Captain Cook was here in 1778. I can’t help but wonder how many or few people have since.

I’m sitting on the very northern edge of Amatuli Island, one of the Barrens, a tiny handful of islands where Shelikov Strait and Cook Inlet meet the Gulf of Alaska. Yep. Places most of us have never heard of or maybe thought much about. By far the most remote place I’ve been on Endeavour these past three summers. I’m sitting on a large wildflowered-meadow — a broad green shelf above the rocky beach and swirly sea. Most of the island is hidden in thick but moving fog and clouds. The wind is crazy, gusting up to 30 every few minutes. Other than wind and surf, the only sounds are the oystercatchers and kittiwakes, chirping and calling. Bill is back on the boat, way below me. After exploring a bit with the kids, I just want to sit, and be here now.

I like to sit, and soak it in. I like to think about why I love it all so. Like why do I love watching the williwaws. I think I’m actually seeing them — for the first time — after hearing about them — the strong winds that roll down the side of mountains, hit the seas, rock the boats, and everything else — from my son when he fished further down the Alaska Peninsula, in even more remote waters. I remember, twenty years ago — how he described their power — sometimes hurricane force— hitting their boat. I liked how such a brute force sounded like a flower.

A williwaw. Only those who’d been “out there” would know about such things.

At that time I was a mid-life, barely hanging-on, happy-to-be-employed-after-bankruptcy, single-mother of three teens — the oldest of whom had just started fishing year round. I’d learned how to live off his adventure for a while. My biggest endeavor in those days was weathering the commute to the East Side, selling my soul — managing the creative team in a downtown Bellevue office building, a ridiculously self-important start up turns corporate online retailer. None of it seemed real to me — except the paycheck, which was real enough, after a few years of post dot com bust unemployment, to save me. The most threatening hazard was maybe going crazy in the process, from the inanity of it all.

Listening to Ty’s stories from life at sea — as distant as it all was — was more real to me. It reminded me of my years in Alaska, where he was born, where I’d sought wilderness and career after college. Learning the word williwaw — a fun British twist on an Aleut word — stood out as something cool — a positive moment. I guess there weren’t so many back then.

And now, here I am, watching them. Feeling them. In them. I have become one of those out there, which is now, my here.

Three years in, and still it sort of amazes me I get to do this — explore — for a living. While living may not be the right word when it’s strictly volunteer — it’s sure as heck why we’re out here — all that we do. Everyone on the boat is doing their own version of it: the researchers and students dig into the details of their work, Captain Bill logs it all, from nautical notes to the weather, and wildlife. Me, once the meal is done, the dishes put away, the galley under control, I get to just be. I get to just sit and be in the places, and the conditions that I’ve heard about, searched for, traveled and worked towards, dreamt of, figuring only others, smarter or luckier than I got to experience. So it’s a thrill. Even when, like today, the thrill is a gentle one.

I’ve learned thrills can be soft. Like subtle drama, or inner, tender strengths. These islands are all that. They seem modest, but somehow important. I could’ve stayed behind with Bill on the boat this morning, to help batten down the hatches to get ready for our next passage. Unfortunately, today is slated to be at least as bad as yesterday; just not for as long. Yesterday, leaving the Kenai Fjords, and crossing Kennedy Entrance, was the biggest, worst, wildest water, for the longest stretch I’ve ever been in. Today’s wind is still a remnant of that. But here we have the shelter of these islands to break the wind and the firm pull of the anchor to keep us tethered. Yesterday we didn’t have much more than Bill’s capable hands on the helm and the knowledge it would be over eventually. I think it was four hours… something between that and eternity. So I am happy to be on terra firma; even if windy, and happy to not be worrying about anything other than how bright green and soft this meadow is, how gentle and sweet these flowers are, and how cool these williwaws are to watch.

Of course you can’t see a williwaw, or any wind. What I see is the surface of the slate grey sea, below me in the bay — blasted by it — and then spreading out, rolling across the sea from there — in one direction, or another. I’m watching the push of it spread across the bay where we anchored overnight. I watch Endeavour bounce and roll in response. I wonder if Bill knows he’s part of an actual williwaw. But then, I wonder if most of us know when we’re part of larger forces at play.

Every time I think about this year’s season—, the word trajectory comes to mind. Starting in Port Townsend on May 1st, all the way up through Southeast, out and up the exposed Lost Coast, around Prince William Sound and the Kenai Fjords, over and across these new waters — where we are now — en route to Kodiak. We’ll rest with family there for a few weeks, then late August start up on the dinosaur footprint dig — all the way down the Alaska Peninsula to Sand Point, the very place where Ty used to describe the williwaws.

Guess I could end right there, but really, before getting distracted by these crazy winds, I sat down to write about knowing my limits in regards to that trajectory; how clear I felt when Bill asked recently “Any interest in whale research next summer in the Arctic?” I could just say “no” and feel sure and grounded in that. I’ve read about exploring the Chukchi Sea, and that’s close enough for me. I don’t need horizontal rain. Call me a wimp. It feels great— way beyond great— to have stretched myself this far.

One’s own victory doesn’t have to be to a certain place or finish line. It can, and probably should be own’s own choosing. This is that for me; just this half hour to sit on the edge of the Barren Islands.Here on this crazy windy cliff, perched like a bird, maybe more like a weathered figurehead, looking out over the sea, and the bouncing boat that I help to run. I love it all — knowing firsthand now what a williwaw feels, and even sort of looks like.

Onward,

This year, while I was pondering how best to indulge the season, a close friend was diagnosed with cancer and would be in chemo that whole month.

We’ve known each other a long time, and we’re very close — the kind of close where you don’t ask when you need something to eat, you just open the fridge. I didn’t have to ask if I should come. I rearranged things to visit her in California first, and from there go on to NYC for a long-planned 13th birthday trip with my daughter and granddaughter. I'd come back to see her if needed – you never know how much there will be to do, or what stage someone will be. All that uncertainty came back to me from my time helping my late husband through his cancer nine years ago. Maybe I’d still be able to go “home” for a summery weekend — if not a month — this year.

It wasn’t long after she told me the news that she opened up and talked about “it.” The potential reality. The possibility of you know what — the big WHAT IF? The end. Learning, processing the concept of dying now, or soon, or just a lot sooner than expected. Her attitude was great — just what I hoped mine would be, if, when: “I’m not going to waste what time I do have worrying and being sad and miserable about maybe not having time.” I was impressed, and relieved. I wanted to be like her, when my turn comes.

I remember when my husband was sick, I had an urge to run down the street, around the ferry, yelling — “We’re all going to D-I-E!!” I thought folks needed reminding. I could see by their discomfort around him, or the disease, that they’d rather not talk about it, or think about it, or even acknowledge it. I’ve grown up with it. Starting with my father’s death when I was just under four. From then on, family, friends, neighbors, teachers, and classmates have died, many too young. I was certainly young to have to learn what death meant, and how to handle it — I’m still learning.

I also remember, during that battle with cancer, the very real feeling that death — Father Time, mortality — was right there with us. First in the house, then the room, ultimately sitting at the table with us. Uninvited, unwelcome, or not — there it was, and not leaving. It got normal to feel it around We got used to it, like a new member of the family. And even then, in the midst of it, I was aware it was probably a good thing — wise, even — to get comfortable with that sense. I wonder if that’s what Lucinda Williams means when she says “Ya gotta get right with God.”

On my first day off, before I went to see her, I needed a doctor to check out my left ear, which had been weird since I dropped a bunch of pots and pans in the galley. No biggie — when you live in the wild, and on a boat, you get things done when you’re “off.” When the ENT heard I was having a weird right-eye issue as well, things got — as he put it — too weird to be routine. He wanted more tests. Now, I’ll tell you right up front: I am totally fine. No need for sympathy or worry — but in truth, I only found that good news out today, about four hours ago. My relief and elation is driving my writing, as I ride the bus down the Kenai to visit my oldest, best friend since middle school while en route to Bill and Endeavour. I've always considered her my longest, running love of my life — 56 years… I am very happy.

It’s been a month today since I the doctor explained that "these things could be nothing… Or they could be something. He reassuringly ran through the list of possible causes. There were many, so I likely didn’t have to worry: dehydration, sleep, stress, and…brain tumor.

Hmmm. Just my luck, I am finally drinking ample water, sleeping like a log, and living pretty darn stress-free. That left that one other cause. So suddenly — while heading out as caretaker for a friend with cancer, clearly thinking about her own mortality — I’m wondering if I too feel it lurking. Clearly death was not at my doorstep, yet, but maybe driving around the block? Wandering the neighborhood? Was it going to be a part of my suddenly shortened life now?

Thanks be to whatever — I’m not a worrier. I think things through, play them out, but I don’t sit and stew on them. My mother-in law called it “borrowing trouble.” It makes so much sense. So when the news — or the potential news — came, it felt like the day my husband was diagnosed all over again. I remember wondering that day if I’d be as good with death as I always claimed to be — a test only I would ever really judge. Now I might have a tumor in my head. Am I going to waste, or ruin time worrying about it? It was as if something in me was saying, “Let’s see how good you are about not worrying now.”

A+. That’s how I’d score myself on that test. The whole month has been four-star. I lived it savoring — in a new way — every freaking day: every long TSA line, every overpriced grocery bill, every missed subway stop, even the time spent arranging the doctors, the tests, the follow-ups, the flight changes, the bad airplane food, the political fundraising and AI scam letters. You name it, it all looked pretty good. The whole world seemed enhanced, imbued with life, almost oversaturated, like a Tim Burton movie. I made friends with everyone I flew next to. Above all — time with loved ones seemed more critical, a higher priority than ever, and visits were sweeter. I felt more aware of how we spoke, and maybe everything else.

It started with my friend in chemo. Conversations with her were deeper, quicker. Just the real stuff. We didn’t have to try to get real — we just were. Real, and honest. Totally connected. But it wasn’t all heavy and maudlin — it was awesome. Fun. We laughed, sometimes to tears. Peals of laughter at life, and past loves, and all the dumb decisions we’ve made along the way, rang across her property like church bells clearing the air. Her husband was amazed, relieved, grateful. We all were. That kind of no-bullshit, no-worry, deep connection set the tone for the rest of the month.

On a call with Bill halfway through, we were talking about the 2027 season already, and how booked up it was, when I mentioned needing to leave some time free for being off. He reminded me summer was “prime time” in the expedition world. I have to admit I likely cut him short — the word prime time just seemed so appropriate to everything. Yes, next summer will be prime time. This, today, is prime time. Despite what my kids may think, it feels like I’m living my prime time. This is our only time.

There were nights, going to sleep, trying to process her situation, her mortality, along with the new, vague possibility of my own, when I almost felt stoned. I’d feel sort of floaty, flying, as I dozed off — probably just the melatonin I was taking for jet lag. But throughout the day, as I embraced her reality, I was in training, practicing for what now might be mine.

In some ways I was on my own for much of the month — Bill was on Endeavour, doing expeditions. I did some crazy heavy nesting — with hours playing and organizing my art studio — playing Motown, I was in heaven. I started journaling again, and doing morning stretches. I pulled weeds at my house and friends’. It didn’t feel manic. If anything I was more mindful of it all, and balanced time alone and time with others. Time was limited, both logistically and, potentially, more existentially. When I still had a possible tumor rattling around my brain, I wanted, at the very least, to check in with myself and everyone that matters to me. Even better if we could go deeper, and always honest. And what a treat to belly laugh with old friends – from Central Park to the Homer Spit.

Prime or not, these are also my elder years. This is when either I, or loved ones, will be dying, or losing cognitive skills. It’s happening all around me. This is the most precious of times, and I’m not sure how or when that feeling ends. When we were young, we sang about how “these were the good old days.” Now I’m thinking: these are the good, maybe the last days. Yep — in the expedition world, and in every other world and aspect of life.

