The Juggler

When dreams come true the truth is not always what we dreamt. In fact it seldom is.

If we dream too much or far, the dream always catches us by surprise when we least expect it, revealing our worst defects, and the water pounds against the stone so hard, that it hurts. 

Nobody wants to get rid of that old dream, to be modest, to recognize it isn't necessary. Tell me, who wants this?

Who doesn't want to be the prince enchanted, the lucky bloke who wins the lottery, the happy mom with a perfect son, or someone special themselves, who drives a Maseratti and is always in company of beautiful people... what if you have to look into the mirror and see you ate too much at Christmas, and drank too much the whole year round, and now you've got a huge stomach and are boring, and getting old? Ouch...

Life demands from us that we drive our army against ourselves once in a while.

It is essential to balance things. Modesty is essential. Alike humor.

So we're lucky if we dream little - cause mystery always brings us abundance, which guarantees gratitude.

And that's what happened to Paul, and he really deserved it. He's a real juggler.

Morning Glory sailed all over the Tirrenium Sea. I even had the courage - or the madness - to sail it alone with an inexperient crew, no nautical chart at all, to Liguria. It was Paul's ultimate jealousy test - for the boat and for myself. He obviously failed. That is, I failed.

But I was sincere indeed - this kind of courage is my nature. And although the crew was a young and desirable Italian, all I wanted was to fall into his arms. That was all.

To HAVE

So what's the use of HAVING something? That's my question, as usual - and this time, we're talking about a boat! Question is: after the purchase - what do we DO to what we have? Huge responsibility, I thought. 
I wasn't wrong.

A sailing boat's maintenance is something costly. The idea was chartering. That meant we were supposed to do what we did to others, for ourselves. I wasn't keen on the idea, and I was sincere. But that was the fulfillment of a dream... participating was WELL WORTH IT.
But having to cope with futile people who live off reality and go on charters wearing high heels and can't take salty water sprinkled on their fashion clothes is simply a drag. 

We were in La Maddalena when Paul first saw Morning Glory, a 43 foot-Sparkman Stevens, with its typical wide cheeks - excellent for going against the wind - simply beautiful, but apparently abandoned. Someone told us it was left there after its German owners divorced. 
After some contacts, there we go on my good old Renault, towards the Alps of Germany, until we got to Garmisch-Partenkirshen. There, we met the boat owner, this really scared lady, with two children, who promptly took the offer, and was extremely generous in offering us a place to stay and the staple German diet: potato salad with sausage.
That is how we bought a yacht in a mountain area, with snow up to our knees, in just 30 minutes  - no bureaucracy.
This fact made us face what it is TO HAVE. It is certainly a verb that's been used forever to socially define all human condition. And I wonder - what is it to have a home? Or a family? What is it to have a love? What about having cancer - what is it? What is it to have a child? 

Is this all about having, meaning = owning, valuing, and consequently, judging? Shouldn't we instead use a better expression for it, such as "BEING GIFTED BY LIFE"? 

Limbo

Tell me if you agree - aren't we humans quite greedy? Why do we need more and more all the time? What's this talk about evolution and stuff???
The moment we realize the dream is fulfilled is crucial. The seed of continuity is there. I call this moment limbo. The first feeling is satisfaction. Then, other feelings come along: we feel desperate, desolate, sad, as if love had ended. But beware... love does not equal passion. If we accept all this nihilism, we might end up believing nothing was worth the try. But that is not so.
The limbo is permanently pregnant.
Even before the new dream comes into mind we have already planted the seed. That is the exact magical moment when the embryo breaks the shell. The secret of sustainability is therefore revealed: adaptability, love, the will to live, cooperation, a healthy mind and devotion.
That was what happened after Alzavola.
We used to say 'we've done so much, and yet there's so much to do. But not like this. It has to be some other way'.
That's when we met Lucca, a dentist from Bologna, who collects old motorbikes. He pulled my wisdom teeth out with such precision that only half an hour later, I was already having pizza. He did it with a tool hat looked like a corkscrew. My biting was so wrong, he took me to a bunch of specialists who stood there and examined me as a rare case, since it had affected my mouth muscles. Curious thing is, Paul and I had never noticed it before.
Lucca became a good friend of Paul's and invited us to work at the beach to sell ice cream and pannini, and also offered a place to stay in La Madallena, a tiny little island right on the north of Sardinia. Look at the picture and guess what our answer was.
Sardinia is this island with magnificent stones and diamond-clear sea water, with very simple inhabitants who speak Sardo - which sounds nothing like Italian - loads of wild boars, highly expensive resorts, and no trees left, besides cork.
Our neighbors would call us once in a while to have diner. The guy simply said “ayow” and op, we're invited. He would serve us this terrible homemade wine and the lady served delicious and unforgettable pasta, such as the large raviolli filled with  sheep's milk ricotta and lemon, served with a roast meat sauce. There was also the fettuccine with bird's heads sauce. Obviously the dining room was so dark I only discovered I had been eating bird's heads sometime after eating them.
So we gathered money to fulfill our new dream: our own boat. Better said, that was Paul's dream. We got it.
However, it wasn't my dream. At that time I was already thinking about returning to Brazil. Shame I was so young and didn't know how to appreciate that moment as much as I should. But it was worth it. And how.

That's me at the gelatti stand

Alzavola

And then we left Europe in Alzavola. She is what you can call a "Cozy Classic": 77 feet of 4 cm thick Burmese teak, well kept by her meticulous owner, the highly respected Enrico Zaccagni, a Florentine architect, and meteorology freak - or just Chicco, simple as that. And simple he is. A real pirate at soul.
Note: a pirate, and yet, a ham radio. This pirate wasn't into letting his hair fly in the wind. He disseminated words - in Italian - through the seven seas.

