Bori Kiss

Nationality: Hungarian
Gender: Female
Age: 29

Welcome to Bori’s blog!

As you can tell, I am sailing aboard Schooner Maggie B to Brazil with five other intrepid souls from all around the world. I was one of the lucky first sailors to travel from Nova Scotia, back in January. We have come a very long way, and have many more miles to go.

Moving forward

Today is a sparkling sunny day in Wellington, New Zealand and the world seems to be in order. Ducks are playing on the dock. I am leaving the boat at the end of the week to go home to Hungary and move on towards other things in life. Hannah gave me a card that says: “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” That is how I feel today, even though I left the shores of Nova Scotia in tears, I am smiling now and am amazed to have sailed on three oceans on this beautiful journey.

I feel grateful to have been able to be part of this adventure and I would like to thank all of those who have been with me on this voyage. Friends and family, I’ve felt your presence all along and that feeling of connectedness made me strong and made me trust that things were going to be all right even on the roughest seas. This feeling gave me a reason to keep on going and gave me a place to look forward to going back to, a home, a country, a family and my friends.

I am also thankful for the wisdom I’ve gained through all the lessons that were given to me. I am learning to respond to the natural ebb and flow of the universe, I understand that one cannot sail against the winds. Before leaving I told a friend about the importance of adjusting the sails depending on the winds. That is what I will keep on doing as I move forward and I will remember the perfection I’ve seen in all things. I am grateful for those moments of clarity and beauty I’ve encountered on the sea.

Being alone on deck, sailing on a night with dolphins swimming by us in the silver moonlight on the shiny black water. Rowing Reepicheep on the green-blue ocean in front of high grey-green rocks in New Zealand. Sailing under a full rainbow in a light tender rain between two islands in Seychelles. Crossing the Indian ocean and running on deck in gorgeous sunsets with albatrosses flying around the boat.

Sailing through the Marlborough sounds with family of gannets flying around the boat in the morning sun.
Watching the sun shining down on the water in a track of stars that looked like the perfect road to walk on. I smiled.

I feel as though I have family all over the world now. I have met some beautiful people on this journey and have seen myself reflected in their eyes and I believe they’ve seen themselves through me. I see and understand life more clearly now and it all feels like an unending 360 degree circle on a rock, one that starts where it ends and ends where it starts. I hope to be able to see this clarity and keep it in my heart as I move forward from here.

A falling star

As I stopped counting the days, I was told that the Maggie B sailed out of Lunenburg harbor a year ago today. I haven’t written into my blog in months as I preferred to think instead. Seeking the permanent in the eternally changing environment, inner growth and the aspiration for a better understanding of the world describes this last year for me. So many things have changed on the surface, we’ve visited so many lands and crossed paths with beautiful people everywhere but even with this constant change, all had remained the same. The only change seems to be growth.

Yesterday we had the last show of Dream Macons, this wonderful and creative play that Hannah and I played in at the Salamanca Art Center in Hobart. Something special happened during the last minutes of the play. I believe to be the only one having seen it but it does not seem to be a coincidence, neither the fruit of my imagination. I was waiting for my last queue to come out onto the balcony, my face painted white, I stood in a darkened corner of a room on the third floor of the building looking out into the vast sky above the trees blown in the wind, concentrating on a star. In those moments I find it so hard to separate myself from everything around me as I feel that I am melting in. Acting in a play requires coming back to my personality in this life and being in my character as an actor. As I was gathering my forces to act and come back to this reality, a star fell out of the sky, at the exact place I was looking at.

I think I caught it and it is still with me, hidden in my pocket. I don’t know what I will do with it yet but I feel its presence. Soon after I lost my watch. Something has started over a year ago and there is no way of going back. I don’t know if this will be my last entry into this blog or not. I am planning to sail to New Zealand with the Maggie B and then return home and keep on moving forward, wherever I need to go. Maybe, with a later perspective, I will be able to tell you about these experiences. This year has been amazing and intense, I’ll try to write a book about it but I need to be away from the boat. The feelings need to be turned into understanding.

37 South, 76 East

It is time to write again. It is colder now, I am wearing two sweaters as we are more to the South than the Cape of Good Hope, truly so far from everything. Being this far allows us to experience things that would never be possible without having left. Check this out: I just had an hour run in the bow hanging on to the halyards, watching the sunset, with about 20 albatrosses flying all around the boat. How cool is that?

On the top of the waves the setting sun was reflected so one side of the waves was a golden color and the other side silvery blue. The air is so pure here, I feel strong and free as if I were standing on the top of a mountain.

This trip is purifying and clarifying in every way. I have amazing dreams and visions. I feel as if I were on a pilgrimage in search of light and I think that in fact, I am. In addition, I think that in moments, I am finding it. I do not yet have words for it.