And now I’m back to the boat tomorrow! Back to what now feels like my normal life, and my partner — without a brain tumor! Back to the guy who makes me feel like I’m 17, 25, and 43, and 50 — all of them — truly; my fullest, freest, surest self, and the diverse woman I am. Bill makes me feel my age — ha! — I like that concept as a positive. With any luck, I do that for him in the best way. Even though that means he'll be exploring the distant horizon for as long as he can, and I will likely take a month off every July.

Age is life, ain’t it? And it’s a flippin’ wonderful thing to be alive even in our aging bodies and in these challenging times.

This is what we have. Why not look at age as amassing more of this — whether it’s time in the wilderness, or time on the subway? If we think of our years on earth as gifts, then we're only getting richer — especially if we're lucky enough to know love like this in its various forms and venues.

Help yourself to whatever is in the fridge…

In and around both the grandeur and the peace is the intensity of the work: the feeding, caring for, managing, and wrangling of student/researchers — from high school seniors through grad-school— can be truly exhausting —physically and emotionally.

Case in point: Lituya Bay, where we are now. Chances are you’ve never heard of it. Chances are no one you know has, or has ever been here — or will ever be. I never imagined that I would be. It’s a beautiful bay, framed by glaciers at one end, and the Fairweather Range cutting us off from Glacier Bay just on the other side. Lituya is one of the few protected harbors on the “Lost Coast,” the long open stretch of the Gulf of Alaska that arcs between Southeast Alaska and Prince William Sound. Alaskan mariners — my son, my sweetheart, and fishing friends — all love this area for its open, raw beauty. I hope the students are noticing—absorbing it. I know it’s likely they will never be here again.

How could anyone coming through — on a fishing boat or a science expedition, whether now or in the 1700s — feel anything but small here, when you’re surrounded by 15-mile-long tidewater glaciers, majestic Mt. St. Elias (the second tallest mountain on the continent), and of course the mighty Pacific, rolling out in every other direction with her own vastness and determination. I hope I’m not driving the kids nuts pointing it all out.

It is a gift, beyond dreams, to be here for all that.

But it’s even more special for me in that I read about this coastline a few years back. Somehow I discovered Naomi Williams’ book, Landfalls—about the La Pérouse expedition in the late 1700s—and loved it. I recommended it to friends and family. Should I admit I liked impressing Bill during our early courtship that I knew all about La Pérouse?

There is a certain magic to finding yourself in a place that you only knew from inside a book, and from the late 1700s, from the days of tall ships, explorers, and indigenous peoples living through those times. It feels like time travel, or more proof that dreams can come true. Sort of like finding myself in Narnia or Oz. Here I am in a place I’d only read and dreamt about. And here I am. How often do I think back to fifth grade, studying the explorers, and how intrigued I was by all of them. Magellan was my favorite. But it was his navigator, Elcano, or Pigafetta the voyage chronicler, whose job I wanted. I must’ve known early on that I wanted to explore, but wasn’t the full-on brave captain type. I always wanted to seek out the far horizon and find out what’s there. If it takes being “the boat mom” to get me onboard, out here — I’ll take the role.

Here’s the treacherous current at the mouth of the bay, I tell the kids. Here’s where La Pérouse’s shore boats went down and the men perished. Here’s the island where they made the monuments. Bill adds they had an observatory here too. Bill knows other things about the expedition. He of course has read La Pérouse’s logs. He’s reviewed his charts. Bill didn’t think much of Landfalls. But then he doesn’t really get historical fiction. The invented parts annoy or confuse him — probably the way too many details in a logbook do me. It’s good. We use our differences to expand our bandwidth — for the kids and even for each other — rather than try to convince or convert the other to align.

What matters is the magic of being here resonates for both of us. We are both awestruck realizing we’re walking through the Tlingit village site. Like we did this morning. We took the kids walking—from the wide beach on the north side of the bay to the rocky outside coast. From there, we followed game trails through wet, lush spring greens of every variety — from the lowest wild strawberries to tall dune grasses.

The newness of the plants and the speed at which they grow in the almost all-day Alaskan summer light made it rich. It smelled great. Rich but clean. Fresh. When the forest opened up onto a large flat clearing, I could imagine the village there. Even from years ago, the book helped me envision the lives of the people. Even if some of them were fictitious. I tell the girls I’m walking with all about the book. They seem to love it. Maybe the expedition logs did the same for Bill. Bill is no doubt telling the kids he’s with his version. We both breathe it all in, walking in awe. I think even the kids do.

So much to be in awe over: the spring flowers popping out of the village site meadow, the rocks along the pounding coast, the golden mother bear and cubs we saw — thankfully from the boat. The amount of fresh bear scat, and the wolf prints we saw were truly awe-some.

It’s late afternoon; I am back on the boat. In my little life in the midst of all this big-ness. It’s quiet. I’m alone. Just being alone is rare enough to stop and notice. I sit here on the aft deck, and scan the shore for more bears. The students will be back soon. So I take this moment to just sit. I am really tired.

As wonderful as the kids are — and these kids really are — after nearly two weeks together, I am wiped out. This is our third expedition. On all of them it’s my role to make sure they’re safe and sound — like, splinters are taken out, socks are dried — and also that they do their part in their crew duties, like doing the dishes, helping with the meals, and cleaning up. Many, maybe most, of the kids coming on board this year and last year and the year before don’t know how to wash dishes, use a can opener, cut an apple, or peel a carrot. So there are lots of lessons and lots of instructions. A fair amount of confusion — in all directions.

I try not to use my cool, but I do. Luckily they forgive me. I forgive them. They want bandaids for a scrape I don’t see. They wonder if it needs antibiotic. One young woman was using her anti-bacterial baby wipes to wipe down the galley, from the inside of the silverware drawer to the cutting boards. How do I explain the environmental and health hazards of overuse of antibacterials in the five minutes before we get dinner finished and served?

Endeavour is slowly swinging on the anchor, back and forth, and rocking gently in the bore — the swells from the waves as they glide across the bay. I take it in, like the awesome village site. I breathe in the moment. And at that moment I assume that is the payoff for the hard work. That and the view of the full moon out my porthole, and the sound of the lapping waves, and the wolf prints and the loon calls. That and spending a week in the footsteps of explorers, with our dreams. That should all be enough payback to make this absolute fatigue worth it. And it almost is. At least I keep telling myself it is.

And then today, the last day. We’re in Yakutat. The students are just about to take off for the airport, when I decide I should probably give them one last life lesson — if only to apologize for sounding like such a drill sergeant about leaving their rooms clean, and thinking about their own responsibility: the making and cleaning of a meal, and so on. And then Lucas walks up and hands me a card. At first, he gives me a little speech of thanks. I start to cry. We all start to cry. They take off for the airport. I read the card. I cry a lot more.

Sure, the beauty and adventure, and the quiet and the peace reward me — but that’s just selfish stuff. The card, their thanks, is some of the most thoughtful, genuine, and deep expression of gratitude I’ve ever been given. Words about lives being changed, perspectives altered, fears conquered; decisions about gap years and travel; and the influence that Bill and I, and this week on the Endeavour, have had on them — with illustrations and Chinese characters for emphasis. Each of them going on about how much they’ve learned, how they don’t want to leave, how much they appreciate all we did.

It doesn’t matter if my life is big or small, adventurous or not. The boat and my silly daily routine—three meals to cook and serve up, cuts and scrapes to care for or ignore; a ride in the inflatable for a beach or forest walk, lessons to learn and teach — and lots of time to ponder both the vastness and the fragility of all this wilderness and my wild life.

That is all — more than enough for now.

Ahhhhhhh….. I am finally sitting down quiet and alone, sitting in the sunshine in my favorite spot up on the top deck. Seems like weeks. Probably months since I had time to write, and who knows when I’ll get another chance .… so I’m seizing, and cherishing this moment to drop you all a line; thinking of it as my postcard from Endeavour. It’s not just a pretty blue sky and water shot, with white sailboats in the foreground, white peaks behind; it’s postmarked May 2nd, from Galliano Island, BC, drenched with sunshine, salt spray, and equal parts — gratitude, amazement, and fatigue.

If you follow Endeavour, you likely know we did an extensive belowdecks cabin remodel this winter in Port Townsend – reconfiguring the sleeping quarters for better use of space, greater privacy all around — something Bill has wanted to do for years. But seems like no matter what the project is, who’s running it, how well intentioned or prepared you are— it still takes a village. This one did. A large, generous and diversely talented one. Up here on the top deck, as Gulf Islands glide by, I’m still basking in the glow of that love fest, as much as any of this beauty.

Bill and I are damn lucky to be part of just such a village. I’m not referring to Port Townsend proper — although it is an amazingly resourceful boating community, and a good, tangible chunk of the larger, more amorphous village I’m thinking about. And it’s something bigger than all the specific skills brought to and used on this year’s remodel.

The independent and relatively young shipwrights that stepped in and took the remodel on, working with Bill through out the week and many weekends, far exceeded our expectations in both their workmanship, and just effort — unbelievably effort and care.

But it wasn’t just the crew, it was everybody: our neighbor/skilled cabinet maker Steve, who offered to make all the bunks.

From there he went on to build shelves, doors, and our bed’s headboard, who knows what all else? Other neighbors lent us their van to move mattresses, sleeping bags, linens, fishing and photography equipment back onto, into the boat, brought us crew dinners. Other long time sailing friends, Mike and Kath heard we were in a crunch to get done — so they came up from Vashon to help for a weekend, that turned into a week. Not kidding. And they got the really fun jobs — like rebuilding the bilge pump, loading and inventorying 15+ hefty tubs of heavy canned goods. Oh the shlepping, the cleaning. It was a like a house move, both in and out, across town, and a boat-rebuild all swirled up together with a hard deadline fast approaching.

And it wasn’t like we could thank them at the end of the day with a nice dinner, or even a beer. We didn’t have the time. If I had the time to order pizza it was a miracle; sitting down to eat it together wasn’t happening. And no big party at the end — we just had to shove off when we were done. We’d forfeited grandkids’ birthday parties and soccer games, any notion of a social life for weeks. Canceling our May 1st Wilderness Mariner Course wasn’t an option.

Think about it. It’s not like we could. Right after our first trip up the inside passage with our onboarding student crew, we have the SE Alaska fossil dig, then a high school benchmark study, the Glacier & Climate Change research trip, and so on throughout the season, stacked like expedition dominoes, each beginning where and when the last one ends. It’s not like even delaying a day was a possibility. So the pressure was pretty intense.

Nearing the end it wasn’t uncommon that the crew worked until late, sometimes the wee hours of the night, always back in in the morning, with good cheer and often goodies, even before we got there with more reinforcements.

My tears welled up when Austin, who had just pulled an all nighter to help ensure our blast off was on time, handed me a jar of gorgeous ranunculus his girlfriend grew, saying they were to thank me for feeding them and Bill, just for being a great guy to work for. Really? Since when does the crew bring in thank yous?

Nope. We couldn’t and wouldn’t have been able to do it without the kindness of each — the shipwrights, the welders, provision-shopping friends, neighbors, forgiving family members, generous marina cafe owners.

And now, now these amazing women — who have joined the chain of great, giving folks helping us launch Endeavour into its 2026 season.

We knew they’d be there waiting for us on the dock at Shilshole and we knew how excited they were to get on aboard. They’d signed on months ago, and anticipation was high. Bill and I can’t remember whose idea it was to offer a Women-Only Wilderness Mariner Course, but it had filled quicker than any we’d offered. There were experienced sailors, captains, and cruisers from all over the continent — Canada and the US — eager to join us for the Inside Passage trip.

 I knew they were seasoned boaters, but holy cow. It takes a certain sort of person, who — after traveling across the continent to get on board with us — can actually laugh when told not to worry, there’ll be a working head if we just all wait an hour for Bill to finish installing it. Their laughter and ease was sure sign of their own generous spirits — and true salty-ness.

Whewwwwwww. From that moment on I knew we were okay. The goodwill, karma — whatever it is that surrounds this organization, this boat— was still in full effect. Miraculously, or maybe just on the wonder of givingness, our 2026 season is fully launched. We did it.

