing the movement to takeover everything it's known to be true correct and in balance. In the mean time, when this occurs, muscular aches and fatigue don't necessarily just disappear, but they become more manageable, as happens during any physical activity. My body dancing with the movement as I go about my daily doings no longer is a constant fight and struggle as it is merely a physical challenge which becomes almost automatic, like a car having to face a steep uphill twisty road must put itself in first gear and brace for it.

Until this morning, all signs of outside life have been nil. Four days of water and sky and every combination thereof. it started with MY spotting the freighter on my 6am watch. Yes I've been blessed with the two only spottings of other vessels since we departed La Restinga harbor. There's a fantastic thrill seeing another boat in the same boat, if you will. Truly two ships passing in the night, the other vessel was maybe 10 times longer than us with that much crew as well, passing us heading for Cape Town or some other African port. With the crack of dawn came our first flying fish, usually a common visitor while ocean crossing but bringing us immense excitement and relief to behold any life at all out here. The kids clicked themselves in and screeched at them for most of the morning.

In the Galley

Having had no luck yet with our fishing lures, I broke open the Lox and Cream cheese for breakfast this morning and it was the closest thing we've had to a fresh catch. Maybe now knowing that there are living things in these here waters we will be more inspired to figure out what the hell we're doing wrong with our lures. Achim and I never claimed to be good fisherpeople.

If anyone has a good recipe for green and or red cabbage, please send it our way. It can't include any meat cuz we don't have any. Also, I want to bake a cake and brought absolutely no recipes with me. Does anyone out there have any good cake recipes? We should have everything to make either a chocolate or lemon cake. My coconut curried chicken must have been a success because none is left.

The Kids

Seasickness has not been an issue for one minute with these two during this passage. Holding on to themselves and the objects of interest have provided a challenge, but they seem to have understood right away that:
things are different out here and yet
things are exactly the same out here.

In other words, nothing has stopped them from playing tiddly winks, building train tracks, drawing cutting and stickering, and generally making a mess that us adults have to gawk at and eventually partake in their restowings.

Ari has taken to wearing dresses, especially since watching the Princess and the Pauper. He has nevertheless set himself on one particular blue dress of Toni's, insisting that blue is his favorite color and it suits him best. He runs around saying, "bless you, my child." They never eat the same thing nor at the same time: juice for ari, chocolate milk for toni, then it's chocolate milk for ari, tea for toni... peanut butter for ari, honey for toni... garbanzo beans for ari, chicken for toni. Not one thing except the typical cookies and sweets pass both their lips. It's double trouble.

Fighting boredom, an issue which many have asked how we contend with, has not in the least been an issue. Not for one single second. I pray for boredom. the closest we seem to come is exhaustion. If I have a minute to myself, I want to finish the article I'm writing on La Graciosa.

Coby is outside making splices. All was going well and quiet until I just heard a huge wave dump right onto him and soak the cockpit through. The dry, sparky sailor is now a salty wet noodle. Inside, I'm dry and comfy...
If you like to see our current position online: www.winlink.org and www.intermar-ev.de
should have a map showing AC6IH and our daily location...

We'd love to hear from you! Text only! sailing@pangaea.to or ac6ih@winlink.org, if you arent registered, which is what happens if we have already written to you from aboard, register yourself at www.winlink.org/accept

Back Cabin

2005-01-05T17:21:00.000-01:00

The constant sloshing speeding sound of water mass rages and thwaps against the metal hull, often slapping against our very low and unfortunately not completely waterproof hatches. Then, comes a loud pitch humming. Sometimes it's mild, almost undiscernible, and at other moments it's so loud we can't hear ourselves think; it screeches on one resonant soprano tone, vibrato included. The prop, Achim explains. I was convinced it was a flying saucer trying to land on our keel.

The pendulum, roller coaster, washing machine... you've heard all the comparisons. It's different to hear about them and experience them hour after hour, day after day. The rolling pitching and heeling is relentless. We've tried every position: feet below is like trying to rest on a pogo stick; head below is guaranteed to smash my spinal chord. Laying low and lateral into the movement works for awhile, but of course only one of us can be there, while the kids, squish and grind me into the wall.

The beds are a mix of well-meaning bedding, crumbs, books, toys, clothes, creams, water bottles. All gets shoved and wiped aside when a body wants the space, but some of it reinfiltrates the area. Why can't this stuff stay in its place? But I see I['m not the only one like this; even Coby, who prides himself on his neatness, organization and respect for Stuff, seems to sleep with the guitar, books, computer and other contraptions flying about the bed.

I attempt to make myself presentable by making sure my underwear are clean and my tshirt not too dirty. Ari is mostly naked all day, and toni is always well dressed.

Kid Stuff:
Cleaning out the side of Coby's bed, I found an Xmas present we'd forgotten to bring out for the kids during the holidays. They were excited to receive their vertical tic tac toe game and played with it for the ritual few minutes. In the meantime, I chucked the wrapping paper overboard, knowing it would biodegrade before a dolphin could get disappointed about there being no present in it. A while later, the kids put on their lifejackets and lifelines and we sat out in the cockpit, beholding the fields of waves. I noted that the wrapping paper indeed hadn't made it overboard, but was lurking on the edge of the netted stanchions. Ari witnessed me throw the paper overboard and was unconsolable. "WE have to turn around! We have to get the paper!" He screamed. No matter how much I told him that the paper was a goner, that we could never find it again, and that we wouldn't want to find it again, he kept insisting. "I wanna go back! get that paper!"

The Galley
When I first started sailing with Achim I had seem a book in German: "Die Bordkueche; Das Reiche Des Smuts." This means the galley; the cook's kingdom, but I thought it meant: The galley: the area of Crud (Schmutz). I really know why. We are only one-forth of the way there and I've already had to separate sludge from the edible. But quite a bit of the sludge was hanging over Coby's head in the forepeak. No wonder it was getting pungent up there.

