Tag Archives | Selene

As with all the previous years, my crew experiences have been extraordinary and full of lessons. As i have for the last 4 years i rely on findacrew.net for most of my crew needs, such an asset to the cruising world. I had one exceptional crew, Sam, wh…

This past year found us in new and exciting places and some old familiar ones. We left Indonesia in the early Fall and headed back up the east coast of Borneo. We stayed a while in one of our “homes” Kota Kinabalu, where we celebrated my birthday and …

Five years ago this month i was fearful, excited, eager and apprehensive as i left the comfort of my lifetime home, Puget Sound. As Stephen Stills said at Woodstock, “this is our first gig and we are scared shitless” that sort of wraps up how i felt. Like CSNY, it all turned out brilliantly. Today i have traveled half the globe, been to dozens of countries, lived within many cultures and had the experiences few will ever attain. Each year i do a report in sections: boat, voyage, crew, captain.

THE BOAT

Again Furthur as performed miraculously, little problems, some maintenance, some new items. We now have 6,645 hours on the Cummins QSL 9 engine. That is more than any other Selene and twice as much as most boats get in a lifetime. The oil is still clean at the 300 hour oil changes and we have not used a drop of oil between changes. Sometimes i get a little smoke at the exhaust but that is usually fuel related, recently i had fuel from two different sources in the two tanks, running on one i got smoke, switched tanks and clean as a whistle. The perils of third world cruising.

i am now in Thailand where i always do major work and catch up on things i need help on or ya things i just do not want to do. My Tecma heads have been incredible, my guest head gets more use than any non commercial toilet on the sea! With up to 5 girls on the boat at once its life is not easy. The waste hoses get clogged with salt residue and constrict like hardening arteries. Also i have not used the holding tank in 5 years and do not intend on using it. So we cut the hose run in half, eliminating the Y valve and preplaced all the hoses on both heads. We are replacing all the components, valves, motors and switches.. should be smooth sailing.

The big addition this year was to add solar panels, clearly in the “why didn’t i think of this before” as i am always were the sun shines! so now we get 900 watts of rays from the sun, enough to cover most of our daily use at anchor.

As a past Commander of the United States Power Squadron and certified old school navigator, this comes hard, but after going half way around the world and never looking at a chart, never once, it is time to acquiesce to the digital age. I have 4 computers with two navigation systems and 5 GPS’s working on them. The piles of unused charts that take up the area designed for an ice maker are going away, and we are getting a real icemaker!

In Sand Diego i installed a small A/C unit in the pilot house, a typical sea water cooled system. It has never worked, never run for more than a week without failing. There is an aircon/refrig guy here i really like, he is the one to get my Frigaboat freezer running perfectly. He took one look and determined the hoses were the wrong type and collapsed easily. They replaced the hoses with the proper ones, rebuilt the motor and after test period all is well. The most common complaint by the crew is the lack of air circulation and heat in the guest stateroom. i have pondered solutions with no luck but the pilot house AC sits right on top of the room, so they ducted vents into the two staterooms and yahooo AC !! i warned the current girls that the past crews will be very jealous!!

i am hauling out to replace my PSS shaft log, it has served ten years and so many hours and it is just a good idea to replace it. We might pull the stabilizer that we did not redo last year as well. A touch up on the bottom paint and new zincs and a way we will go. Interestingly the zincs have lasted two years, we spend so little time in marinas and i think the 220v system creates far less stray current than the 110v US systems.

So we will embark on our next big adventure in October, back to the Philippines with the boat standing tall and cool drinks in our hands.

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I want to thank Sea Magazine and Mike Werling for their support. Here is the most recent article on the Furthur Adventure, hope you enjoy it. http://content.yudu.com/A2z68d/2014-08/resources/index.htm?referrerUrlStart your own blog now! Free!

As i have said often, the greatest surprise and joy of the Furthur Adventure has been getting to know the wonders of the many crew members who have joined us. One that stands out is a young California girl who abandoned a budding legal career, home and all familiar, traded her condo for a back pack and BMW for a motorbike, to set out on her own adventure. Marisa joined me for my Dive Master training in Kota Kinabalu two years ago, she did a short stint as crew on Furthur and then moved up to Dive Instructor, managing dive shops in Bali. I would visit her twice as we passed by Bali.

 Answering the call to adventure, again she gave up security for new challenges. She is now involved in an extraordinary effort to protect the largest fish in the ocean, the Whale Shark. We look forward to joining her in the Philippines next Spring. As for now she REALLY needs the help of the Furthur Followers and all you have to do is some clicking!! So please read the instructions below and click away, someday you will have the extreme joy of seeing or diving with a Whale Shark and know you did a bit to help protect them!!!

 Hey Brian,

Thanks for your help on this!  Here’s what we need to make this happen:

1.   Visit http://expeditiongranted.nationalgeographic.com/project/above-giants/ and share it with everyone you know;

2.  Follow us on www.facebook.com/abovegiants and twitter (@abovegiants) for more information about our project, and daily whale shark facts and updates, and invite all of your friends to do the same;

3.  Vote for us as much as possible between September 16th and 29th.  You’re allowed one vote per day.  

For more information about the project (and our NGO), check out www.lamave.org/abovegiants.

For more information about my story, check out http://www.reddit.com/r/sharks/comments/2ffx6q/reddit_its_been_a_long_road_from_lawyer_to_shark/

Thanks so much Brian!  Super excited about this, and think it can make a big difference in whale shark conservation. 

Start your own blog now! Free!

