2021 Life Logs, Day 73: Too Slow, Too Fast
Date: Sunday, March 14, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny and Windy; High 47, Low, 17 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I did it. I completed my book chapter on the 5+ weeks Windbird spent in the Galapagos Islands.
And I completed my food jigsaw puzzle—artichokes, peach halves, kiwi, arugula, spinach, and pink Peruvian lilies (Alstroemeria, only the roots are edible once cooked). The puzzle has been on my dining table for two months, so it was definitely time to finish it. It is beautiful, but I am ready to move on to a new puzzle. On both projects, Chapter 10 of my book and the puzzle, I was moving a snail’s pace. Maybe the writing will go faster on the passage to the Marquesas Islands. We were in the Galapagos for 38 days, but the passage took only 21 days and we saw almost nothing along the way. There will be the story about running over a sleeping female sperm whale, but otherwise, I remember it as a calm passage without much drama. When I go back and read the logs from that time, I might find out differently.

So, I have been moving too slow, and I think Governor Charlie Baker is moving too fast. Heather stopped by late this afternoon to deliver some packages of mine that were delivered to her house and she told me that as of the 28th of April, Jonah and Sam, and all Falmouth students, will be returning to school full-time. I wanted to call Governor Baker and sing the old Simon and Garfunkel song “Feelin’ Groovy” to him. If you remember, the song begins with the words, “Slow down, you move too fast.” Since September, pre-school through fourth graders have been in school full-time, but all other grades have only been in school four days a week, every other week. The rest of the time, they are remote. It has not been perfect, but the virus transmission rate has been very low. Now, in just six weeks, all students will be back in school full time. Teachers, who have just been elevated to essential worker status, might not all be vaccinated. I can’t imagine this is going to go well. If I ran the world, I would have added one grade at a time or just left things as they are until next fall. I remember last spring when all of us were very unhappy with remote learning. It has its good and its bad. But under the current system in Falmouth, coronavirus cases have been kept in control. When Sam and Jonah heard the news that they would be going back full-time they didn’t understand why they couldn’t do part of their schooling remotely. Many adults are having the same reaction to going back to work in their offices full-time. It is going to be very interesting to see how we handle this transition as a nation. And about going more slowly, I heard Dr. Anthony Fauci say today, “You don’t spike the football on the 5-yard line. You wait until you are in the end zone.” Great advice.

2021 Life Logs, Day 72: Writing, Writing, and Writing
Date: Saturday, March 13, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High 47, Low, 33 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was a sunny day, but when I went out to take Shadow for a late morning walk, I wanted to turn around and go back inside. The wind was blowing and it felt freezing to me. We completed only half our normal walk and saved the other half for later in the afternoon when I would wear something warmer. Those two walks and two short phone calls were the extent of my day other than my writing, writing, and writing. Oh, I also took an hour break late afternoon to watch the IMAX video on the Galapagos. Yes, I am still in the Galapagos, but should be on my way to French Polynesia by Monday. And I have a correction to make. Last Monday I wrote in my log that we spent 30 days in the Galapagos, but today I realized it was 38 days. We had a six-week permit and because of another transmission issue, we almost stayed the entire time. When we arrived in the Galapagos, the anchorage was filled with world cruisers. By the time we left on the 22nd of April, there was only one other sailboat in the anchorage, and they followed us out. There was a reason people had moved on and that was because you have to go all the way across the South Pacific and get south to New Zealand, north to the Marshall Islands, or to Queensland in Australia before the cyclone season begins in November. You have to keep moving because, depending on your final destination, there are about 7,000 to 8,000 miles of ocean and beautiful islands to see in a very few months.

I stopped to watch the Galapagos video because I was writing about our experience exploring the Sierra Negra volcano on Isabella Island. That day rates in my top experiences of all the things we did around the world. Heather and Jed had flown to the Galapagos to tour with us and we were anchored off Isabella Island. We had read that if went to the café on the main dirt street in the town of Puerto Villamil, the owner would arrange a tour of the volcano for you. We did that and by chance our tour guide was a young man, probably in his forties, named Mathias Espinosa. What a piece of luck that was! He was a fabulous guide. His father was a geology professor in Quito in mainland Ecuador and Mathias had grown up with a geologist’s appreciation of the earth. I read online today, “When Mathias came to the Galapagos in the late 80’s, he fell in love with the raw and untouched beauty of the Enchanted Islands and decided to make the Galapagos his life’s work and passion.” By the time we met him in 2006, he had probably been in the islands for twenty years. He was a dive master and had made a living doing that on Santa Cruz Island which is the tourist hub until he ‘retired’ to Isabella where we met him. He told us he was working with the BBC on a movie about the Galapagos, but he did not tell us he had been the featured naturalist guide in a 1999 IMAX film on the islands. All of that experience was wrapped into one person and we were the recipients of his vast knowledge. And that was just one day of the thirty-eight days we spent in the Galapagos. I have struggled to compress all of the experiences there into one chapter of The Voyage of Windbird. But I am hopeful that I will finish that chapter tomorrow.

