After 16 years of cruising, Jaja and I are taking a break. We bought land in Maine, and we’re building our first house. We’re doing everything ourselves: design, engineering, construction, roofing, siding, plumbing, and electrical. Self-sufficiency is a state of mind we’ve brought with us from our cruising days. Meanwhile, Driver is sitting regally in the boatyard where I work. She’s a high-and-dry monument to our current way of living. When I look at her through the windshield of my pickup, I recall moments from our recent five-year voyage. Yesterday I remembered the ice in Spitsbergen, Norway. A gigantic chunk drifted toward Driver, nearly crushing her against the shoreline. We hauled up the anchor quickly and deftly escaped tragedy. Sometimes I look at Driver’s faded black bottom paint and imagine I’m under water looking up at the hull as she speeds through the water . . . a rock’s eye view.

When cruising — particularly during long ocean passages — our imaginations wandered toward solid land. For years we fantasized about designing and building a house. Now that we are in the midst of realizing this dream, we fantasize about making long ocean passages. Escaping into opposite realms is therapeutic, a way to maintain perspective. With one foot in a seaboot and one in a hiking boot, we incorporate the lessons we learned while sailing to our advantage on land. For example, our house will be solar-powered. Photovoltaic cells and batteries worked well on our boat. Why not use them for our house? Our experience with solar panels began in 1989. Jaja and I were sailing across the Pacific on our 25-footer, Direction. Jaja had been under the weather for a while, so we hove into Pago Pago harbor at American Samoa to see a doctor. We had talked our- selves into believing she had some sort of tropical malaise. It came as no surprise, however, when the diagnosis was the imminent birth of our first child. In part our original diagnosis was correct; it’s called the
“Deserted White Sand Beach Syndrome.”

This was not the first of many “change of tacks” during our marriage. The first occurred a year earlier, soon after we eloped on the island of Barbados. We had our sights on the Pacific, but we were broke and figured on working for a year. Luckily, our parents offered bank checks as wedding gifts. The heck with working! We made a beeline for Panama and a life of tropical splendor.

While charging boldly across the Pacific we fantasized about our future: where we would live and how many kids we would have. Two kids would be perfect. We would sail for a couple of years, return to the States, then move ashore and start a family. If anyone had told us our voyage would last seven years and that we’d finish up with three children on the boat, there might have been mutual mutiny.

Samoa was a transitional time: Baby Number One was on the way. We were down to less than $500. We had no bank account, credit cards, or health insurance. Our families were frantic, and cyclone season was fast approaching. Everyone told us to sell the boat or ship it back to the States. Go home! Go home! It took a couple of weeks to take stock of our new position in life. We were in our late 20s and not very keen on responsibility. Parents? Us? While we were ruminating, Jaja took a waitressing job, and I found work as a commercial diver. I’d never done scuba before, but the pay was great.

One of the guys I worked with had an old solar panel. He sold it to me for $100. I installed it on Direction, and we reveled in the simplicity of solar energy.

Our nightly conversations centered on these questions: “Why does it seem mandatory for us to have a baby in the States? The world is liberally populated with individuals born elsewhere. Is there some prerequisite that requires Americans to give birth on American soil?” One option was to remain in American Samoa. We would get the “America” part without leaving the islands. With this in mind, Jaja visited the prenatal clinic. A dog roamed freely through the examination rooms. Later, we read in the newspaper about three mysterious newborn deaths at the hospital. The clincher came when we discovered that the maternity wing was located next to the hepatitis ward.

After receiving a boatload of unwanted advice, we decided to sail to Australia to have our baby. Using the money we had recently earned, Jaja filled Direction to the gills with food. Enough for several more months. She also ordered books on prenatal care and bought prenatal vitamins. Looking back, I’m sure we were procrastinating. Australia was several thousand miles away, representing another two months of cruising. We’d get to see Tonga, Fiji, and New Caledonia. Responsible or not, that was our decision, and it turned out to be a good one. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.

The land we bought in Maine selected us, not the other way around. After a few days in Round Pond, we met a new friend, a realtor, who mentioned she had 25 acres for sale and that her client was particular about whom she would sell to. Very particular. Diane looked at us from head to toe and smiled, “I think you’ll do.”

