“Any man who goes to sea claiming to have no fear is either a liar or a damn fool”. 

I read this in a book once and it stuck with me, being a sailor. Since then I have never once claimed to be fearless in the face of the ocean, knowing deep down that I am, in fact, afraid of it. The raw power that it holds in its depths could destroy me without even realizing it had done so. The ocean is full of beauty and wonder but it must also be respected. A shark which may be swimming beside you as gently as the Angelfish in the coral below could become a raging torrent of hungry teeth; a small cloud on the horizon may build into a gale that knocks your boat out of the sea and onto the rocks; an out of place wave may be marking a shoal waiting to rip the bottom of your boat off and drop you to the seabed below. These are some of the thoughts running through my head as my father, brothers, and I prepare for a many month long trip down to the Bahamas.

I lost sight of myself for a while in the process of dating a girl and didn’t know what to do with my life. I was jumping from wanting to go with my siblings on this trip to wanting to go to school, to not doing anything but pursue the relationship. About two or three months ago I realized that even though I might be in a relationship with someone who does not share even close to the same career interests as I do that I need to go and purse my own dreams instead of following hers. So I hopped on the TearAway adventure. In about a weeks time (as long things go to plan) we will be turning the key in our diesel engine and guiding our bow towards the Erie Canal, and from there to the Hudson, and finally into the great blue that I consider more home than solid land.

I have crossed the Atlantic ocean once before, and loved it. The long nights at the bow of the vessel Argo, watching the stars trace their paths across the sky. The warm days spent catching fish, taking classes, and everyday work that is necessary to keep the vessel running smoothly. The feeling as you look toward land at the edge of the horizon, marking the end of your long voyage, and knowing you just long for it to continue on and the tranquility to never end. We won’t be having any long passages such as that on this trip.

With just over five thousand nautical miles under my belt I am by far the most experienced sailor on the boat, but this trip will be different as each trip away from port is. It will teach me things I haven’t even thought about yet, it will grow me in ways I can’t even imagine, and we will be guiding the vessel to places not yet seen by my eyes, which means that I am as new to this as my father, and brothers, are really.

As we get the boat ready I am working on making lists of what needs to be put on the boat and where, making safety checklists, conjuring a ditch bag, and making a watch chart. Other tasks will be added to that as we get closer and closer to getting TearAway underway. Our engine is almost operational again and we are all in high, if a bit frantic, spirits.

In some ways I shall miss this island and the security I feel of being able to go to my home whenever I need to. Having friends within a half hour. Knowing people on the streets and the community of it all. I will miss my work at the boat club and teaching what I love. I will miss learning, with my friend Josh, random things like windsurfing. I will miss the familiarity of it all. But at the same time I have been itching since I returned from Argo in December to get away and be out of my comfort zone and to be near the ocean again; to be seeing something new each day and to be learning how to do things with new people. I will miss this, but I will love the serenity of it all.

So as we get ready to say goodbye to the people here we know and love we also prepare to embrace a lifestyle which most of us have not yet experienced and which none of us can predict.

Let’s hope the wind and seas stay at our back.

Photos by: Matt Hardy, Sophia Haram, Katie Combaluzier.

Medicine is a very helpful thing. In the medieval days it was passed down mother or father to child and master to apprentice, now there are whole schools dedicated to the cause of teaching this skill. The other day I went and got a stitch for an ugly cut I gave myself while carving something for my Grandpa. As we were driving to the health center my mom remarked to me, “Son, you seem to be bent on testing the healthcare in all the places we go.” I laughed tightly at this, trying to hold in a scream, and thought to myself, “Not everywhere.”

In America I have gone to the hospital for many things. Drinking a coffee cup full of medicine, which nearly stopped my heart, falling off ripsticks, twice, once on the arm and another time one the head. I think I lost a few brain cells. I did get a concussion. In Asia I went insane. We called it the Chicken Apocalypse because our only theory is that I didn’t clean my hands well enough after cleaning a chicken of its guts.

That afternoon I had spent time cleaning a chicken of its bowels. A few years before, I had spent time on a chicken farm with some friends. We, being Jonathan and I, gutted quite a few chickens. I don’t think we did as many as fast as we had hoped and my grandpa told me later that it brought to mind a saying, “One boy does work fast because he wants to get back to something he finds fun. With two boys it takes twice as much time to do one thing. With three boys you get nothing done.” Thankfully the other boy who was near my age was a little queasy about doing it, so we did end up getting something done.

