The Greener Year Challenge: Share Resources (February)

Sharing a trip to the Grand Canyon with my couchsurfing host, Amanda— 2011

We live in a finite world, with a finite number of resources. While some of these can be renewed, most cannot— and the energy it takes to shape them into useable objects is huge. With this in mind, anything we can do to lessen the burden on these resources is a big help to the planet. 

Modern America is individualistic: we want to be self-sufficient, providing for all of our needs with the medium of money. But this isn't how people have lived for the thousands of years; practically every culture throughout history has relied on tightly-knit communities to meet the people's needs. As a bonus, sharing is a humbling and rewarding act that helps you grow much closer to people than you otherwise would. 

The modern-day obsession with monetary-mediated "self-sufficiency" is taking a huge and needless environmental toll. We resist the cultural narrative and instead listen to our kindergarten teachers— we need to share! 

BEGINNER:

Use the library. The library is one of the biggest hold-outs of sharing culture in the modern day, so be sure to make use of it! Even if you don't like books, you can check out movies, audiobooks, video games, music, and sometimes even telescopes, baking equipment, puzzles, and yoga mats. Check it out today! 

Also beaches!

Hang out in public places. In addition to the library, public places exist for the purpose of sharing. Eat your lunch in a town square. Meet up with friends at a city park, or take your kids to a playground. Go bird-watching in a conservation area, tour a historical site, or have a picnic. (If you're in St. Louis, spend all day wandering around our amazing free museums!) Appreciate that we can share these resources so that not everyone has to own everything. 

Have a potluck. There is something special about gathering for a makeshift meal of disparate dishes; it draws a group of people together around a common (and tasty) goal, allowing you to rely on each other in tangible ways. Invite a few friends over, and tell them to bring containers for leftovers; everyone gets to take some home. 

Host a swap meet with friends. This is similar to a potluck, but with material goods such as clothes, books, and household items; this prevents you from having to buy a bunch of new stuff! Remember the concept of embodied energy: the more times you can reuse items, the less strain you'll put on the environment.

Borrow before you buy. If you need a tool for a specific task, an item of clothing for a special occasion, or a book you really want to read, consider first whether it's something you can borrow from someone else (or, if you buy it, be willing to share with others).

INTERMEDIATE:

Lend to (and borrow from) your neighbors. Depending on the neighborhood, this may be commonplace or unheard of, but sharing our physical goods is not only good for the environment, it reminds us that we need to rely on other people. Tangible, neighbor-to-neighbor sharing is a good starting point for community resilience.

Use public transit. Forty people on a bus could keep as many as forty cars off the road— it's a wonderful example of sharing! See September's post for more suggestions.

Be a couchsurfing host. Airb&b is a wonderful invention, but I like the old-fashioned hospitality of couchsurfing: inviting travelers to stay at your house for free. If you have the personality for it, it's an incredible experience. The Couchsurfing website has a lot of safety features and accountability built into it, so even if you're timid, I encourage you to check it out! Read more about couchsurfing here, or head straight to the site to sign up: https://www.couchsurfing.com/. 

Share knowledge. Do you know stuff? Share it with anyone who's interested! Whether this is teaching a sewing class, lecturing about 14th-century Chinese history, or showing someone how to cook a soufflé, commit to making knowledge accessible. (And be sure to learn from others, too!)

Sharing food is easy in summer!

Join or start a toy library. Parents and babysitters, imagine a place where you could "check out" a play castle and a Lego set, then return them when your kid gets bored. They do exist— toy libraries! This is yet another example of items that are best when shared. Do a Google search for "toy libraries near me," and if none are around, take that as your cue to get started. Here are some good tips. 

Host a swap meet with the community. This is just a bigger version of a swap meet with friends; see these tips for getting started on a community scale. 

Rideshare. Young, car-less people get to be experts at cramming as many people into a car as possible for a trip, but as we get older we assert our independence and start driving alone. This is a destructive tendency that we need to stop. Any time you use a car, see if there's someone you can share it with— can you pick up a couple groceries for your neighbor, combine errands, get a ride with someone else going to the same event?