A giant, most heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who’s been apart of the effort.

I hope you can hear me shout from the top deck here — because I’ve run out of room on this postcard ;-)

—-————————-

I wonder how many of you reading this were “with me “ back in the days of La Finca Caribe, when I’d write up a pre-season newsletter. Ìt was so fun — with nothing but newsy finca-ish things, a few photos and a lot of joy to share. I was in my fifties. (Ha! No wonder it seems long ago). I hadn’t written a book. I was an innkeeper. I simply wanted my peeps to know about what was going on at the finca that upcoming winter — discounted stays to yoga retreats. Work trade options. Simple, and fun as that.

Many years, and a few lifetimes later, here I am again with a sweetly similar task, only this time funny enough it’s all in reverse. It’s not about the winter. It’s summer, not about the bright, hot Caribbean, all wildly tropical, floating away out here south and east to most of us. Now it’s the wilds of Alaska, in the far northwest of almost everyone. Where we can definitely can get warmish sunny days, and even swim on occasion but now it’s about the breath and depth of the wild itself, which is likely unparalleled. It’s about realizing just how small you are as you are living in, trekking through, untold subtle layers of wild green — what feels like endless forests, meadows and mountains, wrapped in soft layers subtle grays and blues.

At the Finca, there was nothing but an intermittent flicker of St. Croix that would show to break the horizon when skies were clear enough. Now my sea is usually framed with ice capped mountains, glaciers, ringed with forests and waterfalls. Just about, as they say, “polar” opposites. In both though, it was, and is, looking out across the water — when and where my soul thanked me for all the work it took to be there — that made the planning and hosting pay off.

My job with both was/is to help find people to share it with. Back then, of course it was pretty much all about escape from the day to day grind in the cold northern hemisphere to do little else but enjoy the sun, sand and sea. Granted, that’s an important thing in this crazy world of ours for families and schools, romantic couples or family reunions. One of my all time favorite groups was the tropical ecology grad program from Boston University that came to study our lizards every year.

On Endeavour, it’s not pleasure seekers, it’s researchers and students (from high school to life learner) and donors who help make it all happen, each of them digging into research and layers of virtually untouched wilderness, in their own way, to learn more about the fish and the birds, the whales and the weather, so that we can better know and protect it all.

Meanwhile…on a personal note, I haven’t been able to write since we our trip down the Inside Passage last November. I just haven’t found anything that seemed worthwhile. Who wants to hear about someone puttering around after a hip replacement? Turning 70 in a walker? On Bill’s and my second anniversary in January, my writing coach encouraged me to publish the story of our first date — but that felt trite when the world is falling apart. I admire anyone who can keep doing their work despite the insanity, my usual “creative” outlets just aren’t flowing.

At the same time, I’ve been working almost full time, and mentioned my being almost too busy to my neighbor, Sophia. I started describing Endeavour’s season ahead and how crazy busy but rewarding it was to be working with paleontologists, ornithologists, glacier experts, to plan expeditions with all of them – digging fossils in southeast, studying glaciers and climate change in Prince William sound, and even a dinosaur footprint dig out on the Alaska Peninsula, almost the Aleutian Islands.

Here I was starting to gush about how both busy and excited I was because these research trips have always only been available to graduate and undergraduate students for college credit studies until now, but over the years more and more “lifelong learners” are interested in joining as well, so our educational partner, the Institute for Field Research is opening the trips to others. Now regular old rock hounds, paleo nerds, glacier geeks or dinosaur enthusiasts can join us. Since I started with Endeavour, friends have been asking how they could ever come along on a trip, saying how envious they were of the students we hosted. Now it’s available to them and it’s my job to let everyone know. It’s a big job.

“Like me”, she said and smiled. “I didn’t have a clue, and I want to know about them all.”

We both laughed because even my neighbor didn’t know about Endeavour programs being open to her and others who just like to learn and do, who can help support the research. I’ve been so busy networking social media and the wider world, I hadn’t even started with my own friends, family, or neighbors.

In six weeks we will be headed north again, but this time it’ll be our first all-women’s Alaska Wilderness Mariner’s Course, 10 days with a great group of enthusiastic boating gals of all ages from all over, like Sweden, New Zealand, and all across Canada – even Alaskans are signing up. There’s another all-women’s in September, and a co-ed trip in October circumnavigating Kodiak.

Between the spring and fall, there are still openings on our Fossil Dig, Glacier & Climate Study and Dinosaur Footprint Dig.

JOIN AN EXPEDITION

The science is real. The need is real. In the last couple of years, friends of the organization have helped fund and joined whale research trips, a shipwreck archaeology expedition, and other research. Sometimes it’s mostly scientists on board, with just one or two sponsoring “learners,” sometimes mostly students, and donors.

I think my neighbor and I were both aware of the joy in my voice — like something did matter and something was joyous despite all the horrors going on around the world. There’s importance and good to science research but also it’s just plain fun to share the beauty and the joy that getting deep into nature brings.

No wonder I haven’t done any writing — I’ve been doing this and it matters. This has been my creative outlet.

It reminded me of my efforts way back when at the finca, and a literal version of my favorite Camus quote:

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Whether it’s winter or summer, booking a room in a tropical jungle cabin or a berth on a boat at sea, I have a passion for connecting people whether it’s a new family to the right beach for the baby, or the retired 86-year-old high school science teacher with his lifelong dream of joining a whale research project, or finding the volunteer assistant to the paleontologist. If I can be part of the connection it only makes my life richer. That’s the invincible part. If I’m innkeeper or expedition manager, writing a silly blog or a serious book, I thrive on, and know the importance of connection; all the better if the ultimate goal is learning and protecting this struggling planet of ours. If this is my new creative endeavor, so be it. Same as ever was.

Hope to see you on board before long! As always, I appreciate you sending this on to others — but this time only if they’re folks fun to live on a boat with for 12 days. ;)

PS. I’m not wild about the term “lifelong learner”, but I haven’t found a better one. Would love to hear your suggestions. But let’s all just keep learning.

PPS. If you can’t join us but would like to support our student expeditions, in my opinion this is a much worthier “Endeavour” than paying for my Substack. :)

Today is the beginning of a new adventure, and something I’ve wanted to do — actively sought— for the past few years now. And I’m pulling it off. Me! On my own — sort of.

I’m flying to Zihuatanejo to sail up the coast of Mexico for a couple of weeks with two guy friends— a neighbor and a guy I met “dating”. Romance didn’t shine with either, but who cares? Friendships have, with sailing invitations to boot.

That’s the weirdest, most challenging thing about being single. As an independent party of one, most everything I do, I have to manifest on my own. I don’t get the chance to brainstorm and problem solve with a partner. I miss that as much as I miss any other aspect of being partnered. Gotta figure this shit out solo. So I have to figure out how to go sailing — to get out on the water— as single older woman. I end up looking like a weirdo. Who else runs off to BC to sail with a stranger?! That was last summer’s adventure. Worked out just fine. Great trip. Sailing with the whales in the Broughton Islands. Another long-held fantasy.

Step one for me was getting over it. Getting over any embarrassment about vulnerability, about reaching out to the Universe. About straight up asking folks. The stars certainly don’t laugh at honesty, weaknesses or dreams. And sometimes, if I put it out there enough, some neighbor, some pal, someone at the store, on Nextdoor, or the dating site, someone will eventually respond with answers.

Like:

Someone with a sailboat…in Mexico.

Or a little casita in Guanajuato— with an extra room.

Or the group of great women I need to know.

Or the dinner party on Christmas Eve, when I don’t have a plan in the world, and all my kids do. I can stay home and cry my heart out or I can tell my friends I need some holiday plans.

I’m learning to embrace asking for help from everyone — to the moon and back. I celebrate it, and love the connections I’m making doing so. It is makes me stronger, and the more I do it, the easier it is, the more I enjoy it. Dating is much the same. It’s forcing me to be honest and vulnerable. At least if I want to spend time with the people I want to spend time with, and not waste anyone’s time.

Getting over yourself is the first step.

I get a lot of “But doesn’t dating take up a lot of time and energy?” It most definitely does. So does gardening or caring for a wooden boat, raising children, or running an inn.

Or years ago when an aunt of mine saw a house and property we’d just bought on Vashon. Two sweet acres of evergreens and fruit trees, grassy hills and a funky old pool for the kids. The realization of a long search. My aunt’s first words were “it looks like a lot of work.” It took me a lot of years, like decades, to really understand that what someone says reveals a whole lot more about themselves than anything else. She was right of course, it was a lot of work. But being a mother of three, and a running a family business — I didn’t know much that wasn’t “a lot of work”. And the work was fun; it paid off.

I‘m approaching dating in the same way I approached that house on Vashon: I’m having fun working on it. Finding a partner is one thing I’m working towards, but then so is friendship, travel, adventure, health, new fencing and all kinds of projects at my little farm property. And like with all building projects, I will keep asking for help when I need it.

I see the efforts are paying off. I’m loving this life I am building. Like maybe, just maybe, I am finally becoming the me I’ve always wanted to be.

This winter’s adventure is scheduled to last last six weeks — two weeks sailing and four more hanging with friends in central Mexico. I rarely travel with return tickets anymore. I like the flexibility. Whether the love and joy I seek will be found sailing or hanging with landlubber friends who share their homes and hearts with me, or the golden love of my son who asked me to stop in to sail with him for a few days on my way back north next month.

Who knows, maybe just maybe there’ll be more love and adventure coming from that guy I had lunch with yesterday, although he didn’t have time for a walk. So who knows? Thought I saw a glimmer in his eyes or something connect between us. And gotta say, that doesn’t happen very often.

Besides I’m too wise to fall for the sparkly feelings. My therapist tells me that’s a good thing, that I could give TED talks on this business of making friends through dating.

But it doesn’t actually matter, does it? With all this help — from friends, strangers, former lovers, the Universe — it seems I’m not alone after all.

A sort of funny postscript:

This blog draft is just two months shy of being two years old. I asked Bill to read it, but even he didn’t recognize the ending. Bill didn’t know he was the guy I’d had lunch with the day before that flight. The one that gave me the sparkly glimmers.

But twinkly feelings of endorphins and oxytocin were things I’d learned not to trust, and besides, it’d been years since I felt anything like that. For the year before I met Bill, my year of dating — I focused on what I called my poly platonic approach — hiking, biking, sailing — hanging out with folks I’d met. I wondered why we had a specific word for dating — rather than just making friends.

I see now that while we call it “dating”, and while the goal is to find a partner or a sweetheart, the other bigger simultaneous goal for me was becoming my own best self. So while yes — I was looking for a “sailor”; a partner who loved life on the water like I did, really I was looking for my own best, capable, adventurous, traveling –sailing — self. I needed to learn how to provide that for myself. And wonderfully, eventually I did.

Should I admit that when Bill had asked for lunch the following week I got a little pleasure out of telling him — no I wouldn’t be able to make it…? I’d be off sailing with friends in Mexico; like I’m the kind of woman who does that sort of thing.

Apparently I was. Am.

When I go out to take the picture to capture this moment, I hear the weezy huffing breath of a passing sea lion. I have learned to identify our neighbors, though I wish they wouldn’t dive under just as I’m ready to snap a pic.

I’m back here in Petersburg. Back, because we’ve been gone for a week, off the boat for a glorious vacation. Glorious, because it was our first time off, traveling, even being on a plane with each other — ever in our almost two years together. Petersburg, because that’s Endeavour’s official homeport where we catch our breath, fix, clean and provision for the next expedition.

We have one last group coming on this week to get ready for — the annual humpback survey with the Alaska Whale Foundation. That is always a treat, and perfect end to the season. Then, there’s just the 750 mile, 12-day drive down the Inside Passage, towards home. Our other home, Port Townsend.

I thought about the concept of home yesterday as we got back to the boat. I was walking by the neighbor’s boat, and brushing shoulders — almost— with the deer carcasses hanging off the deck. It didn’t bother me. I eat meat. Heck, I eat venison. It just amused me that this place, and life feels so much like home now.