Back to the story, I took the time to gut a chicken. That night we enjoyed some very tasty roasted chicken. That night we also watched a usually pleasant young man turn into a crazy killing machine. Almost. I was found twice wandering aimlessly around the house without focusing on the things in front of me. I threw up three times and bashed my head on the wall four. I remember this slightly. Everything is blurry of that time but I remember sitting on the bathroom floor and thinking, “Why is mom in my face and moving her mouth like a fish out of water?” In truth, she was yelling at me. I would go up to a wall and bash my head on it because if felt strange. I didn’t feel any pain when I pinched myself or smashed my head, just a tingling sensation.

Mom and Dad decided it was time to take me to the hospital. Dad had checked the beer supply and wine and all the other alcohol in the house and had found none out of place; so they knew it wasn’t that. As they were dragging me out of the house to the car, which was not ours, our neighbor had decided she would drive us to the hospital because there was no way I could ride a moped to the other side of the island, sound rushed back into my head. Dad was talking with Mom urgently and whenever I would make a noise they would say stuff like, “Shh Baby, it will be ok, were going to the hospital.” I knew right away that I didn’t want anything to do with needles, or doctors prodding me, or asking questions and so, in my delirious state, I attacked them. For a moment it I felt like I was winning, and then all strength left me and I sat down on the bed and started to weep. Did I mention that I had been having nightmares as well that night? I found that out later though.

The hour or so drive felt like seconds. Lights were all around me suddenly and I was walking. A man talked to me and I looked at him for a second and said, “What?” He smiled and said again, “Blureditdifdbg.” “What?” was my response again. His face changed from pleasant to concerned and said the same thing again. This time I was not even able to hear what he said because I was still puzzling over which muscles had to move to make the eyebrows come together like his did. Then a girl came into sight and she and the guy took my hands and arms and lead me down a corridor.

Everywhere I looked there were people lying on beds of white. Strange things would pop out at me, the way the man was breathing, the way the foot of the little girl sitting on the edge of the bed looked. Then I was one of the people on a bed and they had pulled the curtain all around me. A moment later and Dad came in. I saw him through a haze and blinked. Still, he was in a haze. It wasn’t fair, I could not see long distances anyway and now my short distance eyesight was not working. I felt tears run down my face and then a sharp prick. Looking at my arm I saw someone pushing a needle into my arm. All my reflexes said, “Pull away!” But my brain said, “If you do they will do it again and you might break the needle inside your arm and then they will have to cut on you to get it out” Dad reached out what I found out the next day to be his hand, but it looked like a snake and I jerked away from it.  .” I was delirious.

The next few hours passed so fast I don’t remember them really. The next thing I knew clearly was I was lying on my back looking up into a face. It rolled in and out of focus for a moment before turning into Dad. It was night and he had checked on me and woken me. We went back to sleep and around ten hours later we were taking a drive home that took two hours, not five minutes.

Bangkok Hospital, on Phuket, was probably the best hospital we had ever been to in the history of our lives. It was clean, the people there were nice and helpful, if not fast, and all in all it is a good hospital to go to. We never found out what happened to me, but we have decided it was the chicken.

About the concussion, I remember nothing. One minute we were watching a movie, the next I was looking at the roof of a camper. Dad says I got stuck in a loop. It went like this, I would say, “Dad, where are we going?” And he would say, “To the hospital” and I would say, “But why?” And he would say, “Because you may be really hurt.” A minute would pass and I would say, “Dad, where are we going?” I can’t tell you anything about the time there because I do not remember myself.

The latest hospital run is probably the stupidest. One day I was out working on a spoon for my grandpa. I stupidly held it in the wrong position and it sheathed itself in my hand. It bled, I nearly fainted, and we got a stitch in it. Not much of a story. It is a little strange, I can see other people’s blood and not think any different about it, but if I see any of my own in any great quantity then I feel like fainting.

So, if ever you are in Phuket Thailand I would suggest taking a trip to the emergency room just for the fun of being in one of the best hospitals in the world!