While trying to cook pasta yesterday (I did eventually succeed), I left the water for 5 seconds on the cutting board instead of the gimballed stove, and I caught it in mid flight as it was heading for Ari's noggin. The water splashed all over him and his peanut butter sandwich, which immediately resembled a soggy sponge. It was the first bath Ari's gotten out here since we've taken off.

But tonight we will celebrate our .25 of the way with a curried chicken and potatos. Toni has been busy making flowers out of paper and pipe cleaners.

N 21.29' W 29.38' - 1893 NauticaL Miles to go

The Hanging Gardens of Barbylon

2005-01-04T21:37:00.000-01:00

Coby writes:

I am nearly growing accustomed to an anthropological phenomenon, which may be as peculiar to this vessel as certain birds to the Galapagos - an archetypical leaving of the young natives on this boat. The junior members of the tribe - the Bilge Bunnies, as they are sometimes known hereabouts -are extremely adept with ropes and knots, as might be expected given the environment. But their background in the West is undeniable, and so they apply their considerable dexterity in fashioning what seems to be an entirely new, well, it might be an art form (or perhaps it has a deeper, spiritual or religious significance), in an odd mix of media. I am reminded of the Blair Witch Trial, and the little hanging kewpies made of twigs so unnerving to the protagonists in the film. What I am specifically referring to are hanging Barbie dolls, found singly or in clusters, in various states of undress, often upside down. They may be tied to any convenient knob, pole, hatch handle or other string or line, such as the netting for the vegetables I share my space with. The knots used are sometimes slightly lacking in definition, but are surprisingly well thought out and effective, fashioned out of whichever string, cord or light rope is available to hand. Often another specie of doll or stuffed animal is tied into the group, possibly for contrast, or they may play a more significant role - we could only speculate. The occasional presence of the male Barbie is noted, although he seems to play no special role, nor assume any particular position of dominance.

You should be able to see a cropping of this hanging phenomenon next to me while I'm doing my very diligent watch...

Pangaea, 1.3.2005

2005-01-04T21:32:00.000-01:00

POS: (Position) 25deg 09.0N x 24deg 0.0W
COG (course over ground): 255 deg
SOG (speed over ground): 7.5KN
DTW (distance to waypoint - Tobago): 2249
WIND: ESE, FORCE 4-5
SEA: 2-3 METERS, MODERATE
SAILS: Main, double-reefed; Genoa, full
DMG (distance made good, 24 hours): 172

OK, folks, if you can plot this, you'll see that we're boogying along pretty
well, having come about 340 miles in the last two days on a double-reefed
main and a full-set genoa. At this moment, the wind has taken a bit of a
dump, and turned a bit north, now pretty much due east, leaving us running
closer to dead downwind than we like. Since the wind came down, the seas, of
course, have come up - leaving us wallowing more than we have since we left
La Restinga - or during any passage we've made so far.

The Aries windvane self-steering, though meant for a smaller vessel, works
very well, although it needs minor readjustment every half-hour or so. This
is easy enough - just a tug on one of the pawl lines, a click or two, and
she's good to go again. We're not quite sure why it needs to be adjusted -
we took the whole system apart and cleaned it, thinking there might have
been too much grease on the big ring gear that sets the head position, but
it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference, if any. We'll do some more
testing over the next couple days. This is the first chance I've had to see
vane self-steering up close in action. It's such an elegant thing!

We had a chafe problem with the port-side jib sheet which we fixed (turned
the sheet around and covered the anchor windlass with the Tinker inflatable
so the sheet doesn't get caught under the windlass brake handle). Now the
starboard-side sheet has started chafing against the sidestays, and just
about the time I saw that, I noticed that the port-side sheet has come
un-hitched from the genny, and lost its chafing gear into the bargain. Achim
wants to leave the whole mess until we have to jibe. I'm a little nervous
about losing the starboard sheet, but we're keeping the boat on a course
that should prevent any further serious chafe. Worst case is we'll have to
furl the jib (Harken roller furling) and deal with it at an inconvenient
moment. Achim's choices so far have erred on the side of safety, and his
judgment has proven good, so I'm not gonna fret about it. Otherwise the boat
inspires confidence and sails beautifully. And then there's the hot water...

The boat has been outfitted for long-term living aboard. Achim says they
wanted to have a comfortable apartment at sea, and with that in mind they
have managed to install some amenities that might raise the critical brow of
the more ascetic seadog. Such as: Erika has a breadmaker - and she's not
afraid to use it, either. I say this because it probably wouldn't have
occurred to anyone else on board that this might be possible. There is also
a washing machine and a dishwasher. These are mainly used when in port and
connected to shore power and water. And there is a shower - with full
standing headroom, and a water heater to keep it cozy in there. Water
heating is accomplished either by running the generator or the main engine
for an hour or so. The generator powers the 220V heating element in the
heater, the engine heats the water directly, since it's freshwater-cooled.

There are three sources of 220V power: The usual shore power, an inverter
and a diesel generator. The generator is mounted on deck, this decision
based on Achim's experience working on a commercial vessel which had its
generator in the engine room. You want your generator to be able to supply
power to pumps and things in the event your main engine goes offline for
some reason, and in this case there was a collision which resulted in
flooding the engine room, transforming both engine and generator into large
and rather expensive lumps of inert metal, neither of which could pump their
way out of a wet paper bag.

Erika and Achim are, in my humble opinion, heroes of the marginal, role
models for the edge dweller. I don't know the exact percentages, but guess
that a majority of the equipment on board was not brought home all new and
shiny and in the original box from the showroom at WestMarine. Combing the
seedy hair of dumpsters and junk yards, filtering the bright pixel-flow of
secondhand stuff through the sluicebox of E-Bay, bright nuggets of perfectly
good stuff have been discovered, or rediscovered, and enlisted into service.

OK - I'll sign off for now, otherwise it'll be tomorrow's old news you get.
More to come. You can reply directly to this note with questions or
comments, you can also check out the "live update" blog by going to
www.pangaea.to and clicking on the "latest" link. There you'll also find
pictures and reports of recent events.

Cheers!

Coby

we'z definitely CRUISING now!!