It is well worth knowing this Philip & Son ketch was originally built in 1924 for Sir Walter Ramsey Kay in Dartmouth, and Zaccagni embraced her 36 years ago as Gracie III.

I have not much left to say. It is sailing with people like Chicco, a real poet of the sea, and Nicole, a great Italian cook, aboard boats like Alzavola, which is a dream come true and well kept, that make sailing worth it for anything in the world.
Better remind ourselves, though, that we're also worth something.  

Cheers and Thanks Life, for what you give.

Chicco and his crew aboard the Alzavola

Less is More

In Antibes we worked aboard Speedy Go for a while. She was this beautiful Maxi racer transformed into a luxury yacht, with interior all built in pear wood, lined with a white carpet. Fancy stuff. Owned by some Italian politician we never met. Needless to say I worked my ass off. A couple - Italians - came aboard - Cinzia and Piero. She used to make the most delicious sandwiches in the whole wide world. At the end we were offered to join them taking the boat to the Pacific, but we kindly refused, which proved to be good. Later we heard Cinzia left Piero behind and ran away with the Australian bloke they hired instead.

As if that wasn't enough I also worked aboard other sailboats. Aboard Arayan I improved my cooking skills and learned to enjoy the admirable cave full of Chablis...

Arayan also took us to a race in St. Tropez where I had the joy of sailing alongside Eric Tabarly in his Pen Duick. He was such a beautiful man - smiling, simple, positive, just a privilege to be around. A bit later (1998) he disappeared in the middle of the sea.

It's difficult to accept endings mentally, but it's something we have to learn. It helps thinking less is more.

Tabarly aboard his Pen Duick

Freedom

Saved by the gong. And there we go embarked aboard the Maxi Speedy Go, with very playful people, and Phillipe Barbé, the sweet smart French captain. All we had to do was never say the word lapin - since the guy ripped off all rabbit recipes from the book aboard - and also never do anything important on a Friday. Seafarer superstitions taken to an extreme. The route was Faial - Gibraltar - Malaga (excellent sherry) and finally Antibes. And what a yacht! With a nice aft wind we could surf and reach up to 20 knots.

And how awesome Côte D'Azur is! 
At Port Vauban, in Antibes (check it out), you can see snow on top of the Alps when the  Mistral blows. With the castle in the background it looks astonishing. We ended up renting an apartment cause we got a permanent job working in Speedy Go... after delivery.
We had something magical happening to us there. 
One day we went to the beach and out of the blue we started climbing up the remparts - that is, the stone wall that surrounds the city. When we reached the top we saw closely a sea petrel crashed onto the wall, looking very scared. We immediately decided to fetch him and saw he must have lost the ability to fly due to a thick pine resin covering part of his feet and wings - southern France is full of pine trees.  

We then took the bird to the boat and started to try and clean it. He was really stressed. We tried soap and water, alcohol and finally, we managed to remove almost all with  triclor-ethylene, and finished the operation with Brazilian talc powder called polvilho antisséptico Granado. The annoyed animal was biting Paul's hands the whole time but he withstood it with courage. We took the bird to the deck, where there was a parking place, and put the petrel on top of a car. I remember it as if it were yesterday: the squeaking sounded like a tantrum and indeed, it looked pretty pissed off. All of a sudden the bird flew low on the water. At first it looked like it was going to drown. But then it started to rise, and rise, and rise... until it disappeared onto the sky.
It was such a rewarding scene - so good to free such a creature - that this feeling became imprinted on my soul. Good to share it with you.

Towards the Unknown

Note In the previous post I fast-forwarded two years. This post is beginning of 1991, when we left Saint Marteen.

The bridge led us to the unknown, towards the Island of Faial, in the Azores. 
Aboard Malaika - and I rightfully and obviously forgot the skipper's name - we went through the Bermuda Triangle, and through the Sargassum Sea, which is an immensity of water covered by brown algae, suicidal flying fish, and a bizarre magnetism that drives instruments crazy. So our German skipper wasn't very happy facing that place's fame, and the slow improvement caused by the seaweed. 
After this part there's another one where you see thousands of jellyfish - highly toxic  creatures with an external sail-like bright pink to purple colored part. They're called Portuguese Men of War - and they're indeed aggressive to touch. 
So eventually the Captain received a weatherfax that flashed the approach of a strong depression, with 980 millibars in the core, and we all saw the barometer dropping fast, so he decided to change course towards the east. The move proved to be useless at that point and the storm caught us fully.
The sea had middle size breaking waves; the horizon was swallowed by some grey-brown color that tinged both the sea and the sky. We tied the tiller, went under cover and found some stability placing the storm sail and a very reduced main. 
Since there was nothing to do in that weather, I thought: let's make some biscuits.
The crew loved it and devoured many. The skipper thought it quite inappropriate and threw the remaining bikies in the trash bin. 
People change at sea. Defects have nowhere else to go: they're there and they're obvious. Those who are afraid of nature shouldn't go sailing. At sea you see how small and fragile we are. And yet, we crew could see the positive in it,  and felt we deserved to be alive.
You need a humble character to live at sea.
Bad weather ended after three biscuitless days. We arrived at the Island of Faial astonished at those awesome islands standing in the middle of the North Atlantic and also at the bad moods of that furiously uncontrolled man. Poor him - he didn't know Portuguese-speaking people are strongly bound. 
Customs was readily advised of the situation. International law establishes that at sea, the captain is responsible for his crew. That means he can't dump them anywhere he wishes, unless he pays for repatriation costs. So, that man found himself a pub where he drowned while we stayed there.
The Archipelago of the Azores is a 9 island composition located at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The islands have varied landscapes, but the majority is covered with green fields that resemble Scotland in summer, covered in hills and mountains where sheep and cattle graze, and a very gentle people live peacefully, in small but picturesque villages. People also tell many sea tales and history is abundant. I wouldn't be able to handle it all in a blog.

