Nomadness blog

Update: I have added a live tracker to the ship in addition to the datalogger that has been recording detailed routes. You can now see our current location, updated every 90 seconds while underway. Sometimes the transmitted position reports don’t make it due to heavy traffic on the APRS channel, or we may be out…

I write now from a place that I perceive as an outsider after only a month on the water, reminded of this quote from Gilbert Keith Chesterton: The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.…

Although we have only been on the water for a month, the skewed perception of time that I first observed in my bicycling epoch has returned… and with it, a sort of virtual life extension. In retrospect, this journey feels like some indeterminate time on the order of 3 months, yet the present is so…

I am writing this while swinging at anchor in Port Hadlock, at the bottom of a quiet little bay (well, except in north winds) that extends south a few miles from the playful town of Port Townsend. On the hook, the pace is languid; an hour or two can be spent learning variations on the…

A long-awaited transition is at last occurring… an essential one that must be in place before true nomadness can resume. It is the redefinition of “home” from a wooded place on Camano Island to a floating steel boat that could be anywhere. This is less obvious than it seems. It is not simply a matter…

It’s interesting to watch the etymological gestation of a neologism. Twice now, Sky has referred to the folks who mysteriously appear at just the right time to catch lines as dock angels, and thrice I have performed the service for others… feeling a tonnage-proportional measure of the same gratitude I know well from my own…

It is unbelievable and almost surreal to be sitting in the salon of Nomadness, the view outside at last presenting something other than the endlessly reversing Swinomish channel and the rather unexciting marina. It’s a nonstop show now. Full moon and fast clouds soaring back and forth as we swing at anchor from the black…

“Just a minute,” I told Captain Jerry, when he popped by the boat to announce that the pile of Dungeness Crab was ready over on Baccara. “Sky is sewing chafing gear and I’m chasing cables.” “Those are forever jobs,” he replied with a twinkle. “The crab is ready now!” Yah, it’s high season… and our…