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Alicia, from the boat On Verra, has been organizing hikes for the cruisers nearly every day that we’ve been here. It’s one of the best cruiser services I’ve ever experienced because it helps us to see the natural beauty of the island, and gives us a much needed endorphin hit and kick in the pants to get moving in the morning. Today she took us by bus to the trail-head at St Gabriel crossing. From there we walked past the largest church in the Indian Ocean (also conveniently, the pit stop). The trail started just below the church and wound through lush forest, rock strewn pasture, and down a long slope with a stunning view of the lagoon and sea beyond. ...

A few days ago I was told that my dorades were dusty. The next day another person mentioned how dirty my decks were. And yet another person asked me why I had so much crap in my cockpit. All of these criticisms hit me deeply and personally and brought back every single boat insult ever slung my way. I emotionally fled to a perfectly polished tiny cottage where I could live alone in shiny silence with a hand blown glass vase full of pink peonies on the table and not a single crumb on the floor. ...

There are places in the world that feel like home from the outset. These are the places where you feel yourself exhaling in long comforting sighs; where you recognize people whom you’ve never met, and they greet you as friend; where there is a familiar smell (chill in this case) to the air, and a landscape that seems ancestral, though your predecessors may never have come within 10,000 miles of the place. ...

Imagine you are sitting down, enjoying dinner. It’s Taco Tuesday® (but on Thursday, because you have no sense of time). Suddenly the salsa jar becomes a projectile, it jumps straight up, then banks hard to the left and hurls itself at you, missing by inches. The jar (which you forgot to put the lid on between scoops) explodes, covering your last clean shirt in a delicious yet inevitably perishable blaze. You sigh. ...

There are places that you hear about from other cruisers, special places. Perhaps the first time will be over sundowners in someone’s cockpit, and then again online, or through the coconut telegraph. After a while, a few of these places rise to the top, they become legendary. We have had the incredible good fortune of having visited many of them, but this one, we almost missed. We had originally planned to take the North Indian Ocean route, which would have shown us Sri Lanka, Maldives, Chagos (another storied cruiser destination) and possibly Seychelles. The wind died early for that route, this year, and we missed our chance. Then we decided to go from Padang, Sumatra, directly to Madagascar, but the winds weren’t really blowing that way and we didn’t have the fuel to motor to the wind. So we lucked out. ...

We have an odd tradition on Convivia. I would like to believe that it was modeled after a trait I picked up in my wilderness canoeing days, but really , it is probably more just good fortune. We tend to set a day for departure, work our butts off to make that schedule, and then we realize that we have no real imperative to leave. So we postpone a day. This day, is a special kind of day because unlike other chilled out days, we really didn’t expect it (even after many many iterations). So we end up swimming around the boat (because Fatty is often either on deck or hipped and ready) eating popcorn, and generally being a family of extreme leisure. This photo pretty well captures that spirit.

Back when I was a dirt dweller, I used to buy coffee beans from this little warehouse in Oakland. The company, Sweet Maria’s, was owned and operated by a guy who personally flew around the world, visiting plantations, sampling coffee beans at the source, and then buying small batches from the best of them. I have wanted his job ever since. When I imagined this sailing adventure, I pictured myself, sailing through the world’s finest coffee growing regions, making dozens (if not hundreds) of forays into the mountains to restock my ever dwindling supplies of green beans. As the journey wore on, it became apparent to me that this dream was (perhaps) a bit unrealistic. The resources and local knowledge needed to find and visit the farms change with every locale, and the time and money needed to make the trips is not insignificant on our modest budget. ...

Today we joined No Regrets, for a trip into town for fuel, groceries and a visit to a traditional, mountain top village. When we arrived a local kid came up and offered to do a high jump demonstration. In this village, young men must jump over this stone structure in order to win the right to marry (I guess they were breeding for height). The jump was over so quickly that I am really glad I recorded it. You can enjoy it below the photos. ...

Our last anchorage was so beautiful and relaxing that we didn’t want to leave. The thunder and lightning almost gave us the excuse we were looking for but, time and international clearance rules wait for no one. On to Nias and Telo for the last (fun) bits of our Southeast Asia adventure!

The pace of life aboard Convivia has shifted. The hectic days of boatyard stress are behind us, as are the days in the Marina, fixing those last few (critical) systems. We’ve found a sleepy beachfront to anchor in front of and, with no transportation, have settled into leisurely days of kids floating beside the boat, easy conversation, and no plans to speak of. This transition to cruising-proper is one that you can’t see but in hindsight. I think it started three or four days ago when we returned our scooter. It was given a boost by our recent depletion of funds, which strengthens our resolve to stay put. We’ve got another kid boat nearby (Quasar) so ours have a friend to occupy the day. They come home exhausted and hungry, and crash out early, leaving plenty of time for Vick and I to play games and share a couple of ciders. ...

Thailand feels like cruising again. Our pace through Australia was breakneck, and Indonesia was challenging. Most of Malaysia felt like a race to the boat yard, and then there was that two month job. I thought Langkawi would feel like cruising again, but it ended up feeling a bit more like a boozy purgatory. The second we dropped the hook on Ko Tarutao I felt months of tension drain out of me. It didn’t hurt that this was about the time when Olive discovered that she could talk endlessly about Minecraft to me if she rubbed my back and feet. It’s been amazing in many ways. ...

Our time in the boatyard was so long and the spectrum of emotions so vast, that I decided to make it into a little slideshow video. Enjoy!

We had an Uber driver recently that asked us if we would be in Penang for Thaipusam. He was part way through forty days of preparation, fasting, celibacy and not shaving in advance of this important Tamil Hindu holiday commentating the God Murugan, representing goodness over evil. Because our stay in Penang was much longer than we anticipated the kids and I had an opportunity to witness the celebration. In Penang, thousands of devotees follow a procession of a chariot to the Sri Mahamariamman Temple carrying small pots of fresh cow’s milk as offerings. Other devotees observe by piercing their skin with small hooks or large skewers and carrying large kavadi on supports around their shoulders and waists. ...