I’m the veteran of two full seasons now. Next month I’ll be starting my third Inside Passage trip. That doesn’t count the crazy winter ferry trip south in my late twenties when we — my first husband, six month old baby and husky — dealt with a near hurricane-force storm as we migrated back to the States after a decade in Anchorage. Nor does it count the beautiful summer ferry trip north from Washington State with my second husband, his kids, my kids and our grandkids to celebrate his life, just after his cancer diagnosis.

But those trips go all night so you miss half the trip. On Endeavour, we anchor every evening. It takes longer, but you’re awake for every nautical mile, driving your share, reading, cooking, watching. Soaking it up.

The Inside Passage is sort of like a birth canal, but it lasts for 12 days, and doesn’t hurt…it’s just a process by which one slowly transforms from life up here, to life down there. In the seventies we called the rest of the U.S. the Lower 48 or Outside. Ironic when it’s up here we live outside much of the time. But anyway, it’s a long meditative transition from one life, one home, to another, that I love. Like the days before crazy traffic when you actually sort of enjoyed the long drive home.

To be perfectly honest, I’m hesitant to talk about the open beauty of the trip because I feel so flipping privileged to be here. I tone it down and often don’t post the most stunning photos of the landscape or wildlife. I know what it’s like to feel trapped without the horizon-stretching adventure that I’ve always loved, always needed, wanted, but didn’t always have access to. There were times it hurt to see others out on their adventures when I couldn’t be.

In that same vein, I’ve noticed both in my writing and conversations with folks back home that I tend to dance around or play down the power, the enormous gratitude, the profound wonder I feel at having found love like this — a full-on trust-filled partnership, in my very late 60s, with Captain Bill. The truth is, I want to yodel it from the tops of these mountains. At the same time though, I think about those who feel lonely. I don’t want my happiness to hurt anyone who doesn’t have, but wants, partnership/love. Their person. I’ve been one of them — for most of my 40s, and 60s.

But I may have reached a place where I can’t contain it.

In our not quite two years together, Bill’s and my partnership has grown from the sweet place of being a deep romantic team to sharing the running of the boat (or at least the expeditions) as well as the management and direction of Alaska Endeavour’s nonprofit vision. Last year when I was new to both the boat and the organization, I knew I could — “if it all worked out” — bring my Finca Caribe innkeeping experience to the effort. I didn’t know exactly how — I just had a vague sense that I could be of service. But after what is it, eight years now…? since Hurricane Maria, since innkeeping? With all that went down since then, I wasn’t sure I had it in me.

Fast-forward a year and a half, and here I am taking chunks of it on — and loving it. Here Bill is, happy to share the burden and feel the synergy.

It was looking at Captain Bill, my Bill, from the lens of both romantic partner and nonprofit organization partner, watching how friends, students, anyone on the boat seemed to gravitate to his nautical knowhow, noticing the way he shared his maritime experience, that I suggested we think about sharing our trips up and back with others. I could see maybe more clearly than he that there would be plenty of folks who’d want to learn from him. Bill holds not just tremendous knowledge, but also that rare ability to share it without…well, frankly…mansplaining — or any other classic Captain M.O. Rare rare find this Captain of mine. Of all of ours. Because I share him with lots — roughly 12 expeditions of eight people each for half the year. We’re a big family.

Last May, heading back north up the Passage on our first “formal“ spring Wilderness Mariner Course, one of our student/crew-members we called Lil’ Bill (to distinguish him from the Captain) said, out of the blue, that he wanted to underwrite high school science research scholarships for one or two kids who couldn’t otherwise afford it. Bill and I were blown away. Had he heard us talking about wanting to start a scholarship program? By the end of the trip, Lil’ Bill said he’d talked to his wife back home, and they’d decided to double it to four students — adding in travel costs as well.

These guys aren’t rich. They’re just normal folks with giant hearts.

We were flabbergasted. They ended up donating $14,000 to Alaska Endeavour. Lil’ Bill took me aside to clarify that it was not only what he’d experienced firsthand aboard the boat — the dedication and mission of wilderness conservation, science and education.

“More than anything, “ he added , “it’s the love that surrounds you and Bill”.

I hadn’t known it was that obvious. I had no idea it could be that powerful.

Others onboard heard about it and donated as well. Keep in mind this is on top of each having paid for their course. Later that summer, a grandmother of one of the scholarship students donated $1000 to the organization. Talk about sharing the love, and the importance of both — the love, and the sharing. His. Ours. Others. It truly grows. It really matters.

Built on love, a love for the sea, for kids, for teachers, for old boats, wilderness and whales, for science, natural history, for hands on learning, our Wilderness Mariner Course continues to grow. It’s incredibly rewarding for us both. Our All-Women’s course set for next Spring sold out in three days, with folks interested from Australia to Sweden, people calling us as they sail across the Pacific; from their 20s to their 70s. And I get the joy of interviewing each one of them. Sadly, we only have space for eight.

Now we’re in the midst of putting together two more courses for the fall of 2026 that will be up in new remote territory — from Kodiak down to Sand Point along the Alaskan Peninsula — with new landscapes, volcanoes, brown bears, and hopefully dinosaur footprints. There’s so much to love, to protect, to learn and share.

Lately, I find myself humming the Bacharach classic What the World Needs Now is Love……sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. No, not just for some, but for everyone… Try it. The Beatles said it too of course — telling us “All you need is love”. Should be so easy.

On our recent vacation, a certain little two year-old who’s just learned to talk in full sentences crawled up on my lap and told me he loved me. It’s amazing to me that even at that age we know what it means. At least what it feels like.…

The Spanish scholar Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira wrote,

I think she was writing about equality for women in the Spanish Civil War. It doesn’t matter. It does seem to work: for revolution, education, war and peace, even making mac and cheese on a boat, soon to be drifting home….

Here’s to love, where we can find it, make it and put it to work.

Into the wild. The really wild. Not the kind of wild you can drive a VW bus too or hitchhike down a dirt road to — the kind of wild you can’t find many places anymore. The “you can’t get here from there” kind of wild. Kind of wild I find myself in and for some crazy-ass reason seem to love.

I didn’t love trying to cross the river though. Especially carrying Bill‘s big rifle. But he had to carry Bella, who is too heavy for me to carry. I don’t know if it’s Bill’s weight, his boots, his experience, his damn attitude or all of the above that lets him just traipse across the slippery rushing stream. But traipse he did. I decided it wasn’t worth it.

So he’s gone off now with gun and Bella and for the first time I am left alone, remarkably not really afraid. As he was walking away, I checked what time it was and when I should kind of expect him. When I suggested four which would be 45 minutes, he casually said no more like five. OK so an hour and 45 minutes, I can do this. This isn’t brown bear country. And, like he said , any bears who do come by won’t be hungry.

There are dead fish everywhere. In the water. On the rocks. Scattered across the meadow. A third of them are partially eaten. Hard to know if it’s the eagle or the bear, or whoever else it might be.

Out beyond the meadow, I can see the top deck of Endeavour and a little glint off the side where this delta meets the meadow of our shore boat. Overhead there are hundreds of gulls, dozens of eagles, and a few Canada geese to keep me company. They scatter across the mouth of the river — a big muddy delta — and circle overhead. First, the layer of gulls and then way high up above I’m noticing scores more eagles. So I’m not alone.

This magic total peace doesn’t happen as often as you might think — or maybe as often as I would like, but it does happen. Moments, hours or days like this are truly the payoff for all of it. The hard work. The lack of privacy or even the lack of time to finish a thought. And then this comes along…all the time and space and quiet I could ever require for those thoughts. For no thoughts; just being alone and feeling together with just Bill.

But “payoff” sounds so mercenary. Really it’s not the reward. It’s the reason I’m here. This, in fact, is the wilderness I craved since college, the wilderness that I had dreamed of since I visited to Alaska in 1976. It’s been a long time coming.

But here I am sitting in complete and utter wilderness. I’m on an island that no one‘s ever heard of in a cove that is likely unnamed. The summer‘s crazy heat wave almost seems to have returned. After three days of rain and what we thought was real fall, it’s now 75 flippin’ degrees today. Lovely but also disconcerting.

Oh well…like so many things these days there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. Admitting it’s there, over denying it, is one thing. And pointing out to our students that although the sunshine feels great, the 66° water temperature might not be what a fish and other wildlife want.

The waitress back in Ketchikan last week laughed us off as naive bleeding-hearted visitors. “Don’t tell me you’re complaining about the weather,” she snarked.

I wanted to tell her — “No complaints darlin’. We’re just the ones monitoring the wildlife as it recedes into the unknown uncomfortable future.” But I kept quiet and dove into my margarita instead.

Our solid summer expedition season is over. Usually I am pretty toasted by now But somehow things are all running smoothly enough so that we not only aren’t burnt out, we actually enjoyed ourselves right to and through it all. The kids and the faculty we’ve had onboard this summer have been amazing. Maybe they always are. Maybe last year it was just a little hard because I was so new to it all. But I now have streamlined some of the processes around cooking and the daily routine. I find myself saying “I got this.”

And now, I get this. This being here and now, so incredibly small and quiet on this great big beautiful planet of ours. Grateful for all, including for not knowing about all the signs of brown bear Bill saw after all. One more thing I didn’t have to worry about.

Rocky Pass is sort of notorious. It looks wide enough, but the area that’s deep enough to navigate is really quite narrow at different places so it’s tricky; way too shallow at low tide so sailors can’t come here and I’m not sure fisherman have much reason to. It feels like an honor, a privilege.

And then ping! there’s a small electronic sound. Oh dear. It’s me. Or rather it’s from my watch.

Or rather, Jesus‘s watch. I was pretty sure he would be happy for me to want it and even happier that I’m wearing it.

Bill, on the other hand finds it’s too big for my wrist. He and others on the boat aren’t in love with the hourly pings either — but I now think of them as little hellos, or felicidades from Jesus — from wherever he may be, above or beyond us in this world.

Rather than get annoyed by them (because we can’t seem to figure how to turn them off) they serve as little reminders of him and countless, thousands of others who aren’t able to share this peace and beauty. I don’t understand why I am, while they aren’t. I don’t know how to do or give more from here.

In July I took a month off from the boat and went home to Little Hill, my farm where Jesus had lived until he died this spring. I was a little nervous about returning. I was scared to see what shape the place was in without his care. I was also trepidatious about what his little cabin would feel like. That’s where he’d died in his sleep.

But — sigh — tears — the place was in great shape. The other folks living there had rallied and picked up the slack that his absence left, and the little yellow cabin not only felt fine — it felt good. It felt important somehow, to confront, or accept his spirit. It was there in the lace curtains Jesus had hung, in the children’s clothing he had gathered for his kids in Mexico, in his straw hat, in his various good luck charms and rosary. And in his watch.

It wasn’t about confronting a ghost. It’s was more about accepting a reality. A reality that is so unfair, it’s sickening. But somehow by admitting, by knowing and admitting the horror it lets me find friendship and compassion. Maybe more that I don’t have words for.

So I don’t mind the little pings. To remember and think is truly is probably the least I can do. To write about Jesus and to have raised money for his family is a little more. Doing anything, reaching out to local immigration support groups, and talking to them about the cabin again, anything… es mejor que nada.

I’m reposting the blog I wrote about Jesus a couple of months back here because I’ve been asked to:

In doing so, I confirmed that the GoFundMe site raising funds for his family is still alive and active. I was touched to see how many folks had given after reading my piece about him. People who never met Jesus gave. We have raised enough money to send Jesus’ body back to his family in Mexico, and whatever extra goes to his wife and kids.

I will likely never meet them and yet I think about them all the time. His mom and dad, wife and children, brothers and sisters have no idea that I’m up here in the wilds of Alaska with his big black plastic watch on, thinking of our shared connection, Jesus.

Speaking of which – I see it’s time for me to get dinner ready.