2005-01-03T07:13:00.000-01:00

Our first 24 hours is behind us, bringing us just that much closer to the Other Side. In those 24 hours we were faster than the fastest day we had with our first Pangaea, and that with a reefed main.

Every move is a big deal, but I'm not as much sick as I am tired. Lying around all day can be very exhausting. I have to find a dozen ways to lie down, head smushed against the wall or feet propping up the rest of the body. The only major complaint I get from the kiddoes are the lack of dolphins. Toni takes it as a personal insult that they haven't been coming around.

I started the day way gourmet: scrambled eggs with spinach onions garlic mushrooms and Swiss cheese. Afternoon brought upon us tabouli and tonight will be chili con carne. Preparations have paid off food wise.

Coby has become more and more of an asset on board in my eyes. Not only because he's great at everything he does, whether it's boat stuff or kid stuff or hanging out stuff, but because I'm beginning to trust that he's happy to be here with me/us.

Right now I don't regret having come along, but it's still so early in the passage!

Everything is still in it's high function mode: the motor churning, this time only to make electricity. the self steering doing it's thing. the radio sending and receiving well. no major seasickness, no massive leaks or rig problems. Spotted a freighter on the horizon, otherwise we've been all alone out here with nothing but a good forecast.

One special treat I've already indulged in, part of long passages, is allowing myself to read. You know, not just recipes and google headlines, but novels. I have to interrupt them all day with bathroom visits (not just mine) and watches and food and other things, but for the first time in ages I get chunks of TIME to read. And there's been no other time in my life I allow myself to do this.

We have a large back hatch over our bed. When the waves aren't too big, like right now, daddy puts Toni and Ari sitting with their legs dangling down towards the bed, and he holds on to their waists while they gaze out on the setting sun. I think about what it was like crossing the continental US with my mom and uncle in an old Chrysler. Are we there yet, mom? Can we stop at Stuckey's mom? I gotta go to the bathroom, mom... this one's a little different. Ari insisted that I set up his choochoo train tracks, which are now encircling the foot of the salon table. We aren't exactly all sitting down for meals there, anyhow. My strategy for keeping plates from falling on the floor: the kids eat on the floor. Well, not directly, but I put their plates there and they eat like kitty cats.

Toni says: I love you everybody!

2385 miles to Tobago
26' 6" N, 21' 41" W

No turning back now

2005-01-02T03:33:00.000-01:00

lt's 0245 local time and we took off about 14 hours ago or so. that's it; no turning back now. The kids have seemed to more than accept it; they finally were excited to take off. The propeller screeches when it reaches a particular RPM under our heads and the rudder sounds like it could have belonged to the tinman every time it scrapes one way or the other. Aries autopilot obediently keeps the Pangaea on her 7-8 knot course, always 1-3 knots over what the first Pangaea did.

Toni and Ari : along for the ride, suddenly uncomplicated and cuddly as they usually are the first days out.
Coby and Achim: the brave skippers, neither really able to sleep just yet, blown away by the flying through the water.
As for me, I ain't going nowhere except to roll over on one side or another or go to the bathroom. I know the weeks out here will bring me eventual comfort and immunity from the whacking around, but for right now it's a hold on nelly.

Moon sliver above, ESE blow staying above 20 knots, and fresh lentil soup with carrots and bratwurst hit the spot. I cooked enough to allow me to remain in this position for a few days.

2495 miles to Tobago. Cmon everybody, HERE WE GO!

newpics

2004-12-30T13:11:00.000-01:00

BR>

New photos... new places

2004-12-28T17:51:00.000-01:00

When it comes to photos, this blog is most likely going to be feast or famine. Either I have internet access and I will upload images like mad and let them do the talking. or my kilobytes will be limited to text text text. So allow these pics to speak for Gomera, El Hierro and the Pangaea crew minus me (I seem to be behind the camera lately.)

While we sit here in comfort...

2004-12-27T18:17:00.000-01:00

It´s hard to believe that our first Pangaea sailboat is presently in the Indian Ocean and barely made it through the tsunami! The story is on the website of the "new" owners, at www.pangaea.ch.

Makes us feel very grateful to be in a safe harbor. But not for long, we will probably head across on Thursday. xoxo

As Events Churn

2004-12-25T22:01:00.000-01:00

We sit here in the back cabin, Ari tucked up next to me wearing a doggie t-shirt and a set of purple beads. It's 10 at night and the kids are wide awake, and no wonder: they slept all day in a washing machine. It's roaring winds outside and yet here I am, writing, not sick, belly full of ripe avocado and homemade refried beans... how did that happen? Simple: we are not on open waters. But we indeed have left Gomera.
Our guardian angel Hannah waved us off from the breakwater during the last few minutes of calm waters. After that, sqalls along the coast had us bobbing about with three reefs and a sliver of a Genoa. Once we left the lee of Gomera's shore, the ocean was a stormy washing machine. That was the image that kept popping into my head: I was in the back cabin washing machine, a lumpy sweater with my two little socks. But really it was the guys upstairs who were getting the real wash over. It soon became clear that El Hierro, The southerly most island of the Canaries, was right in our path, and only the hardest core would have stayed out in such wooly conditions.

Entering and tying up at El Rastinga harbor was one of the hairiest maneuvers we've done in years, and made me ever so grateful to have this metal boat. The winds were fiercely howling as we figured out where we should go, and there was close to no space to maneuver about. Achim had us tie up the bumpers on the starboard side, but once we came crashing into the wall, it was like trying to cushion a freight train with a few pin cushions. The impact was loud as our bow roller and starboard side slammed the wall. But the damage was so minimal! I swear it would have crunched any other daintier vessel. Ari came up to the gangway, tears in his eyes. "Pangaea's hurt! We need a doctor, quick!" No matter how much I consoled him, he insisted that Pangaea had undergone an awful accident, and that he somehow would be thrown to the sharks.