2021 Life Logs, Day 71: The List
Date: Friday, March 12, 2021
Weather: Partly Cloudy and Windy; High 63, Low, 29 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

If you were a common woman living in the beginning of the first century, your daily ‘to do’ list might look something like this.

Haul water.
Card flax.
Spin thread.
Weave clothes.
Mend sandals.
Make soap.
Pummel wheat.
Collect dung.
Prepare food.
Milk goats.
Feed men.
Feed babies.
Feed animals.
Tend children.
Sweep dirt floors.
Empty waste pots.

Are you tired yet? This list is from a book I am currently reading entitled The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd. Heather gave me her copy of the book for my birthday. It is a novel about a woman named Ana, who, in this book, is the wife of Jesus. I am sure this offends many people, but the author did meticulous research into life during that period and the book is mostly about the life of this woman who was the wife of Jesus, not about Jesus himself. I find it a fascinating look into the life of a woman who struggles to realize her life’s dreams and am loving this book. From the background that I have read, the Sue Monk Kidd has stated that she did not want to offend with this story. In an author’s note she writes, “I am deeply and reverentially aware that Jesus is a figure to whom millions of people are devoted. His impact on the history of Western civilization is incomparable.”

I am not offended and look forward to taking Jonah, and sometimes Ollie, to the skatepark in the afternoon so I get in a little extra reading time. Reading Ana’s ‘list’ today, I thought about my daily list versus hers. We no longer have to haul water, weave clothes, or repair sandals. But we do need to feed whoever is in our household, feed animals if we have them, tend children, and sweep floors. My daily list changes with the seasons, but right now it revolves around writing. It goes something like: take Shadow outside to go ‘potty’, read the NYT The Morning online and work the mini-crossword puzzle, prepare and eat breakfast, read and answer emails, write, take Shadow out, write, prepare and eat lunch, write, pick up Ollie and ‘tend’ to grandchildren at the skatepark, come home, take Shadow out, write, prepare and eat dinner, write some more, watch cable television while riding my exercise bike and writing my log, take Shadow out, go to bed. Obviously, writing is the center of my world right now. Oops, I forgot to sweep the floor! What’s on your daily list?

2021 Life Logs, Day 70: One Year Ago Today
Date: Thursday, March 11, 2021
Weather: Partly Cloudy and Windy; High 55, Low, 44 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I watched President Biden give his first address to the nation tonight and his comments led me on a journey back to this day last year. Since I write this log every day, I can go back and check to see what I really thought at the time, not what I remember that I thought. They are not always the same. I was amazed at the speed with which my life changed, and I think it was pretty much the same for all of us. I went back and read my logs from the beginning of last March and my first mention of the coronavirus was on March 11th.

2020 Life Logs, Day 71: COVID-19 Affecting Our Lives
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2020
“Hopefully you, nor anyone you know and love, will get the coronavirus, but today it became clearly evident to me that it is going to affect all of our lives whether or not we get the virus. The Governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency this morning to further support the state’s response to the virus and that prompted a number of decisions to cancel things.”

On the day before that, on March 10th, I hosted my book club at the here at the cottage and made no mention of coronavirus. Life in my world was going on as usual. On the day before that, on March 9th, I drove to Dedham to visit with my friends the Kanegsberg and on to Chelmsford to have lunch with my niece Lynn. I took Shadow with me to introduce him. I even stopped at Costco on the way home. Again, life was going on as usual. Then March 11th hit and my world started changing, quickly and drastically. Here is what I wrote on March 12th and on Friday the 13th.