June,’25 Baranof & Kuiu Islands

Life is just so weird and funny. (I mean other than the planet and democracy going up in flames…) If I’m lucky enough to forget about that for a minute and just sit here, I realize how totally inexplicable it is to me that this —— this is home now.

The big wooden deck of the finca’s main house on Vieques was my full-on dancing place for so many years. I sang loudly, and rocked my heart out — looking south over the hills to the wide open Caribbean, and beyond. On days when no one was there to witness, I would become one with the universe. Now that place of worship — or whatever it is i experience dancing — has somehow been transformed to the top deck of a steel hulled army T-boat. Now I’m looking out to whatever strait or pass or cove we’re in.When everyone has gone off to explore and do their field work, it’s just me, Stevie Wonder, Angelique Kidju and this ever-changing South East Alaska expanse instead.

Sure I miss the warm tropical breezes and palm fronds rustling — but the freedom and the sense of space and home; and my sense of place on and love for the planet, and life is just as powerful and I am just as at home here now. While the big deck sways a bit at times, this new altar pivots — sweetly, slowly, back and forth, and back, again — on its safe anchor tether. Or if it’s calm enough, I come up while we are underway and gliding across the water

It’s been dawning on me over the past few weeks how this boat and place is truly home now. And how important that sense is to me, and at the same time how crazy it is, or not, that this is my life now. How I can walk with Bill, even in brown bear country, and just enjoy myself.

Last year I was always a bit on edge. This year I’m just here. Thinking about the wildflowers, or the tide.

It’s the same for the working part of my life. This past winter Bill suggested the title “Expedition Manager” for me. Sounded a little pretentious but now, halfway through the season, I know it’s right. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this good— competent — at home in a job before. It’s just coming natural to me. Maybe that’s what I’m paying attention to…what is it that makes us feel at home? Whatever lets us dance and not even care if anyone’s watching or not.

The galley cook aspect is still a lot of work, but I may be mastering it…at least when I compare it to last year when I was scrambling to keep up with each meal. I’m more at home in the galley. I’ve arranged it all top to bottom. I know where each ingredient is stowed, every cupboard has a category. It doesn’t make sense to anyone else, who cares? I’m cooking the food I want to cook; that makes sense to me. I dance when I cook when the kids aren’t there. And to be honest…sometimes with ear pods in I tap my toe and boogie a bit even when they are. Bill says I’m a good role model for them. Love the encouragement.

In fact, the biggest, most important aspect of feeling at home is the sense of home I have with my partner, Captain Bill. I’ve never felt this so deeply before, and at 69, that’s saying something. I wanted to, I hoped to, I pretended to, I tried and tried to. I turned myself inside out trying. But now, I just do. I’m thinking that’s a good sign, and the ultimate test of what we’re looking for in love — to be at home, 100% comfortable being yourself and still loved, while the other guy feels the same. I even dance for him.

More than anything, I’m just more at home with myself. Maybe the secret sauce of feeling at ease is just surviving the decades falling into, walking through, dusting off and dancing after all that life throws at you. My granddaughter is always so surprised that I don’t want to be younger. Oh I would not have to learn all this again. I’m thinking the experience is what lets me recognize where and when I feel at home. And why it matters. Like this. It feels so good to feel like I do in the galley, or dancing on the top deck. .

More and more as I let myself adopt the old crone role, I find myself wanting to share the joy of not caring, not worrying about the small stuff. I can’t help but think the world would be a whole different place if folks felt more at ease, that they could just be themselves — their age, weight, style, view…whatever.

Sometimes as I’m rocking out I fantasize about giving not just dance “classes” but whole workshops about letting go — of our rediculous inhibitions; the stupid negative self-talk —whatever it is that keeps us from owning our right to dance, or cook, draw, play ball , love or just be— freely. Comfortably. At home. The group of high school girls on board right now squealed and screamed that they’d sign up when I told them I wanted to give how to be a hippie lessons — so they wouldn’t have to worry about their hair or the fly that just flew in or all the things they worry about…. But I’m thinking that might take longer than our normal 12-day expedition.

So — here I am; now puttering around like anyone would at home, except my tiny home is 72 feet of floating steel, swinging gently on the anchor in yet one more beautiful, quiet little cove. And there are brown bears all around us, maybe even watching me dance.

Home sweet, …. whatever cove you’re in, I hope you’re at, home.

Boogie down for me, with me,

.

A young friend of mine died — unexpectedly last week. Way too early. Decades too early. Jesús died in his sleep, in his bed, in his small cabin, on my little farm— where he lived for the last year of his life. Jesús loved that cabin. He had just painted it.

I call my farm Little Hill, Jesús called it El Cerrito. He proclaimed himself the mayor. I loved seeing how happy he was there, how much pride and sense of ownership he beamed. I loved that in offering him that sweet safe, friendly, and beautiful place — in exchange for his help around the property — he made me a better person. I don’t know if he knew it, but Jesús gave me the opportunity to act on my beliefs. For that, as well as the joy and wisdom, and Mexican Cokes he shared with me — I will always be indebted to him, and never forget his smile.

Jesús first came to me from a neighbor who knew I often needed help around my place. He had stopped to help her pull weeds one afternoon. In just a few months Jesús became my go-to garden project guy. I could always find him on WhatsApp. He came, worked hard and fast, and just had this sweet way about him.

A year or so later, I heard from another neighbor that Jesús was homeless. He had asked if he could stash his bike and bag of belongings in our shrubs while he was at work at a restaurant downtown. He said he was sleeping in parks.

That didn’t feel right. Not the stashing part — but the part about someone I knew and liked — without a home, sleeping in a park. Bad enough anyone has to do that. But this felt even worse. I couldn’t just do — nothing, but I had no idea what. I kept thinking of the little sleeping cabin in the back of the farm. My kids, understandably said “No way, Mom “ when I asked what they thought of my housing and trusting “some homeless guy“, who I didn’t know very well, and couldn’t really communicate with — as he spoke virtually no English, and my Spanish is pretty basic.

I didn’t know what to do — but I had a clear sense that doing nothing wasn’t an option. The decision was made not in my brain as in my gut. Or heart. Then I remembered a local immigrant’s rights organization I’d been impressed with during the last Trump regime, when they organized demonstrations at detention centers. I called them and asked if we could come to come to meet for bilingual help in coming up with a plan. At the time, Biden was in office. The fear factor around sheltering possibly illegal immigrants wasn’t anything like today. But I have to admit I had a couple of moments of wondering if I was doing the right thing. What would happen if someone ever questioned Jesus’ status. But luckily we just became friends and the fear never took hold.

Until recently. The idea of ICE grabbing him and his spending the rest of his life, locked up in a concentration camp in El Salvador, frightened me to my core. I made sure he knew the reality of it. But Jesús would just look at me with his impish smile and tell me “No Corcho, No te preoccupies”. Don’t worry, Corky. But that didn’t stop the worries, and nightmares. The last one I had was the night he died.

Funny how in the beginning I was worried about me and how it shifted to a deeply maternal worry for him. And even under the new regime, with greater fear, I didn’t care if I was at risk. But now I don’t have to worry anymore. Not about Jesús. Just the rest of the country and the rest of the world apparently. Now I am just sad.

I can’t write without crying. All we know so far, is that Jesús passed away, in his sleep. No sign of drugs or foul play. That may be all we ever know. I suspect apnea. Sometimes when I walked by his cabin in the early morning the sound of his breathing frightened me. I worried that he was not breathing. I never mentioned it because I knew he wouldn’t go to a doctor — just like I knew he wouldn’t leave the country even when I’d warn him about ICE; even when I told him I’d buy him a plane ticket to leave. My latest plan was to give him an airplane ticket — for the future. If he didn’t want to use it, he could just have in his pocket in case if he was ever pulled over. I thought he could tell the authorities— look I’m just visiting. Here’s my ticket out of here. That was our back up plan.

I met Jesús’ dad once on a WhatsApp call, and he often talked about his mother who cut hair for a living and clearly gave him his a sense of style. I’ve written a letter to them. I want his parents to know how much he thought of them and how loved he was in this community. Jesús worked at three different restaurants and food wagons, as well as for a variety of neighbors on projects. We’re all working to help get his ashes through a GoFundMe site, https://gofund.me/ded93426 and give something to his little kids.

I wonder if the people going through his things saw the little blue and white glass charm from Greece I gave him to ward away the evil spirits and bad guys. He would pull it out and show me that he still carried it. It was there next to his ACLU rights card I had laminated for him to carry.

I’ve gone over our latest WhatsApp chats. When I sent him a photo of the bear skull I found on the beach just a few weeks back, Jesús asked me to please bring him one too. He just sent me a video of him mowing the lawn on the new green riding lawnmower, he named El Avispon Verde. The green hornet. But my favorite recent missive was when Jesús wished me and Bill well for our trip north. “Buena suerte mis Capitans del Amor”, that and the enchiladas he gave us for the trip. He wanted very much to come with us to Alaska.

I would have brought him up here in a heartbeat if I could have. Jesus got teary eyed twice. Once when I asked him about his journey to the States, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. The other time was when he mentioned his grandfather. I’d asked if he’d like breakfast. It was his first or second day at the farm And I got the feeling he hadn’t eaten much for a while. He told me he would eat mas tarde; that he preferred to get more done in the morning before he ate breakfast. And then in Spanish, he explained how his grandfather had raised him with a certain philosophy:

In order to live a very good life, you need to eat very well. In order to eat well — food must taste really good; that for food to taste really good, you must be really hungry, and that to be hungry, you must work really hard.

And then he added that to enjoy life, you must also sleep really well, that to sleep really well, you must be very tired — and to be very tired, you must work really hard.

Jesús had learned the lesson about working very hard. But judging from his near constant smile and generosity — he learned the much bigger challenge — how, despite incredible hardships, to enjoy life; to find, or create joy, and how to share it.

Gracias y adios mi amigo. Siempre…

Do we all think we’re weird? That we don’t fit in? or maybe it’s care about the things everybody else seems to….? I’m trying to figure out if it’s just me or maybe we all feel that way. I’ve been reading about Margaret Fuller, colleague of Emerson and Thoreau. Amazing woman, who knew from the get-go she didn’t fit in. Last week a note popped up on my phone— a quote from my granddaughter I had written down when she was four. “Coco, I’m not a regular kid, am I?” The fact that she thought about it resonated with me. I knew the same about me, but I really wonder if in fact, we all feel that way.

By second grade I was asking my mom why it was hard for me to number the lines on the spelling tests every Friday? Not hard like too difficult. Hard like too boring. Always the same ol’ 1 to 20. Always on the left-hand side of the page. I didn’t understand why I got so bored while the rest of the class didn’t seem to mind. So I made up games to entertain myself. I’d jump my pencil around on the thin blue lines and guess where 14 would be, or 18. I wondered if I was cheating because I remembered where 20 was at the bottom of the page from last week… I liked to see how close I could come with all the numbers. Something had to keep me engaged.

And here I am starting to wonder if that’s still what I do —make up weird little routines and sometimes even major life choices, to entertain myself?

Like running an inn in the Caribbean? Or cooking for, and helping run a nonprofit science research vessel in the wildest corners of coastal Alaska? That’s where I’ve been and where I am, respectively. Meanwhile I’m still trying to figure out if the rest of the class happy just staying the course and following orders.

To this day doing repetitive things for very long is a stretch for me. Following directions — like recipes— is difficult for me, especially if they don’t make sense. I think I’ve followed a recipe a few times in my 69 years. And yes, I’m theoretically called a cook. It’s sort of a joke. And yes, I’ve checked my credit card charges a couple of times in my life and balanced my checkbook at least once. And when I hear that some folks do it regularly, or that they save receipts to go back and compare with their credit card charges… That’s when I know I’m weird, and happy to be. If that’s normal. No judgment mind you —just different ways we like to spend our time…

Like today. I’m making toasted bagels with cream cheese, sliced sausages, cucumbers, and tomatoes. That’s not so weird. What’s weird is I’m making the sandwiches on a boat rocking in a cove off of Coronation Island, a small out of the way, ocean-facing island in Southeast Alaska. This cove is the sad site of a tragic shipwreck, the Star of Bengal, that went down in 1909.