ADVANCED:

Create a regular skillsharing event. Want to facilitate people in your community sharing their knowledge? Consider creating a free event for people to learn new skills! Check out this tutorial to get you started. 

Start a tool library. Like a toy library, this is a community structure that allows you to share tools, especially specialty tools that you only need once. New Dream has some wonderful resources to help you launch your own initiative. 

Get a roommate. In America from 1973 to 2015, the average house size has grown by 1,000 square feet, while the average number of people per household has dropped from 3.01 to 2.54— in other words, the living space for an average person has nearly doubled! Bigger houses mean more energy per person burned, often needlessly. Getting a roommate can be a good way to share resources in a mutually beneficial way, so if you have a spare bedroom that only gets used twice a year for guests, this is something to seriously consider.

Join an intentional community. We've come a long way from the communes of the 60s (although they do exist, too): an intentional community is any group of people living close to each other that has sharing as one of its core values. Although this may be in an isolated, pre-fabricated center, it can also just be the equivalent of a neighborhood group who commits to sharing tools, time, babysitting skills, cooking, and other things. Zero Waste Chef introduced me to this idea, and I've been intrigued ever since! To find one near you, check out this directory: https://www.ic.org/directory/

Which of these challenges would you like to take on this month? What would you add to the list?

~~~

Previous posts in this series: 

Getting Started

Celebrate Biodiversity (April)

Optimize Energy (May)

Eat Your Leftovers (June)

Curb Your Trash (July)

Find Earth-Friendly Food (August)

Move Beyond Cars (September)

Green Your Home (October)

Rebel Against Consumerism (November)
Celebrate Sensibly (December)
Cultivate Skills (January)

Travel Tip Tuesdays: How to Couchsurf

I want to couchsurf but don’t know how to get started. How do I set it up?

Couchsurfing is a social networking site designed especially for travelers. Like Facebook, you create a profile, obtain “friends,” and join interest groups. However, you won’t be posting status updates about your insomnia or uploading photos of your dog in  a tutu… you’ll be perusing the site in search of adventure. 

There are three main things to do on the Couchsurfing site: finding connections to host, surf, or meet up with other travelers. Here’s a quick beginner’s guide.

First of all, join couchsurfing. It’s free to sign up, although they do encourage you to send a donation, which then confirms your home address. Sign up from this page.

My couchsurfing profile pic

Read all the FAQs and create a profile. You can do both from this page here. Seriously, they can explain it better than I can! If you’re a woman, I think it’s nice to post an unflattering picture of yourself to discourage guys who are attracted to a pretty face. Fill in every slot of your profile with as much information as possible, so people feel like they get to know you.

Before you try to host or surf, meet up with some couchsurfers at an event. There are lots of options explained here. Then the people you meet can leave you positive references on your profile. These are vital to a good couchsurfing experience: they are flags to your potential hosts/guests that you are not, in fact, a creeper.

Three tips for safety:

If you don’t feel comfortable hosting or surfing, volunteer to meet up with people. You can show people around your city, or, when traveling, meet a local who is happy to show you his favorite hiking path, museum, or bar. I started couchsurfing by meeting up with someone at the local ice-carving festival. 

Always read the references. If someone has 85 positive references and 1 neutral reference, you’re probably good to go. If someone has no references, they may be okay but they’re a much bigger risk. 

If you have a bad feeling about someone, then listen to that feeling. Intuition is a great ally in travel, and it’s there for a reason. Even if 165 people thought this surfer was great, but you get a funny feeling, go with your gut.

Elizabeth let my sister and I surf in her sailboat.

Three tips for hosting:

To sort out “mass emails,” ask surfers on your profile to write a password in their request to you. Any surfer who doesn’t use this password obviously didn’t read your profile, and probably isn’t worth your time.

Be sure to let your potential surfers know about your house rules. Fill out your profile completely. If you want them out of the house when you are, say so. Post a minimum or maxium stay. Tell them that you want them to do dishes, or that they should bring their own food. If you’re up front with this information, you’ll attract the right kind of guest.