2020 Life Logs, Day 72: Cancellations, Cancellations
Date: Thursday, March 12, 2020
“As we are all aware, today was a day of many cancellations . . . public schools, colleges, basketball, baseball, Broadway theaters, even Disneyland. Those cancellations plus the stock market dive are a little scary. We are all moving into untested territory . . . It is just that we as Americans have no idea what the next days will look like. Things seem to change minute by minute . . . Heather called this evening to tell me that she and Jed will be working from home for the time being . . . I did a little more food shopping this afternoon and am preparing for the possibility of a couple of weeks at home . . . just in case.”

A couple of weeks? I guess I was truly optimistic.

2020 Life Logs, Day 73: A New Normal
Date: Friday, March 13, 2020
“Friday the 13th ushered in a new normal here in Falmouth. Basically, for now, we are all home-bound or when we are out and about, we must be very mindful of social distancing. This is hard for adults, but almost impossible for kids. Hopefully, this new normal will be short-lived, but that is yet to be determined. The decision to close public schools in Falmouth was made today.”

Short-lived? What was I thinking?

2020 Life Logs, Day 74: A Virus Changing the Way We Think
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2020
“This evening I was talking to Heather on the phone about our new lives living with the threat of the coronavirus. We are having to change the way we live very quickly, but on the phone call, I realized that I also have to change the way I think. There is no set roadmap to follow. Each of us has to make decisions about what we will and will not do to protect ourselves and to protect others in the next couple of weeks. And this requires that we change the way we think. I thought I had things under control and then I said to Heather that I would be going to play Mah Jongg on Wednesday evening. She quickly replied that I needed to rethink that decision. Basically, she was saying that if we are going to be successful in flattening the rise in COVID-19 cases, we all need to stay home for the next couple of weeks—no indoor social gatherings no matter how small. Somehow, I thought getting together with just four other people would be fine. Not so. Living with the threat of this virus demands that we change what we do AND we change how we think. This is a huge challenge and one that I have not faced in my lifetime.”

And now here we are a year later. As I listened to President Biden’s speech tonight, I felt hope. But the problem is the same now as it was from the beginning. We are not acting together as one people. Not all Americans are willing to play by the same rules. I am more hopeful, but we will just have to wait and see.

I did make one tiny baby step forward today. I got together with two friends on the deck, not in the driveway as I said yesterday, of a friend’s home. We all had on masks when we arrived, but in order to drink tea, we did have to take the masks off. One of us has had both vaccines, one has had Covid and one vaccine, and I have had one vaccine. We were outside and we were far apart. I felt safe enough, but afterwards I questioned if it is too soon to be doing this. I think I will wait until after I have had the second vaccine plus two weeks before doing this again.

Writing continued today and I made my daily trip to pick Ollie up after school and then took Jonah to the skatepark for an hour. And, of course, I had my daily walk with Shadow. Tomorrow looks pretty much the same. At some point, I have to stop writing long enough to do some cooking. Right now, I am making my morning smoothies and eating a lot of salads. I should try to make soup and a casserole over the weekend to get me through next week.

2021 Life Logs, Day 69: The Enchanted Isles
Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Warmer; High 56, Low, 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Writing about the time we spent in the Galapagos during the Voyage of Windbird is taking longer than I thought it would. Maybe I am just enjoying being there so much that I don’t want to move on. I have talked with many people who have flown to the Galapagos, gotten on a tour boat for a few days, and then flew away. None of those people seem to have had the same experience that we did. Maybe it was being there on our own boat and staying for a longer period of time. Or maybe it was attention to detail and researching in the moment what we were seeing. I learned everything I could about the plants and animals there, while we were there. I carried my wildlife identification books everywhere with me. I asked questions and I wrote about everything we saw every day. Now that I am re-reading what I wrote, I want to check every little thing to make sure I had it right. It took me all day today to get through a day and a half of our five-day tour on the Sulidae. It looked like a pirate boat. It even had red sails. It was one of the most affordable five-day tour of the islands that I could find. It was not fancy, but it was perfect for us and for Heather and Jed who flew to the Galapagos to tour with us. We all became enchanted. And that sent me on a mission to find out who first called the islands of the Galapagos Las Encantadas or “The Enchanted.” There are many versions of the origin, but in the 1500’s Spanish sailors who reported that the islands appeared and disappeared right before their eyes earned the islands the name “enchanted”. To them that meant a menacing and ominous place. It was the dangerous currents and swirling mist that caused the islands to come in and out of focus, so because of that they were feared as a dangerous place. During this same time period, a bishop of Panama, Tomás de Berlanga, was on a ship that drifted off course and landed him in those islands instead of Peru. He reported seeing thousands of large galapago there. Galapago translated as turtle (tortoise) and eventually the islands were named the Galapagos Islands. I prefer to think of them as the Enchanted Isles with ‘enchanted’ carrying the meaning of magical, not ominous and menacing. Hopefully tomorrow I will make it through day three of our tour. By the way, we were on a tour boat instead of on Windbird because of the travel restrictions in the islands. We had a six-week permit allowing us to travel to only four designated islands. To go to other islands we had to hire a naturalist to travel on Windbird with us. It was much simpler, and cheaper, to go on a tour boat. And it ended up to be amongst the most treasured days of my life.