Mauritius

We sailed into Port Louis sliding by a white old Chinese fishing boat in a late afternoon sky, dark and heavy with rain. Fishermen with long hair waved at us from behind the red Chinese characters written on the hull of their boat. I went for an early run on our first day here and it felt like being in India.
Beautiful graceful and fragile women were on their way to work in their saris and other traditional dresses of bright colors. The light fabrics were blowing
in the wind. A young Indian man was praying on a bench with his eyes closed and a girl was singing quietly but with an almost hurtful passion on the stairs of a cafe still closed. I did not understand the words but listened to her for a long time. The day was just starting. I felt speechless, like watching a silent movie.

We are planning to visit the Grapefruit garden with giant water lilies. Maybe we will go to the green mountains with waterfalls and peaks that look like cones and have strange edges, surprising for European eyes. Rain is a constant part of our lives. Being hot and wet doesn’t seem new anymore, I think I’ve gotten used to it.

Even back in this sometimes suffocating civilization, we stay connected with nature and use our knowledge of it. We drive on the roads in the dark and we know our way looking at the night sky. We are getting good at knowing the direction each constellation is pointing to. We followed the Southern cross to come back to the boat from the north of the island last night.

The change between being at sea and being in port seems too harsh to me. Our lives seem to go into the two extremes. Silence and only water and stars and sun and wind and clouds around us… and then, fancy shops and restaurants and busy people in the ports, surrounded by all the trash that come along with the creations of our consumer societies where so many things are for sale. We don’t even know the difference between what we need and what we want. I am torn in between these worlds and at moments I would like to close my eyes and escape if I could, go into a monastery… but I also get fooled by all the shiny lights, just like most of us do… Still, deep down, I know I prefer to be in touch with the light of a single star in the sky, like Venus, the first star at this time of the year on the Southern hemisphere, alone on the horizon, long before all other stars. It means more in its simplicity.

Another night, suspended in time

I just spent three hours under the starry sky, moments suspended in time filled with memories from the past and plans for the future. The purity, clarity and depth to be found at sea is amazing. I even seem to be awake in my sleep, connecting, understanding, searching, growing and longing for wisdom. In silence, I await my own thoughts to come to me, I introduce myself to myself and
we talk. There is no interference, no pollution, no distraction, just me in the universe. It is fascinating to get to know oneself.

A dear friend of mine asked me today to think of her when I see something beautiful. I was moved to read her wish and made me think of the onshore perspective. I’ve been already doing what she asked for. I do think of all of those I’ve known, loved and continue to love. I even think of people I thought I’d forgotten, but no, nothing seems to be lost. I see many beautiful things
like tonight’s sunset: a blue sky with white clouds growing yellow then orange and pink and purple on the sides with their form changing every second, shaped by the wind. I see white birds circling above the water and rainbows in the distance. I see clouds reflected on the surface. I see light shining through the waves and dolphins playing. There is more beauty here to embrace than can be
expressed. I’d like to find ways to share these moments with those I love… but many times, I don’t have a way to say it, but many of you, now reading these lines, are present with me on my journey… a rock in my pocket, a…

We are now 14 degrees South and 56 degrees East on the southern hemisphere sailing towards Mauritius on the west coast of Madagascar. It is fascinating how we’ve crossed oceans since we left Canada going down and up and left and right on the globe: what a different perspective this is on our planet, all of the sudden it seems to be at a human scale. I am learning new things every day,
challenging myself: I am learning carpentry and try to fix things that broke, learn to recognize new stars and cloud formations, run longer and longer in the bow while hanging on to a rope to be safe while I get soaked by oncoming waves (this was not the best idea because I got my ipod wet up there and it doesn’t work anymore) and I am challenging myself to retain myself from writing all the
time and try to think instead. Maybe some of these new practices will be fruitful, I certainly try to make the best of my time onboard. We’ll stay a couple of days in Mauritius, I’ll try to write next from there.

Curieuse Island
January 14, 2007

Back to nature

It’s been a long time I haven’t written into my blog, but here I am again. Christmas is over and we have entered into a new year. It was wonderful to be home with my family over the holidays. We only had one snowy day in Hungary so it didn’t feel so much like Christmas based on the weather but the warmth coming from the love in our hearts was surely there. We were especially numerous this Christmas and I feel more connected to my family now. It feels good to go home, it reminds me of where things start.

So, now, here we are back on the water floating by Curieuse Island in the Seychelles. It is almost midnight and the stars are bright in the night sky and our boat gently rocks on the waves. I don’t really want to sleep, the sky is so beautiful, you just can’t see this from a city. Being on the water enveloped by the starry sky with occasional shooting stars is breathtaking. It often brings tears to my eyes. I feel connected to something greater and timeless.

