Why sail to Hawaii...

Many times friends, and people we meet make comments to us. They are almost complaining that we are living large like millionaires! Sometimes they speak with envy, and sometimes it is with some contempt for us to dare to live out of the box. In reality we live like pioneers. We ferry water jugs, food, laundry, fuel jugs to the boat via way of the dinghy. That’s why the dinghy is so important to us. It is almost life itself.

Sea Aquarium, Bahamas

Tounge of the ocean - Bahamas

Our crew in Bimini

When we sail we stand watch in rain, and at times freezing weather at the helm. We work hard to gain our pleasures. For us all the hard work, and grief are well worth the rewards. Living with nature, and all of it’s beauty. Yes, there’s beauty even in a storm that worries us. We still find beauty, and rewards in what we do.

Sailing on a cold front from Green Cove Springs to Miami Florida in 48 hours. This is Daytona

Waterspouts captured while sailing off Miami to Bimini

Bahamas

Dolphins play at our bows. Whales swim alongside us. (view this link below to see dolphins swimming on the bow of the boat )

http://youtu.be/aqDqnCuJolg

Sunsets, and sunrises are there for the taking. Especially when we are on watch to witness the sun rise, or set with nothing but the horizon limiting our view. We visit beaches with no one around. To have placed the only footprints on a beach on an island with no one else around can make you feel small.

Key West, Florida Keys

Exuma Cays, Bahamas

Pearl Island, Panama

Allans Cay, Bahamas

To witness the horizon with nothing interfering with the view can make you feel smaller. Especially when the hand of Mother Nature starts to paint her artwork across the sky.

Visit this link : http://youtu.be/-GzwQzsQcLU

Star Island, Miami

We have wild birds land on the boat when they are weary. We swim with the creatures of the sea, and are amazed at the beauty of coral. Once we had some snotty weather, and Mel was ill. A dolphin came alongside our stern. The dolphin leaped in the air within a few feet of where Mel was standing. He did a flip, and winked at Mel. She forgot about being ill, and says the dolphin was sent to her so she would heal, and heal she did, because she forgot about being ill in her excitement.

My regular guest

Bird inside the navigation station

John captured this two lovely dolphins

Sometimes people ask what do we do all day. At times it seems all we do is fix things, and run errands in the heat. The work is so hard at times. It breaks up couples who have been married for decades. Sometimes they sell the boat for pennies on the dollar in a foreign port. Sometimes they simply turn around, and go home.

Living large like millionaires? I think not, I call it living the adventure of life, or just plain living. I have made the decision to live outside of the box all of my life. Because of my lucky stars. Mel has made the choice to live with me. She was worried in the beginning that she would be a prisoner, and there would be no social life. Her social life has been enhanced by meeting all sorts of people from all sorts of places. She has become even more free with her travels, and adventures than she could’ve imagined.

Caribbean Jacks with Lynn, Daytona Florida

Staniel Cay, Bahamas with Brother in-law Tanner and son Ty

Josephine and Don Randall

Islamorada, Florida Keys with Ian, Don and Mary

Lynn and Bob and Frank Holland-Green Cove Springs Florida

Reynolds Park Yacht Center Marina Friends-Green Cove Springs

It’s not an easy life, and for a short time I forgot the rewards it gives to me. I felt like giving up the other day, but as any storm that feeling has passed. The thought was just a squall passing through. Mel, Imagine, and I are sailing to Hawaii!

Our life with Imagine has been an exciting, and precious time together. The other night we sat in the cockpit, and ate our dinner. It was a first since we have been on the boat. The sky was beginning to darken as the sun set. The lights of downtown Panama City were starting to twinkle as they came on. The weather was perfect, and we started talking of our past. Of the things we have seen, and all of it’s beauty. It was fun to look back on our lives together. Then we talked about our future, and the sail to Hawaii.
(To view the video of Panama Anchorage click the link : http://youtu.be/agbTxs7K9Kc)

Las Brisas de Amador Anchorage - Panama

Anchorage in Panama

For me the sail to Hawaii is deeply spiritual. I feel it pulling me there, and have felt this for over 15 years. My great grand father was a Healer, Kahuna, on the Kona coast in 1900. Once when I was 11 my grandmother told me in the summer she would take me home. I would meet family, and see where we came from. Only later in life did I understand what she was saying.

I did not realize the importance for her, and myself. My family is very
mixed. I have cousins that are as fair skinned as one can be with blue eyes that seem to have to end to them. Then there’s me, and I seem to fit many different ethnic backgrounds. Mostly I look Polynesian, and Latin. Before summer came Grandma was killed by a hit & run driver. Now this is my father’s mother, and I had never met my father’s father. He was a mystery to me. He was never spoke of, and I never asked.

John as a kid

John and Dad

When I was 27 my father told me about my grandfather. I decided on my own I would find him, and find him I did. I wrote him a letter, and 9 months later I got a phone call. It was his wife, and then she put him on the phone. We made arrangements for me to drive 150 miles to meet him. He was 70 yrs old then. We talked for awhile, and he started to cry. He told me he could see my grandmother in my son, and the Hawaiian was obvious. I was shocked to be told I am ¼ Hawaiian. Then he told me about my great grandfather being a healer. Now for the first time I understood what grandma was trying to do. She wanted me to see, and feel what it was like to be Hawaiian.

Eventually I made it to Hawaii on my own. Unfortunately it was a time in my life where drinking was a major factor. A friend & I flew to Hawaii, and the first thing I noticed was that I looked like most everyone there. It was late for us, because of the time change. We got our jeep, had a meal, a lot of drinks, and went to bed.

I woke up about 4am, went out on the balcony. The hotel was located on the small bay of Kona, and across the water I could see fire. I needed to see what this was, so off I went for a walk. I came across an older man who was preparing the stones for a pig roast. I watched him for a long time as he went about his joib, and he watched me for just as long. probably wondering what I was up to. This was on the lawn of the Kameah Kameah hotel. I saw a small path, and followed it. I felt I was making the man uncomfortable. Down this path was a small podium at the water’s edge. It told of Kahunas teaching the prince how to become a King in this very spot. As I stood there the sky turned a blood red with the mountain in the background being black as black can. The water before me turned blood red also, and for the first time in my life. I felt at home. I could feel my grand mother, and I could feel I belonged. I stood there for the longest time, and eventually the sky was loosing the red, and turning blue. Deep inside me that morning something changed.. My brain was to be clouded for years to come with booze, but I had changed in some way.