            “Grenade!!!” The call sounded from the other side of the beach. I heard a stick whistle when it flipped through the air, catching the wind in a little hole in its side and creating a small noise. Then, with a puff of fine, multi-colored sand, a stick dropped to the ground within seven feet of me. I leapt to my feet, forsaking my safe haven of sticks and sand, and took a flying leap through the air towards the object of death. In the back of my head a voice whispered , “Five, four, three,” but I had already landed on the object and had it in my hand and it was swinging through the air again. A sound smashed against my ears and my mind processed it into Elisha’s voice, “BANG!!! DEAD!!!” I dropped to the ground with the stick still in my hands.  I lay on the ground counting to twenty, ten because of the bullet Elisha shot at me and ten for the grenade. Then, all of the sudden I leapt to my feet and pushed off the ground. I landed on the ground, in the little safe haven of sticks and sand, in a spray of damp dirt. I heard a bang from the mouth of Ezra and leaped to my feet, lifting the stick gun in my hand I shot and yelled, “BANG!!! You’re dead!” He pretended to fall over backward dead. I ducked down again as Elisha jumped to his feet with gun in hand. I picked up a stick from a pile to my left and held it ready, as soon as Elisha was down behind his base again I brought my arm back and stood up and threw it with as much strength as I could. It landed right in their base and I yelled, “Flash bomb!!” They both ducked beneath their arms but they were to late. They both closed their eyes and started to count to five. I lunged forward and to the side, and ran with all my speed. Five seconds passed and they opened their eyes and looked for me at my base. By then I was already at their sides only twenty feet away. I heard Ezra say, “I think he is behind his base and getting ready to throw a grenade. Get ready.” Then I said, “Hands up you two hooligans!” they jumped and brought their guns up to train on my head, but they were already dead. I rushed back to my safe haven and leapt in again. Just then Hannah’s voice rang down from up on the hill. We all looked and she said, “Time to go. Come on.” We got up and, while Elisha and Ezra decided weather or not to bring guns with them, I ran up the hill and after Hannah.

Half an hour later I had my earphones in and we were speeding down the road while Josh Garrels calmed my racing pulse. I looked out the window and watched as tree after tree wiped bye. When we were near the coast I saw lots of trees that had bent inland from all the wind that had blown on them. Sparrow’s swooped and dove in their endless dance. Blue flowers framed by green were brought into my vision and were swept away again. The water sparkled and gleamed as we drove along its side. So far New Zealand has been the best place on this trip even better than Asia.

It was a beautiful day. The sun beat down on our backs and a slight wind whipped around our faces. A dead snake lay on the side of the road where it had gotten hit by a car. Dogs barked and ran around us as we walked by their property and we walked slightly faster then before.

“It’s so dead when it’s not market day.” Elisha comments on the market square.

Ten minutes later we left the streets and entered a restaurant called Mamamia. A Thai lady approached us and asked if we wished to sit outside or in. We chose to sit outside. We exited the musty indoors of the restaurant and breathed in the warm, tropical air of the ocean and looked out over the deep blue ocean. The waves were a quite big this time. Almost big enough to body surf on. We only had a second to register before we were pushed into plastic chairs. A waitress came around and placed menus in our hands.

Usually the waiters only give you two minutes and then come to ask what you want. So I scanned the menu as fast as possible and finally chose one that looked good. It was Pad Thai Chicken. I would order it again if we went but it was not my favorite thing in the world.

After lunch mom left us and went to get her massage and us kids and dad started down the beach. We were at the place where we learned how to kite surf when we heard whooping and yelling. Suddenly Elisha takes off and I look where he is going and see some friends of ours on the beach. Their kids, ages five and six, are running towards us.

In moments my brothers had put their stuff on a chair and were building sand castles on the beach. Hannah and I waded into the clear, wavy water to join the adults. The water was cool as it swirled around my feet. Waves crashed against us and I almost fell over.

Once we had gotten out to the adults we started to talk about this and that and for a while we just floated there. Without notice a ball comes flying into our midst and sprays us all with water. Elisha, who was a little ways away, burst into laughter that only he can bring. A clear, ringing laugh that brings joy to every person that hears it. We tossed the ball back and forth (making sure to splash Elisha with it) until it started raining. Then we threw it onto the shore so that the little boys could play with it.