It is a great, pure and familiar Nature worth getting acquainted to, which I will certainly do before I leave this place for good.

Physalia physalis

Bad Weather at Sea

Sargassus Sea Map

East Coast of  the Island of  Saint George, in the Azores

Indulgence

After the hurricane went by we jumped aboard another maxi called Donnybrook, skippered by Bert Collins, who also had a Harley Davidson (not aboard!) and off we went to Tortola, in the Virgin Islands. It was April 1993.

Paul found himself a nice job at a boat owned by a major whisky producer and I went into the film industry. The owner of my boat - Danubio - had a movie seat business and she was about to receive five guests on board who were great movie house owners.

So there comes this family - who I have to pamper, as a hostess. The father is this BIG generous guy with a smooth appetite for everything that's good in the world. He comes along with his girlfriend who is a major cloth pattern designer, so all she does is to get inspired by the coral and the fish to produce beautiful prints - without ever diving, of course.

And the concerned grown up children came along, too. Both told me I was forbidden to serve their father the slightest fat in the world, which is quite understandable. The problem is, the guy didn't agree at all with that, so he bribed me with compliments when I cooked lobster for them, and left a fat tip when he left.

So I sneaked a bread and butter pudding made with full cream just for the guy.

What the hell. I wasn't a nurse - I was a hostess. The old man was an entertainment businessman, we were in Tortolla, and life is too short not to enjoy yourself.

Don't know if I'm right of wrong. I just love people to enjoy life. It's my nature. 

Abridging

Saint Marteen is quite crazy. An island of 87 square kilometers comprised of two countries in one, divided only by a opening bridge - here is France, there is Netherlands, language and all. Lovely.
Besides, Saint Marteen is one of those rare places where you find a hurricane hole, and therefore, around August every year hundreds of sailboats cruise towards that place to hide from the hard winds that strike the Caribbean every year.
Isn't it good to know you've got somewhere to hide from evil weather?
So. It's got all I love most: the whole world in a shell, plus the sea, the wind and peace, and friends. It is a really abundant nature...  

Trippin

Grenada is a specially beautiful Caribbean island. If it wasn't an American military base I would recommend everyone to go. 
There we learned that one of its main export products is nutmeg. From it they extract macis, a red membrane that involves the nut, which is also used as a spice - with a different flavor and aroma. 
We also learned that if you eat a whole nutmeg , or 5 grams of its ground product, it can produce intoxication effects such as lack of control over movements, and auditive and visual hallucinations. It contains myristicin, which inhibits irreversibly the effect of an enzyme called monoamine oxidase, which on its turn catalyzes hormones such as noradrenaline, dopamine e serotonin. The former activate attentiveness and regulate humor states such as euphoria and depression. 
In Granada we also met the Captain of a tug who offered us quite a bit of cash to work aboard under full (meaning complete) regime. This man looked just like Kojak and also came from Borneo! So we declined... cause going on was necessary. 
Our participation in Act IV finished at Puerto La Cruz, in Venezuela, once more.
And that is how Iemanjá came about. She was a a 42 foot single made catamaran skippered by Avi, who took us in and sheltered from the insane life until we got to Saint Marteen.

Business World

At Majorca we quickly found a placement at a Canadian-built 114 footer called "Act IV".

She was just being bought by her new owner, too, who was such a smart businessman he decided to sail her off Spanish regulatory waters so he wouldn't pay any taxes on the purchase.

He also took all shotguns - quite a few - that were sold with the boat by its previous Arabic owner, and simply dumped them overboard right at the main harbor. 

Needless to say there were quite a few divers searching for them a couple of hours later.

This piece of exaggeration had a piano and a jacuzzi aboard it, and also two immense Caterpillar generators. I could literally run from one side to the other of the galley. She also had electric winches, so efficient, that on the sail towards Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Antigua, and Grenada, I hardly saw the sails. So we weren't very happy.

Our Captain was this George Bush-type with a sullen character, and our boss used to pay us counting bill by bill and saying: 'EASY COME, EASY GO'... Ah, and the typical business world deal - my pay as a hostess was half the amount Paul earned, even though that large ship was solely kept clean by me.

That's just some people's natures - and they've made the world turn, up until today, as it is. A world were many still starve and few have enough to keep all these people alive with just a quaint gesture into their pockets. You make your judgement.

The Passage

Even if you do have roots, you might wanna keep moving... that's me. There was no way I was going to stop at Portugal, my father-land.
At places where you find remarkable mountains such as Cape of Good Hope and the Straight of Gibraltar - both inhabited by baboons - nature is wild, and it shouts. At these millenarian capes, straights and points, you can smell history in the air. Agulhas divides the Atlantic Ocean from the Indian. Cape Horn is the start of austral land and separates the Atlantic from the Pacific. In Gibraltar, you can see Africa from Europe. Whenever you are in a place like this, breathe in and smell this strategic, and beautiful, and genuine watershed point. It is a way of appreciating nature.

So that's how we got to Cadiz. There I saw that Spanish people wake up at night - and I mean children, the elderly and youngsters. 
We disembarked from Alibi and embarked a French flagged yacht for a couple of days. Amongst the crew there was a French couple with a 6 month old baby. The boy would wake up laughing. His mother was a doctor, but she was also a backpacker. They used to walk him all over the boat on a harness. When the famous Gibraltar dolphins came to greet the boy wouldn't stop laughing. He seemed to understand their sounds. The dolphins also smiled. I saw it.
What an incredible, extraordinary and immense nature. She greets us with the gift of interacting with dolphins, the only animal - besides men - that keeps playing after reaching adulthood. 
I arrived in Majorca with this very strong impression upon me.