The weather here is still not enchanting. It is sunny and beautiful but today it felt too cold to enjoy my long walk with Shadow. Tomorrow and Friday look warmer with a high temp in the 50’s, BUT it is going to much windier. I guess we will see how things play out. A couple of us are going to have mid-day tea in the driveway of a friend’s home. I guess we’ll find out if a high of 50 degrees with 20 mile per hour winds feels warm. At least the wind is from the south, but it was from the south today and it did not help. Another good thing that happened today is that I got the go-ahead to have a new tankless on-demand natural gas water heater installed. Once that is done, hopefully the natural gas company, National Grid, will be able to go ahead with other energy efficient renovations on the cottage. And lastly, I enjoyed another late afternoon of reading in my car while Jonah enjoyed time on his scooter at the skatepark. That’s it for today.

2021 Life Logs, Day 68: Busy Day
Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Weather: Sunny and Warmer; High 56, Low, 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

It was last spring that I managed to herniate two discs in my lower back. By September, things were back to normal, but I have continued to check in with my chiropractor. Today I graduated to appointments every six weeks. Sometime in the fall, I graduated and didn’t need to see him at all, but then immediately did something to throw things out of whack. So, I am hesitant to stop seeing the chiropractor completely. He is convinced I don’t need these check-ups, so if things are still fine in six weeks, I’ll wean myself away. I am just so grateful that the herniated discs healed themselves, but I sure don’t want to go through that pain again.

Today did feel like spring. The high temperature soared into the 50’s and the sun was shining. Glorious day! After I got home from the chiropractor and running into town to put a laundry load in at Heather and Jed’s, it was time for my Zoom book group meeting. This month’s book was Susan Vreeland’s Lisette’s List. The setting was France during World War II. The descriptions of Paris and the Provence region transported you right there. The art works of Pissarro, Cezanne, and Chagall were featured in the book and I know I’ll never look at the colors in a painting the same again. The book was a great mix of history, art, and human emotions. My favorite questions for discussion were: Does learning about art teach Lisette (or any of us) to live a fuller life? Or does living a fuller life teach Lisette (or any of us) to better understand and appreciate art? I sided with the latter.

Before the Zoom book club meeting ended, there was a knock on my door. The plumber that was coming to give a second estimate on the cost of a new hot water heater arrived early. The first plumber recommended a 40-gallon gas water heater with a built-in fan. This plumber recommended a tankless water heater. With the rebate, he said the price would be almost the same as a 40-gallon gas water heater with a built-in fan and much more energy efficient. Once the estimates come in, a decision will be made. I’m anxious to see the quotes.

After the plumber left, it was time for lunch and an extra-long walk in the sunshine with Shadow. I then picked up Ollie and took him and Jonah to the skatepark and rushed home to join in on my public policy group Zoom meeting. No time for writing today. But I will continue tomorrow.

My birthday present from Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco finally arrived. Last week they had ordered a gift card for me from the garden center that is less than a mile away from here and it took a full week to arrive in my mailbox. As Justin said, someone could have walked it here much quicker! But I was delighted. It was a perfect gift for me at this time of year. Thank you, JJZ&C.