Somehow, just knowing that we were going to a sheltered harbor made me stand the afternoon's banging about with more grace and less horror. But three hard one-day passages have done nothing for Ari and Toni's love for sailing, nor mine. "are we going to Oma's house?" Toni will ask every few minutes or hours. I too can't help but fantasize in each harbor we arrive about the airport, standby flights to somewhere far away from large expanses of rough water.

But I know that things can and will get better. I've said that, though, on each passage. First, the one leaving from Graciosa to Las Palmas, which was the worst of 'em. Then the overnighter to Gomera was better by only a sliver. And now this last passage. It's the WEATHER, stupid! I have to say to myself. It's been rough rough rough.

Coby and Achim have been eating up the challenge, though. They are a good sailing team. Plus Coby is great with the kids AND does dishes!

Now we are here, will we stay until Christmas? We'll leave you with that question, which only time will answer.

more pics of our trip...

2004-12-23T18:04:00.000-01:00

Please allow me to invite you to a link for more selected photos of La Graciosa, the kids, Achim and I and the boat! I most likely will not be using Shutterfly in the next while, but it would be a shame to have all these great photos go unseen without at least having a link to them!!

From El Hierro...

2004-12-23T17:50:00.000-01:00

I already wrote a live update yesterday and couldn´t send it, because we were in a harbor that blocked our signal. As soon as propagation improves, it will get out. So now that I am on land here, I might as well use the time at this internet cafe to describe the last while for whoever is reading. I guess that makes me a full fledged blogger.

I am in a small pueblo 15 km outside of La Rastinga, where the boat is. I hitchhiked here with a Dutch couple... I go where the internet is! And there ain´t none in that little marina.

Here is me with what looks like a hat... actually it´s a bread I baked in the breadmaker. Basically I put in too much yeast, so it bubbled over, but I caught it in time and gouged out the middle to cook in the oven, while letting the rest bake in the breadmaker. I should try to patent the idea of tophat bread.

I´m actually grateful that fate pushed us on land for a few more days. We can replenish the wonder bread and condensed milk, make last minute phone calls. And I got an exciting email from a dear friend in Paris who may want to work on a documentary with me... let´s face it, I know that my updates can´t possibly focus on anything but the Here and Now out there. Here, on land, I can write about other things than throwing up, setting sails, catching fish or whatever else is going on when surrounded by masses of water.

For one thing, I am inspired to write about La Graciosa, where we spent over three months. We have the necessary beautiful pictures and notes, now I want to put it together as something readable. Having spent the day in La Restinga makes me miss La Graciosa. It´s beauty is overshadowed by the lack of friendliness of the people. Really Achim and I felt it immediately. The northernmost Canary Isle´s folk are so much more welcoming than these Southernmost. Maybe I need to give them time to warm up... but I doubt it.

The kids, as always, like it here as much as anywhere. The black sandy beach just a few minutes from the boat is a great place to fill their teacups and chat with the other kids, tourists and locals alike. I doubt we will leave tomorrow, Heiligen Abend as it´s called. But the day after Christmas will probably be the day we buckle down and go once again. Anyone who wants to write can contact us via sailing@pangaea.to and my sister will forward the mail!

That´s it... we leave tomorrow!

2004-12-21T19:50:00.000-01:00

I´ve almost left the boat twice in the last two weeks.

But those who know me know how up and down I can be. Having Coby aboard has been both agreeable and challenging. But we are now literally in the same boat together, after a few good talks and for me, good crys. Basically, let´s face it, living on a boat magnifies all your qualities, both good and bad. We are both highly critical, opinionated people. Oh, did I forget Achim in the picture? Let´s just say that I was unsure of my role aboard lately; now that we ahve a built in second fiddle, I was "reduced" to seasick babysitter on two very difficutl passages between the isles, holding the barf bowl under Toni and Ari´s little dry heaving mouths, wondering if it wouldn´t be a little cozier in Hamburg... or anywhere else for that matter. But we all know that the sea state doesn´t always stay so cruel, and one´s bodily constitution strengthens with every wobbly day. Now we will have several weeks ahead out there. Will I be able to find the energy and inspiration to continue my tell tales? Time will tell.

Gomera is a gorgeous island which we didn´t give enough time to explore. San Sebastian is a picturesque harbor sheltered by a craggy cliff and high green hills. It´s the Napa Valley of the Canaries, feeling very homeopathic and relaxed. Still, I have managed to be a nervous wrieck running around doing all the last minute errands, filling gas bottle to buying 3 weeks worth of fruits and veggies, peeling garlic, baking bread, packing away what we don´t need and storing with easy access things we do, writing insurance and adminitrative gunk, dealing with goodbyes and well, getting excited about The Other Side.
We have a scooter I bought at a flea market for 3 Euros. Thought it looked cool to see adults running around cosmopolitan areas with these >little slick racey things. So I raced around with it the last two days. Result: charlie-horsed right butt cheek and leftupper thigh. I wonder if all scooter riders have this imbalance.

The kids love having Coby aboard. He is somehow a calming element, especially with cut-off headed chicken mama. They love to dance to his traditional ballads on guitar, and he took Ari to the Circus yesterday. Yes, there was a circus here in Gomera. In fact, they have everything here that I could imagine needing. If nothing else works out, I think we will just come back to Gomera. Goodbye, East Atlantic... xoxo.

Almost out of Las Palmas

2004-12-17T11:34:00.000-01:00

'morning... Achim was awake before the sun rose... I could hear him fiddling around in the main cabin while I was jammed between two sleeping chimps. The weather info we had downloaded that morning indicated that we would have a strong barfy ride. To go for it or not, that was the question. I constantly feel the devil's advocate coming out of me. I said, well, we've got a window; yes the winds are strong but who knows how much longer we'll be trapped in Las Palmas, and we really do want to hit Gomera, my goodness, for a week now! But had Achim insisted on leaving I might have replied - what's the hurry?
Well, the anchor chain decided for us anyhow. Stuck and stuck could be. A directly vertical pull and no budging. No room radius wise to try pulling from different directions, either. Coby got on his flippers and new snorkel and looked at the mess 15 feet down or more. We will try again later, It'll be a miracle if we get out of here at all. The good thing about all this is it keeps the boat tidy. WHen you think you are gonna leave any minute now, aint' no way I'm gonna let the monkeys make a mess everywhere. The bed is baked, the glasses are stored.

