May 2020 – Caro Babbo

Greg James, The Accidental Village and the Binary Roller Coaster

Ko Olina Marina, Kapelei, HI, 24-MAY-2020 — The binary roller coaster we ride, we’re sailing to Alaska, we’re not sailing to Alaska, was turned on its ear and into trivia when we learned our friend Greg James drowned a mile from shore.

Jennifer learned about Greg’s death through a post by Kevin McBee (who you can see in the attached video) on a sailing group.

I called the local police, who were closed, and eventually the coast guard to try to get ahold of Greg’s family before they learned about his death on the internet.

Our friend, Greg James, dies in boating accident one mile from harbor

Mooloolaba, Australia, 18-May-2020 — Jennifer and I had texted Greg the previous few days discussing what he expected to happen when he arrived unannounced in his 34-foot sail boat in Australia.

We watched his progress as his inreach satellite phone posted on the web. We teased him when it appeared his boat was in the surf off Mooloolaba, the site of a large marina. We figured Greg had carried his sat phone with him ashore in his pocket. When the posting stopped, we were certain he’d turned it off. Had the aussie border people taken exception to his arrival, we laughed.

But, Greg was dead by then.

Sit or Sail?

Ko Olina Marina, Kapolei, HI, 5-MAY-2020 – The Clash song, should I stay or should I go, always echoes in my head at times like this. We’re vacillating between leaving the boat here and sailing to Alaska. Dutch Harbor by the edge of the Aleutians to be exact. It’s potentially a bunch of weeks at sea in a weather window.*

The major question is, would we be welcome and could we sail from place to place? The answers are all over the place, changing from day to day. The kicker is how might answers change while we’re at sea for three or four weeks?

It’s dropping to 70-degrees tonight, could you grab a sweater for me?

Livin’ la vida barco

Ko Olina Marina, Kapolei, HI, 30-APR-2020 – Well, it’s happened. We’ve acclimated. About the time that I decided we were here and it’s time to connect up Alexa, 70 degrees became sweater weather.

When I was 11 years old, we moved from Toronto to Long Island. I remember the weather from that winter vividly. There was knee-high snow, and the weather for us kids from Toronto was mild. We wore windbreakers with a sweater underneath the entire winter.

The next winter was more typical and milder still. But, by then we had acclimated into winter coats and corduroy trousers.