Below is the email sent to some family and friends after I shipwrecked in Galapagos, just over a month ago.

Titi Nui -- From 75 feet up the mast

We made the crossing to the Galapagos in one piece but I can´t say the same for the boat. As my crewmember Sam described it: the passage was a ¨total shitshow¨. I would say that it was an amazing journey, with peaks and valleys just like any other. Only, our journey ended in a metaphorical valley and on a very literal rock. If you don´t want to read through this epically long email I´ll cut straight to the good part: we shipwrecked. But if you want the whole story I have to start at the beginning…

We left Panama on a sunny clear day with light and favorable winds at our backs. Dolphins escorted us out of the busy shipping lanes and a shearwater -- the Titi Nui's namesake -- skimmed along the surface of the water near our boat. Very auspicious beginnings, right? I
grabbed my iPod and a book and spent much of the day on the trampoline. That night I cooked dinner and got a quick hour of sleep before my watch. We were sailing downwind and making good time. I went to bed at two oclock, feeling all was right with the world, and awoke at six on a much different boat.

Now well away from Panama, the winds had shifted and we were sailing close-hauled, directly into the wind -- something all boats, and especially trimarans, don't really like to do. The boat lurched forward and slammed to a halt as it dove into each wave, sending water racing back over the deck and into the cockpit. Midmorning, the sky darkened and we could see squalls in all directions. Dan and I were at the mast putting in the third reef (making the main sail as small as possible) when we approached our first squall a quarter mile away. The rain fell like a curtain and I could see the milky line in the water where the rain was hitting the sea. Within a minute the line was a hundred yards away, advancing ominously. In another ten seconds we were overtaken by the curtain of rain and it was like turning on a shower. Dan ducked down into the head returning with soap and shampoo. I took advantage of the fresh water and shampooed my hair -- sitting on the netting in my harness and tether. The rain kept on like that for hours. The winds were squirrelly in every direction and at some point we ended up sailing 180 degrees from our destination. We tacked several times just trying to stick to some
logical course. Eventually, we passed through the squalls and continued beating into the wind which would turn out to be, unfortunately, our only point of sail for rest of the crossing.

Dan and I headed into the first squall

Beating into to the wind is uncomfortable. After days and days it starts to wear down both boat and crew. In our case, the boat went first. Titi Nui had been completely refitted in St Maarten and had sailed (downwind) with no further problems to Panama. She hadn't been thoroughly tested in an upwind situation until now -- and things started to fail, one after another. There were no dorades to prevent sea water from entering our fuel and freshwater tank vents -- located on the bow. Not surprisingly then, with the bow submerged under waves about half the time, we got seawater in the fuel and water tanks. A disaster. The engine died and we had some mighty salty drinking water by day four. The engine loss meant we could no longer power the
refrigerator and freezer (and other less critical but fun things like computers and iPods). Within 24 hours the previously frozen meat in our freezer was rotting and quickly going putrid. Sam and I spent one fine afternoon heaving a two month supply of rotting meat overboard--and trying not to heave. We began rationing the emergency freshwater and also hitting the canned juice and UHT milk supply pretty hard. And, because simply losing an engine and running out of fresh water would be too easy, we had a whole host of other exciting breakdowns to keep us on our toes. The bowsprit (a long, lance-like pole jutting out from the bow) broke off after taking three days of solid abuse. The starboard bow netting ripped away from the hull. The forward anchor locker hatch ripped off, flooding the forward berth. Each failure tested Sam and Dan's ingenuity as they had to jury-rig some viable solution with whatever materials were onhand. The steering quadrant was shearing itself apart -- Sam held it together using zipties and, I think, a prayer.