The rain only lasted ten minutes or so and then it was all sunny again. My mom had come back from the massage place and had walked down the crowded beach. A few minutes later my father followed. The rest of my family and friends had waded out of the beautiful water and were basking in the sun while the dogs barked and the car horns blared in the distance.

I got up and went up the beach to sit on a beach chair. I lost since of time for a while as I thought about this and that. But then Ezra asked me to go home with him. I said no but Hannah said she would. She had school. I could see my dad and mom making there way towards us. Hannah packed up and left with Ezra. I could see that everyone else were getting ready to go so I just got my stuff ready and waited for mom and dad. When they got to me dad told me he was going home to but mom was going to stay. So I left with dad.

With the ocean air blowing in my hair and with the sun beating down on me and with my head finally clear and light I walked hand in hand with dad down the road and back to my house that I share with the best family a boy my age could hope for. 

We were up at seven again. Well, actually, I was up a few hours before hand because my brother Elisha woke me up.

We had a breakfast of fries, boiled eggs, hot dogs (gross!!), soup, pancakes and fruit. Everything was cold.

Soon though, we were all done and ready to go. A tour bus came to pick us up at our hotel and we all hopped in. It was not crowded at all thank goodness. My victory was short lived. Soon three girls and one couple climbed in and I got put in the middle of a three-person seat.

Did you ever sit in the middle of two strangers in a bus that is taking turns as fast as it can? It is sort of hard not to bump into one of them.

The tour guide turned around and told us her name and that it was a two-hour drive to the Perfume Pagoda. 

“This is going to be a long ride,” I thought to myself.

We drove past rice paddies and through dense jungle at 80 MPH at least on a road that, in America, would have a speed limit of 40 MPH at most. If it even existed!!!

One time we came to a place in the road that was mostly potholes. We were shaken up a lot.

One of the girls who I was sure was German fell asleep. The other did not. I sat there and tried not to bump into anyone.

Finally we came to a stop. But it was not our destination. It was a tourist attraction. I thought it was cool. There were four people sewing really cool pictures onto fabric.

Everyone stretched and then the tour guide got us back in the car and we drove on. 

The bus twisted and turned around the road dodging scooters and other cars, passing rice paddies and duck farms, rolling through the woods and then roaring past rivers to come to a stop at a large “stream” as our guide said. It was a river.

We got out, used the bathrooms and got into some boats that were waiting for us down at the rivers edge.

As we were rowed up the river our guide told us about all the beauty in the jungle and how it was romantic it was .

“I do not think that word means what you think it means” I whispered to mom, who silently laughed.

After an hour of rowing we watched as the other boat that held the other people on the tour nosed into the bank of the river. We were all out of the small boat in an instant.

“This place is called the Perfume Pagoda. Why does it not smell good?” Ezra asked.

In broken English the tour guide answered, “Because we are not in the cave”

We first went and had lunch at a little restaurant and then I asked the German lady (who I found out was from Belgium) if I could go with her and her friends to walk up the mountain. Mom, Dad, Hannah and Ezra took the tram because Hannah and Ezra had blisters and Elisha came with the girls and I.

We started our walk up the mountain.

It was easy at first. Then it got harder and the stairs got really bad.

The girl that I had asked to go with (because my family was not going) called a five-minute break.

I was too happy for that.

When we started again it took only a few minutes before we stopped again. But this was for a different reason.

We were walking along when out of the corner of my eye is glimpsed I small movement and then I heard a loud screech. A monkey jumped at me! I admit I jumped pretty high. All right, maybe really high. But that was startling!!! I thought for sure it was going to come after me. But when I looked back I saw it was chained to a tree.

“That was scary!” I said

We took some pictures and went on. It was not long till we saw another. This one we gave a little food. I don’t think it could see very well though because his eyes were weird looking.

We continued.

The guide had told us not to turn left or right but when we came to a place that there was no forward path we had no idea what to do. We chose the one that looked like it would be the right one.

We had walked a mile when we saw a poster and I said, “I hope that does not say that we went the wrong way.”

It turns out it did not.

We finally made it to the top and descended into the cool cave.

Our family and our guide were there and they waited till we had a tour of the cave. Then they went back into the trolley and we walked back down.

I had noticed at the bottom that the cost for going up on the trolley was less than it was going down. I think that is because people would walk up and then decide it was too much and trolley down. That’s my theory.

