Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec 2008

If you’re reading this, you’re probably sitting down. We’re no longer sailing. But we’re still on our adventure.

Let me try to explain. When we bought a boat (never having sailed before) we decided our “intention” was to sail around the world. But if something came up along the way, we were FreeBirds. We would be open to changing directions. (When I was working, I learned how to set goals. But I focused so much on getting the goals, that I missed everything along the way. Now I don’t have goals, only intentions.)

Anyway, we fell in love with Bonaire, one of several islands near Aruba. It’s like living in a small town in the Caribbean. We have been learning kiteboarding, and Bonaire is one of the best places in the world to do it. There are steady trade winds here most of the year, a group of local kiters, beautifully clear coral-filled waters, and perfect temperatures year round.

And the boat expenses were ridiculous. Insurance was $1,000. a month. A captain, $3,000. Diesel, moorage, repairs, maintenance; you get the idea. For that kind of money, we could travel anywhere we wanted while living in Bonaire. We looked at several homes before deciding to become homeless. We’re renters. And god was watching over his FreeBirds because there were ZERO rentals on this small island. Because Bonaire is one of the most beautiful Scuba dive sites in the world, rentals are by the day or week. It’s impossible to find a long-term rental. We checked with all four real estate companies. The realtors laughed at us with Dutch accents for even asking such a stupid question. We were ready to move somewhere else to kiteboard and discussing our options at a local coffee shop. We asked the store owner if she knew of anywhere we could rent.
“You could rent our place. It’s on the ocean and we’re moving into our new house in 6 weeks.”

We called the owner in Oregon from our cell phone in the coffee shop, and agreed to pay $1,500. a month rent, for a huge, three bedroom house, ON THE OCEAN, with dock, mooring ball, and kayak storage shed. Really! The next day an ad came out in the paper for the house, as the owners weren’t able to stop the ad in time. They had 40 offers! One guy said he would pay 3 times what we had agreed to and contract for up to 10 years. But our wonderful landlords, Scott and Sharon, turned them all down as we already had a verbal commitment.

So we put FreeBirds up on the hard and reluctantly put her up for sale. Marty was happy to be able to do more sailing back in Australia, as we were way to sedentary for his sailors spirit. Marty’s joy for sailing is amazing. It reminds me how my dog Buddha loved to stick his head out of the car window so much I had to get him doggy sunglasses to protect his eyes. Marty had also been working for us for a lot less than he was used to earning in order to sail. And we had been to three places in three months. So with Marty’s “it’s all good mate,” we said goodbye to one of the coolest guys we’ve ever met. Now he’s doing boat deliveries, is a charter boat captain, and is also doing Scuba instruction. We can’t wait to use some of our boat savings to visit him soon.

Petra is like a little girl playing house. She has a “real” refrigerator, “stove”, and bathroom. Oh My God! After living on a boat for a year, seven months at marinas under repair, we love being in a house. And since it’s on the ocean, it’s just like being on a wonderful yacht with all the modern conveniences. High Speed Wireless, Cable, electricity, we hit the big time baby!

To see more pictures from Bonaire and our last sail click here.

And we kite. We had to wait several months, till Oct 1st, to move into the house. So after putting the boat up, we decided to borrow my mothers Van Conversion and travel from her house in upstate New York to Cape Hatteras. The Mecca of kiteboarding.

We had a bit of a scare as one of our rear tires exploded on the Interstate as we were going 75 MPH in the middle lane. This van is very unsteady anyway because it’s a van and is very heavy. My years of car racing came in handy and I was able to nurse the car to the fast-lane shoulder without a major accident. We called AAA and we got a guy that could only speak enough english, with a middle east accent, to let us know that this was his first day on the job. I tried to instruct him on how to change the tire, but ended up giving him an on-the-job tutorial instead. We hung the destroyed tire, which as pretty much just a rim, from it’s permanent mounting position behind the rear door. We immediately drove to a tire repair place because we didn’t want to be without a spare. The guy came out and I asked, “can you fix a small hole in a tire?” Then he started laughing when he saw that all that was left of our tire was the rim. He was able to sell us a new one.

Cape Hatteras has 70 miles of protected, smooth water thats about 3 feet deep. The wind whips in from the Atlantic. But not the waves. They are stopped a half a mile long strip of land called the outer banks. So we spent a month kiteboarding and visiting our friends, Chad and Angie who lived nearby.

And then it happened. We have proof that UFO’s exist. Driving along Hatteras, they flew over our car and landed. We snuck up on them and got some pictures. So, we have proof that aliens exist. We talked to them. They said they had come to help save us from President Bush and that America had to vote for Obama or the earth was doomed. So, now that he’s going to be president, maybe we have a chance.

We finished our trip visiting my mother and sister Jamie who live near Albany. My sister Ann timed her visit from Washington state, so it was a nice family gathering.

To see more picture from NY and NC click here.

Upon returning to Bonaire, my best friend Joe surprised us with a visit for two weeks. Joe is our link to the “real” world. He brings us up to date on music, fashion and worldly news. We met him at the airport as if he was the owner of a luxury yacht. He somehow made his Cosmo last till we got home 15 minutes later.

Joe must have been an Inca in a former life because he really knows how to worship the sun. He came as a white man, but left as an islander. His friend, Carol, was in Maui at the same time that Joe was here and they had quite a sunset photo contest. My money was on Joe. He enjoyed the islands flamingos, cruise ships, snorkeling and watching us kiteboard. We hated to see him go, but we were visiting him in Sacramento three weeks later.

To see more pictures of Joe's visit click here.

We traveled to Sacramento to visit our friends there, then drove to visit my daughter, Chelsea, in Santa Rosa. She had never been to the Redwood forest, so I had the pleasure of enjoying these wonderful trees with Chelsea and Petra. After driving our car through a tree, we got lots of cool photos.

When we got back to Sacramento, Petra became a star. Joe had some one-of-a-kind gowns that Petra tried on. The black and gold sequined dress was from the Clinton's second innaugural worn by one of his staff, the black is a Carolina Herrera dress and belonged to Gayle King (Oprah's best friend) and the light blue one was custom made for Maria Shirver (Arnold’s wife) for the premier of Batman. None of these women could’ve looked any better than Petra, if I get to be a judge.

To see more pictures from California click here.

Now that we are in Bonaire for a year, we can have pets. Petra has spoiled all the neighborhood lizards and Iguanas. She’s discovered that they like watermelon, and bananas. They now eat out of her hands, and will come in the house to let us know they’re hungry. We laugh that even our pets are FreeBirds. They come and go as they please. And the local birds add their vibrant colors to Bonaire’s natural palette.

Since we’ve decided to become full-time kiteboarders, I’ve included some pics of us and one of our friends, Jeroen.

To see more pictures of Jeroen kiteboarding click here.

We're starting to jump, and really like the feeling of flight. Then we saw the following video and thought, maybe we should try this too. Have a look. Wingsuit base jumping. Who knows, lol.

So, our adventure continues. We are going to travel the world and kiteboard. We’re looking at Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Thailand, Spain and a few other places for trips. In the mean time, I’m starting a book, Petra is doing underwater videos, and lots of friends have booked trips to visit us. We’re still FreeBirds enjoying our life together.

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