About Me

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Sacramento, California, United States
so salty pieces of coral from surfing Hawaii in the 60's and 70's getting reef pounded living in my body fall through my skin from time to time!

sailing to Oahu

Jimi Hendrix was playing on Oahu. I had never sailed. Surfed Mexico, California, Hawaii! Aw, how hard could it be to sail 90-110 miles from Kauai to Oahu? Piece of cake, right? Remember it was the 60's! This is so bad. We thought we were looking at Kaiena Point,Ohau, knowing we weren't going to make the concert! But at least we were in site of Oahu-wrong! Coy, who had never sailed before, me,who had never sailed before, jeff and Abbott etc. We were looking at the sleeping giant on Kauai! We had done three-sixty's in the night! We sailed on the only tri-marran I've ever sailed on ( except later ) in my life, missed the concert! It was at the Waikiki Shell Ampitheater ( Moon eclipsed . We finally made Nawilwili Harbor! The Skipper tried to give us his boat saying, " It's trying to kill me"! We watched him go stark raving mad not even realising that had we got caught in the channel current we were on our way to Japan! Remember it was the 60's and we were going to see Hendrix. I left out some of the good stuff but I will make up for it later!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I thought about Something~

I love my only rock carving. It's called a Nuso"nuso. It is from the Solomon Islands! I almost got to jump ship in Honiara, " Guadalcanal "! I simply ran out of money. But I did have a ticket to fly from Cairns, Australia back to my point of origin. I loved being fought over to see who got to keep me! You see? There is an island called " Maita" in the Solomons. A couple of dreamers put their money together and built a great "Junk", on the island of Maita. This is an island that is rugged, in fact up until about 20 years before the building of this boat, built out of natural timber, indigenous to this particular island! ( If they allowed your presence to be a part of what they are about)! They were cannibals! Thats not what you think. But it is something to think about! You know there is a story here? I was and am still surprised they were allowed to build and sail their vessel to Townsville, Aus! They invited me to sail their new junk with la teen sails from Honiara to Cairns and were going to pay me. I needed the money and would have loved to sail that newly built boat to Cairns. I will cut to the chase. My skipper ordered me to continue to be his friend and to help him care for his family and boat til we got to where we were headed. A year later I ran into the owners of the junk. It sailed well. Their passage from " The Solomons" was great. The tourists loved seeing what was built without understanding what it was all about! To this day I know I would not have met my wife and would not have been blessed by the two children (adults) I have known and been known by if I had made one small (large) decision. To sail on Maita or to stay with Dave and Leslie on Guinevere. One small choice and destiny or fate forks the path or road and so we go, so it seems children. Remember that a door you open only leads to other doors that you decide to open or close. I say to you, NOW

whitsundays or Monday will be alright!

The bottom end of " The Great Barrier Reef " is the Whitsundays" If my spelling is wrong it only fits into the story! In my life at sea I have never been blessed by no wind. And yet, just North of Sydney, Australia, I was allowed to draw on a chart our headway which was nowhere! The vessel's name is "Wind-I-Go". The owner and master of the vessel's name is John Main. We had two sheila's aboard because they wanted to go home to N. Zed. Only one of them was a blond but her sister ( being a brunette ) was a blond also! If you ketch my drift? At this time, us having sailed from Yorkey's knob ( Just barely kidding )Port Douglas is for real! WE sailed to the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef, to corkscrew in a 24 hour period making " O " headway so that our chart looked like " The Mask Of Zorro ", revisited. I am telling you that we backed ourselves up losing headway in a period of time that the z'sssss on our chart were erased by us, ( Me and John ) It was embarrising!!! So we were four days outbound to New Zealand when my wife was forced to teach the blonds how to use the head! They hadn't pooped or pissed for four daze! Or eaten! They never did learn galley duties. They had never sailed before and I am sure, since! When we cleared customs on boxing day, I met their mother and father. He, at the pub,took me aside and asked me how I had managed to put up with them? I liked him immediately! We crossed the Tasman with no weather. You could have water skiied on glass conditions. The blonds wanted to know what was taking so long? Little did they realize that under normal weather formats they would be below and begging for mercy from weather conditions that prevail most days of the year.The weather hit us at the Northern tip of N.Z. Three Kings. I've got to share this story with you. We were ghosting through the Tasman when a piece of white bread drifted by with one perfect bite out of it! It was still floating on the glass ( the infamous- Tasman Sea ). We got on " the horn " to find out if any boat was near us? No boat was. Where did that floating piece of white bread come from? do de do do!!! Truth is stranger than fiction! When we arrived at the " Bay Of Islands" We had had a following sea of 15'+ our anemometer read 68 knot winds, boats had been driven ashore past Russel. We had to start our engine to come about to drop our sails! John and I couldn't bring windigo into irons without the motor. We tried twice just to see if we could. But could not and we are good. You should have heard the two blond sheilas moan! They were so happy to get off that fricken sailboat. Next time they will fly! Maybe I will fly too! After all my name is Robbin! Ha!

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