2021 Life Logs, Day 67: Continuing the Writing
Date: Monday, March 8, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Ever So Slightly Warmer; High 38, Low, 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I continued with my writing today and got stuck in the Galapagos. I thought that would be an easy chapter to write as it was one of my favorite places around the world. But that actually made it harder. We saw so much, and I am having trouble reining it all into something readable. We had a six-week permit, but as I wrote today, I realized we were only there for thirty glorious days. But that was long enough in one place to make us feel like residents. How lucky the people are that actually live there. Tomorrow I am going to start making a list of all the anchorages we stayed in around the world and record the number of days we stayed there. I know we anchored off Bolgatty Island near Ernakulam, a part of the city of Kochi in Cochin, India for 45 or 46 days and 43 days anchored off Ile Fouquet in the Salomon Atoll in the Chagos Archipelago. Windbird spent almost five months on a dock in New Zealand, but we were not there most of that time. And she spent months at a dock in Bundaberg, Australia, while we traveled home. And seven or eight months at a dock on Langkawi Island in Malaysia and another two months on land at the Boat Lagoon Marina in Phuket, Thailand while Mark and I lived in an apartment there while Windbird got a facelift. I am pretty sure that Mark and I spent more time in the anchorage in India than any other single anchorage around the world. We spent almost four months in Madagascar, using one anchorage as home base but moving around constantly. I will be interested in the result of my final list of anchorages and marinas and the time spent in each. I know I can’t allow myself to get sidetracked by projects like this or I will never the book written. But somehow, I feel the necessity of doing this little project.

Jed picked Ollie up after school today as they were going to the lumber yard to get supplies for an Ollie project. That meant I could just continue writing, but then Jonah called me to ask if I could come take him to the skatepark. Sam was at Robert’s, Ollie was going to be out with Jed, and Heather was in a meeting, so, of course, I went to take him to the skatepark. It was a win-win for both of us. I took a load of laundry and Shadow with me. I put the laundry load in, took Jonah to the skatepark, walked Shadow around the adjacent half mile track a couple of times, checked on Jonah, drove back to Heather’s put the washer load in the dryer, then came back and read for the remainder of Jonah’s time at the skatepark. I love taking him there and enjoy my reading time. I have more laundry loads, so hopefully I can do a repeat performance of this afternoon again sometime this week.

Tomorrow is a busy one. A monthly chiropractor check-in, book club meeting, plumber coming to give an estimate on a new water heater, pick up Ollie after school, and public policy meeting. Whew! No writing tomorrow.

2021 Life Logs, Day 66: Memories of Sled Dog Racing
Date: Sunday, March 7, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Still Cold; High 34, Low, 22 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Whoa! This day went by in a flash. I did sleep an hour later than usual, took Shadow for a walk, and then started writing. Then suddenly it was afternoon and Justin and Jo called and we talked for a very long time. It was wonderful to talking to both of them and to Ziggy and Coco. One of Coco’s friends came to visit while we were talking, so she was off and running. Life is good for them in Puerto Rico right now. After we talked, I had a very late lunch, went for another walk with Shadow, and delivered a little birthday tidbit to Peter Baranowski. His birthday is tomorrow. Then I was off to the Goldstones to deliver some memorabilia and pick up some seed catalogs and the picture Jonah painted for me for my birthday.

Last night Jonah mentioned that he is involved in an Iditarod Sled Dog Race project at school and that the 2021 was beginning today. Hearing that jogged a memory of what now seems like a totally different life. While living in northern Minnesota from 1976 to 1979, Mark and I raced sled dogs on racing weekends. Winters are very long in the cold northlands and racing sled dogs certainly helped to fill the long winters. Last night when Jonah mentioned the Iditarod, I reminded him that his mother won a sled dog race when she was just two. I think, but am not sure, that the race was on White Bear Lake and was part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival. I do know the lake was near Minneapolis and had ‘bear’ in the name. Sure wish I had been writing my daily logs back then. Anyway, near the end of the major races that day, they called for all children who wanted to enter a short race across the lake. We entered Heather with our lead dog named Sugar and they won the race. Heather still has her trophy from that win. Sugar had been a lead sled dog for famous Alaskan racer named George Attla. We were told that Sugar had run in the Iditarod, but since the first one was in 1973. I believe Sugar probably ran as Attla’s lead dog in the 1969 preliminary and much shorter version of today’s Iditarod which he won. At least that makes sense when looking at the timeline. What I know for sure is that George Attla sold her to a teenager named Marty Grahek from Ely, Minnesota who was a serious sled dog racer in the Lower 48. And in 1977, when Sugar was no longer competitive in the serious race circuit, we took her as our lead dog and she won a race with Heather. So, this evening, I gathered some of the sled dog memorabilia from my bookshelf, plus a photo album from Minnesota, and took it to the boys to see this evening. They were watching the beginning of this year’s Iditarod on television when I arrived, so I just left the booklets and the photo album for them to look at later. In that album there were photos of Mark tucking baby Justin in the dog sled with Heather standing by, me racing a five-dog team, Mark with Sugar, Mark lining up with other racers for a 30-mile long distance race, and a victorious photo of Mark with another racer at the end of that long race on a day that was 30 below with the wind chill. Fun memories. But tomorrow I will be back on the sailing circuit, writing about our weeks in the Galapagos.