What’s weird is that the boat is really rocking and rolling while we are anchored. It’s an interesting sort of aerobic challenge to cook like this, in this condition. Mt body swaying one way and the boat another. The cutting board coming up closer or being further than I expected. The level of every liquid ebbing and flowing, almost, with each swell, and then of course there’s the jars of pickles, and dishes that slide across the counter back-and-forth every few minutes. And you all wonder how I’ve gotten so Zen…

Yep, this is weird. Even weirder is that because of the need to be at this specific wreck site, we will be here all day, every day for the next ten, while the archaeologists, divers and drone operators do their research. I’m used to rocking and rolling when we’re underway. I know how to make simple lunches, and dinners that work. But on this trip, being at anchor is as roly poly as it ever gets underway. And seeing how I’m cook – it’s my job to get something resembling a meal together for nine, hungry, hard-working folks three times a day. That’s a lot of sliding butter dishes. Our guests assume I do it for the love of cooking. I can assure you… that ain’t the case. So I’m trying to figure it out. Why do I do it? Why would anyone do it?

But then why do the divers go diving? And why does Bill choose to spend his time tinkering and fixing and understanding things. Are we all trying to make our spelling test, day-to-day life more interesting?

Who does this? Who would do this when they used to be happily retired? It’s a funny weird job. And not even a job. It’s totally volunteer. 100% labor of love. It’s totally out of love for the wilderness, the kids we bring into it, the importance of the research our scientists do, and the partner I do it with. That’s a lot of love, but it’s needed to have a lot to spread out in different directions to smooth out the bumpy ride and make it all worthwhile.

The fact is, I don’t quite understand why I love it so much… I get virtually no real exercise, nothing like yoga or even a brisk walk or long hike, much time with friends or even to myself to collect my thoughts. But these days I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. Thinking can get me into trouble. I’m not sure about anything anymore… All I know for sure is that:

My day starts at 6 am when my phone vibrates an alarm that it’s time to start the generator. Think McHale’s Navy or Das Boot and those weird metal watertight doors with giant latches. Just the noise unlatching probably wakes folks in the aft cabin. But when the generator kicks in… Phew, that means I’ve done it right. Always a relief — except for those trying to sleep.

The boat gets noisy and I get moving. Sometimes I’m dressed, other days I’m still in my nightgown. Sometimes barefoot, sometimes hair-brushed. Sometimes I run into folks already awake, sometimes I have the whole half hour to myself before there’s anyone that needs questions answered, or wants to chat. To be honest, that’s my preference.

First priority of course — coffee. Duh…. If I'm on my game, I’ll have prepped it the night before. Like right now I’m realizing I didn’t. Ugh. But it feels so good to have snuck away to my little cabin for the evening on the early side. Just too wiped out to go up and deal with it now. Wait! Did I remember to defrost something for tomorrow? Argh. What about the hard boiled eggs for the morning? Screw it. I’ll do oatmeal.

.My day goes on from there. I have about two hours between cleanup from one meal to prepping the next. And that’s what I get to do the work I love the most – talking to interested students and parents; networking with prospective faculty and donors. And every now and then I’m asked to drive the boat. It’s all good with me. It’s all sort of like jumping around on that spelling test page. Sort of like bouncing and sliding around the galley. Sort of like the weird fact that I find myself thinking about freakin’ food in every other waking thought. And now here I am writing about it. That’s weird too.

Sort of like choosing to work from 6am to 8pm. More than sort of, a lot like running the Finca. Do we see a pattern here?

Back in sweet Port Townsend, my home on Terra Firma, I have both free time and other things to think about —like whether plants need watering, when to have the grandkids up, what movie or music is playing, or what the hell are we going to do to voice our resistance to the takeover. But all that goes away up here.

I wonder if that’s why I choose, and love, this weird little life. Little in it’s spaceship like bubble we live in, small in its simplicity,and at the same time, a huge — wide, open, wild, and wondrous— life when I look at the space between us and the islands and mountains scattered around us, going on for hundreds of miles, when I feel the cool freshness of the wind off the Pacific, find pieces of the shipwreck’s hull on shore or just sitting and watching the clouds morph. That was yesterday’s activity that somehow spanned from the infinite to the smallest…

By the time I was in fourth grade, we were studying explorers and I remember knowing I would have wanted to be on those ships. I remember clearly, knowing I wasn’t suited to be Magellan, but I really liked the idea of exploring, being navigator sounded good to me. And later, I knew I’d like to be Sacajawea. I had graduated from entertaining myself renumbering spelling tests pages. It felt good to learn about others who must’ve known they didn’t fit in and didn’t want to.

Now it feels good to be one of those role models for grandkids and all those kids who come on board, wondering if it’s OK that they don’t fit in. Like the old bumper sticker on our family’s Dodge Caravan asked: “Why be normal?”

Indeed. That is the question from first grade to now. If this is what I get for choosing the other course, then my crazy plan is working. And if it’s ship’s cook, rather than navigator for my title, so be it. Besides sometimes I help with the navigation in my downtime.

Onward all….

PS. Thanks to all of you who sent me the smaller signature! Now — I’d be curious if you feel the same, this feeling of being an outsider. Would be funny if it turned out that everybody did —

and in fact, there was no normal.

We’re taking boaters with varied backgrounds, but all seeking hands on experience, 750 miles up the Inside Passage —mostly British Columbia —from Puget Sound to Petersburg, Alaska.

I think they’re excited too — but adult reserve makes it a little harder to see. We’re used to having students —high school, college, graduate and researchers on board. They are all more open in their exuberance. I can tell though— feels like a big deal — for all of us. When they signed on a few months back, the nation wasn’t in the shape it is now. But I think even in their diversity, I think they are, we are, all relieved to be getting away.

At the same time, it’s slightly nerve wracking to be crossing two borders now when tensions between our two best friend nations are stretched worse than tight. So much for the forever part of being BFFs. I wonder about what the breaking point looks like.

So here we are— nine folks, one dog, 12 days, and 72 feet together for just under two weeks. Five guys in the forward cabin, Elena and our one gal in the smaller aft cabin. Bill, Bella, and I are tucked between, in our midsize, midship cabin. It’s close quarters, but that shouldn’t surprise this crowd of boaters.

I don’t like to count up the number of meals 12 days represents. Because I’m on board for that, among other things. I’m also in charge of making folks feel at home— exactly what I did all those years at the Finca. And I love that part. I feel now, older, I can own that I know how to do that. Bill knows how to drive the boat and fix just about anything. I know how to engage and calm. We’re a good mix.I’ve traded my three acres of palms and mangoes, Tradewinds for Chinook winds, my little jungle cabin for a classic mid-fifties remodeled Army T-boat steel. But it’s really the same job.

This time around I’m partnered with the founder, the driving force of the effort, Alaska Endeavour, rather than being the driver myself. What a sweet difference, to share the yoke, helping Bill rather than feeling like it’s all on me. Sometimes it feels as though I get to draft on his wake; like motorcycles behind big trucks — when you get a bit of free ride, and cruise on their velocity cutting the air before you. Bill disagrees. He says we’re both driving this rig. To be clear, over the last year and a half, Alaska Endeavour’s has become mine too. I am committed to the science, the research and education we help provide. I am dedicated, always have been, to the critical importance of wilderness.

So the people, purpose, place are beautiful, wonderful elements—beyond measure. The sun was out, snow-capped mountains clear, and the water glassy smooth for our first several nights heading north. But it is truly not all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. The truth is I have bronchitis and have only managed to get through this with the help of first of course of antibiotics and then the dreaded prednisone. Today was last day so we’ll see how it goes from here.

I spent five hours in the ER in Nanaimo because I didn’t seem to be improving and I was afraid of 10 more days with no services available. I am tired, weak and coughing and I am guilt-stricken because the doctor told me to get in bed. So, Elena’s come-as-a-friend-for-the-fun-of-it first mate rôle has expanded to pretty much doing everything. At least for the next day or two. That’s hard on all of us. It’s almost impossible for me to stay in bed and very hard to impose on a friend. But the fear of pneumonia is out there on the horizon too.

I’m hunkered down still in bed while I hear everyone finishing up breakfast and now shoving off. Since taking to my berth, I’ve been alternating between reading an account of Captain Cook’s third voyage and a couple of books about Catherine de Medici. Last week we finished watching The Mirror and the Light, about Henry the 8th and the Tudor Court. All of which leaves me pretty clear that mankind is basically sick and twisted. Sicker than I am. Maybe humans are like Pit bulls. Lotsof them are just fine —lots of them are sweet, but as a breed…you might want to watch out. What’s happening now may just part of some weird inherent chain of selfish, brutish, human behavior.

But just when I start getting a little too discouraged by that and the state of things, a guest comes up and says he and his wife have decided they want to underwrite, not just one, but two expedition scholarships for high schoolers interested in marine biology, but not able to pay. My heart melts from their generosity.

I am also having interesting talks with some on board who vote and think very differently than I do — from Libertarian to committed Republicans. That is a stretch for me — to be honest. But it also feels good. Confusing too. It’s probably just a coincidence they are also the two of the most helpful, thoughtful we have on board.

All I know for sure is that I am out of the US, or at least the civilized/populated part for a while. Whew… Deep breath. When we were back in civilized/populated British Columbia, I told every Canadian taxi driver, grocery clerk, nurse, and doctor that I think most Americans are ashamed and frightened. They were wonderfully understanding and friendly. But now, further north, we are truly in the wilderness. It’s just us and the virgin planet again, for most of the next six months.

Boat life and wilderness living forces or us all to get along. Part of my job to help us all think and work as a team. Whether it’s water use, how many cookies to grab or the importance of running to the galley when we’ve unexpectedly hit rough waters and there’s crashing sounds coming from the galley. We are all, quite literally, in this together. We are an odd mix and one team. And we will be for a while. The boat is a microcosm of it all.

Oh, so many things to think about these days…

I’m thinking of you, us, the nation, the world…

& sending best from Klemtu Passage…

PS, As always if anyone out there reading knows how to drastically reduce the size of my signature, graphic here please share. Slightly embarrassing to have this Dictator-sized sign off version. ;) Thx!

Of course I protest, and donate and contact my representatives; but I am still pretty much bollixed. Especially still around writing. Although I think about politics and history a lot, I’m am not a political writer.

As a memoirist I love, or used to love, trying to understand, or at least appreciate the moment by feathering through the past for more clarity. Now I’m not sure I want to see things more clearly. I am already overwhelmed. Writing about myself, continues to feel self indulgent. I keep thinking about Scarlett O’Hara and her “Fiddle Dee Dee”.

And then there’s Endeavour. The boat, and the life, it gives me.

The boat has been here with us in Port Townsend all winter, “on the hard” for winter repairs and maintenance. How perfect that I should live in one of the best boatyard towns in the region, and walking distance to it. One might think that winter means a quiet time for us, in between the busy summer season. Not quite….we’ve quietly gearing up — for the summer season. For that purpose and plain old distraction, I am so very grateful.

Even if it means I work now; that I’m no longer retired. It may be quiet (as compared to a boat full of students and scientists) it may be unpaid (we’re both volunteer) but it’s nonstop— with lots to do in the coming three weeks before we take off north again.

My writing these days centers on crafting weekly meal plans and recipes; ad copy and posts to connect with our students, donors and researchers. And you know what? I love it. I love it because it matters. Maybe like never before. Alaska Endeavour’s mission is simple: science education and conservation around Alaska’s wilderness. Who could ever have imagined that any of that might be deemed radical? Subversive? I wonder if it’s risky for me to write this….but F it.

Little could be as rewarding for me right now than encouraging young people to STAY in the sciences, to dive in, experience and appreciate raw wilderness, and witness its importance — from the immensity of the landscape, to the smallest pattern on the leaf or fossil they find.