We saw a hawksbill turtle her lay eggs on the beach today and many other turtles grazing on grass all day long. I snorkeled with a baby green turtle and schools of bright yellow and blue fish. We found shiny red seeds in the forest as we hiked the hills on the island and delicate white and purple shells in the sand: we are going to make necklaces while at sea. We are about to undertake an approximately 30-day journey to Australia.

In two days, on January 16th, we are going to celebrate the Maggie B’s first anniversary. We are planning to bake a boat-shaped cake and maple leaf molasses cookies. We will have many friends with us, just like on the launch party. Then, we’ll take a deep breath and do the final checks and buy the rest of provisions and say farewell to our new friends and set sail towards a new continent, the land of koalas and kangaroos.

The end of the week

So, it is a Saturday afternoon and I thought I’d write some more into my blog to keep in touch. Seychelles is a cool place! I like it more and more! Today we sailed out to Sainte Anne island for lunch and a snorkel and swim. I took out Strika, our sea kayak for a paddle for the first time and had fun paddling her and even was able to ride on a couple of waves without tipping over. I remembered my father teaching me skiing, saying, “if you don’t fall, you didn’t try hard enough”… so in a way, I thought that if I didn’t tip over, I didn’t dare go far enough and ride the best waves… but it was only my first time, so maybe it is okay. Something amusing happened to me while snorkeling. A little yellow fish with black stripes must have thought that I was a fish and it kept on swimming right in front my mask the whole time I was in the water.It was only a couple of inches away from my eyes and turned with me every time I turned. I wanted to keep it as a pet, I got a little attached.

Last night in Victoria was great. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Hannah and I met an Indian historian who invited us into his house and showed us his amazing shell collection, taught us how to make art with food (like sculpting a face into a potato) and how to heal with food (a strictly vegetarian diet), he also read our palms… he is supposed to have esoteric powers… it was quite interesting! Then, we went to see Nacho Libre, a comedy that made us laugh… and then, we ended up at the Yacht club and at a local bar, called Level 3 where we made new friends. After that, we went on to a nouveau beaujolais party at the local Alliance Francaise (invited by a French girl we met earlier in the day) where we danced passionately until dawn to French and English and American disco music from the 80’s. It is wonderful to get to know people here, both locals and expats, they introduce us into their worlds and we feel more connected.

Being Saturday night, we are going out again. I am looking forward to it and it is fun to already have a
list of phone numbers to call on new friends to join us. It is easy to make friends with a smile.

On being alive

I know I’ve been writing less and less into my blog lately, sorry about that to all of those who do follow my writings. I’ve actually been feeling quite well now for a while, very much alive somehow. We arrived to the Seychelles a couple of days ago and there is a wonderful swimming pool in the marina so I’ve been spending much of my free time there, sometimes forgetting that I am a human being. Swimming makes me feel free and light and strong. It feels like flying.

I have also been very stimulated intellectually, continually meeting fascinating people from all parts of the world… many from Africa and Australia… and my curiosity just grows. The more I learn, the more curious I become. I’ve been learning about languages and cultural perceptions and plants and animals and politics and economy… and everything seems to be connected somehow… this trip is better than being in school. I am feeling like a sponge, just taking in and taking in… What will I become at the end?

I now also have my ticket to go home on December 15th and to return to the Seychelles on January 7th; it will be great to be at home, I will just have to adjust to the snow and cold. Mail from and to the Seychelles seems reliable and fast (1 week) so our mailing address posted on the website is still the one to use. Stamps are gorgeous here, I’ll be sending out many postcards from here. Our plans for the upcoming three weeks are loose. We need to haul the boat to fix the engine problem but besides that, we will just be sailing around the many seychellois islands: lush and green and mountainous, full of flowers and birds. Check out our latest pictures online! The double rainbow is my favorite, it was so beautiful in real life over the water… the type of beauty that almost makes you cry. It is amazing to have been born once but feel that I am becoming more alive with each passing day stimulated by my environment and inner feelings. I don’t think it can ever stop now.

A year ago

I’ve been slightly seasick again since we left Madagascar and I am still feeling a little disoriented under the almost equatorial sun so I can’t write much today but I wanted to stop for a moment and remember that just a year ago, November 15, 2005, was the day when Frank took me to Covey Island Boatworks in Petite Riviere, Nova Scotia, for the first time and I was introduced to the Maggie B on a Tuesday afternoon. She was then nothing but a sculptural masterpiece looking somewhat like a future sailboat and the people working on it were strangers to me. Now, the Maggie B is happily sailing on the Indian ocean after several thousands of miles on different seas, cold and warm, and some the people who were strangers to me then, became good friends. Much has happened since, more than I can express right now but I’ve been waiting for this day… to say that today, it has been a year… and it has been a good year, full of adventures I never ever imagined. I am left breathless, remembering…

