For Quinci

Baguette crumbs surround me. Today, Deshaies, Guadeloupe is my home. My table gently rocks with the considerable swell in the bay. I am a cruiser, sailing, living on a boat. But first, always, I am a mother.

Today, thousands of kilometres from my marine home, my son wakes on this, his twentieth birthday. He might shave, might eat something (remotely healthy?) for breakfast. He will stuff school work into his backpack and head out the door. Turn out his lights, lock his own door. He will cross town and walk the halls of a small university and greet friends. He will make calls and check all the birthday messages on his facebook. In the evening he will meet up with his girlfriend and they will head out for a romantic supper. He will celebrate like the adult that he is.

He won’t remember the black silk mane on his heavy precious head, and warm breath he brought into my life, the tiny living body that I held in my trembling arms just minutes after he was born. He won’t remember his saucer eyes, squeezed shut to the harsh new world, popping open to a tearful young girl, who had just had the mother label shoved into her clueless lap. No, he could not imagine now, a mother’s instant heartwrenching, the stomach churning, overwhelming bond that spread between us through the cold hospital room, just as we were separated physically. The love I felt. The love I feel today, so far away.

Quinci. Never was what I expected. Always was himself. The truest, surest, genuine person grew up within that adorable little frame. With a settled soul he watched me grow and learn motherhood my own way.

I wore steel-toed police boots with vintage mini skirts when he was two years old. We strolled for hours, mother with nose ring and punk short hair, baby Quinci, ‘King of Queen Street’, even then he gazed through my phases. Sat all knowing, greeting all from his stroller throne.

I have never cooked a Christmas supper – no turkey, no ham, no stuffing. No cranberries, no tradition to cling to. I took him across the world, barely a toddler, on my own adventures, seeking myself. 

But there he was, always himself. He tolerated my discoveries and floated through the instability of our lives. One year in the stifling heat of a dilapidated Ghanaian village, I presented him with his Christmas gift as he awoke, covered in mosquito bites. None of us had slept a wink. It was beyond miserable. He hugged me so tightly I thought my mother’s heart would burst. A lump beat my throat and my eyes burned knowing this was a special soul, this my boy. My faith in the human race was restored. For years. 

 And for years he lived uprooted, waiting patiently to find his own place, his own harmony, while I worked through the mess of my own life. Hours of patient melodies he plucked from his little harmonica, and then his guitars. An artist’s soul, soothed by the beauty of music and an appreciation so beyond his years.

At times I was the parent, at times it made more sense for him to be. Linked, hands clasped together we made it through lifetimes of adventures and heartaches. More heartache than any boy should have to endure.

Quinci, my pillar of strength. My sensitive, sensible one. I ache with connection, I feel that gut twisting bond, the tears welling, the throat attacked by the familiar lump… I love you from across a continent, as I did under the harsh lights of the operating room twenty years ago today.

Thank you for sharing yourself, for enriching my life, for being ‘Mompati’ my companion.

Thank you from a mother’s heart, for everything and for just being you.

And on this day my hope is that you will follow all the paths your heart takes you down. May you love, and be loved. May you enjoy this crazy life and never wait to do what you want to do.

Here I am, out on the sea with my soul mate. Following a crazy dream, an unconventional life once again.

And far away you are starting a life of a million possibilities. Never close a door that opens. Never doubt yourself. Most of all, never doubt that I will love you forever.

Blue Eyes

There is something exciting and intriguing about meeting a young rebellious couple with adventure in their eyes and a definite wild side, who are sailing on a tiny hobie cat vessel, made from other people’s trash… hopping from place to place, without a care in the world like the Dick Brano duo.

There is something entirely different about meeting a couple close to the standard retirement age, who have quit their jobs, taken a few sailing courses, bought a sailing boat not much bigger than a dingy, and have sailed it 5 times across the ocean.

Little Blue Eyes is the tiniest sailboat out on the right side

 We were invited for ‘sundowners’ on a miniscule German boat called ‘Blue Eyes’ last night. All day, as we moved along the promenade of St Pierre, from laundromat to town square, to the mini market and back, I peered over at it, anchored in the bay.

We’d met the friendly couple who are both quite tall and didn’t seem extremists in any way, and I just couldn’t imagine how they lived on such a tiny vessel. At the time I didn’t even know about the 5 ocean crossings, but I was already confused and amazed. I couldn’t wait to get onboard for a ’tour’, or more like a lesson in how to stuff two live, moving bodies into a large coffin with sails. Not to mention where they could host 4 of us, making it cocktails for 6!

We arrived in one of the many small rain squalls to mark the evening. Dinghys tied on, we climbed into the cockpit. With 6 of us it was a tight squeeze, all knees touching, appetizers held in laps. Our host sat on his upturned liferaft while his wife sat on the entrance to the inner cabin. Rain whipped the tiny white tarp around us and trickled down our backs. But we laughed and sipped T-punch (straight rum, brown sugar and fresh lime).

We were offered the ‘house tour’ which consisted of peering inside, which held a tapering berth, and about 2 feet of floor room surrounded by small storage compartments, and lots of things which couldn’t find a place to go. I didn’t see a sink or a stove, so the conversation began, about how the basics of living were handled.

‘Blue Eyes’ has no sink, no shower, no toilet, no oven apart from a portable camping stove and drinking water is manually pumped at about 1 litre per 350 pumps. There is no fridge either. Yet it has been across the ocean many times.

