Buoyant Thoughts2019-03-02T16:33:10-06:00
  • State of the Shanti, January 2021

    It's been so long since I've written anything that I feel flummoxed facing this blank white space. I've abandoned Perilous and Sparks, my mid-century mavens, in...well, it's been so long since I've thought about them that I've forgotten where I left them. India, I think. My [...]

  • Temporary Land-Lubbers

    During the last wave of Gulf-bound tropical depressions, we grabbed our most precious belongings and temporarily moved into a motel on the far side of Biloxi’s back bay. […]

  • We Are All Always Underway

    Just before we began making passage, something sparked my interest in the Huguenot Refuge. I don't know much about my family's heritage, and I've never cared much. I live here and now, and I've never been sure how it benefits me to align with a [...]

Your Transmission: A 100lb Problem

Here's something I could have gone my whole life without knowing: The transmission on a 1974 Perkins diesel engine has a "breather" that prevents pressure from building up and blowing out the front gasket. But I do know that now and there's really only one way I would: It happened. [...]

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Coping with the Noatic Experience

Earlier in the year, I wrote a story about our dearly departed cat Saint Squeakus, in which I suggested that he and his brother Dante diverged over the matter of pacifism. […]

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State of the Shanti, November 2019

Not too long ago, while rummaging through old journals in our storage unit, I found the exact page in November 2016 when I wrote down a hare-brained idea to move aboard a boat. […]

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Steerage: Your Boat’s Rube Goldberg Machine

I’d never given much thought to how a boat is steered, you know, mechanically. Turns out it’s basically a big Rube Goldberg machine: I turn the wheel, a drunken ferret craps in the corner of an alternate reality, and the rudder turns. […]

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Pinetop Boogies Again!

I’m always surprised when people don’t understand that sailboats have engines. I guess I see why they’d think that, but still… […]

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Are the Shanti-nauts Time Travelers?

It recently occurred to me that we are, in some ways, time travelers. Beyond the fact that the Sea Shanti was built in 1974, making it around the same age as Autumn and I, the way we live seems split between three eras. […]

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Captain Jack and Quartermaster Autumn

About the Crew

The misfit crew of The Sea Shanti consists of musician and Jack-of-all-trades Captain Jack, novelist and dilettante Quartermaster Autumn, and teen wunderkind Boatswain Fain as well as the roguish sea cat Dante.

Boatswain Fain

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