This little guy knew he was the best looking lizard around. I must have taken 10 pictures of him, getting closer and closer. Here the camera is around 1 foot away. And he's even looking into the camera for me!

Gypsum and mud, artfully arranged by M. Earth.

Almost all of the rest of Texas is a slight variation of this. The "Hill Country" is like north L.A. with an eighth of the buildings. I had a great conversation with Nanette the other night - we were relating how people in Texas and the midwest (where she's originally from) have no concept of what it's like to live in far more cramped cities, watching natural resources wither away. They rarely recycle, they drive giant trucks and luxury sedans... I've come to believe that because of these things, and other observations, some people in these parts of the country don't even understand why it might not be a good idea to have Bush as our president. At least when it comes to the environment.

Caprock Canyon, Texas

Here's me at an overlook, hiking Caprock Canyon, a surprisingly exciting landscape change between Amarillo and Lubbock. If you have ever seen Waimea Canyon on Kauai, it's similar, though not as deep and with cooler lizards.

More Elissa stuff

Elissa pics that I just got....

Here I am at the Texas Seaport Museum, modeling what's affectionately known with Lady WA crew as a "Death Belt". The belief is that if you fell off something, your lanyard would catch you and the force of the jerking motion centered around your mddle would crack your back in half. Elissa has full body harnesses (like a chest and lap put together with straps and rings on the back) but the rings get hung up on all the rigging.

Another pic of me aloft on Elissa. I'm sitting on the footrope of the main t'gallant yard, tarring the port brace pennant. Her rig is pretty big. Her course yards aren't even visible in this picture. Landon took this from over a block away.

Crack it open

This week's horoscope: by Cariel Crestin in the Seattle Weekly

"Cancers are fanatically loyal to their families. Tragically, the feeling's not always mutual. What some Cancers see as protective love, others can view as stifling control. For you, love transcends all. For some people, stuff like politics, practicalities, and the need for privacy can get in the way. Nothing's likely to change this week about who's close to you and who's not—except for your attitude. It's an ideal time to come to terms with the shape your family's in, good or bad, and assess whether or not improving it is actually in your power. If not, best to let it go, no?"

I'm loyal, I just don't spend a lot of time with them. Not enough to control them for sure. But I know that were I to be in my mom's, nanette's, Katie's and Landon's life ALL the time, they might feel "stifling control". Nanette, Katie and Landon do just fine on their own, my mom will be fine eventually. With my mom it's all or nothing for me. If I lived near her I'd commit myself to helping her every day and it would drain me. So I do my own thing and just let her know I love her. She's only 50 years old. She'll be fine.

The problem this week in my family is that my dad has been mean to my sister, and it is definitely not within my power to improve his attitude. Not for lack of trying over the last 20 years! This Old Block that I'm a chip off thinks that 5 hours total with 3 different therapists over the last 10 years has done plenty to cure his anger. My time in therapy may be less, but ACKNOWLEDGMENT is the first step, so I'm exactly one step ahead of him. What's sad is that he thinks we don't love him as much as we do, and he thinks that his wife of 3 years, who also has kind of estranged her own 2 daughters, is the only true thing in his life. So they are probably going to move to the mountains without waiting for my sister to graduate from high school, and live in a place that is a 7 hour drive from Seattle most of the year. For the next 20 years we'll see him just a few days each year, and when he's old and sitting around all day he'll wish he'd spent more time with us, and been nicer and more forgiving of our youthful self-centeredness. Makes me cry. He's been far more loving to us than his parents were to him, though. A great provider and quite involved until both my sister and I stopped playing sports in high school. Very short tempered and distrusting though. His new wife knows this and pushes his buttons when she wants to get more control of his attention. I've heard her say outrageously manipulative things to him that just made me shake my head and give up. I mean, he's already distrusting of everyone else, so how can you counter that kind of manipulation unless you sink to her level? This is why my horoscope says "let it go"!

Ahhgh. Too much time to think these days. Landon says we need to do something to quiet our minds. 2 weeks ago I was pushing him away a little, feeling pressured into committed plans for the future - you know, live on a boat together, maybe in Galveston. At the time, every little difference between us translated into some insurmountable lifestyle difference that I had to sit and ponder whether or not I could accept. Then I suggested we live a little more in the moment, and the next day we were both more at ease. He has remained at ease. After a week of just enjoying each other's company, I've become the one who is stressing about the future. I don't want to leave him. It's as though earlier my fears of being trapped were overcome, then I was open to get more attached at my own pace, without my defenses up. Now I feel pretty vulnerable. It's a lot easier to convince myself that if I go work, and he finds someone else or falls out of love with me, then it just wasn't meant to be. I can't bring myself to think that way now. I run the risk of losing someone very important to me. Oh wait, that's part of being in love, isn't it...