Amazing.

We inquired about what foods made it across on the 30 to 45 day journeys they’ve done, and discovered that plain yogurt, butter and cheese all survive perfectly. Apparently a few tomatoes made it over 20 days as well! Canned tuna and veggies were of course staples, but through the whole lesson I just kept imagining trying to piece a meal together of any description in that space, or rather lack of it.

They mentioned that they didn’t eat much of their rations this time, as their last crossing was rough. Every day little Blue Eyes was thrown about, hour after hour.

There is no space to walk, no room to turn around or stretch or have ‘alone time’. No privacy as the toilet set up is a simple ‘bucket and chuck it’. Not glamorous. For me, not quite fathomable.

A week before we had visited another boat, this time a 44 ft  Lagoon catamaran, like ours, but that crucial few feet longer, which creates masses more living space. We came home to Shiloh with boat envy.

After our visit on Blue Eyes I laughed. With them for the sheer tenacity.  At us, for being silly the week before. Everything is relative. Shiloh is a mansion on the sea.

My captain onboard Blue Eyes, marvelling at the tiny circumference of the mast

What it really comes down to is what you are looking for. What you are trying to prove or escape, or what you really value. Living on a vessel that small proves that we don't need a 100th of what we think we do, not really. Happiness is not in belongings. 

And fears? Well if a boat this small can conquer the ocean many times, then most of us harbour silly fears.

If your boat gets you where you want to go, and if it is a home to you along the way, then it is good. Then you are on the right track. Happiness is in the journey. If your journey lacks a toilet and you are happy with that, then I say not only follow that dream, LIVE IT. 

What an inspiration!

The crew of Blue Eyes with us on a hike (on the left) - awesome, happy people.

Dick Brano - junk and inspiration

At times we can kid ourselves that we’re living on the edge; that we are pioneers and adventurers, out on our boat in the big bad ocean. Friends and family also like to create this image in their minds. We happily step up to the fill the imaginary spot as risk taking free spirits who’ve cast off the security blanket of society and headed out to face the world!

But in reality, we have savings and a relatively large and fancy boat. We eat in restaurants when we like and there’s always petrol for our dinghy, diesel for our motors and spare cash for any repairs we might need.

Yesterday as we hiked over from our bay to the chandlery to buy some more frivolous parts for Shiloh, we stopped at De Big Fish restaurant to chat with a couple friends and share a tasty chicken roti. Really roughing it ;)

We glanced out at the dinghy dock and noticed what was difficult not to notice. A ramshackle hobie cat type vessel with a patched up little windsurfer’s sail, old metal garden chairs propped up on upside down beer cases and graffiti all along the little hulls.

 There was also a blog address boldly printed there. The boat had a strange name – “Dick Brano”. Well my curious mind had to find out more. And indeed I did!

This mess at the jetty, it turned out, was a vessel built literally out of junk, here in Grenada on it’s route from St. Marten in the northern part of the Caribbean, all the way to Venezuela. About 1000 nautical miles!

Here was a boat built by two true adventurers, travelling without a safety net, or even a roof, facing every day the wrath of the sun and sea, sleeping in a tent on random beaches, eating free coconuts and no doubt fishing for their own protein.

These people had come so far, sat on a barely floating set of pontoons, with a few tiny boxes strapped on, holding all their earthly belongings.

 I sat mesmerized, soaked in by the blog and it’s entries. They found themselves at some stage, after years of frugal traveling, in the Cape Verde islands off West Africa and took a spur of the moment opportunity to crew on an Australian boat to the Caribbean with $2 to their names. They were already so far from their native homes - he from the UK and she from Guatemala. They decided they wanted to see the whole region, but that they needed their own boat. And with less than a fiver, they'd have to be creative. And they were more than that. Dick Brano was built completely of others' discarded junk. 

I think of the bad weather we've faced just between the few islands around Grenada, and how Shiloh was bashed, and how scary it was at certain moments. I simply cannot imagine it on a 14ft open hobie cat.

There is a post where they found themselves halfway down the island chain, and in some violent waves the boat capsizes and they lose pretty much all of what little they had. My instinct was to cry - it was so sad! And yet, because of their eternal optimism and faith in the journey, they find a village of people who donate, cook, labour and support them to build the vessel back up, so they can carry on. No quitting there. 

See video above - as they passed through St. Lucia, a local news station did a brief story on the pair.

So, I’ve been inspired.  To live each day more fully. To appreciate everything about the journey and not focus on the things at all. At the end of the day, the things are nothing at all. This couple jumps, swims, laughs, hugs and soaks in every minute of every day.

We waited hours there to meet them, but alas we had to move on and only on our return a while later did we see them, already pulled away from the dock, headed further on their journey.

I send them virtual hugs and I truly hope they will find everything they need along the way, depending on the good nature in people and ignoring the negatives that would have kept them back, stopped them in their tracks, held them back from a life of learning the world.

If you have a minute, visit their site HERE, read their story and be inspired. They are not a cute little post-it note or inspirational message written in calligraphy, but a real live flesh and blood example of how you can take life by the horns and ride it.

They abolish fear and hold on to nothing but each other and the passion for learning more.

As 10ft waves push them around, each wind gust or rain squall threatening their trip, not to mention their lives, they push on, happy for the opportunity. The great gift of being alive!

Imagine if we could all take just a little lesson from that – what a different world it could be!