Back to Roots

So the circular winds went their way once more, and took us through Rio, Cape Town, Paris, Vinay... However, we had a choice, so we changed our destiny to Belgium, the land of 365 beer brands, and the most famous comics of the world. But our landmark was not Brussels, city of manons and chocolate smell on the streets, or the idyllic Bruges, but Niewpoort aan Zee. You can only find one thing there - The North Sea, with many many boats.
The brown North Sea is imposing. Aboard Alibi, a Jeanneau Melody, let by its owner  Jacques Quesnoit, we went to Brittany. The fog there is no legend - you can cut it with a knife. For a whole day, we weren't able to see the bow on the 10 meter yacht. Since we didn't have a radar, nor a GPS, or sight, we counted on our flair. It didn't work, though: once we had to go about in a hurry, after we saw waves breaking on some beach, and another time a HUGE ship horn buzzed my heart out of the chest cavity, and the fear of drowning in those waters was so strong, I had to swallow to send it back to its place. 
We stopped at awesome Brest, a land were you experience 5 meter tides and delicious oysters. It is very representative of the Brittany of resistance, the Celt's promised land.
It felt just like Uderzo's and Goscinny's Great Crossing.

So to end the great circle, we returned to our father land - Portugal. We fished a shark while towing a lure behind the boat, and she seemed quite drowned. With a great deal of caution, we removed both hooks she had on her mouth and returned her to sea.
Cause that's where its creatures belong: in their nature.

Moving in Circles

It was January 1989. Aboard Jaruschke, a South African 52 footer, with Zeca Martino as skipper, we did Natal-Vitoria-Rio-Cape Town, as if we moved in circles. On that trip we grew sprouts, made fresh bread, listened to music and had great interaction. Lovely passage.

However, on the first part of the trip, the boat almost sank because of a large hole in the anchor locker. We were a bit freaked (and sicked) out by all the pumping - and electrical pumps DO fail - but it all turned out fine: Zeca dived, found the hole and plugged it. The steering quadrant also cracked in the middle of the Atlantic, and that made the rudder very heavy. We were in 3, and I quickly got quite tired of the long shifts. Because we had very stable aft winds, Zeca simply pulled out his state-of-the-Art invention called "autopilot", which consists of a rubber band attached to one side of the rudder, and the large genoa halyard well trimmed attached to the other side, and we 3 decided to take our chances and have a couple of well-deserved nights of sleep. 

There was also amazing interaction with remarkable birds we called "ballerinas", cause they danced on top of the surf following us the whole way. So did the black-browed albatrosses. We say they are souls of sailors who lost their lives at sea.

Albatrosses are impressive cause they have the largest wingspans amongst birds, reaching up to 3,5 meters. Their beaks are really strong. These creatures take a long time to mature sexually, and they keep a single monogamist relationship for the rest of their lives. Albatrosses often return to their original colony to procreate, making their nests in isolated islands where there's no history of mammals. They take good and long care of their egg - one by nestling season - and their offspring must be at least one year old until they can fly. Albatrosses fly for very long distances - sometimes circumpolar - for they can plane easily without spending much energy. They can live up to 50 years.
Of the 21 Albatross species known to men, 19 are in extinction.

Nowadays, Zeca works chartering between Natal and Fernando de Noronha on his Borandá.

The Amazon

The Venezuelan military woulnd't grand us a break until we got to the Brazilian border. That's in the middle of nowhere, far from anything called civilization. Nature is wild in the Amazon, but the nature of Amazonian people is simply fierce.
The very curious architecture in Boavista shows a contrast between simple buy-and-sell gold shops and fancy tinted glass banks - Brazilian AND International. There are also a few large houses where mangoes and cashews cover the ground in abundance. After we got the information on how to extract cashew nuts from their shells, we bluntly followed instructions, and ended up voiceless and with peeling skin on our hands. The thing is, the oil around the shell contains urushiol, which is used to produce industrial products such as insecticides, resins, break pads and so on. Ouch!
We hitched a ride to the South, envisaging Natal or Recife. In one of those rides we jumped into the trunk of a 4 by 4 full of cashews. Our clothes were tinted with this curious stain, which you can only see in cashew picking time. We where also advised by this old native guy not to piss on the rivers, even if they look shallow. The reason for that is they either have piranhas or candirus. (Ouch! Ouch!) If you like fishing, click on the links bellow to appreciate data on them. After riding for 5 hours on those roads my internal parts seemed to have moved. We booked into the furthest dormitory I have ever been to, but we had to leave in the middle of the night because it was impossible to deal with the roaches. Ooooooooouch...
Sightseeing in the Amazon is not what you expect, at least from ground level. You see lots of open spaces, where people raise cattle. You also see foreigners - especially north Americans. The few trees that still stand and the majestic Brazil Nut trees. Cheers.
When you get to the border of the Ianomani Indian Territory after 6 p.m., the buses equipped with reinforced suspension stop, and no one will dare to go through until the next morning. On that road, you see such huge quagmires, cars and buses can only go through with the help of a large carabine. 
After loads of kilometers we got to Manaus, the capital of Amazon fruit sorbet, good river fishing and mosquitoes.
You can't be a drag in Manaus. 

The Amazon is like that - baffling. That's its nature.