As i have said often, the greatest surprise and joy of the Furthur Adventure has been getting to know the wonders of the many crew members who have joined us. One that stands out is a young California girl who abandoned a budding legal career, home and all familiar, traded her condo for a back pack and BMW for a motorbike, to set out on her own adventure. Marisa joined me for my Dive Master training in Kota Kinabalu two years ago, she did a short stint as crew on Furthur and then moved up to Dive Instructor, managing dive shops in Bali. I would visit her twice as we passed by Bali.

 Answering the call to adventure, again she gave up security for new challenges. She is now involved in an extraordinary effort to protect the largest fish in the ocean, the Whale Shark. We look forward to joining her in the Philippines next Spring. As for now she REALLY needs the help of the Furthur Followers and all you have to do is some clicking!! So please read the instructions below and click away, someday you will have the extreme joy of seeing or diving with a Whale Shark and know you did a bit to help protect them!!!

 Hey Brian,

Thanks for your help on this!  Here’s what we need to make this happen:

1.   Visit http://expeditiongranted.nationalgeographic.com/project/above-giants/ and share it with everyone you know;

2.  Follow us on www.facebook.com/abovegiants and twitter (@abovegiants) for more information about our project, and daily whale shark facts and updates, and invite all of your friends to do the same;

3.  Vote for us as much as possible between September 16th and 29th.  You’re allowed one vote per day.  

For more information about the project (and our NGO), check out www.lamave.org/abovegiants.

For more information about my story, check out http://www.reddit.com/r/sharks/comments/2ffx6q/reddit_its_been_a_long_road_from_lawyer_to_shark/

Thanks so much Brian!  Super excited about this, and think it can make a big difference in whale shark conservation. 

Start your own blog now! Free!

This summer has opened the door to America and its people, wonderful people. From coast to coast i traveled in the company of people from three sub cultures, lived in their worlds and been to their parties, oh what parties!

My hippy roots, long smothered by adulthood and other adventures came out in tie died glory. I went to the hippy Garden of Eden, the source, the primeval pool from which it sprang, the bus. No where could one find the real deal closer than on Ken Kesey’s Furthur, and the followers of the Grateful Dead, all which migrated to the Gathering of the Vibes. i was on the pilgrimage to Hippy Mecca riding on Ganesh, the sacred elephant God of the Hindus.

There i found the ones who had salvaged and cultivated the dreams of the 60’s. Few of us there had been around in that challenging era and those of us who had were treated as respected elders. I found community and family, joy and sharing, love of art and expression and profound love. I found a dedication to the lifestyle, the freedom and of course “the music” as the music of the Grateful Dead is called.

i found the lost young entrepreneur i had feared extinct. Hard working, industrial and clever travelers peddling their wares from festival to festival. i found children, oh so many, who loved clowns, ferries and my balloon animals and the loving people who cared for them like they held the future in their hands. I found music, so much good music not heard on MTV or commercial outlets.

In my trek across the West, i found the Old West, and the cultural icon that keeps it alive, the Cowboy. Again i found a covet of all old, and a love of the young. At the center point of all things Cowboy, we went to the Cody Wyoming Rodeo, my first one in decades. Not much had changed, the ritual and the traditions and the love of country thrives on today. The traditions are cradled in the hands of the young, the twelve year old girl calf roper, the junior bull riders and the very young, covered in arena mud chasing calves. Boots hats and bandanas proudly worn by every one of them.

Nothing says America like watching the chapped cowboy gallop around the arena with Old Glory shining in the setting sun over the Rocky Mountains. Chills ran up my spine and a tear in my eye as the Star Spangled Banner was sung by the entire crowd led by the western wobbling of a cowgirl vocalist. All the politics, current events and troubles faded away, i had no doubt where i was, i was in America.

the third defining American group i shared a path with is the biker, the lover of all things motorcycle. Again the roots stem from long ago, a time of change in America, post WWII. The returning veterans found a rigid world in the 50’s and those who did not fit really did not fit. Some banged bongos and wrote poetry some rode motorcycles. Like the rock festivals of yore, the motorcycle rallies were the breading ground of this culture. Sturgis is the motorcycle Mecca celebrating seventy four years this year. As a biker i had always heard the call but never made it until this year. It completed by American Saga.

Donning black leather and roaring down the road on a chrome wonder is the call of the wild to so many. Accountants, doctors and even yacht brokers shed their earthly drab world and ride. the biker cult has its rules, its camaraderie and its shared cultural history like the other two groups. There is a brotherhood of bikers, we all wave as we pass, stop to help downed bikers, honor those who have served our nation and love to ride in large packs. there is simply nothing like roaring down the road in a large group of bikes.

Often conflicting in the past, these groups have common DNA, the love of freedom, individualism and family. All have an inherent reverence for the past, living history. This brings an all too often forgotten respect for elders i found refreshing. The twenty something kid i told of seeing the Dead when Pig Pen (1971) was alive looked at me like i had attended the Last Supper.

In these seemingly patriarchal worlds a unique and secure even sacred place for women is found, a place steeped in history and brought to today. Women are the fastest growing motorcycle group in the country. Cowgirls flourish in a not so soft world and the hippy world has always been matriarchal. In these worlds women know their ground and stand it, always with un relenting respect.  

So the American dream continues, freedom, family and sharing a good times along with bad. The Hippies, Bikers and Cowboys of the USA live life on their terms; maybe escaping reality but i think just cheating it a bit. Each will go home, go to work, pay taxes and survive in the modern world but each will have a window others do not get to look out, a window to a better world.

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This summer i have seen America, sea to shining sea. i have ridden her highways and byways, crossed the great Rocky Mountains, the plains and the endless fields of the Midwest. From the town of Otto Wyoming, population 50 to the Big Apple, from baking …