WHOOOOOOA MAN

Hello friends and fam!! I am in Panjim, Goa, India! We arrived 2 nights ago, and its been a little crazy. The morning after we got in to port, Captain Dr. Peter the Flying Dutchman Vrolijk got very sick and had to be rushed to the hospital. He is still there suffering through a couple of kidney stones. Yikes. So Elina and I have been busy keeping watch on the boat (which is anchored very precariously) and taking trips in the hospital to check in with Peter, so incidentally we haven't really been able to explore a whole lot. Of what we've seen however, it is a very charming little port town. The food is amazing and cheap, and the people are incredibly endearing and nice. We're having a good time.

Today, I went to the bakery and loaded up my bag with bread and sandwiches and other food (a LOT of food for under 4$), and hit the street. I was easily able to find a few people who could really use a bite to eat. This is something I will continue throughout the trip. Actually I have been toying around with the idea of creating a paypal account so people could donate from home and help feed these people. ANY THOUGHTS?? Would this be something you all would donate a few dollars toward?? I mean really 4$ went quite a way.

Soooooooo...... the SAILING!!

It took us 13 days to sail 1800 nautical miles from Phuket to Panjim, and every second was absolutely incredible. The open sea is truly a wonderful, magical and powerful creature!! Every day is the same, but every day is soooo different! Hope that makes sense. Elina has decided to fly home from here so it looks like the good captain and I will be sailing from here! We'll see what happens.

I miss everyone at home, and I miss Portland dearly, but I'm having a great time!! I have taken the time to type out a few entries from my personal journey at sea, I thought it might help paint a picture of what its like. I'll try to upload some pictures as well. HOPE YOU ENJOY!!

Love Willy



Jan 22 – Middle of Andaman Sea 23:50
Just woke up for first night watch.

Jan 23 – Offshore Phuket – 01:00 07*32’N 97*24’E
I’m in the middle of my first night watch. It’s the middle of the night, I’m alone, miles and miles from any land, in the middle of the Andaman Sea. There is a fairly steady 10-13 kt breeze off the starboard stern, cruising at 5-6 kts consistently on a course of 269*, just 1* E of due west.

It’s truly incredible. The billions of twinkling stars all around like you’ve never seen, a warm tropical breeze to our back, and the hundreds of bioluminescent tinkerbells fluttering off our stern remind me that I really am sailing off to Never Never Land.

Jan 24 – 15:24 – 06*35’N 94*09’E

We’re about 30 miles off the southern tip of the Indian Nicobar Islands, cruising yachts are not allowed there.

I woke up this morning to the pitter patter of heavy tropical rain on my thankfully closed hatches. We are in the midst of a tropical convergence zone, which has brought dark, heavy clouds overhead and heavy rain. Wet, but not uncomfortable. Kind of a nice change from the blistering sun.

It’s a slow simple life at sea, but it’s not boring. The changing scenery, flying fish, rolling waves and endless sky could keep you entertained for a lifetime. It’s not hard to see how men fall in love with the open ocean.

Jan 25 – 03:47 – Bay of Bengal – 06*35”N 92*46’E

An eventful day at sea! Heavy tropical showers this morning. Slightly overcast most of the day. We passed the southern tip of the Nicobar Islands this afternoon around 17:00.

I caught my first fish!! The wind was really starting to pick up around sunset, Peter and I had just put up the genoa (130% headsail), and suddenly our fishing line started to vibrate violently. I was already getting anxious to pull in a fish so this was a very welcome surprise. I ran to the stern and started reeling the line in, he was a fighter! At first glance I thought I was looking at the dorsal fin of a shark being pulled through the water. It turned out to be the pectoral fin of a 15lb Yellowfin Tuna! After a good 5 minutes of wrestling an fighting, I got the fish in to the boat and Peter immediately went to work. He cut the first filet, and we all took a bite of the still flexing meat. Now I’m not the biggest fan of raw fish, but this was incredible, primal and natural. We thanked the fish and the sea that it came from, and enjoyed delicious pan-seared Yellowfin dinner.