2021 Life Logs, Day 65: Vaccination and Celebration
Date: Saturday, March 6, 2021
Weather: Sunny, Still Cold; High 35, Low, 21 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was the day of my first Covid vaccination at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and my birthday celebration tonight at the Goldstones. I also snuck in a little visit with my good friends, Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg to deliver personal birthday wishes to Alan whose birthday was today. The last time we were together on our birthdays was in 2007 when they came to New Zealand for a month to do a land tour of the north and south islands with Mark and me. Alan and I are both a little older now, but the friendship has weathered the years beautifully. Happy Birthday, Alan.

The Covid vaccination experience at Gillette Stadium was fast and efficient. I was vaccinated at exactly the time of my appointment at 11:54 am. I am so happy to have gotten the vaccine. But there were so many people. I have not been in a building with that many people since the lockdown last March.
But everyone was kept 10 feet apart and during the 15-minute wait time after the vaccine, you could go outside the upper floor doors and walk around the rim of the stadium. Almost no one did that, but I did. While I was out there trying to take a selfie, a young woman came out and took the photo for me. The turf had been removed and there were no goal posts. It was interesting to look down on a completely empty stadium.

When I returned to Falmouth, Heather, Jed, and boys invited Shadow and me to take a walk with them around some cranberry bogs that have been reclaimed. Shadow and I came home after the walk to put away the weekly delivery of Misfits fruits and veggies, then we headed to Heather and Jed’s for a birthday celebration.
When I arrived Heather and Jonah were making chocolate covered strawberries. Then we had a sushi feast followed by my very favorite dessert . . . chocolate decadence with whipped cream surrounded by chocolate covered strawberries. I got three new books as gifts and can’t wait to read them. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek just sounds like fun and Sue Monk Kidd’s book, The Book of Longings sounds intriguing. Heather has read that one and says it is one of those books you just can’t put down. The third book was Legendary Locals by the Falmouth Historical Society. I think I’ll start with The Book of Longings and read a little of Legendary Locals each day as a daily history lesson. Jonah painted a beautiful picture for me. It is his impression of looking through the ice to see water in the pond with sunlight shining through. I didn’t get a photo of it and forgot to bring it home, so tomorrow night I will post a photo of it. I have gifts coming from Puerto Rico, but with our new and improved postal system imposed on us by our previous President, they didn’t arrive on time. Hopefully early next week I can have another celebration when they arrive.

2021 Life Logs, Day 64: Birthday Discovery
Date: Friday, March 5, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Cold; High 35, Low, 21 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Reached the Galapagos in my writing today. Woohoo!

Received so many wonderful birthday greetings from family and friends. Woohoo!

Covid vaccine tomorrow. Woohoo!

Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco called to sing happy birthday to me. Woohoo!

Birthday dinner celebration tomorrow night with the Goldstones. Woohoo!

Life is good! Woohoo!

What a day! I awoke early to ding after ding on my phone of birthday wishes from friends and family near and far on Facebook. If you were one of those friends or family members, thank you so much for the birthday wishes.

Shortly after I got up and started my day, friends Karen and Peter Baranowski drove by to drop off a bag of goodies that included some of my favorite dark chocolate in the world—Taza Super Dark, made just outside Boston in Somerville. Another wonderful birthday surprise. Thank you, Karen and Peter.

Then things settled down a bit and I got into my writing. My goal was to reach the Galapagos today so I could write about one of my favorite places on earth on my birthday. Well, I made it to the Galapagos, but just barely because I got delayed by what I am calling my ‘birthday discovery’. I have written a log every day since Mark and I left Boston to sail around the world in October of 2005. But I have never gone back and read all of those logs until now. Each time I begin a new chapter, I copy the pertinent logs into my word document and read through them as I write. They are my research documents for the book. As I read the log for the second day of our passage to the Galapagos this morning, there was a Captain’s Ramblings attached at the end of the log. On his overnight watches, Mark had decided to write his impressions of our voyage. As I read his words, I felt like he was right here beside me. What a wonderful birthday gift. Then two nights later he wrote another attachment to my log. At the time I named them Captain’s Ramblings as that is how I saw them at the time. Mark was just pouring out all of his thoughts of the moment. I knew immediately that they have to be incorporated into the book, but I wasn’t sure how. I wrestled with this for a while and then finally decided that I will hold them to the side and decide how to incorporate them after the book is written. I know there are more, but I am not sure how many. They give a different voice to our voyage and I just have to find the right way to incorporate them. I am going to end this log by sharing the second of those Ramblings, my birthday discovery, with you. Mark described our experiences of the moment so beautifully. And it was so special to have his surprise visit today.