Bill and I have 19 very busy days before six folks get onboard for our Wilderness Mariner Course — heading north for 750 miles through the inside passage. After that it’s an archaeological dive, then the summer high school and college expeditions—from paleontology and ornithology to retracing John Muir’s 1880s Alaska journey, with a wilderness maritime safety course, and a whale study in there as well. It will be full-on exploring, adventuring, cooking and caring for our folks all the way til November. It feels like to matters.

As much work as it is, and fun, and majestic beauty, this year it feels like an escape too. Images of Steve, McQueen and his motorcycle, jumping the fence flash before my eyes. Or is it more Sean Connery in The Hunt For Red October, I’m channeling? Regardless. I’m grateful as hell to be getting out of here. And even more happy to be surrounding myself with science and nature and curiosity. Long may they reign.

(PS Is it tacky to mention we have two open high school expeditions in June and July? Hope not! :) AlaskaEndeavour.org ❤️

I’m writing from Athens, where I’ve brought my self-taught mythology scholar, 11-year old granddaughter. Yesterday at the start of the “tour” (think walking lecture) on democracy and philosophy, Panos, our guide, started off with that quote.

He explained the mythology that brings most folks, like us, to Greece, with its crazy stories and hidden meanings, was instrumental in developing the minds of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and all the rest; that myths were early versions of self reflection, and essentially helped birth both philosophy and democracy (and everything else those most intelligent minds came up up with).

To tell you the truth I was a little leery of coming. I’ve been so down from the dismantling of our, albeit, less than perfect, system.I wasn’t that excited about traveling. And, in truth, I’m not a big mythology nut. But I was doing it for her. And then I read about that about the opportunity to sit where Plato sat, where the first elections took place, and something clicked inside me. The four hours we spent with Panos lived up to the click.

Especially now in the sadness and fear and despair I’ve been feeling —to sit and learn, even just a wee bit, where IT — democracy — started now, especially now while it is being so challenged has been — incredible. Or more accurately beyond words. It’s like I’ve been handed a telescope with a massive, vast lense — helping me see things with a stronger, clearer global and historical perspective.

These things happen. Democracies, empires, eras, come and go. Rise and fall. We aren’t spared. Despite our entitlements. History repeats itself, and humans don’t learn from history. We’ve grown up hearing that, seeing that — but usually elsewhere. Looks like now it just may be our turn. It appears to be inevitable.

Funny enough, Panos also introduced us to Ananke, a goddess even Jinny didn’t know about. Few of us do. Ananke is the goddess of inevitability, and I think oddly, necessity. Who knew? She was thought to mark the division between the eon of Chaos and the beginning of the cosmos. She was considered the most powerful dictator of fate and circumstance. Yet because of her unalterable nature of inevitability it was pointless to make her offerings. “Nothing is stronger than dread Necessity” was a Greek saying. I’m thinking of Buddhist acceptance.

Not that it isn’t still horrifying. But this helps me. It helps me to talk with the people and hear what life is like living in a seriously broken systems, that used to be a democracy, in fact the mother of democracy— now, where power rotates through a few wealthy and corrupt families; that much of what was public has been privatized, and now barely work (trains etc) ; that taxes, and the cost of living are unbelievably high, while salaries average nationally around $1000 a month.

And yet somehow Greeks live and laugh; eat, drink, make merry, go to school, make art and love. Life miraculously goes on. it’s not the end of the world, just maybe the world as we’ve known it.

When our cab driver asked me to name the things Trump was doing that frightened me most, I mentioned the firings of so many federal employees. “Ahhhhhh,” he said. And almost smiled “Be happy then. He’s not killing them. Things aren’t so bad.”

Oh the beauty of gaining a wider, historical perspective.

Don’t misunderstand— I will not sit back and do nothing. I will write and call my representatives, I will get back involved with Indivisible, I will protest. Like the Athenians, I will exercise my rights while I have them. But maybe I can write now. And I feel like I’ve been laughing more.

It also helps to breathe. Another rise and fall.

It gets more confusing and more difficult for me to find a toe hole, a place — an emotional place — from which to write in this dark and even darkening, confusing time. We all seem to coach each other onward — cheering the value of staying strong and creating. Even while cities burn, islands wash away, nations cheat and fail, people starve and kill, with apparent threats of only more and more, getting worse. As much as I love to write, not for the life of me can I imagine how it can be of any value to any of this…

…and yet here I am in the dark wet of 6 am in the middle of January, in Port Townsend, trying to find solace. For years it would have been my journal I turned to, now it’s this little machine on my lap. It’s not all bad. This way lets me connect to others, rather than spiraling in my head, alone and it’s for that, and maybe that alone that I am here, that I write; the richness, the payoff of that connection with you. Truly.

To that end, I’ve used social media too. Like so many it has helped me to find and connect with childhood friends, college pals, past loves, and old co-workers. I’m one of those who thrive on all that. But I’m leaving the traditional venues of Facebook and hopefully Instagram. (never touched X or tic tok) I’m hoping Blue Sky and Substack fill the bill, the void I am fearing. Want to come with me??

It’s sort of ironic that now, at what feels like the brink of worsening times ahead, when we should stay as united as possible, that so many of us are splintering off. But it feels like I have to. If we don’t take what few actions we can to resist the bullshit, we are already toast. I’m refering, of course, to Meta Corporation’s announcement about fact-checking this week. That was my last straw. I’m outta there.

Oh dear. Just dawned on me that there will be readers who balk at my going all political here. But I’m not. I’m not going anywhere, or doing anything. I’m being consistent; true to all I’ve ever done — pouring out across the page, or screen, the silly ramblings that roam around my head.

If you are new to my ramblings then you may think of me as writing about adventuring on boats, in the remote wilderness of Alaska from late in life, or for trying to crawl my way out of the grief and trauma around losing my husband, and La Finca Caribe, and a few other things….If you read my book you may see me as the intrepid but harried tropical innkeeper, young mother of three. Before that my writing was just the seasonal missives of the innkeeper, announcing winter specials, or opportunities for trade-out stays. But there are a few strands at the core of everything I write that I think/hope hold true — love and maybe truth. I was going to write rebellion, but I think that’s more a tactic than a philosophy. I do advocate rebelling, but not for the sake of rebelling, but to cut the bullshit — and there’s a growing amount it seems daily.

I sort of want to use the word authenticity, but even that has been co-opted by the meatgrinder of cultural appropriation. But being genuine to ourselves, our efforts to live simply, for the sake of the planet, and kindly for each other, has always been the common strand, so this little missive is no different. Besides, what does the sea-going adventurer write about when she's home, “on the hard”? What does the searcher write about when she's found the love she’s sought? I really don't know. I can't even write about the beauty of the mountains or the dawn because it's so damn dark still, way past seven.

So dear friends…this may be all there is for now, on this dark morning. I’ll sign off now and use my time today to learn how to move to Blue Sky. Even if it’s just black out there right now.

Here’s to building community, finding ourselves and each other — in the cloud, on the land, o’er the water…

PS Have faith, stay tuned…next week is the first anniversary of meeting Captain Bill. I’m sure I’ll have all kinds of more fun things to think and write about. :)

The empty white page is like the open new year — stretching out before me. I love how it waits; almost begging to get started; to be filled with words — or artwork… Maybe I should just watch, and be, as the page, or the day, fills, and defines itself.

Between the winter solstice, my birthday two days before, and the looming new year, these darkest winter weeks always mark a summit, the milestone for me to stop for a moment to take stock of it all. It’s time to witness the shift when the year behind sheds its mantle and hands off the baton to its neighbor — the year ahead, like a line dance the years do with each other, ringing — and breathing— in the newness, and potential, with the reality of what’s behind.

I love the classic holiday letters about the kids and now grandkids, the travels, and family reunions. I want to write one, but this last year is too big — mine doesn’t seem to want to fit on the page. So maybe there’s a different recap … How about:

Key Things I Learned in 2024:

— like how to make a mean venison chili, what field dressing is, and how to help drag the carcasses over meadows and through streams back to the boat.

— that bears like my chili too, and the importance of securing the cooler in a way bears won’t get into it. 

 I hope I learned to be “more okay” in bear country —which it all seems to be up there — and focus more on being prepared than afraid.  — how to walk quieter and see more, how small my boot looks stepping into a fresh grizzly print, 

— to talk to otters, how to spot whale “footprints” and how to steer a 100-ton boat around them.

—  how not to panic when the humpbacks turn and swim just barely under the boat, so that you can look down and see the barnacle on their back as they glide right beneath me.

I learned Dall porpoises like the boat, will come up and dance and swim next to it in some …..version of ecstatic dance while harbor porpoises keep their distance. 

-- how wonderful it feels to be needed, part of an effort, working with students again; that a boat mom, or whatever it is I’ve become, is a vital part of a boat crew’s makeup. Not sure who had this role in the boat days of yore, but everybody comes to me for bandaids, help with working the head, family issues, and love life questions.  I re-learned how much we all seem to need that. 

A big thing I learned was how much it helps, when there’s a glitch, whether that’s that’s wrangling a meal out of too meager a cupboard or dealing with a broken windlass, getting folks involved, together, works much better than trying to fix it alone, or pretending there isn’t a problem. 

Screw it…even the list doesn’t begin to convey the magnitude of the sea change that 2025 was for me.

Ironically, the most obscure, crazy but fundamentally most important thing I learned this entire year was way back in January. And that’s —- if you pay the extra $50 bucks for the upgrade on Tinder, you can go back and write a note to someone you saw and accidentally swiped without a word.

Without that lesson, I wouldn’t have learned any of this. And that fact blows my mind. Guess ya just never know…

Or maybe…this time I knew what I was doing.

Happy New Year friends. Here’s to the wild unknown year ahead. May 2025 be filled with learning and love.

Now it seems my journal is my laptop set to Substack, my sketchbook the groovy drawing app I have on my iPad, my raftmates are scientists, students, and now this small crew.

Our river is salty — and changes daily from Prince William — with each strait, pass, and inlet we travel through, all the way down, to Puget —Sound.  And the couple of weeks has grown to half a year. 

We are nearing the end of our latest, and last journey of the year, from Petersburg to Port Townsend, on Washington’s Olympic Penninsula, all 750 miles, 12 days, a few storms, and a couple of cyclones of it. Our raft of course is now, Endeavour. My seat now, a big old black leather bench, rather than inflated grey rubber.

Feels good, and somehow important, for me to know, that as new and exciting as my “adventures” may seem, they are — and always have been  — just a part of me. My soul’s clear need for both wilderness and community, overcoming challenges, and loving the quiet. For getting away, and coming home.

None of that is new at all. Before rafting is was backpacking. After,  it was sailing. It’s all the same. As a child, I loved studying about the early explorers. Although I never saw myself as Magellan, it was his trusted navigator’s rôle I knew was mine.

Last year as I was coming up on the end of a year of focused, sort of committed on- and off-line dating, a friend asked if my “requirements” for a partner weren’t perhaps overly restrictive. And maybe optimistic. She also wondered about my love of sailing and if that really had to be part of it.

“You’re right.” I acquiesced. “I guess they don’t have to have a sailboat….I guess it could be a motorboat.  But it’d have to be the right one.”

After all, hadn’t David and I switched from sail to steam for a few years when we found sailing with two little boys too crazy? The MV Sea Amigo, an aged but sturdy old Bayliner Saratoga from the 70’s had been just the ticket for us to get up to the San Juans to crab and shrimp and explore with kids.

Sigh…I look out into the dark, turning to first dawn light and back into the memories….

If we could measure such things, those hours spent, pulling up those crab pots, building those driftwood beach forts, pounding the waters to Jimmy Buffett —

Mother, Mother Ocean,  I have heard your call… 
In your belly, you hold the treasures few have ever seen,
Most of ‘em dreams, most of ‘em dreams. 
Yes, I am a pirate, a few hundred years too late…

…and, maybe oddly, the Little Mermaid soundtrack. I can not remember, or even imagine happier times, as a mother, and maybe as a family. Those kids, that boat, the music, sunshine, and saltwater….