Jan 26 – 04:00 – Bay of Bengal

The liveliest night watch of the first week has come to an end. At 1:00 in the morning I found myself in the midst of a rather substantial shipping lane. It’s not an official shipping channel, but clearly it’s the preferred route for huge 200 ft. oil tankers and barges to make passage. Surrounded by seven massive ships, going several different directions, I did my best to keep tabs on the speed and direction of each, and to foresee and potential collision courses. It’s very exhilarating for the mind as well as the heart. As I am mentally plotting routes of half a dozen giant vessels, I start to hear a chirping noise. Hmmmm, curious. I shone my torch out into the night sea, maybe expecting to see a dolphin, but I saw nothing, yet the chirping continued. I started making clicking noises back, and as I was lighting up various areas of the deck, I saw a small black figure on my right foot! It took a few seconds for my eyes to focus, and as they did I saw a tiny bat tilt his head up at me! A bit startled, I gently brushed the bat on to the deck. It was panting heavily and clearly exhausted. His name was Monty. We are a hundred miles from any land, so I can only imagine he flew from a nearby ship.
Keep in mind this is all happening while I’m trying to keep our tiny boat from being ripped to shreds by 7 different ships. I wish I could have been more accommodating to the little fellow, but really all I could offer was a few encouraging chirps back to him. In between looks through the binoculars I spotted him ambling back toward the stern. Before I could do anything he leapt right off!! I felt awful. Next time I see Monty I will have a bowl of fruit and a cup of warm milk waiting for him.
Just after this incident as my shift was ending, I noticed a rather large vessel coming straight off our stern very rapidly. He clearly did not see us, or did not care. I changed course and illuminated our sail with our big searchlight. Just in time he saw us and changed his course as well. Elina was on deck by this time and she agreed they came a little too close for comfort. We were only a few hundred feet away by now safely moving side by side, and for five minutes we just stared in awe of this huge floating city. Unreal. The Tupilano is a fairly sizeable cruising yacht, but it is nothing compared to these mammoth ships.

Jan 26 – 19:00 – Bay of Bengal, Halfway to Sri Lanka

DAY OF DOLPHINS MAGIC TIME!!

Leisurely day, did laundry, a bit of reading. Around 15:00 as we were setting the code zero forsail a pod of ten magical dolphin friends came to visit!! Laughing, twirling, flirting and jumping about, they were clearly enjoying themselves just as much as we were!! I named the leader Fancy Rabbit, and I asked Peter if I could keep one of the small cubs. He said no. Dutch bastard.
At around 18:00 our new magical friends came back to join us for sunset! It was a perfect scene of fluffy billowing clouds with as many different shades of red and orange as you can imagine, shared with our playful new companions.
Every day is the same, but every day is soooo different. And MAGICAL.


Jan 27 – 17:17 – Bay of Bengal – 06*00’N 87*19’E

Well I saw the captain’s penis today.

He has a shower station set up behind the helm at the stern of the boat. Very handy (and randy!). So we’re just cruising along, and all of a sudden Dr. Vrolijk drops trow and starts to bathe right there!! I’ve read about this before, and it’s not uncommon. A lot of skippers embrace a very loose dress code out in the middle of the sea, as well as the fact that he is a European. I guess now we know where the term ‘cockpit’ comes from!
On a less funny note, our water maker is leaking. Yup. Leaking. Not really the word you want to hear out of your captain’s mouth while in the middle of an ocean passage. It’s a pretty small leak, thankfully, but I now have a new chore; sponging out buckets of water from under the floorboards in the workshop every other day. Woo hoo!! We’ll see what we find after we take it apart.

Jan 28 – 03:45 – Bay of Bengal – 06*01’N 86*21’E

Fancy Rabbit and his friends came back to see me today!! 18:00, the whole sea around me was filled with an electric magic energy. My dolphins jumping out of the water and swimming together in patterns, fish leaping and flying everywhere, in the distance a huge fish bounds out of the water to evade a predator. The energy was almost a living creature.

Jan 29 – 02:45 – Bay of Bengal

Amazing night watch!! We’re doing a solid 10 kts right this second!!