We drove up to see it. It was only 10 minutes from the harbor. We walked the property line with our minds whir- ring in high gear. Was this for us? So fast? We weren’t actively searching for property. We were “just looking.” Our first choice for property, of course, was a big-sky view of the ocean’s horizon. But waterfront property, or even water view, is for the financially motivated.
Privacy in the forest was the next best thing, and the property was rich with it. There were red oak, birch, beech, white pine, hemlock, maple, and brown ash trees. Moose, deer, and squirrels roamed under the canopies, and beaver maintained dams on a small pond. The land was sloped, oriented to the south. Good light for solar panels. It was raw land without a structure, driveway, well, septic system, or power. Buying it would be like buying a bare sailboat hull: a lot of surface area for your dollar, but unusable until you make something of it.

Our Arctic journey had just ended; we’d only been back in the States for two months. We wanted to be land-based for a few years so our kids could have a sense of continuity through high school. But perhaps this was too much of a commitment. Should we buy undeveloped property? Fortunately, our voyages had been dominated by spontaneous decision making. We were in familiar territory. Our proclivity to choose options that don’t initially seem logical developed early on. Jaja and I recognized that we became different people when underway. Before a voyage, each hectic day is filled with schedules and lists. Away from land, schedules are left behind, the sky opens up, and possibilities seem unlimited. The hard part would be to retain this unencumbered attitude while living within the confines of land. We hoped we could achieve this in the forest.

After Chris was born in Australia we backtracked to New Zealand in 1990. Sailing with a baby was an eye-opener. Chris was a wiggle worm. He hadn’t yet learned that moving around on a boat can be most easily accomplished by lying perfectly still. Night watches at sea were a trial, especially with nighttime crying on the off-watch. There was also the reality of dirty cloth diapers in a boat that was battened down tight for sea. But we survived, and Chris survived. We knew we’d be more comfortable living ashore, but would we be happier? One of the main ingredients of youth is to see how you react to hardship rather than find ways to avoid it.

Although Chris was a result of spontaneous combustion, his sister, Holly, was carefully planned around visa applications and cyclone season. Back then, New Zealand offered a six-month visa on arrival. With a “good reason” you were allowed to extend that visa for another six months. After a year in the country, a visitor was required to leave. Our first extension was easy. Pregnant wife. When our year was up, however, Holly was 2 weeks old, and cyclone season was upon us. We asked immigration for a second extension to avoid sailing into the teeth of a storm. We pointed out that if we could stay until May, Holly would have complete head-and-neck control and updated immunizations . . . a much safer roposition for a sea voyage to the tropics. Immigration agreed, and so our New Zealand odyssey lasted 18 months. I also had a good job, and the extra time was profitable.

Our passage north to Fiji became the turning point in our seafaring career. After that experience, everything else paled by comparison. It began when our ideal “weather window” shattered two days after departure. The predicted high- pressure system, which was supposed to dominate the region for a week, shifted unexpectedly and moved on to dominate someplace else. Moderate southerlies changed to gale-force easterlies. The wind leveled off at 45 knots and didn’t let up for 90 hours. There was no turning back.

I had rebuilt Direction specifically for this type of condition (see Good Old Boat, January 2005). Small sails, stout rigging, hard dodger, and gasketed companionway doors. Good hatches. We rode the storm sailing close-hauled with the storm trysail. One knot of forward progress was our speed. Not much, but the momentum allowed Direction to power over the tops of most breaking wave crests. Occasionally a monster comber crumbled our way, picked Direction up like a volleyball, and spiked her into the trough.

Holly was 5 months old and breast-feeding. Chris was 2 years old and bored. We ate crackers and cans of cold soup because it was too rough to light the non- gimbaled stove. Hour upon hour, and day upon day, Jaja lay on the port settee under a blanket clutching Holly, and I lay on the starboard settee under a blanket clutching Chris. We listened to the sound of surf, tensing every time a comber rolled our way. We endured knockdown after knockdown. Salt spume infiltrated the cabin. Our clothes, bedding, and cushions were soaked. Every night at 1700 hours we tuned our single-sideband to Keri Keri Radio in New Zealand for the offshore forecast. “Sorry, folks, looks like another 24 hours of 45 knots.” Our life stretched out before us.