As we walked down there were people trying to make us buy their goods. One of the people sold our tour guide (who had walked down with us) a bag of fruits. We gave some to the monkeys.

It took less time to get down then to get up and when we got to the bottom we all said, “Yes! We made it!”

We looked at another little temple and then got back in the boats and went back to the car.

I fell to sleep on the way back as did the girl I climbed with and her two friends. Luckily I did not have to sit in the same seat. I was moved one seat over and put by the window.

We reached our hotel and I had to climb over two people to get out of the car. It was a little difficult. Then I had to wait a minute or two before the guide was able to open the door.

We went into our hotel and Elisha turned on the TV and I emailed my friends.

In an hour we went out for dinner then came home and went to bed.

It was a very wonderful day.

We saw temples, we climbed mountains, a monkey jumped at me, and we met new people.

We slept hard all through the night.

I was sure that is what the geckoes were singing that that morning as Ezra woke me up.

“It’s still dark!” I complained to no one in particular.

“Get up! We have a bus ride to catch!” Ezra said.

I climbed out of my bed. I had just been having three dreams at once. I liked them all. As I pulled back into myself I saw on my iPod that it was it was five in the morning.

Mom and dad had already had us pack our bags so that was simple. Did I tell you we were off to Vietnam? We’re also going to go to Cambodia and Louse.

Anyway, we all got a breakfast of coffee cake, yogurt, and hardboiled eggs.

We had to take a tour bus to get to the real bus station first. Our driver was already at our door and waiting. We grabbed all of our gear and bustled out the door. It was still dark and yet it was already getting to be hot.

I am not much of a heat person. It makes me feel bad. My comfort zone is seventy degrees and down. Eighty too ninety is ok. Anything higher is not my thing. I deal with it though. Everyone else loves it.

We put to big backpacks in the back and grabbed our other smaller bags and held them with us. We all had our own seats, which we liked.

It took us twenty minuets to get to the bus station and then we waited another twenty minuets or so for our bus. Finally it came. We boarded and found our seats. We were in the top front of the bus.

At first we moved very slowly through the city until we came out and into the countryside. The mountains grew slowly in the distance until we were suddenly among them, twisting and turning, struggling up long hills and then speeding down on the other side.  I kept wondering what sort of hidden magics and wonders there were up those mountains. These mountains were mere hills compared to some we had passed on our tour of northern Thailand.

Hannah and I fell to sleep on one another and slept for more than an hour. Ezra and Elisha played games on their iPods.

Mom had apparently been taking pictures of us sleeping because when we woke up she showed us some of them.

The bus came rolling to a stop at a market/bus stop. Everyone piled out and we started to look around when the bus driver told us to come with him. We walked for not even a minute when we came to a bus restaurant.  The man told us to sit down and then people came out with plates filled with rice and other foods and we sat down at a table occupied by Thai people.  Mom and dad went to sit at another table and left us to be embarrassed. Some how or another we made it through the meal. We left the restaurant and went to the bathrooms where Ezra took another hour. Or at least it felt that way to me. We all got a coke or a fanta and popcorn and jumped back on the bus for the last time.

Ezra and Hannah switched spots. I was not to enthusiastic about that. 

Ezra thought it would be a wonderful idea to go to the bathroom and came back smelling like smelling like, will, like a bathroom. It was a small unclean bathroom in a fast moving bus that was rocking violently. Use your emanation.

We got to our hotel after dark and got three rooms in a small hotel.

While we were getting our clothing out of the bag we found a millon ants in it! We still don’t know why they were there. I guess they were just hitching a ride.

We all fell asleep within moments of our heads hitting the pillows.

“We get to go to a waterfall?” Ezra asks for the tenth time that day. “Yes Ezra. Mrs. Gabell and her family are taking us. Now don’t ask again please. Dad is trying to drive.”

Mrs. Gabell has one child who is four years old. He is really cute. The first time we met at his school he was really shy. But when we got to his house he got his legos out and let Elisha and Ezra play with them and then rode his scooter around and squirted ants with a water gun.

First we got the food for the picnic that we were going to have at the falls. 

What are fish kabobs? Fish on a stick. Grilled to perfection and then filled with a leaf that I don’t recognize but that tastes like lemon. We call it lemon leaf.