Try to give your surfer a feel for your personality, your background, and the culture of your city/country. This is the point of couchsurfing: cultural exchange. If your guest is exhausted there’s no need to bus them all around the city, but it’s nice to offer some local advice and give them a cultural experience. My host in Colorado Springs took me to volunteer with a local urban art group, decorating the pillars in front of a building with mosaic tile— it was a fantastic experience I would never have gotten otherwise.

Three tips for surfing:

Send out about five thoughtful and specific couch requests at a time. As you get rejected, send out new requests. It can be extremely time-consuming, especially in popular cities during the high season, to find a couch, but keep plugging away.

I surfed in Amanda's RV, and we visited the Grand Canyon!

If you can’t find a host, try to find a “Last Minute Couches” group for that city and post a detailed message about your situation. That’s how (after about 30 failed couch requests) I got a couch in Salzburg, Austria.

Be a good guest. Do the dishes, fold your blankets when you’re done, make them an origami rose, and leave a nice thank-you note. Feel free to share about your culture, and ask lots of questions. Most couchsurfing hosts have traveled a lot, and should say so on their profile, so “Tell me about your hike up Mount Sinai” is always a good starting point.

This is only brushing the surface, but it should be enough to get you started. With Couchsurfing, whether hosting or surfing, the world is yours. Happy travels!

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: How Is It Possible?

Grand Canyon, Arizona, spring 2011

Have you written a blog about how you all your traveling was possible? How others could do the same? 

A Facebook friend posed this question last week, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It’s a question that I can’t answer with, “Take these three steps and you’re good to go.” A lot of it is luck (or providence, depending on what you believe) and situation.

Still, I can share what I’ve done to be able to travel. You can’t follow the pattern exactly, but it might give you a starting point. Perhaps my path will inspire you to find your own. Here’s my method.

I began traveling when I was in a stable financial situation. I had just come out of a year where I was working several jobs. Although I hadn’t made a lot of income, I hadn’t had many expenses (see point #4), so I had about a thousand dollars in my checking account. Also— and apparently this is rare— having not been to college, I had no student debt, or debt of any kind. My only monthly bills were rent, cell phone, and insurance alternative.

I got an online job. This is the number one secret to my long-term travel: I got an online tutoring job when I was 19. When all you need is a laptop and wi-fi, the world is yours. If you can just make a little money online, it will help you sustain your travels. My job has paid for all of my trips.

Seattle, Washington, autumn 2010

I lived with my parents when I wasn’t traveling. Although this is common in my generation, that alone is not something to be proud of. I was determined not to be a total mooch: I paid them a share of rent every month and bought a chunk of the groceries. This situation allowed me to avoid the stress of a lease. When I wanted to leave for a couple months, I wrote them a check, grabbed my backpack, and left.

I ruthlessly eliminated expenses. I’ve never owned a car, and recently I gave up having a phone as well. I buy secondhand clothes, rarely eat out, and supplement my groceries with food that other people are going to throw away. It’s worth it to me, and if you want to travel, it will be worth it to you, too.

I worked a second job in my at-home time. That extra paycheck helped fund my trips, getting me “caught up” from my last one before I left on my next one. Never ever go into debt for a trip. If you don’t have any more money, stop traveling until you do.

I traveled extremely cheaply. If you want to do long-term travel the way most people travel, then you need to be independently wealthy. Even the really low budget of $60 a day will drain you dry in no time. If you’re taking a long trip, get used to the idea of working for your bed, pulling all-nighters, and eating a lot of trail mix. The big expense is the plane ticket— after that, I spent a laughably small amount of money on my travels. Help Exchange, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and Couchsurfing have made it possible for me to take longer trips.

I was blessed with meeting incredibly generous people. This isn’t something you can plan. For me, it’s just happened. Everywhere I’ve gone, without exception, I have met and been blessed by generous people. From random relatives to former coworkers to future-grandmother-in-law’s-neighbors’-friends, people are incredibly generous. I’ve learned to embrace that generosity and hope to pay it forward someday.

In short, to do long term travel, you need good health, a bit of money, a light backpack, a dose of common sense, a dash of creativity, a strong work ethic, an adventurous heart, a cheerful attitude, a little courage, and a lot of faith. With these on your side, it is possible— and amazing beyond all description.