For piranhas, see http://fish.mongabay.com/serrasalminae.htm

For candirus, see http://www.fishbase.org/summary/speciessummary.php?id=8811

South Bound

If you're hitching in the Caribbean there's no choice - so we took our chances and went down south aboard Claudia II, a Finish 62-footer made of ferrocement. She took us to Puerto La Cruz, in Venezuela, and we stayed there working aboard a dry docked yacht and enjoyed the particularities of that land.

Paul could climb a coconut tree like a monkey. We developed a special technique where he would throw the nuts down and I'd try to catch them, reduce the impact and save them from cracking.  Glad I'm still alive. 
I had a haircut at the best hairdresser ever. His salon was all covered in his International diplomas and its decoration was a chair, no wash basin. People would stand on a cue while he did his job in 10 minutes, gesturing as if he painted a Picasso. Amazing.

Venezuelan women are a mix of the South American charm and the Spanish elegance. Unfortunately, the men are not like that. Most of the population are descendants from South American natives. Puerto's main square's resident is a brown-throated sloth. 

That place has the greatest street falafels in the whole world, too.

By the way - at that time, it also had loads of inquisitive military soldiers, who would ask you now and then for your identification on the streets. It felt like something strange was happening, but we didn't know exactly what.

So we thought: what the hell, let's go down under to Brazil.

Fine Distance Tuning

So off we went sailing to Saint Lucia, but since there was some doubt about visiting Soufriére volcano or not, we followed on to Martinique where we went dining at a very chic restaurant by the waterfront - all expenses paid by our most generous boat owner. Delicious shrimp and oysters were on the menu.

Martinique also gets their baguettes daily by plane, coming straight from Paris. Uh-la-la!

When we where finished and back on our drunk way to the pontoon, I saw a guy at a distance swaying and getting into a dinghy, and rowing all the way to a nearby boat. Even though it was dark and far, I ran towards him. I knew it was Paul.

However, I waited sleepless until the first daylight to get on Blue Finn's dinghy, row up to the boat  and ask if they had a New Zealand crew member. The guy said yes, but he had rowed further down to another small yacht, over there.

My heart pounded and I rowed like crazy. There he was standing at that 27 foot boat owned by a couple we had met a year before in Recife. Fabiola saw me rowing and said, 'Mira, es Daniela!'

Paul just wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't either. Needless to make any romantic remarks.

We both stayed in Martinique and boarded another boat latter. It was January 1989.

It is wonderful indeed to understand things, but the unknown and the unexpected remain two very strong driving forces for life. Understanding everything is not for the human nature. 

Zazen

There's a positive side to everything - also to being around hard drinking people.

I found a job as a washer at a bar in Careenage. The bar had a pool table and its customers were almost all sailors. It also had a sign board where I immediately announced my sailing intentions - northbound! 

Waiting for the last customers to leave every night to get a chance of fighting for a corner to sleep on under the pool table was not always enjoyable. The bar also had two or three small apartments for rent right above the pool table area, and every now and then I saw myself climbing that wall and going in through the window to get a decent night of sleep.

I met a sweet Bavarian guy who gave me strong emotional support. He was staying inland and had little to do with traveling. That's why I never went to Bavaria as he proposed. But I still think of him as a dream savior.

Next person I met was Anderson Agra - skipper aboard Blue Finn of Hamble, a fancy 60 foot English yacht, crewed only by its very wealthy owner, who had a silicone business, and was married to a Spanish Royal Family lady, who was not very fond of sailing. They both were very fond of drinking, though. 

Anderson is this really gay person - always singing, always up. They agreed to take me north and this really changed my bleak point of view about the Caribbean.

Anderson still lives sailing around the globe in his 37 foot Vancouver, called Zazen. Perfect for him. He's one of those people who color the world with their joy. Thanks for being in the world Majjham. 

The Brits and The Rastafaris

Think Caribbean. It brings you to glamour, peace, beauty, wealth. Right?

Wrong.

There I was with not a penny more than 50 us dollars and my beautiful sailor knife. First person I ran into was a rastafari, who took me to a very simple pension, and yet, it cost me more than I could afford. Poor gentle willing man - if he expected to obtain some advantage from the European looking girl, he ended up buying my knife with a sorry look on his face.

There's no way to ignore the history of those islands: their fierce original people, the caribes, where totally decimated upon the arrival of the Europeans. Afterwards, they brought along slaves, whose descendants still remain there and have developed quite an oppressed culture. 

Their wooden houses are built to break down and cause only minor damage when a hurricane comes by desolating the islands once more, and making a point of reminding those people how hard life can be. 

This, right beside the wealthiest yachts... is embarrassing. And very familiar to a Brazilian.

The next day I returned to the pontoon in Bridgetown to try to embark on a new sailing boat. When 3 posh young Brits questioned my nationality, I was immediately asked 'do you know how to make caipirinhas!?'

So thanks to my expertise in that area, I got 3 days of sleep and food aboard in exchange for large amounts of drink, prepared in bucket proportion. The pestle used was the winch handle. And the cachaça was substituted by the famous Barbados rum.

After all, port hoppers are kind of water babies: sweet-water ones, salt-water ones and no-bird-will-drink-that-water ones.  

Paralipsis

Leaving is not an easy thing for me. I was emotionally distressed seeing Las Palmas getting smaller and smaller. While I looked at large, my captain touched me on the shoulder and said, in that very Germanic English of his: "do not worry, you shall never see this man again".

First thing that came to me mind was the image of myself swimming, holding on to a drenched passport.

But I didn't jump. And that is how the hardest month of my life started.

In the beginning I tried to ignore the situation and cook. The pork with chukrute and mashed potatoes made me sick. All were ready made, and desert was canned fruit salad. Needless to say I got really thin.

