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.
Tag Archives: krista schlyer
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. Though this reef has been more impacted by human development and enterprise than many other areasContinue 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, and every day, for most of the daylight hours and long into the night, the communityContinue 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 below the mountains to the east, cast a pale light on the clouds in the western sky.Continue 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.
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 for its biggest day, the day we would cast off lines from our home port. Within theContinue reading “Destination Unknown”
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 Berry Islands on March 28 hoping to get to the Exumas over a couple of days, inContinue 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 eggs and potatoes Bill made. Some 16 hours ago I thought there would be no more breakfastsContinue reading “Andiamo’s Gift”
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, near the point where the Alligator River – Pungo Canal reaches its southern terminus in North Carolina.Continue 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 headwaters to its mouth at the lower stretches of the Potomac. Along the way it twists andContinue 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 the bulkhead every damn time I go to the aft cabin—has been the absence of a mission.Continue reading “Into the Abyss, and other fun things”
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 uncertainty was the greater part of why we decided to go to a marina rather than rideContinue 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 the fifth or sixth major named storm in the life of our circumnavigation dreams. Still, we wereContinue 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 of my good friends, the Goods, who have kindly and warmly welcomed Bill and I to stayContinue 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 voyage around the world. Dear friends began arriving around 8 am and we said a few words,Continue reading “The Voyage Has Begun”
At Home With the Gods of the Chesapeake
We made it. After 15 years of planning, 7 years of working on the boat, 2 months of pandemic lockdown, we are finally moving aboard Maggie May. Bill and I have spent the past few days carting carloads of stuff from our home basement and our friend Dave’s home, (where we were staying for theContinue reading “At Home With the Gods of the Chesapeake”
KRISTA SCHLYER 