the bowsprit repair

After seven days of staring at the Galapagos islands on the charts and GPS -- obsessing over them, memorizing them, wanting them – one morning they actually appeared on the horizon. Also, the weather lifted and the mood onboard brightened. We cracked open warm beers,
put some music on the hi-fi and started dreaming of showers and cold cervesas on shore that night. I relented and allowed Sam to play Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffett -- once. And then... the wind died. Under normal circumstances, this would be the time to start up the engine and make a beeline toward land. Without an engine, we just sat there and cursed. We'd spotted land early in the morning, but by sunset, had only made about 10 nautical miles progress. We'd have to wait for the showers and beers. Early the next morning we crossed the equator, another happy occasion marked by costumes and pancakes for breakfast. Joy gave us all certificates from the US Navy to mark our official status as shellbacks. Normally, all first time equator-crossers get hazed in some way but our captain decided that the entire passage had been hazing enough.

Sam and I remained at the helm all day working on our approach into Santa Cruz Island. Titi Nui is only capable of making 110 degree tacks. It is maddening. On a clock, let's say our destination is at 12 oclock, and the wind is coming straight from 12 oclock -- we can
only get there by sailing to 2:30 and 9:30. The idea is to sail pastyour destination until it is at least 110 degrees in your sideview mirror and then swing around in a giant tack and be headed in the right direction (assuming and hoping winds and currents stay roughly the same). It takes some patience and willpower to sail past your ultimate destination -- to see the "miles to dest" on the GPS start counting UP instead of down. One of the crew couldn't handle it. Sam and I were given the order to tack when we were only at an 80 degree angle to the island. When I questioned the decision, I was told that the winds might change favorably for us as we approached. That was the plan. To hope the winds changed in our favor. It was a bad idea.
Normally, most all tacks -- even badly timed ones, still count towards the VMG or velocity made good (forward progress). The winds did change, but in the unfavorable direction. We got headed. We spent two hours on the approach and about two hours on the next tack which took us directly back over our bread crumb trail. We burned four hours of daylight and ended up exactly where we started at when the decision was made to tack.

Sam, offering his opinion of the trip

I think, in the snowballing of horrendously bad decisions that was to follow, the decision to make that early tack was the first. Second bad decision: declining the offer of a tow into the harbor (our boat agent in Galapagos had offered us one for the low low price of $800 USD). Sam and I tried valiantly to get around the island before dark but the winds and currents were doing everything to make that impossible. At dusk Sam said, ¨time to head out away from land, set the sea anchor and wait until morning¨. The ultimate bad decision was ignoring that very sage advice from a 25 year old sailor. The rest of us (me out of sheer ignorance – and the other two out of crazy hubris) made the decision to enter an unfamiliar harbor at night. After 13
hours at the helm, Sam and I went below. I picked up my book to read and passed out immediately.

The sound of our centerboard striking basalt at 10 knots, I still cannot describe. But the force of it knocked me out of my bunk entirely and onto the chart table. Everyone else was on deck. They´d woken Sam up about a minute earlier when they realized (too late) that all was not right. I could hear Sam shouting to drop anchor, lower sails, hold on. I looked out into the cockpit and saw Dan bleeding everywhere. The force of the collision had sent him over the wheel, nose-first into the carbon-fiber and steel dodger above the companionway. Dan yelled at me through his bloody nose to grab a knife and cut the centerboard line. Sam cut the line and we raised the centerboard. At that point we were more or less safe -- though the surf was rolling in in sets, grinding Titi Nui further into the shore. The night was completely black. I could hear the waves hitting the shore but had no idea how close we were until Joy fired
the first flare. It fell onto craggy lava rocks 20 yards away, illuminating a rocky, mangrove covered shoreline. The next hour was spent attempting to kedge the boat off the rocks. Sam took the danforth anchor into the dingy and rowed out into the surf to drop it in deeper water. Then we raised the original anchor and pulled in on the spinnaker halyard attached to the danforth. It pulled us forward a few feet. It was just enough. We floated freely again. The tow
boat, a small fishing dinghy with an outboard, arrived shortly after and was miraculously able to pull us out of the breakers and into the harbor a couple miles away. (By the way… cost of an emergency tow? $1000 USD. )

The rest is kind of blur. Onshore, we were met by a friendly local (later realizing that he´d just been a random but exceedingly Good Samaritan, sent by no one) who took us to one hotel after another, until one finally answered the 4 am buzzer. I fell into bed in my foul weather bibs and slept. And slept and slept. The next day was a sleeping, eating, water drinking day.