After the storm we were physically and mentally wiped out. Every fiber of our nerves was frayed. To spice matters up, fog and clouds prevailed for days after the storm, rendering my sextant useless. On Day 10 the sun reappeared. By now, I’d been plotting a DR course for more than 700 miles. Working that first set of running fixes after so long a lapse was exciting. I did the math using a pencil and paper and, like magic, by day’s end I knew to within several miles where we were. My DR had been pleasingly close: I had underestimated our distance run by less than 40 miles. We made 30 miles less leeway than calculated.

Power was our next problem to solve. After the storm, our solitary battery was stone dead. Without running lights or a VHF radio, we were concerned about ships at night. We tied a kerosene lantern to the mast to illuminate the sails, but the effect was imperfect. The problem was the solar panel. Water had found its way between two of the cells, shorting out a connecting “wire” (actually a thin strip of metal film).
My motto is to try fixing anything that’s broken. I may not always fix the problem, but I usually learn something about how things work. I figured in this case I might as well take the panel apart since I couldn’t break something that was already broken.

With nothing to lose, I carefully cut away a small square of the solar panel’s rubber backing, exposing the corroded metal film. All I needed to do was solder a piece of wire across the break. But with no power, I was unable to electrify my 12-volt soldering gun. I fired up the kerosene stove, held the tip of the soldering gun in the flame, then ran aft to the cockpit while it was still hot.

After 16 days at sea we reached Fiji. Or as Jaja put it, we reached Fiji after one-twenty-second of a year. Everything aboard was black with mold. The ideal environment for growth developed after the storm. Conditions had remained rough, obliging us to keep hatches closed, but the air temperature went from 50 to 75. The cabin transformed itself into a mire. In Fiji we scrubbed and cleaned for a week. At one point we cleaned mold out of Duplos (large-sized Lego bricks) using cotton swabs.

During the cleanup a new euphoria began to seep into our psyches. Things hadn’t gone the way we anticipated after leaving the coast of New Zealand, but we had dealt with our situation. By taking responsibility for our decision we raised the bar of our tolerance.

Three years later, after roaming around New Caledonia, Australia, Indonesia, and the islands of the Indian Ocean, we rounded Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Shortly after Christmas, 1994, we left Cape Town for the long haul across the South Atlantic to the Caribbean: 5,200 sea miles. We made two stops: one at Saint Helena Island, the other at Ascension Island. The final leg between Ascension and Barbados would be 2,800 miles. Our longest passage to date. The prospect excited us. Every passage develops a personality of its own. The longer the passage, the more subtleties that get built into the fabric of shipboard life.

We could have made stops in South America to shorten the sea time, but that meant more coastal passage making. Chris and Holly were ages 3 and 4. Experience had taught us that coastal hops with children were more fatiguing than offshore passages. Chris and Holly fell in love with every place we visited and never wanted to leave. It took them several days to acclimate to the motion, both physically and mentally. Overnighters were tough.

Our 28-day passage between Ascension and Barbados was one of our best experiences. The wind never blew above 20 knots, and the temperature never fell below 75. The passage was symbolic. It was the final leg of our circumnavigation. We had departed Barbados seven years earlier as high-energy newlyweds; now we were where-did-all-that-energy-go parents. Our travels had taken turns beyond comprehension. We foolishly believed that after completing this voyage we would be “adventure-sated.” Dream accomplished.

The euphoric high of completing our circumnavigation in Barbados shifted unexpectedly to a different sort of euphoria five weeks later. On St. Maarten it was confirmed that Baby Number Three was on the way. We made our way northward through the Turks and Caicos, Bahamas, then up the U.S. East Coast. Eight months later, Direction was tied to a dock in a quiet North Carolina marina. Although seven years of voyaging were “officially” over, a new journey was just starting.

We had logged 15,000 miles during the last year and a half of our circumnavigation. That’s an accumulation of four months at sea listening to the wind, watching the sky, changing sails, finding islands, and above all, being together as a “unit.” We were connected to nature the way mammals are meant to be. We did not question our instincts. We lived how we wanted, not in a way we thought others would approve — or disapprove — of. Upon reaching North Carolina, our senses were not jammed with preconceived notions of “proper behavior.” Whatever that is.

