"Trust Me" on the water…

Posted by Emil – April 4, 2009

… and we did. We went on the water with Trust Me and we are now convinced she is a great vessel. 

After  traveling for months on a ’84 WV Westfalia with 24 feet of sitting space, one can understand why we are so excited about those extra 3 feet that makes our 27′ trimaran a cozy home.  Many people think having a boat is a luxury.  ” Trust Me” is far from that, with no restroom, no shower, a tiny living room without tables, and few feet for me to stand up and cook, her role is more important than providing comfort. She is a tool. With Trust Me we plan to reach wild remote areas within the Baja to Beaufort ecoregion, that need to be documented. With her ability of folding up and been trailerable, we can take her on the road and pretty much go anywhere.

With her great sailing features, her shallow draft, she is light and fast! If you have the sails in the right position and some breeze, she will go. It makes it all so much smoother, quite and environmentally friendly.  Although I must accept that it has taken Florian many hours of kind words and encouragement to convince me that sailing is easy to learn and is a good thing.

“Trust Me” has great extra features, including, solar panels, a water-maker (that we are still in the process of fixing), a solar shower (bought in REI) and my favorite: Arthur, the autopilot. When Arthur is on charge, we can enjoy the freedom of not having to hold the tiller all the time allowing us to search for wildlife.

We have now sailed the Loreto National Marine Park, and are planning to sail all the way down to La Paz to over an important area: The Loreto/ Cabo corridor. While on the Loreto waters, we discovered many incredible things including a young Humpback Whale that gave us an spectacular show… but that’s another story.

Been on a boat makes you a lot more aware of your surroundings. You are in the constant look out for hazards and even with Arthur in charge, you still have to continuously keep an eye on the water. Floating logs, rocks under the water, sudden changes in the depths, gusty winds, currents, tides, etc. can easily combine and leave you with a nightmare experience. 

Navigating the Sea of Cortez is more challenging because of the lack of good charts and the fact weather channels are nonexistent. You turn on the radio and soon you hear “Pablo! Pablo!  Andale, contesta!”, then a whole Mexican style conversation unfolds on the most important channel for marine communication: Channel 16. 

We’ve been really lucky with the weather, but you cannot avoid waking up in the middle of the night three or four times to check outside, to look at the GPs and check on the wind. Is the anchor ok or are we dragging? Is the wind picking up? What was that sound? 

It is a restless adventure, a constant challenge, … and we are loving it!

Expeditions in the Alaskan Arctic, Part 1

Posted by Emil – September 24, 2008

After years of exploring remote places, we have never been to a place like this. Where your eye gets tricked by the distances. The next hill, the next valley seems so reachable, so near. And yet, everything is miles away.

With a heart filled with excitement, we were dropped in this unique location where we planned to document the annual migration of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd.

I had listen to many incredible stories about this herd which includes 400,000 hooved members, restless wonderers of the Tundra.

Very few had actually been in the midst of one of them. Would we be able to find them? Will they allow us to contemplate their annual migration?

It was my first time in the Tundra and Florian had not been that many times in such a remote location. I obvisouly imagine all possible scenarios, but the truth is I had such a little idea what I was about to see.

After weeks of careful preparation and planning, we still  had no assurance if we were to witness anything. Some people said, “you might hit it right, but for the years we have traveled the area, we have never seen them, that is roughly 30 years”.

The place is so vast and the animals are so unpredictable, one can never tell the exact dates when to witness this magnificent spectacle. So we prayed for good luck but kept expectations low.

As we came closer to the drop off point, we could see in the distance many white points disperse over the landscape, so tiny and far away one could hardly see any shape. But as the plane got closer and closer to the land, more and more you could make out the white dots move rythmically over the tundra. Caribous!!! Thousands of them!! As far as your eye could see…

We arrived with incredible weather, way better than I had expected. Very windy for sure, but the sky blue as a jewel. We set up camp in the middle of a warm sunny day and sat down to wait, as usual. We are always waiting…

The day went by peacefully and as the sun got closer to the evening (according to our watch) we realize it was time to move around and explore the area. There weren’t many high points where to scan the area. And even though you could see everything from where ever you were, what ever mission you undertook, cost two times the effort. Not only because of the distance, but more because of the terrain.

One can say: Cool! No Mountains to hike! Everything is flat! But then, you feel sorry for choosing to carry a little more equipment thinking it might be so easy. Hiking over the tundra is a true challenge, going through wet zones, mushy or muskeg zones is more a nightmare than a pleasure excursion.

But at the end everything has a reward and we started to see the first Caribous appear over the ridge line, on the other side of the river.

We sat down and waited to see what that evening was to granted us with.