Island Hopping in Madagascar

I haven’t written since Bassas da India in the Mozambique channel, I know, but it’s been really hot and hard to sit by the computer to write. Also, since I’ve been told that my blogs are too dreamy, so I’ve been mostly just dreaming to myself…

We arrived to Nosy Be, Madagascar, Monday morning, five days ago and it’s been like going back to the past. As we came in, all the other sailboats were these beautiful wooden outriggers that probably didn’t change in design for centuries. As we checked in to get our visas, all the paperwork got done either hand written or typed, on what we would consider, a really old typewriter, a lot older than what my 99 year-old grandfather used in Hungary! All the officers have about 12 stamps in front of them and they stamp everything and several times. Getting a registered mail sent out by the post office was also quite amusing. Besides holding up the line for about 15 minutes, the operation involved three people working on my one letter: a woman getting it officially weighted (three times and opening her eyes as wide as if she was seeing a huge spider), a man writing all kinds of things in a very old yellowed book with a red pen in one hand and a blue in the other, and a third lady putting stickers onto the letter and into two different books using glue from a tube. Granted, I was also involved. I had to fill out several forms and sign them. The post office itself is pretty much in ruins, I’ll try to get a picture of it to put online. All of this was in Nosy Be, supposedly one of the most modern places in Madagascar.

This is nothing but cultural shock. People here have beautiful and sincere smiles, I like it so much, it feels good. If you smile at them, they smile and stare at you in a pleasant deep way, that is rarely the case in our western cultures.

We’ve been island hopping for the last few days: swimming, snorkeling, hiking and eating lots of “banane flambee”. What a paradise! Yesterday, Willis and I hiked the highest mountain on Nosy Komba and it was amazing. A snake once crossed our path so I jumped back but it let us go through as did the many zebus on the mountain side. We met young girls carrying drinking water and they gave us flowers that smelled heavenly, I almost felt drunken by them. Ylang-ylang trees grew by our path and we saw lots of lemurs playing in the tall tropical vegetation. The views from the top were great and it felt so good to hike. We probably walked 17-minute miles, we were flying up on the steep path, excited to be surrounded by trees and wildlife. The lizards and chameleons are also very cool.

Tomorrow, we will get provisions in Hellville for our week-long passage to the Seychelles. We’ll be sailing out on Sunday morning and we’ll probably arrive onto Mahe island by the 19th or 20th of November. Time is going by fast, it will soon be Christmas. Good news: if all goes well, I’ll be able to be with my family in Hungary for the holidays. I can’t wait. It will be quite a change going from a tropical place into the snow.

I hope all is well with all of you! Remember that you can also write to me directly onto the boat at frankblair@uuplus.com if you wish to. It is nice to stay in touch. I’ll write more in a couple of days!

Getting close to the shores of Madagascar

It is the 2nd of November today but I don’t know what day of the week it is. I can find out from my agenda but it is funny how we loose track of the days out here. Time somehow seems suspended on the water. Still, it goes on, I hear. Hannah’s family told us that all the leaves have now fallen in Nova Scotia. I still remember them being so light green in March when we sailed out from Lunenburg and now they are gone. Already? And my mother said they have predicted snow for the weekend in Hungary.

It is a little confusing to be a sailor.

My life has been different this last year. The natural cycle of the year that I have gotten used to for 27 years has gotten messed up in my 28th year. A year ago, I haven’t even arrived to Nova Scotia but I was on my way, this adventure with the Maggie B, not always on the water, will celebrate its first anniversary soon as far as my part goes. March 28th was around the first nice spring week in Lunenburg after a Canadian winter (not too harsh judged by the locals, still lots of snow onboard)… and spring hasn’t even really started when we arrived into summer in Bermuda and ever since, it seems as though it has been summer!!! It is November now and I’ve been wearing sunscreen since April and now, it is getting even hotter. This is what life is like close to the equator. It takes less time to get dressed and undressed but I miss the changing seasons. Really, to understand time, I need other references, like distance traveled from Barbados to Brazil or from Durban to Juan de Nova where we are now, or looking in the mirror and seeing myself wearing a pony tail and I remembering leaving Canada with short hair. Those things make sense because they remain changing no matter where we are on the planet. The wind blows, the boat moves, time goes, hair grows. They don’t care about where the equator is.

So, needless to say, it’s been hot and humid lately but the nights are beautiful and full of stars. Today, against the heat, I did prepare “una tortilla de patatas”, a Spanish potato and egg tortilla, baked in lots of olive oil for a long time on slow heat… and it didn’t break too badly when I flipped it. I was inspired by passionate Spanish guitar music I listened to on my watch last night. It is fun to cook and try to have things as perfect as possible on a boat. We have time to concentrate so I am perfecting my cooking skills.