What’s also incredible is how close to death I am every second. Not to sound dramatic or unduly worry anybody (mom J), but I’m crawling around in the dark on this sailboat going very fast, well fast for a sailboat. I am the only one awake. It’s very difficult to fall over the side, but if I did I would tumble into the pitch-black swells of the Indian Ocean. At this speed, and with everyone asleep, by the time the rest of the crew noticed I was gone I would be miles away, nearly impossible to find. Like I said, not to make anyone worry, but it’s a very sobering thought. And the fact that we are aware how dangerous it is makes us that much more careful.

Jan 29 – 17:37 – Offshore Sri Lanka – 05*58’N 81*19’E

We are now off the coast of Sri Lanka. In a few hours we should be able to see land quite well. It will be a welcomed sight. I’m also looking forward to a delicious Mahi-Mahi steak dinner tonight. That’s right I caught it J.

Jan 30 – 21:00

20 kt winds close hauled it’s wild!! We just put in a reef and I had to go to the mast man it was nuuuuuts. Crazy wind, deep swells and crashing waves on the foredeck!! Felt like I was looking over the edge of the world, one strong gust could send me flyin!!

Jan 31 – 3:30 - Southern tip of India – 07*35’N 77*32’E

Sailing across the Indian Ocean in the middle of the night, alone, in crazy weather that necessitates being strapped to the deck with a professional grade harness, in only your skivvies and foul weather jacket singing along at the top of your lungs to Billy Joel’s greatest hits is called living life.

Feb 1 00:15 – Off West Coast of India

This is creepy. No wind, dense fog, lurking along dark coast of India by engine.

Very low visibility, only sound is chugging of engine.. very Heart of Darkness

Dead calm sea. Like obsidian glass. It’s a thick, briny haze that coats your whole body with salt. Your hair, your skin, your clothes, all covered in thick salt crystals. You feel the saline cloud your lungs with every breath.

I am navigating these waters solely by radar. No visibility. It would feel very claustrophobic if it weren’t for the endless expanse of stars overhead.

Feb 3 9:17 – West Coast India off Mangalore – 13*09’N 74*05’E

Well the captain saw my penis today.

So my night watch every night is from midnight until 3:30 in the morning. I go to bed around 4 a.m. and I wake up at 10 a.m. That is the routine. This morning at around 7:15 a.m. Peter bursts into my cabin, “Willy I need your help”, with a sense of urgency. I cheerfully spring out of bed and come up to the deck. Peter explains that as we were motoring this morning (NO WIND) we seem to have caught something in the propeller! He had shut off the engine, and he needed me to dive under the boat and see what the problem was. I put on my diving gear and I was in the water within 3 minutes.
It took about .4 seconds to see that there was a great deal of rubbish that had wrapped itself around the propeller and it needed to be cut out. There is full SCUBA gear on board, but it was not readily available. And after looking at the problem I decided it would be best to go without, as the sea was smooth as glass. Even if the water got the slightest bit rough it would be very dangerous to be underneath a huge boat like this underwater. So I took the window of opportunity and a huge breath, and I made the plunge. Even though the water was so calm the boat was still bobbing up and down, so with one hand bracing myself on the hull I made my way to the prop. It was about 6 ft. deep and 10 ft. inward so I knew I would only have a few seconds of air left once I reached it. It took me 3 or 4 dives, but I was able to cut all of the junk loose with my knife. After about 5 minutes I emerged to the stern of the boat victoriously holding a giant jumbled mass of kelp, fishing net, rope and plastic over my head!! HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MY BOYS AT NIKE A/V, KEN, JOEL, BRIAN, GEORGE, ROBERT AND SEAN, FOR BUYING ME THIS DIVING KNIFE AS A GIFT!!! It may not have been a giant man-eating eel, but this junk in the prop was actually probably more dangerous. Luckily the mess didn’t damage the propeller or break the shaft or anything, because that is a VERY bad deal. I think that after this feat, I have finally one the heart of the captain.
I was a mess, and I needed a shower, so I decided to join the European way and go for a shower in the buff on the deck, in the company of the skipper. And that’s my story for today.