Chris had been a hospital birth, and Holly had been born at a friend’s house with the assistance of a midwife. Baby Number Three we would deliver on our own. The impetus behind our decision was wanting our next (and last) child to have a special bond with Direction. Plus, Jaja was most comfortable on the boat.

Birthing our child without a doctor calling the shots was a huge responsibility. So we bought books and medical journals. We extinguished the “glamour” by educating ourselves on the problems we might encounter. A few friends knew what we were up to, and they were sworn to secrecy. We needed positive input, not do-gooders shouting, “You can’t do that! It’s unsafe! Irresponsible! Weird!” Although familiar with that attack (anyone who goes cruising automatically has some resistance to it), we didn’t want to spend energy fending off criticism.

On a cold January morning in 1996, Teiga Calypso opened her eyes for the first time under the dim cabin lights. Holly cut the cord. The five of us filled Direction to capacity. The cup was full.

For us, living in a rented house in Oriental, North Carolina, was similar to sailing into the doldrums. Our sails hung lifeless, and the horizon stretched on for eternity. I had a steady job, we owned a car, and friends and family came to visit. We had a phone, a fridge, a washer and dryer, and hot running water. We had bikes, a stroller, and rollerblades. We had all the “stuff” of success, but something was missing. We missed the thrill that we derived from taking chances, living for the moment, and making do.

The dreamed-of suburban life that had once seemed appealing now just tested our patience. I was earning more money each week than I could earn doing odds jobs while cruising, but we were slipping backward. Rent, car insurance, electric bill, phone bill, water bill. When Jaja and I first set out on Direction, $5,000 a year was ample. Near the end of our voyage $8,000 was enough. The chief reason our voyage lasted seven years is that we spent on average six months working and six sailing. I varnished, fiberglassed, and did commercial cleaning, house carpentry, and boat carpentry. There was always a job when the coffers ran low. In fact, we’d made enough money in New Caledonia and Australia to complete the journey in one final leg.

Coping with a newborn on land had stolen our breeze. Funny how it never happened on the boat. This was an- other one of those transitional times. We had assumed that “settling down” was the natural course of events, the next leg in life’s journey. Instead, we felt like seaweed at low tide, exposed and out of our element.

Our next decision seeped into our pores steadily and surreptitiously. We looked at each other across the breakfast table one morning and, without saying a word, agreed it was time to go. With a baby and two toddlers our lives would be richer on a boat than they would be in suburbia.

A year earlier, when drifting across the equator, Jaja had talked often about Iceland . . . about how exciting it would be to circumnavigate that country. Those musings were the catalyst for what would follow.

Teiga was 6 months old when we found Driver, a 20-year-old boatyard derelict. I offered half the asking price, and she was ours. A yearlong refit transformed her into a oceangoing family dwelling. Jaja and I made a transformation as well. Our apathy disappeared. We were back in our element.

What began as a summer trip to Iceland evolved into a five-year odyssey. The apex of the voyage was sailing to the pack ice at 79° 50′ N. The Arctic winters aboard Driver were a welcome contrast to our years in the tropics. The hardships we chose to endure in the far north were so rich with life that we did not notice the life was difficult — although everyone kept telling us that it was.

The Driver voyage began with question marks but ended with answers. During our years in Iceland and Norway, the Scandinavian culture revealed a way of life that we’d been seeking but hadn’t recognized. Our friends there lived in modest houses with nature out the back door. A concurring theme was to “make do with less and spend time together as a family.” This was our boat philosophy.

Living in a Maine forest is a radical contrast to the open horizon that has called to us all these years. But as I sit here at my sun-powered computer and view the sea of trees that surrounds us, I know that, once again, we are going down the right path. For a while, anyway.

This article was first published in Good Old Boat magazine, July 2005.

Dave and Jaja Martin have just released a new lifestyle DVD, Ice Blink, featuring the voyages made by their family of five. For more information or to order, go to www.iceblinkssail.com.

Into the Light, their book about their northern travels which was published in 2002, is being produced as an audiobook by Good Old Boat magazine. It is being narrated by Jaja Martin. For more about this and other audiobooks, go to www.goodoldboat.com/audio.html.

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