He's a good sport. He's been living pretty solitary for a year now, reading, writing and drinking a little single malt every night. After an entire month of having no time to himself he still remains sane, kind and loving. For several years I lived alone and without much social interaction besides work - when I lived in Kingston without even a phone, and when I lived in my RV on a farm in Poulsbo - I remember that spending 2 whole days visiting someone would drive me mad. Now, after 2 years of almost always having a dozen people living, working and sleeping on the same vessel, this time spent in a small apartment with one other person has been deluxe privacy.

I bought my dad a book on meditating last Christmas. He said he used it once and it helped. Last weekend I bought myself "Power Yoga for Dummies". Now all I have to do is crack it open.

Sith Lords Suck

I got a little overconfident with my handling of my airline tickets. Without reading the fine print, I figured a June 1st return ticket could be turned in for an earlier standby ticket, but Southwest Airlines will have none of that. It doesn't make sense, because they'd make more money by reselling that June 1st seat. Oh well. Things could be a hell of a lot worse than spending more time with my incredibly awesome boyfriend, relaxing, emailing, and being able to take showers and do laundry at my whim.

In just one month, Landon, who has never sailed before, has pretty much taught himself (with a teensy bit of help) how to tie several important knots, make beautiful leather sheaths for all of his knives, and he even knows most of the words to his favorite sea shanty, Old Dun Cow.

But what have I learned? Besides the entire history of "a galaxy far, far away" (I've seen episodes 1-4 in the last week... 5 and 6 will be this weekend), I've learned that I can trust a man. In fact I never knew how much I didn't trust them until I found someone whom I could talk to about anything and not be made to feel paranoid or crazy or dumb. My belief that I can be great friends with men, but that I make a crappy girlfriend, is being dispelled. There's been over a decade of boyfriends who have suffered because my own insecurities, or who I have just broken up with because I began to disrespect them for what I felt to be weaknesses inherent in most men. Landon has inspired me to reconsider my biased and judgmental ways by gently questioning the beliefs I spout off to him. With me slowly changing for the better, and his love and incredible level of emotional intelligence, he stands to reap the benefits of the more mature lover and friend that I will become. Maybe we just met at the right time, or maybe he would have inspired enlightenment in me at any point in my life. I'm glad it's now and not later. Being cynical about love is a lame way to live.

Damn Your Eyes!

This great girl that I crewed with on sloop Providence emailed me today, with a link to her livejournal and her picture blog. Her name is Sam, she's from Philadelphia, and she lives her life as an activist and tall ship sailor:

Sam's Photos

Sam's Blog

She's an excellent photographer, and leads a very worthwhile life. Check her stuff out!

in one ear and onto the blog

So I hear that during Tall Ships we can expect visits from Schoolteacher Alex Moularas & Sports Illustrated Sailing Supermodel Carley Tallman (both attending Western right now), Physics Genius Eric "The Beard" Bott (soon to be going for his PhD), Capt. Trandell's woman Laura, and my new friend Mark Provo (on his own sailboat, with friends, out of south Puget Sound). Sounds like Shawn Strange will cook for a season or two aboard Tole Mour, Kelly Landen and Nanette Brown-Clampitt will be out on the town together mid-June, before Nanette heads down to San Diego later this year for school...

Here's a few email updates on some of my other favorite people:

Cherylnn Resager, alumni mate from Lady Washington and horse trainer:
I am back for the weekend and then am leaving Tuesday probably for Montana for the summer. I am farming with draft horses (I'm the driver) and training some as well. I'm shipping two of my horses out there also. I'm in a little town five miles from the Idaho boarder I have to drive a half hour to get cell phone reception. The big town next to it is population 450. There is a post office and a general store. I'm 8 hours from Seattle if you ever want to make a road trip. I have a cabin on the lake.

Mark Griffin, alumni captain of Lady Washington:
…I am still in Virginia Beach VA awaiting my orders to ship out for Italy…

Alan Kerstetter, alumni Lady crew:
I'm in Key West with my lady, refitting my new BOAT, for a trip up the NE coast. It's a 27' Cal with real nice lines. I'm very happy with every aspect of her. We bought her a couple of weeks ago, and are moving on her today. We'll probably be leaving mid-June and will hit every interesting seaport from Key West to the Bay of Fundy, Canada.