But it is great to be a sailor…

Frank and I had a great conversation this morning about why it is great to be a sailor. I’ve been learning Malagasy this morning as well as studying how cyclones and typhoons are created. Then, I read about Swahili time, how their days start at 6h and end at 18h and their nights start at 18h and end at 6h… there are so many differences, so many codes to understand when one travels. We need to understand the weather, navigation, sail setting, geography, physics, speak the language of the country we are visiting, attempt to understand the culture… there is no end to our learning. Sailing is like human ecology, everything seems to be related somehow. It is hard to hang on sometimes. I need to surround myself by stable, non-changing things and emotional bonds in order to be able to embrace all that is new.

In about three days we will be in Hellville, Nosy Be, it seems like a relaxed but exciting place with much to discover. I project myself onto a cafe terrace and I will look at the sea while I write postcards by the mango trees.

News from an atoll in the Indian ocean

As I write to you, dear friends, three sharks are circling around our boat. Frank is out there kayaking and for now, I choose to stay down below, listen to a violin concerto, drink coffee and write. My head has been filled with poetry ever since we got here. Where? Not so sure. Technically, we are at Bassas da India, an atoll in the middle of the Mozambique channel, but truly, with the senses of a simple mortal human being, it feels like another world, in the middle of nowhere. It feels like a place where anything could be possible.

I feel like being in a dream and being given a pen, and told, “now, write something beautiful.” I don’t even know where to start. My senses are overwhelmed. It feels like touching the bottom of the ocean or reaching the top of the sky, a breathless moment with no more relativity, nothing to measure things against, only our memories and the surrounding objects. We have started taking malaria pills since we’ll soon be in Madagascar. I don’t think I’ve had hallucinations yet, as one of the side effects of the pill along with other types of mental disorder, nonetheless, I find it hard to wrap my mind around our current experience. I keep on imagining the planet Earth and seeing us, like a little dot in the big blue somewhere on the southwestern hemisphere, but to be sincere, geography, physics and most hard sciences partially escape me in this situation and somehow I trust more my senses or my imagination that make me think of the starry night as a warm blanket enveloping us and making us feel safe in the darkness and our smallness floating on these waters.

Our time in Durban was well spent. The city has slowly filled up with meaning. It didn’t mean anything more than a big South African city, a place we would go to and look forward to receiving mail. I am so glad we made this last stop in Africa and through new friends, my appreciation for and understanding of the continent grew in a way I can hardly describe with words. We saw markets with half-dried bones and skeletons and once used-to-be animals and bark and rocks and exotic flora and fauna we’ve never encountered before. The people in this market wore white or dark terracotta face paint derived from a wetted soft stone. It all looked magical but smelled quite scary. We did not buy our fruits and vegetables there. We got the chance to have many great conversations with our new friends from this part of the world and gained a more real image of life here, and finally, I think for some moments, we crossed over the borders of being just tourists and we became a little more. After all, we spent over a month in South Africa. My heart is full of unforgettable moments: my first rowing lesson in a double scull in the harbour is one of them as are the many images, sounds and smells now carved into my memory that will always remind me of “Africa in the summer” as a friend of ours said one night with a smile that is impossible to forget. Needless to say, standing in the bow, I cried as we sailed out of Durban, a little like when we left Lunenburg harbour on March 28th. But isn’t life about being in the moment?

Still, I just can’t forget so many things and here and now, everything is possible. Maybe time travel? Certainly a place from which to reflect, to linger in moments that have moved us, moments that emerge from dreams made in the middle of the ocean. Maybe in five or six days we will be in Nosy Be, an island off the northwestern coast of Madagascar. I am learning Malagasy and can’t wait to see the nature there and meet people. I’ll be in touch and will write more if I can focus my mind that is now overflowing. I hope these words still make sense to you. This is how I am living this experience. At night I watch the shooting stars.

Life in Durban

It is a Sunday morning and I am taking it easy: writing, reading and preparing for our new departure in a couple of days. Now, the plan is that we will be sailing out towards Noisey Be in northwestern Madagascar around Wednesday, October 25th, if the winds agree with our desire. Sometimes Frank says that if we don’t get the right winds, we will just go straight to Australia but I think we will still try to go to Madagascar and to the Seychelles…but nothing is for sure in this adventure. So, for all those who want to write real letters, Frank will probably post an address for the Seychelles, but we might only be there before Christmas. Snail mail is really slow coming to and from this part of the world: at least two weeks in both directions, but please don’t give up if you feel like writing. The other day, I was a little disheartened to find out how long mail took and a nice lady at the Point Yacht Club reception told me: “sweatheart, this is Africa”… For the least, I do hope that many of you have been or will soon be getting my cards and letters!
Durban is quite an interesting city with the highest Indian population outside of India, mostly blacks (Zulu), Afrikaners, and some white people, definitely the minority. Signs are written in English, Afrikaans and Zulu. In Cape Town and Knysna, the black people mostly spoke Xhosa. I am glad to be able to differentiate Xhosa, Zulu and Afrikaans, but I haven’t learned much of either language yet, it would be nice. It is not easy though to go up to people since there is a certain factor of danger… the poor people always check out my shoes when I run, so I try to run faster, but some neighborhoods are not at all safe here. We don’t go there.