~~~

Have a travel question? Leave a comment and I'll answer!

Near Poppenricht, Germany, summer 2012

Europe: Bad Start, Good Couchsurfer

Right now, I’m sitting in the apartment of my couchsurfing host, Aimee. I’m in Chicago; my flight leaves in less than ten hours. Also, I have a fever, a complete lack of energy, and a sneaking suspicion that I’m on the verge of a very bad cold.

Yesterday, when I arrived at the Chicago Greyhound station, I was feeling perky. In my usual fashion, I decided to ditch this sissy "take the subway" stuff and just hoof it over to Aimee's apartment (we had agreed to meet at 7:00). 

3.3 miles later, I was feeling a little hot and feverish, so I stopped and got frozen yogurt at a little shop just a block away from Aimee's. The yogurt was expensive but refreshing and delicious. I savored every last bite, then suddenly realized that I was feeling completely awful.

For a few minutes I just hunched over the table feeling nauseated, praying that God would make it go away. I had a few seconds of respite, and then the nausea kicked in, this time with a blinding fever and that dry feeling in my mouth just before I throw up. I wanted to ask if the restaurant had a restroom, but I was too dizzy to stand up. My hearing went away, and I could only hear sounds as if through water.

Om nom salad!

I prayed and I prayed and I promised God that I wouldn't try to walk with a backpack in the heat when I was sick anymore. I felt another brief respite, then stumbled out the door, where I sat down on a bench outside, near a trashcan in case I had to throw up. With a slight breeze on my face, I perked up almost immediately. Within a couple minutes, I was feeling well enough to walk down the block and up a flight of stairs to Aimee's house, where I met her with a cheerful smile. 

She was, as I suspected, a cool gal. She gave me a lot of helpful advice about Europe (she’s traveled a good portion of the world), not to mention fixing me a kale-beet-tomato-cucumber-pea-sprout-some-other-kind-of-super-green salad that gave me more nutrients in one serving than I’ve eaten all week.

Today, I woke up with a fever. Aimee fed me again, then headed off to work, leaving me with a spare key. I took a cool shower and now I’m trying to rest and let the fever run its course a bit before I head to the airport. Am I nervous? Yes, quite a lot. But I’m still determined to see this through. Europe, here I come!

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: 9 Tips for Meeting People on the Road

“How can I meet people when I’m traveling?”

Some people can go for days or weeks without exchanging more than a few words with their fellow man. I am not one of those people. Having grown up in a family of six, I’m used to constant interaction, and I feel jittery and lonely if I’m by myself for too long. When I travel solo, communication with strangers is essential. Even when I’m not traveling by myself, it’s still awesome! Here are nine tips to get you started.

Join Couchsurfing. Even if you don’t actually surf at someone’s house, you can search for locals who want to hang out and show you their city.

Hostel buddies! (She even let me crash
at her house later on in my trip.)

Stay at a hostel instead of a hotel. You don’t have to stay in a dorm— get a private room, then spend time in the common area, cook meals in the shared kitchen, and introduce yourself to the people you see. 

Wear a really big backpack. Everybody asks about it.

Dress like a tourist. This may not work so well overseas, but in America, there will always be people like me who think tourists are adorable and go out of their way to speak to these cute creatures.

Be open to outside conversation. This is much easier if you’re traveling by yourself, especially if you’re female, but it applies to everyone. If you’re sitting in a café totally absorbed in a conversation with your travel partner, no one will approach you. If you and your buddy are walking down the street with open expressions, greeting everyone who passes with something more meaningful than, “Hi,” you’re on the right track.

Compliment people on their dogs and their babies. If you’re a dog-owner or a mom or dad, bring it up at every opportunity to people who obviously have common ground.

Ask friendly-looking people for travel advice. “Excuse me, I’m new in this city. Could you tell me the best place to get breakfast around here?” (Ask people who will not think you’re hitting on them.)

Just beware of statues asking for a kiss.

