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When cruisers and sailors are asked why they choose this lifestyle, many answer with the standard and cliché “Because it gives us so much freedom”. True, your sailboat is your floating home and you can drop and pick up anchor in many places worldwide, giving you an immense area to explore or settle for a while. You have your belongings with you wherever you go and to “just be out there”, sailing on a massive ocean or smaller sea, gives you a tremendous feeling of freedom. Wherever you are, once the anchor is down, there are restrictions and rules you have to abide by. You can read up or learn about these places ahead of time and, because you are free, you decide whether to skip them or pay them a visit. Most things you do are entirely up to you, except when (boat) problems arise.

  A grey day for a sail on the ocean                                                                           © Liesbet Collaert

The sense of freedom disappears, however, when you take that one, all important thing into account; the thing that really decides when you leave and how the trip and the schedule turns out. It is called the weather and it is ever-present and not always very predictable. Every prudent sailor checks the weather forecast, via different sources at that, before heading out, especially on a longer trip. We base many decisions on how “it is looking” and pick days that promise to be comfortable enough, wind and swell taken into consideration. These periods are called “weather windows”. The amount of rain is less important, unless they are part of forecasted periods of heavy squalls.

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Giving up your accustomed shore life, to move onto a sailing vessel is a huge change that entails preparations and adjustments in many ways. Once that big step is taken and you have gotten used to living aboard, similar experiences of a smaller scale will occur. Every time you leave a place where you spent some time and made friends, it feels like you are leaving a part of yourself behind. It is a bag of mixed feelings and day to day adventures soon turn into fond memories, while you “move on”.

 When you leave a certain popular area, you leave friends and fond experiences.          © Liesbet Collaert

My husband Mark and I sailed throughout the Eastern Caribbean for the last three years. After going up and down the island chain once, we knew the “lay of the islands”. We anchored in our favorite spots, knew where to pick up decent internet signals, shopped in the best stocked and most affordable supermarkets, knew which day the local vegetable lady showed up, attended the greatest happy hours, saved our dirty laundry until we reached a harbor with a do-it-yourself washing machine and frequented the places we liked. Every year, we would sail to and explore a few different parts of this or that island, but those adventures were short and in close vicinity. Every time we ended up in St. Martin or Grenada, we stayed put for a few months to work or spend hurricane season. The excitement took place in between these destinations, when we mostly “did what we wanted” and during the occasional weekend.

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Sitting here at the computer today working on my article for BLUE magazine, I busily flicked through photos Kuni has taken over the years of really inspiring surfers. Young to old, we've been priveleged to work with numerous wave sliders from timeless heroes to underground soul surfers and aspiring kids. Having been kept out of the water myself for the duration of my current pregnancy due to the disaster in Japan, there are days when I am about to crack and feel desperate for the chance to grab even the simplest of waves. I find my looking at Kuni's shots and re-reading interviews I have conducted over the years helps ease the tension of my temporary life on dry land, encouraging regular 'mind' surf sessions that are inevitably food for life.

I'm dedicating this blog to those who have contributed to us putting food on our table, but mostly for their profound addictions to living the simple life and connecting to nature through surfing. Without these people I would no doubt have jumped in contaminated water by now!

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With all the negative hype surrounding Japan at the moment, and possibly a lot more to come, I thought it might be time to take a look at some of her remaining beauty. For surfers, avoid Fukushima and surrounds like the plague, but if you like the idea of heading a little south and further offshore than rock-bottom ticket air ticket sales to the island nation will surely attract your attention.

I’m calling this blog series ‘Journey Japan’, and will do a succession of posts relating to safer surf travel destinations in the South. Remember the Fukushima situation is one that will take years to contain, so please travel safe and use this only as a guide. At the end of the day, trust in your own instincts and don’t go anywhere you feel might not be safe.

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Imagine you had a friend or a family member who lives on a sailboat in the Caribbean and he/she would tell you:”Whenever you have a chance, vacation time or the desire to come for a visit, feel free to do so! All you have to do is book your flight. Your stay on the catamaran is entirely free.” What would you say to such an offer? If that were me, I wouldn’t think twice and hop on that plane to the tropics for my next vacation... Only, I am already here.

 Mark giving 7-year old Jake advice on how to steer the catamaran

Surprisingly enough, not all that many people take us up on this magnificent offer. Everybody is the first to exclaim “what a wonderful and idyllic” life we have, how fortunate, lucky or “blessed” we are and “oh, I wish I could be there, do that” and so on, but when push comes to shove there are many excuses to resist the temptation of a visit to the Caribbean, sailing the turquoise waters on a catamaran, with snorkel trips and shore visits on the side. Why? Well, I think most of you can answer that for yourselves: there are the kids, the house, the pets, the family, the lack of vacation time, other commitments, the expense of the plane tickets and –of course- the job and other chores that will get postponed.

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Preparing to land in less than a meter of water:
 

         The girl in front of me stepped off. She didn’t jump out towards the ‘safe zone’. She didn’t land flat on her back as instructed. She just stepped off. The top of her yellow helmet instantly disappeared into the washing machine of violent water below. “Oh shit! Here we go…” said our Kiwi guide who was posted at the top of the waterfall. Every 4 or 5 seconds we’d catch a glimpse of her life vest or wetsuit right before it was sucked back to the bottom. I’m no spin cycle virgin, and I’ve taken my fair share of big waves on the head, but this was different. It didn’t let up. It wouldn’t let up. You can’t just go limp and wait it out. There’s nothing to wait out. The water just keeps falling. I immediately realized the severity of a broken safety rule. After scaling smooth, wet rocks with impressive speed, our Aussie guide gracefully grabbed the vest of the disobedient (and drowning) girl. Within seconds she was standing in the shallows, coughing up water, and confirming all her bones were intact. Our Kiwi guide looked at me with a smile, “You’re up, brotha. If you don’t do it right, you’ll break a leg.”

Tommy (right) and I hiking in:                  

         Tommy and I (both surfers from CA) were in the unofficial ‘adventure sports capital of Europe’ - Interlaken. This small town in the Swiss Alps offers a plethora of extreme sports including, but not limited to: skydiving, hang gliding, bungee jumping, rock climbing, glacier trekking, river rafting, windsurfing, wake boarding, and canyoning. All we knew about canyoning prior to the trip was that it was supposed to be intense, and that we wanted to do it. We made arrangements our first night in Interlaken and were picked up from our hostel the next morning. 

Sliding over and off a waterfall:          

            The day started early with a brief (but passionate) safety lesson. After a beautiful mountain drive and a short, sweaty hike in 7mm wetsuits, we arrived at our launch point. “Keep your elbows in and your feet in front of you.” I sat in the frigid water and assumed the position; a little push and I was off. The rushing snow runoff propelled me down a natural water slide and into a set of rapids. The only thing keeping me afloat was my life vest, but that didn’t protect me from frequent collisions with a mine field of submerged rocks. Bumps and bruises were a small price to pay for the experience of rafting without a raft. We descended a series of waterfalls over the next few kilometers by any means possible: climbing, rappelling, ziplining, and even jumping off a big one towards the end.  Our ‘safe’ landing zone for the jump was less than a cubed meter (including deep!), but I didn’t make the same mistake as the girl in front of me.  I jumped out, went prone mid-air, and back-flopped to safety.  Interested in canyoning?  Click here. 

Rappelling down a slippery face (and yes, it is hard to keep your mouth closed while canyoning... it's that intense) :