But clearly, I digress…

I was trying to explain to the friend that being on the water, defereentiating sailing or motoring was irrelevant. Neither was new or a “hobby”. I had tried partnering with a non-sailor once, and I ended up feeling like the dog, left pining at the window, watching and waiting. Especially in Port Townsend, especially at my house that looks over the Sound — right over the harbor, with the boats taking off, or coming back in from their explorations.  I can hear the rattle of the marina’s rigging from my bed. It lulls me to sleep, woven into my dreams.

So was it unrealistic that I put that out there, clearly spelled out in my dating profile what I was looking for?  Men would respond, sometimes off put, by my lines:

My idea of a dream date:Dropping anchor in a small quiet cove and watching the stars.

The best pickup line for me: Tell me you're looking for crew in Southeast Alaska this summer.

“Surely you jest,” they would mock.

No, actually…I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just clear. Finally. Even my therapist thought I was maybe asking for too much when, on top of those, and a few other things I was looking for, I added that I wanted to be cherished. As a halfway ADHD non-conformist, or conforming type, I was sick of being tolerated, I wanted someone to celebrate my weirdnesses. I had, after all the loss and change, both the first go round in my forties — what my book, La Finca was all about, and then again in my sixties, I had finally built a great, and whole life — again, and on my own.

Maybe again is the wrong word. Truth is, I don’t think I was ever this whole on my own before. So this time, FINALLY I was looking for a partner to make my life even better, not complete. That’s why he needed to love life on the water, and me.

Now is that too much to ask? Apparently not. I have freaking “landed” ;) it all. Our fifth date lasted three months.

Funny — and perfect that this morning I am in those very waters, the ones spent with the kids at my peak mothering moments.  We are anchored just off Spencer Spit. (Assuming this qualifies as day…it’s black as ink out there) It’s 6:30, Captain and crew are all still asleep. We can sleep in today as it will be a short one. Our last — for this trip, and for this amazing season. For this magical year. Today we reach landfall, my home port of Port Townsend, and my new wild-ass adventure will be over — for a while. Or new ones beginning…

May we all bail the buckets of whatever it takes to figure out just what our soul is crying out for. Go for it. It’s worth the work to bust the myths. These “adventures” aren’t new, or maybe even adventurous. It's more like today’s journey — all just coming home…

I found myself laughing at it all. And forgetting the current slow-motion national nightmare felt so healthy. Feels healing, and so rare nowadays, just to l-a-u-g-h.

My two traveling companions that got me laughing are guy friends of mine — one old, one new— signing on to help crew on Endeavour for our 10-day trip home. Captain Bill has never met either one of them, and they don’t know each other. Guess I’m the common denominator. Fingers crossed we all get along.

Matt is a friend from my teen years —from the small farm “high school “ collective we went to, where we lived like good little hippy kids in barn lofts, riding borrowed horses, building hobbit houses in the woods. We’re like cousins now, after 50(+!) flipping years; comfortable — same age, same values, a shared love of the same music.

The other, Brook, is a new friend, who rents a cabin on my farm. Both of these hearty adventurers know boats, had mentioned they’d love to crew if we ever needed, and are easy-going enough to handle whatever might come up while living with strangers in a small space. It takes a certain skill set.

So here we are now. And there we were then. Just a few days ago. Just laughing. At it all: at taking off for an adventure — almost two weeks together — at dumb travel jokes, at early morning flights, at not knowing each other or what we are in for. Everything seemed worth laughing at. Like debating whether Canada might take all of us in as political refugees as we cruise its waters on the super-natural inside passage of BC’s coast.

Like being the chick singer, living north, or south of our borders has long been a fantasy. The kindness I find in each culture has always inspired me. So I’m both leery of what’s brewing in the land we are returning to and determined not to get stuck in the WTF of it all. If I do, then they’ve won. Then the bad guys just stole my soul for that hour, those hours. And I know that’s a slippery slope. If I cave now, how many much more of me, in time and energy, creative thought and joy will they suck out of me as I stare out the window in head scratch and heartbreak?

But this wasn’t supposed to be about politics. I’m no pundit, or apt to jump ship. I just wanted to write about our trip south, Endeavour’s official end-of-the-season wrap-up. I wanted to try to line out all that I’ve been learning. I wanted to unbraid the tapestry woven across my charts, of the landfalls and the magic we discovered aboard, from brightest summer to now what feels like winter.

There’s so, so, so much there. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to unpack it all, to look at and better understand this emerging me. It’d be lovely, and just fun to try.

But, if I am only here and now, away from all the abstract worry — life is very good here on the boat.

Yes, it’s cold, and nothing but grey, light drizzle with a 30 mph wind at our nose, but I’ve learned to widen my definition of what’s a beautiful day. Like learning to love both grey and gray. Layers, and textures of it. Lots more than fifty. Seems limitless, like the mountains, islands, skies, and waterways spreading out around us.

We’ve been underway now for a couple of days. We left Petersburg, with its crazy strong current sending us south at almost double our hull speed, with sun and blue skies for the guys to see the mountains, and get a tiny taste of Alaska’s beauty. A good start. But with each new channel or body of water, a new menu of winds, tides, and currents faces us. The days here are noticeably shorter, so we don’t stop for much. Storms are brewing that need dodging.

The guys have gotten pretty used to driving the boat, so I can cook and care for the gang, and Captain Bill can catch his breath, and catch up on the pile of boat projects waiting. If I get bored there’s always chili or stew to make with all that venison. And yes, everyone, all these strangers to each other are getting along just great. Friendships being made.

Brian Eno’s Music for Airports is accompanying us as we glide through the grey and wet. Every inch of it a dream come true. Even the nothingness. I've learned to just be with all of it. Even the grey. Nothing to see but wilderness and wild-ness.

It’s come to be more than feeling at home. Endeavour and this life in the wild with Captain Bill is another home. The way the Finca felt.

But now, after three months at it, we are cruising south to Port Townsend, what Bill calls “my other home”. Endeavour will be in the boatyard, “on the hard” for repairs.

Funny — my two versions of home will be just a few blocks apart. Wonder how that will all work, how we’ll get along as landlubbers until April when we are scheduled to turn north again.

I wonder too what it will be like to stay put in the PNW for a winter, without the warmth of Latin America. If I make it, it will be my first winter without Puerto Rico or Mexico in 20 years. But then…who knows what adventures lie ahead that aren’t on our radar yet…

I saw an article the other day on the benefits of adding adventure, quest, even hardship to help give us purpose, and resiliency to trouble. Roger that. No surprises there. I’ve long known adventure works for me. So even though I’m headed back to my old and less adventurous life I’m grateful that Endeavour will be nearby. Maybe I’ll crawl off to sleep aboard in the boatyard. I can rest easier with the adventure of April lined out. Like a worry stone in my pocket, knowing I have a ticket out of here helps.

Maybe right next to the worry stone, I’ll keep a sense of this last-of-the-year, one-of-many great trips on Endeavour as a memento. Thinking I will likely have need of a talisman to remind me how important it is to keep lightheartedness handy, that strangers can turn into friends, and strength can come from stepping into the unknown.

‘Cause here we go…

One of my favorite parts of being back in civilization is that we tie up to shore power. That means silent running. I can make my coffee and sit here with the heater and lamp on, all in quiet. No need to go into the big dark and sort of scary engine room with my flashlight and ear protectors on and start up the noisy generator that rattles everyone awake. Heck, just unlatching the engine room’s heavy submarine-like door wakes folks.

But they are all gone now. No one to worry about but the dog and the Captain. And they are pretty worry- free.

Without guests, I don't have to be chatty with anyone as I stumble through the breakfast prep, barely awake. Don’t get me wrong. I like my morning routine, their company, and the soft way the earliest risers let each other wake as we all get ready for the day. From day one, I learn who wants their coffee strong or not or their morning corner quiet. It’s the care and feeding of guests — scientists, students, or crew that I love. But that said, this first no-responsibility morning is still to be celebrated — by either sleeping in late or getting up early to witness the dark, quiet, snowy dock morning by myself.

Even the harbor is quiet this morning. Salmon season is over. No more fishing boat engines and stereos roaring, pulling in and out of the slips, all hours of the night — sometimes just feet from our berths. That is all over now— until next year. Just like we are. The whale researchers were our last expedition of the season. Sigh. Time to regroup. We have a week off now, and then it’s the trip home, all the way south, back to Port Townsend.

Although even now, in the still and dark, I see a light from a solitary boat glide by, off in the channel. It's so dark that its single light moving horizontally is more like a slow-mo shooting star against this night-like morning sky. But this meteor causes the boat and my table to rock and sway in its wake. Fun to type on a keyboard as it comes towards me, and recedes. Speaking of receding…

I woke early with words I’d been looking for starting to form in my head. I’ve been waiting for or wrangling them. I’ve been trying to form some overarching summary wind-up of these magnificent three months on the boat. But like the mountains, the sea, and the raw wilderness here — all that I’ve experienced, learned, and felt — it may be too much to capture. Beyond my skillset. Just like the glaciers.

Truth is, I don’t know how to write about the glaciers we visit. Each one, in its majesty, mystery, and history seems beyond my comprehension and description. We’ve probably been to a dozen, but I haven’t been able to write about them. Along with the magnificence, each one almost fills me with sadness. Maybe it’s just being so up close and personal with them that gives off such a painful, almost tactile awareness of their demise. I wonder if John Muir thought about them receding?

Maybe it wouldn’t be so clear if I hadn’t lived in Alaska 40 now years ago.

Back in early August, on my first week, — Captain Bill was going over our route — we’d head to a beautiful, and way out-of-the-way glacier, and stop at the site of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the very rock that broke the hull of that ill-fated ship. Bill loves history as much as I do— and has a better head for details, one of those walking encyclopedia types. I got confused because the glacier’s name Columbia sounded familiar. Seems like I'd even seen it years ago — but how could I have ever had the chance to get up that long fjord? I’m thinking of photos of my mom visiting back in the 70s. Seems like we went right by that glacier on the ferry that runs from Valdez to Whittier. I remember it was indeed enormous/jaw-dropping/mindblowing — however one describes glaciers. But it wasn’t out of the way.

So we scoured the charts, and I continued to be confused. The ferry route wasn’t anywhere near the glacier. It looked to be 15 miles away. I must have the name wrong. Or route, or something.

We were tied up next to another science research boat and invited its marine biologist skipper over for coffee. His primary project is trying to figure out why the Copper River area salmon are getting smaller. Like so many science conversations it pointed to climate change. When he flat out told us that Columbia Glacier has been receding at between 60 and 100 feet per day since they started studying it — in the mid-70s. Right when I saw it last. In what feels like a short life on the planet, the glacier has receded 15 miles. We're not talking historical visits, like since Bering or John Muir. We're talking within my personal Corky Parker lifespan — 40 years of it.

That fact has been lodged in my throat, heart, and spirit since that day. Three months back. As much as I want to write about the grandeur of the wilderness, and our trips I've avoided much detail about the glaciers. I don’t have the heart to bring it up and it's too wedged in my own to know how.

So, I’m confessing — I don't know how to write about glaciers. But we can add climate change, corporate greed, and mankind’s inability to learn to that list, too. On top of that, the growing wars and election angst have kept me from writing. My missives from the boat, even a boat dedicated to science research and the importance of wilderness, seem superfluous. So often when I want to write, I end up just sitting. Meanwhile, I got a letter from an upset reader who was disappointed that I made a reference to politics in a recent post. She asked me if that was really my job— as a writer. It’s a good question.

The truth is. Writer or job, or not. I don't know how to be in this world without thinking about politics, economics, justice, and the planet. (Funny that environmental political science and economics is actually what I studied at school.)

The answer is yes. I think I do have a responsibility here, other than making sure life jackets and bear spray are accounted for. I need to get comfortable, whether I understand it, or not, talking about the painful, along with all the beauty.

With prayers, or whatever they are, that mankind’s grace and good triumph soon,