Captain’s Ramblings II: Cruising Life in the Pacific
S/V Windbird
March 14, 2006

Maybe this is the way sailing is for my multi-hull friends. I can set a drink down and not worry about it spilling. Well, actually I worry because I am a mono-hull sailor, and everything falls off the table when we sail – usually. But now everything is staying put. We are not heeled over. And yet we are doing six to seven knots. We are on a broad reach with light winds and no waves, just the large, gentle Pacific swell. The swell is so large that it hides the boat traveling with us up to above the boom – probably eight feet or so. But the distance between swells must be several hundred yards so we hardly feel them. Instead of rocking over the waves like a hobby horse, we gently rise with the swell and slide softly down the other side. The effect is mesmerizing. I can understand why Balboa (it was Balboa, wasn’t it) called it the “Pacific.” It is so peaceful.

Of course, we are not always sailing. We are in the ‘doldrums’ after all. We have probably motored about half the time on the trip from Panama to the Galapagos. Because we want to conserve on fuel, we have gone slow. Motoring at 1800 RPM’s we use about half a gallon of diesel per hour. At 2400 RPM’s we use a little more than a gallon per hour. But while fuel consumption is doubled, speed is only increased about 20 percent: from about 5 knots to 6 knots. We are in no hurry, so the extra speed is just not worth it. Besides, we have had a positive current with us of about one and a half to two knots for almost the entire passage. So, our five knots turns into almost seven knots over the bottom. Motoring at 1800 RPMs is also a lot quieter. The hum of the engine is always with us, but it is not loud so that we do not even notice it and feel almost as though we were sailing.

Since our computer stopped working a couple days ago, we have decided to buy a new one. My immediate thought was that I needed to talk to someone who knew what the best computers for the money were. So, I used the satellite phone to call Steve Bothwick who is the computer guru for New Hampshire Public Radio. Doreen answered the phone at the office and I was suddenly back home again and feeling very much among friends. We bought our satellite phone from Doreen, whose husband had it when he was stationed in Afghanistan. She got Steve on the phone and, sure enough, he had the answers I needed. Then he transferred me to Maureen Anderson because I so wanted to talk to everyone on the staff and I knew that Maureen would convey my feelings to them. It was a short call (satellite phone calls are expensive), but I was reminded of just how much I miss all the crew at NHPR, the staff and the Board. I spent a lot of time in the hours after that call thinking of each and every friend I have back there.

When I think of all our friends, I want to write them each a personal letter. But then, that does not get done. I just can’t seem to find time. You would think that we would have lots of time in this lifestyle. After all, we are retired (at least for now) and we are sailing, which is supposed to be a relaxing activity. And it is relaxing. But it is also demanding. We get up every day with a list of things that need to be done. Judy writes about some of them in our log. The ocean is a harsh environment. Metals rust, salt builds up on everything exposed, and the constant movement of the boat causes chafe and wear on all sorts of things. The sun deteriorates any finish so that varnishing of wood is a never-ending job. Canvas covers and shades need water-proofing. Stitching deteriorates in the hot tropical sun and needs to be re-sewn. And computers and cameras stop working because of the humid environment. We patch torn sails, sew webbing on areas of the dodger and bimini prone to chafe, sand and varnish woodwork, clean scum off the bottom of the dinghy and off the waterline of the boat, change the engine oil and filters, replace a broken bolt on the alternator, grease the pump mechanism on the head, and put grease in the gear box of the water-maker. And the list goes on and on. But I am not complaining. After all, the definition of cruising is “working on your boat in exotic locations.” How else could I get to these exotic locations? And once there, we have to tear ourselves away from boat work to enjoy the place we visit. For those of you who know us, Judy and I have always drunk life from a fire hose. We don’t know how to do anything half-way. We are constantly trying to fit ten activities into the time that any sane person would only attempt one or two. And we love it that way. So, if we don’t write, at least we hope our friends will read our logs (which are our letters home, after all) and keep us in their thoughts as they are in ours.