The boat was equipped with a radio and the captain would speak to his wife everyday at five. At that time he forbid me to talk, saying "she's very jealous". Things were starting to feel weird but there was still some really twisted behavior to come. On the third day of sail he asked me to cut his hair. He prompted me to do it in the heads. It turned ou when I showed up with the scissors in hand he was naked.

I always think abusive people don't now the risk they run, cause in their ignorance they never expect to be facing someone with rage.

But I didn't react then, so I just ignored that odd situation and cut his hair. After drinking a few cartons of wine, captain called for me and said I was to sleep in his bunk from then on, which I promptly refused. He then told me, fine, I was to sleep outside. And so I obeyed.

The captain started drinking himself silly every other day. That made things easier, cause all we had to do was to steer the boat on course, be ourselves and ignore him. Whenever he fell to the ground the Berliners would take him to his bunk and we already expected him to wake up in a rage two days later.

Even though the Berliners didn't speak a word of English I could still relate to them. Seeing me crawl inside a black plastic bag every night and shiver, they offered me to sleep in their bunk while they were doing their shifts, which really saved my life and health.

In one of those return-of-the-Jedi furry tantrums, the captain came outside with a gun. The Berliners promptly ran and started convincing him to put it away. The next day he showed up at the bow and tried to make amends. He was drunk again, and swayed hanging on to the stanchions. I remember having to make a real effort not to push him overboard.

Yes, I now realize that's also my nature.

It was the closest I came to killing someone in my life. 

So one beautiful sunny day of that 28-day-trip, I saw Barbados upon the bow. I promptly ran downstairs, packed my bag and said goodbye to the Berliners. As they tied up the ropes to the dock I jumped off Caroline and never looked behind. It was November 1988. Bloody happy to be in the Caribbean.

Barren Land

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a whole island of dry air and touristic schemes. 

The race across the great big blue was to happen in two weeks time when we arrived. Most people had already found their places and as we wondered around the quay, nowhere would a boat take a single crew, let alone two!

Let me clear that this race is just an excuse for European boat owners to go the same way - catching the trade winds - at the same time. There's no true racing involved. 

So after many days asking around and strolling, we eventually found a guy who said he'd take one of us. The boat was fiberglass, custom build in Hamburg, by the Frankfurt owner-captain himself. Paul preferred to stay behind and let me go. Later, this proved to be quite correct, for only one month later did he find a position.

I was just turning 22 then.

Cell phones didn't exist at the time, and we had no address. We were taking our chances and would probably never see each other again.

The German captain already had two crew aboard: Berliners. At that time the wall still existed. He talked to me in rugged English and explained he expected me to do the cooking. That's always more than fine with me.  He also allowed us both to sleep aboard, which we thought was very kind on him.

A couple of days before leaving the captain took me to El Corte Ingles to buy provisions for four for the one-month trip. We returned with two full supermarket trolleys of canned goods and potatoes, and two others topped with carton wine.

I remember being quite amazed at that, but what the hell, I thought, it's European nature.

So that's how I sailed off Las Palmas de Gran Canaria aboard Caroline, bound for Barbados.

Champagne, Sex and The Will to Move

To spend days picking meunier, pinot noir and chardonay grapes to make champagne, with people coming as if from a Fellini movie, and together with good wine and sex...  seriously, I miss it.

Frenchmen from there start early, in the bar, and they drink something made of anise, or maybe some Calvados. At 8 we are already at the vineyard, no breakfast. Its quite fresh - around 10 to 15 Celsius. Grapes grow low, to benefit from the heat coming off the hard calcareous ground. So, the whole day is spent working on a bent position, or else squatting. A real physiotherapist's heaven (or hell)! All is done in a rush, because the bureaucrats from Paris define when it is time to produce that nectar, and that is to be followed with rigor. At ten we have a break at the vineyards and suddenly, we find wine (coffee? tea? give me a break!) and some patisseries, bread, and fruit. Working continues until midday, when we return home, starving, as we are really well served with starters, meat, vegetables, cheese and desert, all well dressed with champagne. At the end, we're left with the difficult task of having a nap. I love the sign of civilization contained in a two-hour lunch break.

Is there a better job in the whole wide world?
And in the afternoon it all starts over again.

All kinds of people came for the picking: humble French and Italian people, eastern block people, even Brazilians. One of these groups was unforgettable - the Polish. Last time I saw them they had arrived in an orange BMW and they had many liters of vodka and pickles, and also marble tombstones and a stuffed head of a moose for sale. Most amazing thing is, they managed to sell it all! Their genetic combination included the huge albino father, the supposedly French mother, the spoiled-brat son, and the really tinny daughter who was married to this rude guy - his is the recipe below. All stayed in the same room and they never seemed to sleep or stop drinking.
And on the next day, they worked the hardest and were the fastest. 

But all good things must come to an end - autumn and the vindange, too. So we went to Brussels and to Holand, from there... and flew to the Canary Islands.

As we say in Portuguese: "navigation is definite, but living is not".

 

On a fingertip

After Lisbon, my objective was to reach Vinay, a small village 100 km to the east of Paris. Paul was there, and also the perspective of working picking grapes in Champagne. I had 500 dollars to get going, I had youth and lots of boldness. 

At that time France required a visa for us, so, at the embassy, the very short attendant made it clear that nothing would happen without a return ticket, money and hotel address. I sat at that square next to the embassy and though, what now. That's when I saw our dear friend coming out for lunch.

Luck moves in mysterious ways.

After a few days selling Brazilian indian's crafts on the Cascais beach, being hassled by a crazy Finish guy, and making friends with the son of a Brazilian diplomat, I returned to the embassy - at lunchtime - taking documents that proved I would go to France by car. That sweet lady then gave me the visa.