Don't feel too sorry for me -- this is where I ended up...

And that was one week ago today. I´ve been enjoying the Galapagos tremendously. Of all the places to be shipwrecked, this has got to be the nicest. I´d write more about it but I think I´ve surpassed my quota for today…

Right now, my future is slightly unclear. But I am happy, and I´m safe on dry land, and I´m working on it.

Much love to you all. More news to come.

A bright sunshiny day. And night.

We've had a whole slew of these warm days and nights in the past couple weeks. The temps are consistently above freezing -- it's t-shirt weather! But with the snow gone and town rendered a scabby brown dust-bowl... it's also decidedly un-Christmasy.

Antarctica: so hot right now.

Sometime within in the last three years, between the many penguin movies, the Al Gore movie and the general panic that ensued, Antarctica made it onto the cultural radar.

Then this happened:

and that settled it: Antarctica is totes kewl, y'all. As the kids say.

There was a time, when I first started working in McMurdo, when perfectly reasonable adults would ask me questions like, "Isn't it cold up there?", or "Are you safe from polar bears?", or "Do you live in igloos?" These days, any five year old could tell you definitively that there are no polar bears in Antarctica. There are seals and whales and penguins. And penguins sing "heartsongs" and love tap dancing.

Also gone is any mystery surrounding our living arrangements down here. As Ann Curry pointed out, we live in comfortable dorms and eat hearty breakfasts of biscuits and ham.

It's strange that there now seems to be this open window into a once esoteric world. Anyone on YouTube can search for McMurdo and watch clips of condition one or short movies made by winterovers (speaking of windows into strange worlds...) It all feels kind of one-sided though -- the real world still feels a long way away to me.

Catching up on the last month or so that I haven't written: I've been out skate skiing nearly every day with less than 10 knot winds and one regrettable day in 30 knot winds -- a harrowing tale. I went to ANDRILL camp for a visit (more about that later). I met Ann Curry. I went to night shift. And tonight, I'm going to the Antarctic premier of Werner Herzog's latest film, Encounters at the End of the World, about - what else - Antarctica.

breaking the news

the wounded beast

This article was listed under Top Stories on my google homepage.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10470163

We normally have about 4 or 5 "hercs" or LC-130's on station during the summer at any given point. Sometimes they have engine problems. When they do have engine problems, rarely does it make news in town here, let alone off continent. So I have to laugh when I see articles like this. A translation:

The men are huddled in their igloo, burning seal blubber for warmth and taking turns standing guard with a rifle on the lookout for polar bears and mad natives... and they have to fix a plane on top of that! This is the stuff of legends.

conditions most treacherous

If only. But maybe it's better that the reporter didn't mention the fact that their "hut" in which they sought shelter from the cold is actually one of many well heated buildings at the runway. Or the fact that they have their own cafeteria with an espresso maker. And a television. Because the reality sounds less like "working in challenging conditions" and more like "gathered round the X-Box and clocking in overtime".

Not that there aren't anymore hero stories about people working in Antarctica. There are. It's just that generally the truly heroic "man versus harsh continent" stories don't involve the Air National Guard (or the Kiwi equivalent) or pretty much anyone working within 20 miles of McMurdo Station. Or maybe I've just gotten too cynical for my own fur-lined mukluks.

dog days

zim, me, n8ronika

Last Saturday, two days before First Flight, we went out large. There was a party at the carp shop and my band played. We're called We had to kill the dogs for meat. That's a little Antarctic humor...