Besides meeting some really welcoming and interesting people at both the Royal Natal and the Point Yacht Club, we’ve done some fascinating things in the city. The Indian market full of spices and colours was an eye-opener to the varieties of spices and roots and foods we didn’t even know existed. The Zulu art is beautiful, I especially like all the joyful bead necklaces and bracelets. We saw a beautiful Imax movie on life in the Kalahari desert in Botswana about lions, elephants, zebras and springboks, went to Ushaka Marine World with a nice aquarium and a fun dolphin show, and the best of all, for me at least, was surfing school. I’ve never surfed before and did manage to get up twice on the board: what an amazing feeling it is to be sliding on top of a wave! Now, I really want to learn.

As always, we’ve checked out some wonderful restaurants and bars and tasted local specialities and we also had a cocktail party onboard that was quite fun. Monday and Tuesday, we will be busy getting the boat ready, buying provisions and saying goodbye to our new friends. If we do go to Noisey Be, it should be a trip of about 10 days, but I will try to be writing underway and I am sure, Frank will, too. I think starting from now until Australia, we will be in small places, which I prefer, but internet access will surely be scarce. I will just write into my blog and send you postcards and letters.
Thinking of all of you, feel free to write back through the website, ask questions if you want to. Tell me about life where you are! Help me stay connected!

Between Knysna and Durban

We are now on our way to Durban, there are only 170 nm left. We may arrive there tomorrow before sunset if we can pick up some speed but on this trip so far we’ve been motoring, there is barely any wind.

We try to stay close to the shore to reduce the adverse current, we are within half a mile from the land on an average. We’ve seen several shipwrecks on the rocks, mysteriously telling their stories through the fog.

This weather reminds me of Nova Scotia. As I stood on my watch in the rain looking out from under the beak of my cap that framed everything, I imagined this journey as a movie. I watched the genets with fascination. I find them both elegant with their long white bodies and black wing tips and tails and funny with their yellow heads as if they had been fishing in split pea soup. I can’t keep myself from smiling when I see them. Then, in my movie under my cap and in the fog, a mother humpback whale swam by our boat with her calf. They were only two boat lengths away and surely as big as our boat. They gently surfaced and dove again. They reminded me of my mother and myself as a little girl.

As sailing feels timeless and days melt into one another, motoring feels like riding the train and counting the miles, looking at the villages through the windows. Non-numerical vs. numerical, floating in timelessness vs. being aware of the constant movement, just being vs. traveling.

I look forward to watching the sun rise in Durban on Wednesday morning. We will be in a new port again; we are like snails, carrying our house with us… or I should correct myself and say that our house carries us. Most things are different in this movie… and even the four of us onboard are filming this journey from a different perspective. This is just mine. I like watching the birds fly above the ocean.

In the Swartberg mountains

A lizard sunbathes resting between black and orange rocks with yellow and light purple flowers in the arid landscape. A butterfly dances in the vast blue sky, its movements contrasting the sharp edges of the mountains. A river runs down in the valley, its trickling water bringing life to all things dry. This simplicity is beautiful.

Looking down from the top makes my blood rush through my body faster; I drink in the sky and eat the clouds until my feet grow roots down into the mountain upon which I stand. Far, at the foot of the mountains, the fields are green. I take it all in before setting sail again into the blue tomorrow.

Hanging Out in Knysna

This is a relaxing sunny afternoon in South Africa and I listen to Tchaikovsky as I write to you. We’ve been in Knysna for a couple of days now and we might stay a couple more, waiting for the right sea conditions to sail out towards Durban. It doesn’t make sense to sail out in 35 knots of wind that would be right on our nose, so we just hang out, do work on the boat, visit the region and enjoy its wonderful gastronomy.

Yesterday, we went to a Monkey Park as you can see on the photos Frank has posted. There is one of me, looking scared and scared I was… a spider monkey approached me making strange noises and looking at me with a bad eye. I didn’t know if I should move or pretend I didn’t hear, or even worse, see him. I tried to make myself as small as possible as you can see from my posture but it didn’t work… I am still in one piece though. The other monkeys were nice, I liked the ones with the zebra tails.