So I hopped my rucksack on my back and off you go to the highway, direction East, to hitch a ride.

First car that stopped for me was a Masseratti. The businessman was going to Madrid. He really needed company, cause he talked about all sorts of things and told me live of Spanish history. He would stop here and then to have a coffee with cognac. I was so happy with that History lesson in Spanish, that the gentleman got out of his way, on the E-80 to show me Salamanca, Ávila and the Valle de Los Caídos, the very impressive burrial place for Franco. It stands carved into a mountain and is surrounded by gigantic angel statues each with a different demoniac expression. 

The next day I left Madrid and went to the gasolinera - in Spain no one will stop for you on a highway. An old man in an old car saw my sign and waved for me. He was Moroccan. I stared at his face and decided to get in. On the road the man would talk French and I answered here and there with a "ha-ha", "ouí" and "merci". As far as I could go, the man was returning from his daughter's marriage in Morocco - and his car was filled up with rabble. He drove nonstop  and once in a while asked me to serve him a cup of coffee from a large thermal flask. It was autumn in Europe. The scenery was fascinating. The whole road was tainted yellow, red and orange. So that's how I went from Madrid to Paris - I couldn't understand a word the man said. When we arrived there he stopped at a service station. I reckon I had a helpless look upon my face, cause he decided to take me all the way to my destiny - which is an hour from Paris! 

I could never thank enough those people.  If I was ever afraid to hitch, I lost that fear on that trip. After all I was lucky enough to be welcomed by two gentlemen, albeit from totally different cultures, languages and beliefs. 

Years afterwards, I was at some highway in Germany. It was snowing. A couple stopped and asked if I wasn't afraid to hitch alone. I was quite honest and told them I was - but after all, they ran the same risk as I did. That was honestly dumb of me: they left me shortly afterwards in the middle of nowhere.

When I arrived in Vinay, a small town with a church and three streets around it, I looked for the maison where Paul told me he would be. When I arrived he was outside. Thanks to his strong temporomandibular joint, his jaw didn't fall and break to pieces on the ground.

E La Nave Va

We disembarked on a floating pontoon with stairs. What a challenge. After many days at sea one walks in a zigzag, with no booze - the famous seaman walk. We all fell down the stairs.

I stayed for a full month at Paul's father - Dr. Scher's - in Claremont. 

Saw Mandela being released from prison after so long, and how people respected him. Apartheid revealed seats with signs for whites and blacks, different charges on the buses, and an incredibly compelling look on the "colored" people's faces. So submissive. And also huge miserable slums.

A gentle Indian girl became my friend . She sold clothes at the local market. She taught me how to make samoosas and gave me the passage out of that place - which was really important, for I only had 500 dollars on me. Paul planned to fly to France to do the grape picking in Champagne. 

That was how I got aboard a merchant ship with Burmese crew. It was bound for Lisbon. An old Scottish couple, a German man, a young South-African couple and I all joined in exchange for work. We did all sorts of tasks, such as peeling lots of potatoes, painting the hull, cleaning, etc. That exchange went on for many years until some idiot decided to smuggle ivory.

Almost all of those Burmese men were Buddhists, really peaceful creatures who wore a type of sarong, the longyi, which is tied with a sort of knot for men, and another knot for women. I received a checkered green one. Wore it for many years. I was really well treated by all of them, except for a brief action from the cook - a Muslim who tried to grab me while I searched for samoosa pastry inside the freezer. The tragicomic siege didn't last long: he promptly begged me not to tell anything to the Captain.

Except for this episode it was a very smooth 12-day sail until we got to Portugal.

When we arrived in Lisbon, just next to the mouth of Tejo river, I looked at that piece of land and couldn't handle the emotion...  while I tried to hold that stubborn tear the longshoreman helped to moor the ship. He threw the fine line with a monkeys fist at the end...

...and of course it hit me on the head. I fell back and the crew rushed to my rescue.

I burst in laughter and thought: "Welcome to Europe".

The Huge African Sun

It takes more than traveling to be a nomad. It requires changing views on time, space and people. You must want less and love the creative void.

The middle of the ocean is perfect to live the void. Food is rationed. Hygiene is restricted because of there's little fresh water. We sleep lots between shifts. Harmony is fundamental for everybody's health. Sails push you forward according to the winds' will, and so time becomes relative - with little wind, you move a little, or not at all. Simple as that.
In the middle of the way we had engine trouble - a cracked head. So, no motor to enter Cape Town. That's it. No problem! Aboard a sailing boat, the engine is only a gadget to facilitate maneuvering in smaller spaces - it isn't essential. Much on the contrary: it kills silence.
As we couldn't predict the time it would take, we had to ration food and water. Being the girl of the boat, Robert granted me an extra share of water for personal hygiene.

The trip to Cape Town from Rio is one of the most beautiful. In low latitudes there's a lot of marine life and few people. Wise nature. The "roaring forties" is a strip where winds get more intense. Night shifts in this place make you see the boat as a nutshell and yourself as almost nothing. This feeling can set you free. 

Commotion, in a beautiful new moon shift: I see lights on our bow - Table Mountain lit up at night. That was approximately 100 nautical miles from Cape Town. Wind was really dim- around 15 knots - so, it still took us two days to get there. In the middle we started facing 4 to 5-meter waves with no wind at all. When the boat was at the lip, that brought hope. The sight was beautiful. But when the boat went onto the base, we all felt fear.

Cape Town is a must to those who love nature. We where greeted joyfully by seals and sea lions. This was just a sample of the force of nature at the Cape of Good Hope (or Agulhas) - wild and powerful. Those who have seen the sun shine in Africa know what I'm talking about.