Here is Coby, our on-board magician, with his sleeping apprentice .

The Princess is leaving Las Palmas

2004-12-16T16:47:00.000-01:00

Here is the princess of the boat these days. we have done our last provisioning before we take off for an overnight sail to Gomera; Not writing much because I am tipsy and in a hurry. I won't be in a hurry for long though.

Ari and his Lemonade

2004-12-14T19:51:00.000-01:00

So we will be leaving las
palmas any day now. that will be when i really start these
updates. life is hectic until then.

Here
is a hilarious recording that Coby made unbeknownst to either myself or
Ari. It is 5.5 MB big, so it might take awhile to download.
Just shows what us mama's go through...

HERE IT IS...ARI
AND THE LEMONADE!!!

First email to blog: the Golden Mean

2004-12-10T11:57:00.000-01:00

HOW EXCITING! I CAN FINALLY BLOG FROM EMAIL! FROM NOW ON I CAN GO FROM SAILBOAT DIRECTLY TO THE INTERNET WITHOUT PASSING A WEBGURU OR FRIEND TO PLACE THE POSTS FOR ME. TALK ABOUT INDEPENDENCE... ALTHOUGH IT'S DEPENDENT ON THE TECHNOLOGY AND THOSE WHO MAKE IT POSSIBLE. AS A FIRST BLOG I WILL PUBLISH MY PIECE ABOUT NAVIGATION AND ARISTOTLE'S GOLDEN MEAN:

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes several references to navigation:
…And we do so more in the case of the art of navigation than in that of gymnastics… 1112b5

…as happens also in the art of medicine or of navigation… 1104a9

…being a principle in which nothing is contributed by the person who is acting or is feeling the passion, e.g. if he were to be carried somewhere by a wind… 1110a3

As the birthplace of Homer’s Odyssey, Ancient Greece holds an especially deep relationship to the sea, as it is primarily consists of islands. And yet, in a discussion of human excellence, both moral and intellectual, where do these skills play a role? Why did Aristotle choose to use seamanship as an activity having anything to do with ethics, or at least more so than other activities? Do we not identify more with his consistent reference to the doctor, for it deals directly with a particular human good, namely the health of people? An equally expected example is his brave warrior who concerns himself with fighting battles for the safety of people, or the excellent lyre player for the enjoyment and refinement of people.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguished two kinds of “virtue,” or human excellence: moral and intellectual. Unlike medicine, politics, or philosophy, navigation seems on the outset to be quite unconcerned with these virtues. We can reduce the purpose of navigation to the science or art of conducting ships or vessels from one place to another. Why not then speak of chariotship or horsemanship?
Furthermore, in an inquiry on ethics, our concern is philosophical, while to put navigational skill to practice, one must have a vessel. The “activity of soul in accordance with perfect virtue” of the sailor depends on this external good to achieve his ends; without his vessel, he is an armchair sailor. Would not such practices as civics, teaching and the liberal arts, which are not inherently dependant on any external object, be more appropriate in illustrating his investigation of the pursuit of virtue? Aristotle points out:
Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;
But pleasantest is it to win what we love. For all these properties belong to the best activities; and these, or one- the best- of these, we identify with happiness.
Yet evidently, as we said, it needs the external goods as well; for it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment. 1099b2

The most excellent navigator must be able to show excellence even with sparse equipment, and that is even the definition of an excellent navigator. Indeed, too deficient equipment and the navigator would be imprudent to launch. In the other extreme, he who possesses a lavish or excess of maritime equipment will never truly learn how to navigate, only how to operate the equipment. This is our first encounter of the navigator’s necessity for the Golden Mean.
Let us first behold the theoretical, “pure” navigator, who has no concern over crew and vessel, but merely concerns himself with navigation alone. For Aristotle, virtuous action lies in a disposition to choose the mean (“the right balance”) between extremes, in particular choosing the mean between the vice of excess and the vice of deficiency. This is, briefly put, precisely the concern of navigation. The following table gives some specific examples of how excess and deficiency play a key role in navigation:

Deficiency	Mean	Excess
Points too far into the wind, leading to sudden, dangerous jibe	Points as close to target as possible	Points too far away from the wind, leading to sudden tack, completely steering vessel off course
Ignores current, runs adrift, missing target	Meets the target at landfall	Fights current too much, runs aground, sinking or damaging the vessel
Hoists insufficient sail surface leading to bumpy ride, inability to counter current and waves, delaying or impeding landfall	Hoists just the right amount of sail, allowing for maximal speed, safety and comfort	Hoists too much sail surface leading to wet ride, ripped sails, broken spars, weakened rig

Note that, in order to achieve the mean in all the above cases, the navigator must always act in light of the given variables (wind and weather, currents, waves, boat length, mast height, etc.). As Aristotle misattributes to Calypso:

Hence he who aims at the intermediate must first depart from what
is the more contrary to it, as Calypso advises-
Hold the ship out beyond that surf and spray.
For of the extremes one is more erroneous, one less so; therefore,
since to hit the mean is hard in the extreme, we must as a second
best, as people say, take the least of the evils; and this will be
done best in the way we describe. 1109a31

The variables a navigator faces are entirely outside his control and, as in the case of Odysseus, often do not offer entirely ideal conditions. It will be these conditions which will determine whether he must head for the mean, or towards one or another extreme in order to achieve the closest to the mean possible.
In practice, excellent navigation necessitates not merely the equipment and how to use it, but an understanding of engineering, oceanography, geography and meteorology, of astronomy and topography, of kinetics, physics, geometry and mathematics. This only reflects the skills (as opposed to virtues) needed to get from Point A to Point B. Aristotle also seems to understand that the virtue of a navigator consists of more than mere techne when he mentions:
Something of the sort happens also with regard to the
throwing of goods overboard in a storm; for in the abstract no one
throws goods away voluntarily, but on condition of its securing the
safety of himself and his crew any sensible man does so. 1110a11

