SV Maggie May Blog

 

WELCOME to the sailing adventures of SV Maggie May and crew, Captain Bill Updike and First Mate Krista Schlyer. SV Maggie May set sail in the Chesapeake Bay in May 2020, with a plan to sail south and then westward all around the world. A host of early setbacks–from Covid to contractors to squirrels–put the idea of a circumnavigation on a distant hold (see early blog entries) and demanded the crew reevaluate their goals, and even the idea of goals.

  • Si Dios Quiere
    Most people in the rural areas here don’t have air conditioning or televisions or even electricity necessarily, yet there is an energy and an air of contentment I have seen nowhere else in the world, certainly not in my own country. There are dark sides of course. There are always dark sides. To all of us and everywhere. And we have been here long enough to see some of those too. But what I take with me is laughter, generosity, self reliance, wildness, commitment, beauty, and for me a deeply inquisitive drive to better understand the nature of contentment. The world turns on this ethereal phenomenon. The Dominican Republic knows something important. 
  • A creature of flight
    They were no longer wild creatures with their own endeavors toward life. They were curios and props for a culture of beings often too obsessed with being seen to see for themselves what is right in front of them. A wild bird mutilated. A creature of flight, flightless.
  • Under Rocks and over sand
    On Bonaire’s western shore, Maggie May floats upon aquamarine glass over what is known as the Bonaire House Reef. It’s a coral reef that extends the length of the town of Kralendijk, the main city center of the island.Continue reading “Under Rocks and over sand”
  • Imaginal Cells and the Gilded Sack
    Outside the jade chrysalis, utter stillness. Inside, there was a riot of pain and self harm. The caterpillar devouring itself. At this stage the creature—or creatures more aptly—are a biological bridge between the caterpillar and butterfly. They are goop in a gilded sack, largely made up of what’s known as imaginal cells.
  • Off Soundings
    I think about that moment when our depth sounder goes from 290 feet to – – -. That’s somewhere beyond 300 feet, how much beyond is practically irrelevant. This passage the depth will fall to almost 10,000 feet. The sounder will read – – -, off soundings.
  • Boiling, Guadeloupe
    About midway down the western edge of Guadeloupe there is a small bay where the town of Bouillante nestles within the foothills of towering green peaks. Here most of the population speaks French, the air smells strongly of sulfur,Continue reading “Boiling, Guadeloupe”
  • The Beginning
    I woke this morning at first light and climbed the four steep companionway stairs into the cockpit. I have climbed these stairs 1000 times in the past 18 months. The boat interior was dark but the sun, still belowContinue reading “The Beginning”
  • Autumn: 19N Latitude
    4:00 am is a time for nostalgia. I have been seeing some photos lately of dear friends in sweaters with leaves changing in the trees above their smiling faces. The fall, my favorite season at 38 degrees north latitude, has come home to Maryland, USA, and I am not there. And where I am the meaning of the word autumn is quite different, if it has any meaning at all.
  • THE BOAT LAB: Energy & the Sun All-mighty
    Several years before we moved onto the boat, Bill began devising an energy strategy that would allow us to be as free from fossil fuel use as we possibly could be. How successful have we been?
  • THE BOAT LAB: Crash Diet for Freeeedom
    A conscious approach to consumption becomes critical to sustainable life on a sailboat.
  • When Time Sleeps
    It was that type of rare and wondrous morning. Easy. Gentle. Light and lightening. When long-held burdens of the soul lift and time seems to stretch out and relax, lounge about easily as if it means to stay a while. Just here.
  • Thieves in the Night
    Had the Atlantic trade winds been westerly, we would be living in a very different world. These relentless winds blowing ever from the east facilitated the conquest and colonization of the Western Hemisphere; they made and unmade kings. And they make beggars of all those who try to oppose them.
  • Harry Potter and the Pistol of Shrimps
    These moments with nature’s magic have led me to think a lot about the idea of human-made mediated magic, and of its presence, or rather omnipresence, in our modern world.
  • Luperon, DR
    Sometimes, perhaps even often, the thing unsought is the thing you need.
  • Destination Unknown
    One year ago today Bill and I woke at dawn in Town Point Marina in Deale, Maryland. As usual the swallows and osprey had beaten the sun awake, and they chattered and fretted as we prepared the boat forContinue reading “Destination Unknown”
  • The Grace of Sharks
    I woke one recent morning to bright sun streaming through the hatch a few feet above my pillow. Through the open deck I could see morning shining on the face of our life raft’s grand title: Fortune Favors theContinue reading “The Grace of Sharks”
  • Reading the Water
    My computer still refuses to turn on so in lieu of a normal blog, while we have WiFi, I’ll post some thoughts/mini-blogs to try and catch up the SV Maggie May story. We left Great Harbour in the BerryContinue reading “Reading the Water”
  • Andiamo’s Gift
    Fort Pierce, Florida, Birthplace of Maggie May Everything tastes so much better when you have reached the far side of an unexpected ordeal. My coffee this morning. The new box of Walkers shortbread I just opened. The breakfast eggsContinue reading “Andiamo’s Gift”
  • The Longest Night
    At 2:00 am I look up from my book to see Bill sleeping deeply, his sleeping bag gripped tightly around him against the cold. The dim blue light cast by a night vision night light pulls his face outContinue reading “The Longest Night”
  • A Very Pungo Thanksgiving
    A bald eagle perched in a long dead conifer has been witness to a spectacular procession of light-on-water these past 12 hours. He and Bill and I. We are all in the upper stretches of the Pungo River, nearContinue reading “A Very Pungo Thanksgiving”
  • Donuts in the Desert
    ST. MARY’S RIVER, 11-5-2020 — Yesterday afternoon we sailed up the St. Mary’s River on a light wind from the southeast. This river, which we have returned to several times over the past months, runs southward from its headwatersContinue reading “Donuts in the Desert”
  • Into the Abyss, and other fun things
    One of the hardest things about this journey—beyond the heat and cold, the financial stress, fear and self doubt, the trying to live in a confined space with another (albeit lovable) human being, the banging my head on theContinue reading “Into the Abyss, and other fun things”
  • The Wealth of Time
    A friend asked me yesterday what we do with our time now that we live on the boat. I came up with a list of things, awkwardly put together and here expanded: (In summer) Priority 1, find shade orContinue reading “The Wealth of Time”
  • The Bluejacket’s Manual
    Summer on the Chesapeake Bay, in five lines: Hot, humid, thunderstorm. Bald eagle tries to steal fish from osprey. Osprey crying out indignantly, loses fish. Great blue heron barks  at both of them, at no-one, at everyone and the general effrontery of the world. Hot, humid, storm. Jellyfish.
  • A Chesapeake Summer
    Summer on the Chesapeake Bay, in five lines: Hot, humid, thunderstorm. Bald eagle tries to steal fish from osprey. Osprey crying out indignantly, loses fish. Great blue heron barks  at both of them, at no-one, at everyone and the general effrontery of the world. Hot, humid, storm. Jellyfish.
  • Confronting the Inner Squirrel with Farm Girl Grit
    One of our first big weather events is behind us. Maggie May made it through Tropical Storm Isaias virtually unscathed. We spent the day of the storm on high alert, as the wind forecasts were constantly changing. This uncertaintyContinue reading “Confronting the Inner Squirrel with Farm Girl Grit”
  • Fate Turns on a Squirrel’s Teeth
    On the morning of July 9 my journal entry began, Setting off again this morning at high tide. We’ll see what transgresses. Headed to Maine. It was to be our second attempt at a launch, but it followed theContinue reading “Fate Turns on a Squirrel’s Teeth”
  • Gratitude, Maryland
    Where to start? Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland…all places I wasn’t expecting or hoping to to blog about at the end of June 2020, but that is the way of adventures. I’m writing from the dining room table ofContinue reading “Gratitude, Maryland”
  • The Voyage Has Begun
    Chesapeake Bay: Rockhold Creek to Chester River 6-14-2020 Last Tuesday, June 8, 2020 we cast off lines at Town Point Marina in Deale, Maryland, and headed out into the Chesapeake Bay for what we hope is a 3-year voyageContinue reading “The Voyage Has Begun”
  • Setting Sail
    Launch is imminent. Destination flexible. So much has changed from when we first started planning this voyage 15 years ago,  even in the past few months, right down to the direction we will be going. Our hope had beenContinue reading “Setting Sail”

