Category Archives: 2020 Voyaging

I can saw a woman in two, But you won’t want to look in the box when I’m through. —Warren Zevon; For My Next Trick, I’ll Need a Volunteer(added to HJ Sailing playlist) A couple weeks ago, my friend Sarah forwarded me a text: Sarah, tell your sailing friend that I have been listening toContinue reading “I’ll Need a Volunteer”

Over the weekend I got an email from my dear friend, Jon, in Northern California. It began: Hey Dan – after you paused your blog in June and it left me wondering if maybe that was a wrap for this epoch, I just discovered that I had quite a bit of your blog to catchContinue reading “I’m Taking Monday Off!”

In a twisted way, it feels good to be through the first year without Colleen. Not that I’m happy about it, but it feels good to have proven to myself that I can do it. If anything, it feels increasingly real—that she’s not coming back. This reality was punctuated by an email from Colleen’s parentsContinue reading “The Past Year…Etched in Stone”

Well…here I am, or—better said—here we are, on this morning of the first anniversary of Colleen’s death. We’ve made it this far which is, in itself, an accomplishment. When I say “we”, I could be referring to my three dogs who almost never let me sit on my screened-in lanai alone (it’s where I doContinue reading “The Past 365 Days: A Reaction or A Dream?”

I’ve been feeling a bit down and out-of-sorts lately. While Hazel’s refit is proceeding well, emotionally I’m in a staring contest with the month of August and at the moment it’s unclear who’s going to win. Regarding the refit, we’re in that classic middle-stage with a million things started but very few totally completed. InContinue reading “The Last of the Firsts”

Lines of latitude are also referred to as “parallels” and the refit of Hazel James parallels my grief for Colleen. They are both so big, so enmeshed in the fabric of life, enmeshed in the weave of the fiberglass of Hazel’s hull—it seems like they will never end, they will never be “done”. Perhaps that’sContinue reading “The Baths, The Refit, The Grief”

Well…right now, I’m kind of focused—perhaps overly-focused—on the question marks in the blog-post title. The overall refit of Hazel James reminds me of my consulting days when a client would call and request an assessment of their troubled, multi-million dollar project. Often, in assessing the project, under every rock we would find ten more rocks;Continue reading “Summer 2020 Refit – Part 1 of ??? (Keel Bolts)”

While I’m still deep in the midst of Hazel’s summer re-fit and also dealing with a potential Coronavirus exposure, I thought you’d enjoy this blast from the past… I spent March 18-24, 2020 anchored off the British Virgin Islands (BVI) island of Anegada. The map below shows just how far Anegada is separated from theContinue reading “Anegada and the Beach Walk”