For two days, we had another sailboat next to us with 14 people from the Royal Corps of Signals from the UK. They were attached alongside our boat and they have just sailed out towards Perth, Australia in the setting sun. I cried as I waved to them. My heart was tugged even though I don’t know them. It was just a little sailboat setting out to cross the Indian ocean with 14 people on it… there is something breathtaking in it… they got smaller and smaller as they headed out towards the big waves. My heart goes out to them.

I like Knysna, and being tied to the town dock is nice. We can get on and off whenever we want to. This has given me a chance to go for long morning runs and take walks around the small waterfront full of restaurants and cafes. My favorite place is Mario’s cafe, facing the Knysna Bay, just next to a bridge for a canal that enters the city. Sitting there reminds me in some way of being in Venice. In my free time, I go there to write and to read on the sunny terrace. Like on night watches, there is time to think about life when a sailor waits for good weather in a harbor far from home.
I haven’t quite been here for two weeks yet, but now, I am feeling much better, I feel adjusted to being at 34′ South and 21′ East. I have not expected so much wealth though, being in Africa. Granted, we are in nice harbors full of tourists, but the infrastructure seems quite advanced. Though it hurts to see that most of the people working in the restaurants are black and all the people enjoying themselves, are white. The world seems to be an unjust place. I am getting itchy to start working and try to do something against these injustices in the world. It just doesn’t feel right.

What I really like in South Africa are the mountains. They are beautiful against the sky. There is something about their forms that takes me away. Wonderful wines grow on them as the sun warms them and the rain feeds them. They invite me to climb them and to follow their ridges with my eyes, feeling them like a sculptor would touch a material “to be transformed.” I already feel transformed and transforming constantly. It takes courage to be away.

Sailing Under Rainbows

Last time I’ve written to you was on Thursday afternoon in Simon’s Town and now it is Saturday night and we are again in a harbour, in Knysna, earlier than I am expected to be on shore. I am sure Frank will describe the technical details of our tricky entry into this harbour so I will write about other things.

Before we took off for the sea, Thursday night we saw a penguin walking down the sidewalk in Simon’s Town, it was very funny. These little creatures live close to town in a place called “the boulders” and they can just walk into town. We laughed thinking whether one would come onto the Main street… there are even “penguin crossing” signs around.

These two days at sea were very pleasant, I didn’t even get slightly seasick and I am very glad about it. Besides sailing the boat, I was able to eat and write and read as I normally would. Today it rained and the wind that accompanied the rain was quite unbelievably warm: about 20 degrees warmer than the air before the rain. I’ve never experienced anything like this. We saw a full rainbow and we sailed right underneath it. The rain was full of sand and it smelled like animals from the savannah… I am sure I smelled the lions and the zebras in the air, quite a striking experience out at sea. The moon was full and beautiful last night, we could have read in its light. Willis and I had upbeat political discussions on our night watch as we consumed lots of chocolate. The Hungarian chocolate is almost totally gone.

We will probably stay here tomorrow and then sail out towards Durban on Monday. It is fun to be able to discover another corner of South Africa and we are by a dock downtown, not on a mooring, which will make it easier for me to go for a nice long Sunday run tomorrow. I can’t say I’ve gotten used to the four hours on, four hours off watch schedule just yet, so I will have no problems sleeping tonight. Still, I am looking forward to longer legs at sea: I like the mystery of not seeing land around us… we could be just anywhere, it is the perfect place to dream.

Bori

Simon’s Town, South Africa

Here is just a little hello from Simon’s Town where we sailed in two days ago passing by the Cape of Good Hope, a wonderful view indeed… So, now, I am writing to you from the Indian ocean, full of great white sharks… I really like Simon’s Town, it is small and calm and has a nice relaxed ambiance, it feels good to me after Cape Town. As I stand on the boat, it feels as though I can touch the mountains around me. The phosphorescence in the water was so beautiful last night as we rowed back on the Reepicheep… these moments really stay in our memories.

This morning when we got up, a seal was playing and fishing around our boat for over an hour. We’ll soon post the photos we took. Now, we are getting ready to sail out tomorrow, early Friday morning towards Durban, probably a 4-5 day trip if the weather lets us go directly. I will be in touch and will try to write underway, if not, you’ll hear from me at the beginning of next week. Right now, we are busy going up and down the mast, so this message will be short, just wanted to update you.

:o) Bori

Back on board The Maggie B

After a couple of months of silence, here is a new entry into my blog. I will try to write more regularly now since this electronic way of communication seems to get to you faster than my letters or postcards.

I am glad to rejoin the Maggie B again and to be in South Africa but these five days spent here have not been quite enough yet to embrace all the changes that come with such a geographical and cultural jump from the heart of Central Eastern Europe to the southern tip of Africa. I also left my country in a heated state of revolution that certainly revived my national feelings so it also makes it a little harder to adjust to being a sailor and a tourist in South Africa, knowing what is going on at home. Some sea salt and wind will surely help me adjust… I’ll keep you updated on the process.