One could argue that this sensibility is needed by every seaman, but here he specifies “his crew,” so he is in fact discussing the captain of a ship. Except for the occasional solo sailor, success in “the sensible man” mentioned above depends on more than his navigational savvy. He must also have strong insight into the micropolitical, and a keen sense of sociology and psychology. Here we can begin to address his moral virtues, for according to Aristotle:
Now virtue is concerned with passions and actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and so is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and being praised and being successful are both characteristics of virtue. Therefore virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at what is intermediate. 1106b21

The Nicomachean Ethics uses a teleological approach which looks to the end, goal or purpose of human existence in order to determine how we ought to act. In all of his actions, the excellent navigator must look for and achieve the golden mean in order to make this determination. He must understand how to harness Neptune’s nature, as well as his own nature, to his benefit, honing and sculpting his sails in accordance with the variables placed before him. An excess of courage leads to shipwreck, a deficiency and the vessel will never leave port or will not attain the destination. An excess of generosity and he will use up the ship’s stores too quickly, while a deficiency of generosity will lead to a hungry, sick, tired, ineffective crew. Both a too harsh or too soft temper (control over his crew) entices mutiny. The golden mean in these virtues, however, best assures a satisfied crew, a functional vessel and successful sea passages. Since he will search for and achieve a juste milieu in the virtues, the excellent navigator may be considered by Aristotle to exemplify the excellent man.

Upon reflecting in these waters we can see how the navigational arts, by and with nature, in analogy as well as practice, reveal Aristotle’s golden mean.

Kids, Graciosa, Canary Islands!

2004-10-07T19:55:00.000-01:00

I haven't attempted to write an update with embedded pictures for quite
sometime now and I think it is time for me to face the fears. Otherwise
these pics will become old and moldy and I will have no desire to change
anything.

src="http://www.sarah-darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0062.jpg" width="375" height="500">

My major fears have been assuaged... there are TONS of cruising kids!
It's a whole subset of the cruising world here in Graciosa. The week looks
like this for toni and Ari: mornings are at Collegio, where they play with
Spanish speaking kids (except their buddy Tano, who speaks English.) THen
they come home and play with the cruising kids, who ever happens to be around...
Australian, New Zealanders, English, French, German... you name it!

Adam has arrived! The boy at the top of our climbing ladder was Toni's
first real cruising friend. They met in Gibraltar and his boat finally
arrived yesterday. The other two kids are Nia, an English girl, and of
course Tano in the baseball cap.

src="http://www.sarah-darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0059.jpg" width="500" height="375">

This last weekend a swimming race from La Graciosa took place and the swimmers
raced by Pangaea, so I thought we'd let you know what 300 yellow caps look like
bobbing around a harbor.

Hannah, a lovely young woman off the sailboat Ripple, spent hours playing with
Toni and Ari, drawing, reading and going to the beach. We will miss her,
since she flew back to England to make some money and continue her life journey.
She basically grew up as a liveaboard kid.

darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0016.jpg" width="640" height="480">

Cruiser party on the beach.

darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0019.jpg" width="480" height="640">

Toni's wind-propulsioned housing project.

darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0029.jpg" width="640" height="480">

Liliian, next to Ari, grew up in the Bahamas, and the other two girls,
Marilou and Eliza, are French.

darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0033.jpg" width="640" height="480">

This is how the kids go to school...

darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0034.jpg" width="480" height="640">

And these show how tired Ari gets from school!

darling.com/emgkupdates/pict0036.jpg" width="480" height="640">

Hola desde la Graciosa, everyone.

2004-09-21T02:32:00.000-01:00

Today was Toni and Ari's first full day at school. They wear uniforms (white shirt, blue pants, white shoes.) Never in my life did I think I would be into uniforms, but it's such a convenient way to go. Besides, it's Toni and Ari's first taste of... Uniformity!
Much aloha from the islands

First "live" update from Katrina!!!!

2004-06-19T19:34:00.000-01:00

Dear Everyone,

I’ve decided I’m not a big fan of mass emails b/c they are far too impersonal for my liking but I will make an attempt to update y’all on my trip thus far. I have been avoiding email and will continue to do so for as long as possible but I promised to keep people afloat on my adventures once in a while so here goes nothing! I am currently sitting on the deck with a cool breeze across my body, the sun sparkling on the water, palm trees waving hello, boats going passing to and fro, singing good old Good Charlotte and a variety of Erika’s music from the 80’s such as The Cars and Honk surf music.

Let’s start with the lightning tour of Paris. Paris reminds me New York however it is completely European looking. Go figure. Cobblestone, narrow roads, window flowerboxes, little cars everywhere, restaurants with patios out onto the sidewalks. I arrived in the Paris airport to breathe a nice big, fresh breath of…smoke. Welcome to lung cancerville. This theme was further emphasized on my marathon run/tour of the city. The sun was high in the sky, temperature was high, the humidity was high, the pollution level was sky-high. I was determined to run from the apartment of Erika’s friend Claire in the cinqant diesement (haha, that is definitely wrong but it sounds like that when they say it) which is one block away from the Pantheon, past Notre Dame, up the Champs do Lises to the Arc de Triumph –formidable, and probably even more so if I wasn’t seeing white spots from the terrible air quality. Naturally I got lost on the way back, even with a map…the streets are laid out in a maze like ‘arrangement.’ What happened to 1st ave, 2nd ave ...?