Brian Clampitt, alumni mate from Lady Washington, currently aboard University of Washington R/V Thompson:may 8.arrived seward today. unfortunately in order to make the very tight science schedule no port call was scheduled. instead a local fishing vessel became our lighter as she brought out to us the oncoming science gang and all of their gear, and we offloaded the shore going party onto her. the run into resurrection bay was spectacular. the wx continues beautiful. snow covered mountains coming straight down into the bay, the local glacier just gleaming in the sun, and everything green with spring. the entire coast was just full of whales, seals, eagles...the whole Alaskan travel guide of sights. upon departing the bay observed a fata morgana.this is a mirage caused most usually by a great difference in density or humidity between differing layers of air. in our case it caused the chugach mountain range to do some pretty weird things. we could see the bottom of the mountains above the tops. some mountains had complete mirror images capsized upon the actual mt.,so that they were peak to peak, some mountains had holes in them so you could see sky right thru the middle of them. it was just a strange and fantastic sight to see. may 11.transited thru Bainbridge passage into the western part of prince William sound. a very narrow pass, winding thru approx. 4 nm of steep to mountains. Bainbridge glacier is the turning mark opening on the channel. I wish I had the ability to due justice to this. it was just loveliness unfathomable. the day was sunny and bright, not a cloud in the sky. the mountains were snow covered,rugged,and pristine. it was one of those times when the place where you find yourself is so quiet,untouched,that you could swear that you must be the first people to ever see that place. we saw mountain goats,otters,eagles right over us, fish jumping. it was so awesome that the entire ships company just watched silently, enraptured. may 14.reality is back. the more usual Alaskan wx has returned to us for 3 days now.cold,squally,rainy,and every shade of gray known to man. grayskies, gray seas. at 1700 passed thru unimak pass and into the Bering sea. there are few words that can describe the scenery along the Alaskanpeninsula,shumagin is. and other smaller island groups here. desolate being the first among them.brutal,empty,and forbidding rounding out the group. may 15.ok,the last few days were cool, now it is COLD! our daily high today was 1.6 degrees Celsius. ice fields, here we come. fair winds all. brian

Linkity Lynx

HTML is completely foreign to me, so fixing my cool links to the side of this blog is not within my realm of capabilities! How frustrating! My friends have created blogs, though, so here are a few of them:
Polly: one of my best friends in the universe. We used to live together in Hawaii. She and her boyfriend started a production company that operates in LA and Hawaii.
Mason Marsh: awesome person, fun captain, in fact Mason is one of the smartest, funniest guys you could ever meet. He's a teacher, historian, journalist, photographer and salty sea captain! Mason lives in Portland, Oregon currently and works as a boat captain on the Columbia River.
Yuri Padowinikof: my friend with whom I traveled and sailed with a great deal last year. Yuri works as a shipwright and delivery crew in the British Virgin Islands.

Fireflies, Pinetar and Jetskis

These are a bit out of order... here's the paint locker at the Texas Seaport Museum where the original 1877 barque Elissa is docked. I'm mixing pine tar and linseed oil to make rig tar.

This is the view from a bar called Carlos-n-Charlies on Lake Travis, north of Austin. You'd think it'd be a fun boat trash crowd, seeing as how there's boats there, but Lake Travis is quite the upper class suburbia, with very few sailboats, and this is the only decent bar around.

My boyfriend's 6 year old daughter Megan set out to catch 1000 fireflies. She did pretty well. About 30 in one hour.

Greta and Steve at the Smith Lakehouse

Mike, Landon & Gil. I have no idea what they are doing. But Mike's outfit was picture worthy. "Gil" is Steve's Siamese Fighting Fish. He's in the blue nalgene. Steve flew to California today and put Gil in a plastic bag, surrounded by shredded paper and styrofoam, and shipped him via checked baggage so they could be together. Steve's going to Cali, Japan and Tahiti over the next few months and Gil will be accompanying him the entire way.

This is me and my butt aloft on the main course yard of Elissa. My job was to tar the brace pennants. While they may not look heavy.... THEY ARE. I must have spent over an hour trying to figure out how to drag that pennant and block inboard so I could tar it. I have never done anything so difficult aloft!

A Round of Lonestars

May Day found me in Galveston, Texas, camping on a windswept gulf coast shore with my boyfriend Landon. Landon and I are on a Texas road trip, which of course involves me volunteering aboard the original 1877 barque Elissa at the Texas Seaport Museum. I spent a few days in the rig, tarring cranelines and brace pennants (cursing and refusing to accept that I'd bit off more than I could chew with those contrary main course brace pennants!). The upper t'gallant pennants helped me get over my schooner bum laziness - Elissa's rig dwarfs the Lady's rig. On top of that, they don't use seat harnesses. The full body harnesses drive me crazy with their hooks and eyes getting caught on every shroud and line around me, so I wear their ("Death") Belts, with lanyards on each side. Being that high up, without a harness that I can just lean back into, climbing far out on a steel yard, with the jackstay well buried under the excellently furled sail, my tar bucket swinging off one hip and my hands covered in pine tar and linseed oil... all these things are good for acknowledging my mortality.

The last day was spent taking the Texas Seaport's original steam powered shrimp boat out for a spin, stowing and labeling lines for Elissa while she gets her mizzen replaced, then scraping the mizzen topmast on the hard. Rigger Dave Mowr and Elissa manager John Schaumberger delegated us four volunteers for the day.

Upon arrival in Austin, we made our way to the popular nightclub "Dallas" with Mike Prusaitis and Steve Bitner (friends I hung out with often when we all lived in Hawaii). I also got a chance to meet Colby, whom Mike has been telling me stories about for years. Colby is a professional DJ and we're going to Lake Travis tonight to visit the club where he works.

I'll put up more pictures later, and hopefully talk about more "deep" thoughts than this factual fluff I'm putting out. I NEED MY OWN LAPTOP!!!!! Ahh..eventually.