Genuinely listen to people. Actually, this is a good tip no matter who you’re talking to. Some folks will actually want to hear about where you’re traveling, but most just want to give you advice or tell you about their own exploits. And, let’s face it, oftentimes people have traveled a lot more than you have!

Dance— anywhere, anytime, especially when there are a lot of people around. Click your heels. Pretend to be a statue. Take a bow. Be goofy. You’re with a bunch of new people anyway. What do you have to lose?

~~~

Have a travel question? Leave a comment and I’ll answer!

20 Tips for Pretending You're On the Road When You're Not

Unless you’re a full-time nomad, you can’t travel all the time. I’m going to be at home in Missouri for a while, so I began thinking about how I can bring the excitement of the road to my life at home. Here are 20 suggestions to get me (and you) started.

Who cares that I'm only three miles from home?
I've got a cool backpack!

1. Take the bus instead of driving— it’s a fascinating insight into other people’s lives.

2. Host a couchsurfer, preferably one from another country, for a night or two.

3. Pack some goodies and have a picnic in a park.

4. Get yourself lost (preferably in a safe business district or nature area during the day) and see what you discover.

5. At the library, check out a travel guidebook about your home city/state, then discover some new places.

6. Visit the nearest tourist district and pretend that you’re visiting from Albania. 

7. Talk to strangers— in the check-out line at the grocery store, at the library, in the park, and everywhere else. Yes, you’ll get some strange looks, but sometimes you meet fascinating people.

8. Visit a museum or zoo and make a day of it.

9. Have a camp-out in your backyard, complete with tents, a campfire, sing-alongs, hot dogs, and copious amounts of marshmallows.

10. Find some ethnic recipes online and make yourself a Mediterranean feast, a traditional Kenyan meal, or Thai cuisine.

Fortunately, St. Louis has a bazillion free museums.

11. Put together a day pack, walk out your door and turn right. At the next available turn, go left, then right, then left, then right. Continue until you hit a dead end, or are completely lost in the middle of nowhere. Try to find your way home.

12. Pack a suitcase and live out of it for a week. After the week is over, appreciate your full wardrobe, and/or give away some clothes you don’t need.

13. Google-search “Volunteer opportunities in [your city]” and get involved in a community project.

14. If you have a little money saved back, visit a day spa or get a massage.

15. Find a book or some articles online that talk about the history of your city, and learn about it.

16. Get four or five friends together and rent a hotel room (preferably one with a nice pool, a hot tub and a continental breakfast). 

17. Put on sunglasses, a dorky hat, brightly-colored clothes and a fanny pack, then grab your camera and walk around your home city taking pictures of absolutely everything.

18. Unplug your computer, turn off your cell phone, and hide out at home for a day.

19. Search your community’s local calendar for events that might be fun to attend: concerts, festivals, Renaissance faires, Earth Day celebrations, public service seminars, etc.

20. Take a familiar walk or drive, and enjoy the details you don’t usually notice. Smile. Appreciate the moment. See beauty in the ordinary. Breathe.

~~~

Have a travel question? Leave a comment and I’ll try to answer!

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Traveling Solo

“How do you stand traveling alone?”

People ask me this question for a variety of reasons. Some people are scared by the prospect of traveling solo; some are intrigued; some don’t see why anyone would want to. 

For my reasons to travel by myself, see this article. The phrase “traveling alone” doesn’t really apply, because I’m rarely alone. Between couchsurfing, staying at hostels, and doing help exchange on farms and in families, I’m constantly surrounded by people. The question is, how would someone go about trying a solo trip?

Kayaking in the Florida Keys with some hostelling friends

Sign up for couchsurfing and/or find a hostel network. Couchsurfing and Hostelling International have both been essential to me on my solo journeys. If you don’t feel comfortable crashing at a stranger’s house, give a hostel a try— you can stay in a dorm bed or get a private room. Hostel common rooms are often outfitted with books, musical instruments, board games and comfy couches. People are very open at most hostels, so don’t be shy to introduce yourself. You might find yourself drinking beer with a group of Germans, discussing philosophy with a Brazilian and a Swede, or making pancakes for Belgians. Whether you’re surfing or hostelling, you’ll get to meet awesome people who have visited the four corners of the earth. I have yet to meet a boring host or hosteler.