Enough about Paris – on to Port Bacares, France. Port Bacares is nestled where the Pyrene mountains meet the Mediterranean basically at the border between France and Spain. Indescribable. Deep blue, refreshing water, wide beaches, clear blue skies 75% of the time, wind strong enough to blow your socks off. At the beach you can get quite the whipping on really windy days so we head out to the rock islands just off shore and climb around like the monkeys we are. The men wear speedos, the women bottoms only (a liberating experience…I don’t want to stick out as one of those disliked ‘Americans’ now do I?), everyone is roasted-chicken-brown. The boat is bigger than I expected and can hold much more than I imagined even once acquainted with the size. Every nook and cranny of the hull is filled. They have enough food on board to live off of for at least a year. I’d just like to say a few words about sleeping on a boat. Amazing, as if you are sleeping in a huge rocking chair that never stops. But that’s not all folks, there is also the breeze that travels straight across the cabin and the hatch overhead that provides a spectacular star show on clear nights and a rain shower song on stormy nights (my favorite). We haven’t sailed yet b/c Achim (the dad) is still working making the boat perfect with all of his engineering inventions. The other morning I heard someone up at 6am (I am usually the first one up by far at 7:30am for my beach run in the sun :). He had solved the problem that was nagging him about the self-steering system and he just had to start working on it. He is putting it in so he can steer the boat while in bed. They have 4 big solar panels that will generate all the necessary electricity while at sea. Engineers on the list, all that stuff we learned in school when applied is actually really fun and interesting!

Time to talk about the munchkins. Well, Ari, the blond-haired, blue-eyed, two year old boy just pooped on the floor (I knew a few of you that would love that one!) We are in the potty training process and so far he only likes to pee pee in the potty. He is an adorable little monkey that makes you want to hug and kiss him every time you see his face or hear his little voice say things like ‘yuckabuffsky, dog poop!’ There are lots of dogs here and no one picks up after them. Ari is also a computer expert. He knows how to start the computer and find all of his favourite programs from the start menu, usually the train building one where he is conductor! Choo chooo! Antonia, the four year old is such a sweetheart. She loves to share every thing and to protect her little bro. She is translator when I try to speak in German. Note the TRY. I am so impressed with how well these kids play together and alone, looking at books or making up games involving trains, superman capes from dish towels, imaginary cats to name a few.

I can only think of one word to describe Erika (the mom): supercool. In a nutshell she is fun and crazy and creative and thoughtful and smart. She dances around the cabin singing at the top of her lungs, plays guitar, squirts whipped cream into her mouth from the can, tries to set me up with her 30 year old friends who speak only French, comes up with ideas like touring France, Germany and Austria out of no where, discusses philosophers and science and all her adventures of life. Achim is what I have always imagined a real engineer to be. He does not accept what the traditional design is, but instead decides what he imagines ideal, comes up with a way to achieve it and then implements it. It is a pleasure to watch and learn from him.

Next on the agenda is a whirlwind tour of Germany and Austria on account of my new Eurail pass. We have the time and we have the desire so why not? Sign me up! First it’s a trip to Bodensee in Germany (Lake Constance in English) for a radio transceiver conference (HAM radio stuff). Yeah sailing geeks! Then onto Hamburg to see where Dr. Opa went to school followed by Badgastein (Austrian Alps) for a little taste of the mountain and then Waidhofen, Austria where the Bruckschwaigers live and back to Bacares where we will sail off into the sunrise.

Congratulations if you are actually still reading at this point. Hehehe That’s plenty to keep you abreast haha on my trip thus far.

Until next time I have the urge to write…
Katrina
Kdog
Kit-Kat

ON the train between Frankfurt and Offenburg, traveling South.

2004-04-06T03:39:00.000-01:00

>CLICK
HERE FOR PHOTOS OF OUR GOODBYE TO HAMBURG AND HELLO TO PORT BARCARES

After several
hours of being tortured by an extremely tired, excited son, I have been given a
few minute respite from being mama, with two small beings conked out on the
floor of a first class compartment.

My mother in law was so nervous this morning that I could hardly get ready.
The train was leaving at 12:24, and it takes approximately 25 minutes to get to
the station from Kornweg. Fifteen minutes on either side of that, and it seemed
to me that an hour would be more than enough time to have everything properly
prepared. At 9:45, when I said I would like to take a shower, her eyes became
wide and fearful. "You don't have time! " she said.

Of course I made the time for everything I needed to, including shlepping
kids' bikes and strollers and tricycles up to the attic, canceling my AOL
account (that free month was SO helpful!) and kissing goodbye the things I will
love and miss: all those photos, my books, diaries, bathtub, four burner stove.
I kissed goodbye my telephone, my answering machine. Goodbye nice clothes.
Goodbye big playroom and balcony. Goodbye, you comfy suburban German life, blue
acres here we come.

Outside on the street, our little 3 year old neighbor Alina stood cherub
cheeked, ready to wave us goodbye. She, like all the children in the
neighborhood, looked like she knew that street so well, that every little patch
of grass around her home was familiar territory. I thought about my daughter,
how used to moving she is, how she looked at Alina... did she remember her name?
Did they ever even get to play together? I doubt it. All the four years we've
spent part of her life visited Oma and Opa's house in Wellingsbuttel, Antonia
has not made a single close friend on that street. In europe it seems to take
ages to really have kids meet kids, or you need to have been a part of their
world for awhile.

"So," said Alina's father, Sunday morning rake in hand, "You're going back,
are you?"

Back? I thought about it. Where did he mean by back? I suppose we were going
back to the boat, but somehow it felt like going forward more than back.

Port Barcares, France

We’ve been aboard for three days now.

The kids are having a ball. This place would be perfect, if they had space at
the kindergarten where I wanted to put the kids. No room at the inn! What can I
do? Hire a babysitter for a few hours a day. Money, honey. And that doesn’t
solve the playing with the kids thing. There may still be a apace for Antonia at
the school here, but even that’s not for sure.

But the kids are thrilled to be aboard, I can tell. They finally seem to be
“at home.” Isn’t it strange, ironic and weird how much I wish we had family
around us : Oma and Opa, Gramma and Grampa, Aunties and Uncles… and they all
want to be around us, too… and yet here we are, far away from anyone we know,
haven’t met a soul around here yet (although the people seem friendly enough!).
What wouldn’t I do to just have a little something or someone for the kids… but
there I go again looking at the down side of things. The boat is getting better
and better. Right now Achim is installing two shelves for the big books taking
over the cabins… he began to install the CD player so we can have music… washing
machine and dishwasher are both kicking, I took my first hot shower on board for
our 12 year anniversary yesterday. There is always a ton of stuff to do and I
can’t just plant the kids in front of a video anymore… we only have 4 dvds!