On the way here, I flew over the Sahara and saw one of the most striking sunsets of my life: a sky bright red and orange. I felt small. Then I saw fires lit in the desert and imagined people around it, warming hands: a colorful start to a new adventure… life must be about something like this… I looked far out into the horizon, down onto the desert, endless like the ocean.

Here in Cape Town, Frank, Hannah and Willis welcomed me as well as a sea lion that kept on waving from the ocean. We’ve been getting the boat ready to sail out in a couple of days following the coast of South Africa and then heading towards Madagascar. We are planning to stop in Simonstown and then in Durban. At night, we’ve been discovering the city and making new friends. I went for a run to the beach at sunset one day to a place the locals call “where the two oceans meet,” the Atlantic and the Indian ocean. I felt intimidated by the power of the waves crashing against the wharf and flying up to 20 meters high. We will be out in it soon. We will sail by the Cape of Good Hope on Tuesday.

There is a beautiful view onto Table Mountain from Cape Grace Marina where we are. Now, the mountain is mysteriously covered by fog but this morning, it was the playground for fluffy white clouds in the blue sky. The leaves on the trees are very thick, full of life juice, it seems. We oiled the deck and other wooden surfaces on the boat and it felt like watering flowers or breastfeeding babies: very satisfying and beautiful. I think the Maggie B is happy. We try to take care of her with as much attention as she was built.

I encourage all of you to keep in touch through this website and if you wish to write to me or to all of us, you can do so easily through this site. Sometimes, especially so while at sea, it can feel very good to know about life on land. Frank will also post soon our mailing address in Durban where we will be in about ten days, so it is time to mail real letters if you wish to.

I’ll be in touch. :o) Thinking of all of you,

Bori

Farewell!

After reaching Salvadore, I am leaving the Maggie B. I hope to someday return to crew again.

Goodbye Friends!

Photos!

Click here to view all the Bori photos from The Maggie B…

Ten days at sea. . .

We are sailing 300 nautical miles East from the delta of the Amazon river. We have been at sea for ten days without seeing land. Our universe is the boat, our 19 meter headquarters. That is where we live now. We hoist and lower sails, adjust them and keep an eye on the horizon for other boats. We cook and eat together, we sleep and we dream. On our night watches we sail under the stars and keep our heading in relation to the moon. We remember the sunset and wait for the sunrise. The wind cools our sunburned skin.

One morning, just as the sun was rising, a butterfly flew around the stern of the boat. (Was it born on board or was it blown here from some far-away place like Africa?) One night a tropical seabird tried to make a landing on deck to get some rest. An afternoon shearwaters followed us fishing in the shade behind the boat. They flew up in the air, looked for fish and landed like ducks slowing themselves down with their feet. Once in the water, they poke their heads down into the waves. How deep can they see? I wonder… and what do they see? I wish I could be in the water with them for a while and open my wings like a bird and start flying if sharks approach.

Dolphins and flying fish are as present in our lives as the sunset and the sunrise. We have learned about colors we didn’t know existed: blues of the ocean and the sky, silvery and yellowish shades of sunlight reflected on the water and rainbow-like ever-changing colors that separate days from nights. Salt sticks to our skin and hair. We develop callouses on our palms.

A day goes by and the night comes again. We raise our voices to sing in the wind. We dream while we sing. It is easy to imagine almost anything in the middle of the ocean surrounded by stars. We keep on sailing. Time exists less and less.

En route to Brazil, here is what I am thinking:

These are the first lines I am able to write since we left Barbados. Down below in the saloon under a little night light, keeping my leg wrapped around the legs of the table so I don’t roll off the seat, I try to hold myself up to write. It is almost midnight, a night of full moon it seems and I can’t sleep. We are on the Atlantic, sailing between Latin America and Africa, East/Southeast towards the inter-tropical convergence zone where winds from the northern and southern hemisphere meet. We will cross the equator soon. Now, we are sailing in the dark only with the light of the moon. Fish accidentally end up jumping on deck. We try to save them, we throw them back so they can continue their journey.

We continue ours. We squeeze lime juice into our bowls of rice and truly appreciate the concentrated memory of the land. Just like a drop of lime juice or a grain of sand dried onto our deck after the rain - sand maybe from the deserts of Africa - we also become concentrated, boiled down to our essence. So far from everything the truth comes to the surface. Notions like “love”, “family”, a “purpose in life”… take on a different, somehow more real meaning. It is as simple as having to go away to know where home is or being away from people we love to know what we truly feel. Now, we listen. We travel through the water towards ourselves.