And there's much, much more: strong flowers like artichokes (Protea), delicious peaches, moving sand, baboons, whales, penguins, sharks... and the African people.

Nomad

Summer in Recife can be so hot, I got severely dehydrated. After a bad seafood experience I had two convulsions, cured solely with magical coconut water.

That day, however, Recife reminded me of its Dutch origins - rainy, almost cold. The dense fog covered the entrance to the Recife port - the mouth of the river that originates at the Eco Reserves of Manassu, Mata de Mussaiba and Mata da Jangadinha. I played with the bright yellow binoculars when I saw a boat arriving. "It must have come from far"- I thought, cause no one would go sailing on a day like that. I looked it up again. The bowman saw the yellow piece and waved. I waved back.

When I woke up the next day the gringos were anchored beside us. They came rowing  to ask if we knew where to sell whiskey. We didn't. After a few days we moved to Cabanga Yacht Club, on the other side of the Brasília Teimosa slums, where we could have a bit more comfort, such as fresh water.

While we waited, the word came of a great show at Campina Grande, in the state of Paraíba, where Brazilian artists Gilberto Gil, Caetano Velloso and Chiclete com Banana would play. I invited the gringos who had also moved beside us. They all went, but my captain stayed. He didn't want to leave the boat unattended.

The show house was right in the middle of nowhere and as we arrived, the local girls managed to invite each of the gringos for a dance at bullet speed. I was having loads of fun watching the totally embarrassed guys trying to dance forró, a quite sexy Brazilian dance. It basically requires you to couple your legs between the girl's legs and shake your hips. The American was the funniest. The other men came from Belgium, Wales, South Africa and the skipper was Australian.

When we returned, people sang MPB (Brazilian Pop Music) in the bus. The music had an effect on me, cause I suddenly saw myself involved in a romantic flare with the South African guy - Paul. He was the one who waved at the bow. That lasted for a few days and had obvious consequences, and also an unexpected outcome: he invited me to go with them. I was just 21.

So that's how I joined the Berg Wind crew. Our destination was Cape Town. On the way to the southern seas, we left towards Rio under the command of Robert Hossack, and later, down to the "roaring forties".

Miss Global got to the Caribbean later, with a new crew member - Fabiana.

And I became a nomad. I've been a citizen of the world ever since.

That is why I want to nurture it.

 

This telegram says: 

Letters received on the 4th. Convulsion is normal. Avoid dehydration.

The sea is not large enough to bare our love for you. 

Good winds, good luck.

Directions

My memory of exciting days has included this one at the top.
You could see also the phosphorescence reflected on the waves, because of the moonlight shining on krill. Its is something sublime, magical. Navigating captivated me so much, we never stopped.
After a few months working between Angra and Búzios, to get experienced, I left aboard the  Miss Global bound for the Caribbean. At Cape São Tomé we met a moon fish and some manta rays that jumped out of the water. A bit further north we saw a lightning storm.
In Recife the stay lasted a few months, for we waited a sail to return from Rio. It had been sent back to Rio for repair - ripped at the leach. That was the result of my inexperience, for I left the leach line too tight while the wind picked up.
And while I was comfortably waiting at Recife, everything changed again... including direction.

I must admit, this also feeds my nature. 

 

Bioluminescence

July 1987. At the bare 40-foot racing yacht "Miss Global", equipped solely with a VHS radio, a sextant and a solar panel, I first had a clue of life at sea.
There are many superstitions among sailors, and also one great truth: there's no space in the sea for the indecisive. Either you love it or you don't. Cause it can shake you to pieces. It also does remind of the womb experience.

The first night at sea was vigil. My very experienced captain showed me how to work the compass, handed me the tiller and said 'look out for any approaching lights'. It was my first shift! With double attention and eye on the horizon, the sun was setting, and I saw a red light. My heart rushed. Suddenly it got bigger and bigger.

It was the moon.

And so I left

Mine is an extremely volatile nature. Whenever I live something unfair or amoral, it can blow me out. As a result, the top of my head feels ready to explode. The air pressure can certainly do me harm, but we should remember there's always a bright side to everything - it also gets me going. At the end, this is a balance to another side of my nature, which is quite comfort-prone.

And so I left. Couldn't stand all that inequity in my country. I was also sure I wouldn't have the chance to make a difference after graduation - in Biology, that is. I was wrong, cause twenty years later I saw all my college mates where very well, and they do make a difference. But there was also an intimate and familiar inequity. This added to the curiosity of going for something new - something different.
But the first spark was set by my sister.
There she was, working at this famous salad bar restaurant, and so she pronounced: "Daniela, you're going to Europe." I though, what a joke, and answered cunningly: "Oh, yeah? And how?". She told me she had a friend who wanted to take his yacht to Europe, and was looking for a crew member. Right that moment I took a phone token and called the lad from the nearest public phone. This move changed my life.

Why "nurture nature"?

The meanings of the word nurture relate to (1) nutrition; (2) caring; or (3) the sum of environmental aspects that influence behavior and the traits expressed by an organism.

There is plenty of philosophical debate on the value of inheritance and experiences to the human being. If you are interested in that you might want to check the writings of John Locke, Freud, Skinner, and Margaret Mead, on one hand, or of E. O. Wilson, and genetics, on the other.

But here is no place to feed on this type of discussion. More so because I STRONGLY believe that nature manifests through nurture, and nurture through nature - and that this relationship shapes our personality, health, attitudes and behaviour. The question here is how to nurture nature - our individual nature AND the collective one - the so-called "external" nature. However... here we start by the belief that they're both the same.