About the Sailing Vessel Maggie May and her crew

The BOAT 

Maggie May is a 39 foot Westerly Sealord sailboat built in 1986 in England. When we bought her in 2013 her name was Vilkas. Apparently this means ‘werewolf’ in Lithuanian, an omen we overlooked initially. We spent 7 years overhauling, caretaking and sweet-talking the werewolf. A job that will never end. But  she returns our love with a comfortable place to live and she’s happy sailing in 15-20 knots, and capable of moving along in 5. She’s heavy but quick for her girth, plucky and determined. We renamed her Maggie May after our Corgi/Dachund mix dog who died a few years before we bought Vilkas. This is the original Maggie May…

CAPTAIN BILL dreamed of living on a sailboat when he was a little spud growing up near Lake Michigan. He’s spent much of the past 15 years working in the sustainability field in Washington DC, so living in limited space, with limited water, food and energy is the perfect living lab for learning how to thrive in an environment of natural scarcity. Energy efficiency, solar, wind, waste reduction and water conservation have been as integral as rigging, sails and engines in the preparation for this voyage. We’ll be blogging about sustainability along the way.

For Bill this is a time of sabbatical, a time for learning how to live slower and smaller, but also so much larger in the space of each present moment. Instead of working 60 hours a week at a job, he works 60 hours a week fixing things that go wrong and appreciating things that go right on a boat. 

FIRST MATE KRISTA has worked as a freelance conservation photographer and writer and for the past 15 years, chronicling landscapes of grief and beauty along the US-Mexico borderlands, and the Anacostia River in Washington DC.

The allure of this sailing adventure, in addition to fulfilling a lifelong dream, was to spend some time honing the craft of photography and writing, learning Spanish and ukulele, and reading poetry and all the books she can squeeze on the boat. Mostly, it is a time to see all the loveliness there is to see, and find some healing from the work of documenting the ongoing degradation of the natural world. 

Follow along on the adventures through our Maggie May tracking page .