My friend Nathan wintered with me in oh six and we started this band just so we could do shameless covers of everything we like without regard to skill (well, on my part -- the rest of the band has skills) or originality or a cohesive sound. Those things are overrated. I guess the set is cohesive in that everything we play might be included in a cheesy "Great Hits of the 70's, 80's and Today" album sold on an infomercial. So we play Velvet Underground and Dr Hook and Duran Duran and Grandaddy all mixed up together. Sometimes we actually pull it off. And sometimes we blow the power on the PA in the middle of Baba O'Reilly. But this is what I love most about playing music in McMurdo: nobody cares. Everyone's just happy you came.


This was our last show. Nathan left on Tuesday and is moving to France to live with his lady, Zim and his brother (and sometimes me) have a bluegrass band, Hairy Joe will keep drumming for his main band, Muschnuckle.

But the Dogs will always be remembered (by me) for seriously kicking out the jams on the last Saturday of winfly '07. Sigh.

Winfly, I hardly knew you.

For those who don't know, winfly is Antarctican for "spring". We love our acronyms here, and where an acronym won't do, we invent compound words just to keep it confusing. So winfly is more technically short for "Winter Fly-in". At the end of each winter, in August, the four winfly flights bring in new blood (like me!) along with mail, fresh food, and exotic germs to unleash on the immunally-challenged winter population. Then station closes again with no flights until mainbody. Mainbody is Antarctican for "summer".

My flight. photo courtesy of some guy named Wade who works at Pegasus runway.

Right now we are four and a half weeks into winfly with mere days left before the first flight of mainbody. Station population will balloon from three hundred people to around a zillion. Or at least it will feel like that to me. I've been spoiled by this magical time called winfly -- a time where one can enjoy all the perks of wintering over without actually having to spend a winter in Antarctica. The gyms are empty-ish so I can find a treadmill during normal waking hours, the store hasn't yet run out of Glenfiddich and UHT milk, most of the management is still in Denver, and the parties are way more fun...

That's me and Nathan's mustache at Winstock

Winfly is also the time of year to witness crazy natural wonders. When I arrived a month ago there were three hours of daylight. Now we have 13. And in a few more weeks, it's goodbye moon (and auroras) -- hello twenty-four hour daylight. Granted, the four months of daylight is kind of cool in its own right, but I'll miss sunsets like these:

Sunset from Pegasus. Again, Wade.

This rapid return of the sun brings with it some of the most violent storms of the year. This year has been pretty tame by winfly standards but we've still had a couple good condition ones. Condition 1 roughly translates into "stay inside so as to not get lost in the the white-out or hit by flying sheet metal".


And perhaps most importantly, winfly is a great time to get a picture of yourself looking all badass:

My icicle monobrow. Courtesy of Tia Kramer.

Total Eclipse of the Moon

Two weeks ago, I went outside to catch the lunar eclipse. We watched from a hill above town so as to avoid all the bright city lights of McMurdo. I wore approximately 80 thousand layers of long underwear.

It's hard to describe something like a lunar eclipse. It's this incredible natural event but unfolding at such glacial speeds it's kind of (don't hate me for saying this) boring. Here's me, all fresh and full of enthusiasm: "Wow! That's the shadow of the earth on the moon!" Thirty minutes later: "Wow. The shadow of the earth on the moon... My hands are cold."

In just over an hour, the moon was almost completely eclipsed by the earth's shadow causing its surface to glow faintly red. Then, out of nowhere, green fingers of light appeared on the horizon. Auroras -- really good ones. Like, the best I've ever seen down here. I forgot about being cold and laid down on the ground, staring up at the cosmic light show overhead.

Auroras are caused by huge explosions on the surface of the sun. Well, in a round-about way. That energy released from the sun eventually reaches the electromagnetic sphere that surrounds the earth and the resulting collision produces these crazy lights. They range from gauzy white streaks in the sky to sharply defined bands of color. That night, they were spectacular.

Here is a time release video taken by Anthony Powell, or Antz, as he is better known.

The poor moon... outplayed once again. Maybe next time, buddy.