Port Barcares is a feast of famine tourist spot, completely dead in the off
season and absolutely packed in the high season. And right now it’s extremely
windy, especially down at the port. I am SO happy to be in one place, though,
and not have to run around. The kids still just talk about taking a train,
plane, bus… for once we are staying somewhere for a little while!

For Toni and Ari Fans Only!!

2004-03-26T15:42:00.000-01:00

For Toni and Ari Fans, Click
here
for your day's dosage.

Toni's Year of Travel : 2003 encapsulated

2004-03-23T18:43:00.000-01:00

Dear Friends and Family,
Yesterday, I was playing Travel with Ari.
I said, “let’s go visit gramma.” I put Ari’s backpack on him, filled it with Tarzan figurines, and headed for the door.

“How do you plan on getting there, young lady?” mommy asked.
“With a plane and a boat, I said, then added, “ and a car.”
“Choochoo train!” Ari screamed.
So I thought I could give you a summary of what our year looked like:

January
We go to the beach a lot in Kailua, where we live in a highrise apartment
building.

February
Gramma and Grampa visit us in Kailua. We can walk to their apartment and they
take us around in our double stroller. Ari almost gets circumcised but talks
mommy and daddy out of it.

March
Everything mommy can’t sell on Ebay, she packs into the Volvo and leaves it in a
garage, then we take a plane to see Gramma and Grampa again. Then we are on
another plane to see Oma and Opa again.

April
We take the train down to Bad Gastein Austria, where Oma and Opa take us for
walks around the Alps and where we can throw things off their balcony. It’s a
lot of fun to stay in an apartment with no electricity, and I help mom light and
blow out the candles every night.

May
Mommy gets ripped off on Ebay, I see her tearing her hair out on the computer.
We take a car down to our boat in France, then take another train up to Hamburg.
I like the train better than the car.

June
Take a plane to Santa Fe New Mexico, Where Mommy read Aristotle and other stuff
without pictures. We got to watch lots of Cinderella, eat lots of ice cream, and
go to the children’s museum with gramma and grampa.

July
Still in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Some nights, gramma puts us to bed. Mommy doesn’t
know how to do that. We get to see an Indian feast, play in the swimming pool,
and watch gramma and gramma schwitz.

August
Mommy wears a funny cap and gown. We celebrate my fourth birthday with piñata,
pin the tail on the donkey, and lots of friends. Take a plane to Germany in time
for a second birthday party.

September
Take a train to the Lüneburger Heide, where I get to play with kittycats and Ari
gets to play with a cool train set. Then we take a train down to South of France
and help daddy to Make the boat.

October
We drive to St. Tropez to look at Sarah Darling’s pretty Galapagos animal
pictures. Ari can’t talk them out of it this time, and we take him to the
clinic. His peepee hurts for awhile, so we don’t take any trains or planes for a
few weeks.

November
I go to a French school called “La Maternelle.” I learn to say “Stop that!” and

“Sit down!” in French. Ari goes to his own school called “the Little Chickies.”
Sometimes I go there with him, and I like it there better.

December
We take a train back up to Oma and Opa’s to celebrate Channukah and Christmas.
Daddy escapes from a bad guy in Port Napoleon with our boat, which he sails to
Port Barcares,
near
the Spanish border. We
can see snow on the Pyrenees from our
deck. Next
year, we’ll be sailing a whole lot more, we
hope.

August 1999 to March 2004

2004-03-22T17:47:00.000-01:00

It feels hopeless to enumerate everything that we’ve

done for the past 5 years. It’s also amazing to think that’s how long it’s been

since our “live” update days, but I am committed to make it happen again.

Let’s give the basics: August 1999
toni was born... six month later I tried to write an update and this is what came
out:

If nature hadn't developed babies with such soft skin
and sweet smell, I would have had this update written ages ago. But my fingers
would rather be marveling at the softness of her cheek than tapping out these
letters on a mini keyboard schlepped from Hawaii to Hamburg to South of France
and back…

I mourn the loss of the non-mother Erika who could find
the time to sit and write. It's not that I don't find it now, but I suppose I
don't choose it. Writing with the baby on my lap has to be the number one
distraction I've had to face in my life. I knew it would be hard, but what makes
it hard is just how damn easy it is for them to be my number one focus. Perhaps
because I've never had a "distraction" which caused this little amount of guilt.

But hey, two paragraphs have already been executed and baby still sits
relatively quietly on my lap, fist in her mouth, big grey eyes staring at my
sleeves, putt-putting her mini farts, reminding me of the chili con carne I had
for dinner at our country western gig last night. She much prefers her hand to a
pacifier, my comfy cozy companion.

I could report about everything that has happened in
the last six months. About our visits to California, and now here in Hamburg.
About the birthing experience in the Windward shore of Oahu, about my excursion
with my sister and newborn daughter along the volcano coast of the Big Island.
But the problem once again is the incredible delicate sweetness of Antonia's
hands, which need to be held to believe. Another problem is the peach fuzz on
the top of her head that must be regularly stroked. Let's face it, the main
problem lately is that huge wide eyed smile, toungue sticking out, with new
cooing sounds and jerky, uncoordinated fibrulation that only babies can do. So
I'm stuck in the present.

Such is the curse and blessing of motherhood!

About a year later, we sold our Steel Pangaea to a
Swiss family who is now with her in New Zealand. Of course they may have
continued on further than that, and they have their own website in German,
www.pangaea.ch

In January of 2001, we bought
our new Pangaea in the
exact same marina we found the first one, Port Camargue in the South of France.
We celebrated the new sailboat by getting pregnant with Ari, who was
born 10 months later.
It has taken us that long, with plenty of living and working in between, to
prepare the new Pangaea for the next cruise, this time with the kids.