Choose a destination that has some good solo activities. If you have gobs of free time each day, you’ll want to fill it in a way you enjoy. My idea of a fun day is walking and hiking around the city, picnicking in the park, chatting with people on the bus, and returning to the hostel to cook a big meal with whoever else happens to be in the common kitchen. You might enjoy beachcombing, city exploring, riding a tour bus or people-watching. For more social activities, like wine tasting or rock-climbing, try to find some other travelers who will do it with you. You can usually meet someone at a hostel, and couchsurfing.org has resources to help you find people who are willing to come along with you in your adventure.

At Zion Canyon in Utah with my couchsurfing family

If you’re an introvert, learn to reach out. If you’re an extrovert, learn to enjoy being with yourself. I’m an extrovert, so my biggest challenge was learning to enjoy my travels by myself. It was easier than I thought, and I realized the benefit of inhabiting my own space for a while, experiencing things solo rather than as part of a group. For the introverts out there, traveling solo is the easiest time and place to reach out to other people. Travelers at a hostel or couchsurfing hosts don’t often small-talk: you might be discussing global economics or humanist philosophy within a few minutes of meeting them. No matter your personality, traveling solo makes you more available to other people, and you can stretch your mind and meet interesting people you’ll remember forever. 

If you have fear about traveling solo, just take the leap. If you’re intrigued by it, give it a shot. Even a weekend trip to a nearby city could give you memories to last a lifetime.

~~~

What are your travel questions? Leave a comment and I'll answer them!

"Why Would You Host?"— a note about Couchsurfing

My regular readers are probably tired of hearing me rave about the wonders of couchsurfing. The skeptics still worry whether or not it’s safe, and saner people wonder why I don’t just save up for a hotel. After surfing with Zach through the Southwest, I believe in this project more deeply than ever before.

The West is a very big place, and we barely had enough for gas money, so it was couchsurfing to the rescue again! We had two hosts: Brent in Flagstaff and Vanessa in Albuquerque. Both were above and beyond incredible. Brent fed us supper, fixed us hot chocolate, then let us toast marshmallows over his buckstove and make s’mores. Vanessa gave us each a huge bag of candy (“I don’t like Snickers but I got some for my birthday,” she said), and let us raid her fridge for a breakfast of eggs and turkey bacon before we headed out. I’m used to hosts being hospitable, but their generosity was overwhelming.

It’s easy to see how couchsurfing benefits the surfer, but more than one person has asked me, “Why would someone want to be a host?” There are dozens of answers to that question, but two stand out. The first is a general view that it’s nice to do good things, and that you should “pay forward” the good that you have received in order to make the world a better place. The second is that individuals are valuable: each one has a background, a culture, a worldview that can enrich you, just as your own story can enrich that person. 

I certainly don’t think that everyone should be a couchsurfing host— I am not currently, although I plan to be in the future. However, there is something extremely valuable in opening your home to a stranger, no matter what form it takes. Invite a friend to bring a friend to your house. Welcome a new person into your social group. Get to know the people on the fringes of your life. Learn to make cookies (even if you just use a frozen tube of dough) and share them.

If you are a Christian, welcoming strangers has deep spiritual significance (the Bible makes it clear that this is a major part of hospitality). If you are not a Christian, it is still an act of kindness that can, little by little, change the world. If we truly believe it’s more blessed to give than to receive, a great place to start is giving of ourselves.

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

~~~

Tales from California: The Beauty of Gumbo

Mary and I spent our last night in San Diego proper with a couchsurfing host, Spencer, who we had met while sailing. Elizabeth came with us to Trader Joe’s, and then Spencer’s apartment, to share in the making and eating of the supper Spencer promised to make. The four of us bustled around the kitchen as Spencer described the proper technique for making perfect gumbo. I chopped carrots, Mary diced celery, Elizabeth showed us a new way to cut onions. The result was, in short, one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. Creamy, rich, and flavorful, the gumbo filled me with a warmth and comfort.

There is a sense of quiet joy in making food together: the slicing and dicing and stirring and measuring and tasting. Incidentally, last night in Portland I helped make cream cheese brownies with my friend Ivy, and I felt the same sort of inner peace that comes when stirring ingredients together and measuring out flour. It’s meditative, it’s beautiful, and it’s a lot of fun. Viva la cuisine!

~~~

Tales from California: We Sail the Ocean Blue

One Friday afternoon in San Diego, Mary and I returned from our morning walk to get wi-fi to find Elizabeth washing down her sailboat while a few people clustered around eagerly. Today was the day: after a few weeks of having engine trouble, Elizabeth’s boat was up, running, and ready to sail. 

Neither Mary nor I had ever been in a watercraft that was larger than a canoe but smaller than a ferry, so we were pumped about the opportunity. With the sun blazing across the waters and a mild feeling to the air, it was the perfect day to sail.

The crew for the afternoon jaunt included Spencer and Bill from the Navy, Murph and Elizabeth from the marina, and Joe and Mary and I from the couchsurfing world. My job consisted of staying out of the way as Murph took the wheel and everyone else scrambled about pulling on ropes and unfurling the topsail. We chugged out of the marina, past a jetty of boulders, out into the open ocean. I had put on a sweater in anticipation of a cold wind, but the salty breeze felt warm. Elizabeth pulled out a massive bag of tortilla chips, a bowl of salsa, and a six-pack of beer. Murph pointed out a gallon-sized bottle of rum to pass around. 

They rigged up the jib sail, then turned off the motor, and the silence of the lapping waters surrounded us. I would have been content to listen to it, but a party requires music, so Joe pulled out his iPad to stream some Pandora. I soon was distracted from the music, though.

I have a healthy fear of the ocean, and one of the keys to surviving in one is to understand the way the waves fall. If I see a wave that appears about to break that is less than ten feet away, my instinct is to run toward it as fast as I can and hope to duck through it before it crushes me to the sand. Now, watching the swells rise up higher than the deck, starting to crumble into foam at the top as they rushed toward us, stabbed me with fear every time. (Also, Bill yelling, “Oh my god!” every time a wave rocked us did not instill much confidence in me.) I learned that the waves didn’t break this far out at sea. I also learned that watching the reactions of the people around me was not the best indication of how worried I should be. 

Joe looking like a captain

Finally, the ocean smoothed out a bit, and I relaxed a bit more. I ate a lot of chips and salsa. I took half a swig of rum. I watched the iridescent water rise and fall around us, sparkling in the sunlight so brightly it hurt my eyes.

Spencer ended up hurling off the side of the boat, and Elizabeth soon followed suit. Murph said it wasn’t a true sailing adventure until someone got seasick. My stomach felt queasy, but I held up pretty well. I even crawled to the front of the boat and sat with my back against the mast, shifting my weight with the waves, and felt the stiff breeze lash my hair around as the sail canvas flapped and billowed.

When we were nearly back to the marina, someone pointed out a gray shape that surfaced in the water— a dolphin! Soon a pod of them emerged, slipping in and out of the water just a few yards from the boat. I saw their supple skin (one had a scar near his dorsal) and the little groups of three or four who clustered together. “They like sailboats,” Murph said. “We don’t make noise.”

Back in still water, the boat drifted to a standstill. Nobody minded: we gazed back behind us at the setting sun. The sky, washed with pastel, provided a backdrop for the detailed silhouettes of a line of palm trees along the jetty. I would have felt as if I was staring at a calendar photo, if it were not for the topsy-turvy feeling in my stomach, the shifting of my weight as the boat bobbed, the sharp smell of salt, and the wet coldness that rises right as the sun falls. 

Murph was a natural at the wheel

At the marina, the crew docked the boat and rolled up the sails. I sat quietly, still trying to stay out of the way. Murph looked at me sideways, as if trying to figure out what I was thinking. “You enjoy it?” he asked.

I nodded, wishing that I was a more articulate person, wishing that I could convey how wonderful and unexpected it was to be sailing on the Pacific on a sun-soaked California day.

“It was great,” I said.

~~~