Category: Travel

Hi all! If you’re reading this, I want to send a little reminder that I also posted two book reviews today as well, so check those out if you feel so inclined. If not, just stick to this post and I’ll catch you up on the happening for me and myself this holiday season 2023. Alright, well, now that we’re all here, I want to say I’m going to be talking about my winter break up until today, December 28th, 2023, because I wanted to get this post out even if it isn’t the New Year yet. Therefore, I’ll be catching y’all up primarily on what my December has looked like, not what my New Year’s has been like cause that hasn’t happened yet. I feel like I’m repeating myself and I’m braindead from writing three posts in one day, but let’s keep moving along!

From the beginning of December, I was still in school until about the 15th or so. But, lots were still happening around that was in preparation for the holidays, so I feel like we should start there. This time of year is when applications for summer camps have usually happened for everyone, but this year was a bit different for me. Instead of summer camp this summer, I’ve been trying to figure out internships and job opportunities that I could do. I want to get that kind of experience, both in a regular summer job and in a psychology-related internship because I’m so interested in psychology. The process has been tough and is still ongoing because I haven’t applied for anything fully yet, but wish me luck for this summer!

In addition to summer applications, I’ve been applying to various semester schools for next year’s fall semester. For those that don’t know, semester programs are similar to a study abroad for high school students, but mainly centered in the US. I applied to three, getting all of them out of the way before the 15th, which was a stress overload. I’ll be hearing back at the end of January about the ones I got into and then I’m hopefully off next year’s fall semester for a high school experience in the US with lots of outdoor activities. Wish me luck with that too!

So, yeah, I’ve been overloaded with intense applications for the months leading up to the New Year and I’ll be continuing my hunt for summer applications even now. Aside from that, I continued with school during the worst three weeks in the school year and finally got off on break on the 18th. We had been making our way up the island chain over the past month, going from Martinique to Dominica to Guadeloupe to St. Croix. We finally got there in time for everyone to arrive for the holidays! My middle sister arrived on the 17th, and then my other sister arrived on the 20th. Then my grandparents and uncle arrived on the 22nd and we packed our few days all together with lots of activities and Christmas fun.

It was awesome to get to see all my family and have this time with them, but these past few months have been super tough and trying for me. I’ve been pushing myself more than usual academically, molding my future super rapidly, and was just exhausted at the end of it all on the 18th. Adding to that, I was immediately expected to partake in a million social and familial activities, which are usually fine, but were excruciating when I was so tired and worn out from the past few months. So, I did end up having lots of fun, but I think it’s super important for us to notice our teenagers and student family members have been through a rough semester and need space and time to rest and recuperate before doing it all again.

Well, after that spiel, I think I’m all finished with my December happenings and can talk about the future. As y’all can tell by how I’m posting a lot right now, this break is the time I get to finally catch up with you guys and I’ll be underwater in a few weeks again. So, please be patient with me when I get back to school on the 7th; I’ll try to keep posting as much as I can, but my rest is priority numero uno. We just sailed to Culebrita, which is a tiny island off of Culebra, which is next to Puerto Rico, and I think we’re staying here until the New Year. My eldest sister leaves for school again, but my middle sister is staying for a while and has a friend coming for a bit into January.

Oh, a quick update on movies/TV shows since I last talked about those: I’ve been watching the new Percy Jackson series with my family, and, guys, 10/10, they hit the bulls-eye. So good! I also watched My Life With The Walter Boys, which, if you’ve seen my bookography, you know I read that book. I have some mixed feelings about the series (way too long, too many added plotlines and characters, hit the spot with the actor who plays Cole, liked the Erin expansion on her character) but overall it had good vibes. My family and I also watched The Eras Tour cause it started streaming on Tay’s birthday; I was mad at first because I wanted to watch it as soon as possible but my parents made me wait until my sister got there. Also, I wanted the vibes to be right and no one to complain about anything, so I almost watched it by myself without my family, but they convinced me not to. It’s okay, I watched it by myself the next day. Loved it, 10/10, that girl never misses but I want all the songs she left out, and I want to be featured in it because I know it was partly filmed at my night. Come on, Tay, give me some recognition!

Hi, y’all! Wow, it’s been literally for-ev-er! I think the last post I wrote was at the end of the summer in September, and I feel like a lot has happened and nothing much has happened at the same time. I’m back on the boat and have just about finished my first semester of 10th grade. And, I’m currently prepping for the holiday season and for lots of family time—yay :I

I mean, I love the holidays, especially the weeks leading up to Christmas when I get to start decorating, planning presents, giving my wishlist to people, and most of all, listening to Christmas music!!! Love that whole aesthetic. But, it’s also a super stressful time. I’ve taken on some tough classes this year and they’re quite demanding of me, so while I would love to be preparing for the holidays and having fun, I’m stuck doing school for 9 hours a day—so. much. fun. No, I do love my classes, but it’s not a lot of fun to watch the holidays creeping up and be stuck still in school; I’m sure many of you can relate.

Also, I said I liked the weeks leading up to Christmas, not Christmas. Yeah, the one downside of the December holidays in my opinion is that it’s mega-family time, and I avoid all social interactions in my life as I can. It’s always super stressful and emotional to be with my family, out doing holiday gatherings and activities all the time, even though I love the holidays and getting a break from school.

Well, after that rant on my feelings toward the holidays, here’s a quick rundown of what the past few months have been for me~

September 6th: Back to the boat! We’re in Grenada and my school has started. Lots of stress and social activities going on that I do not want to go to, but what’s new?

September 7th-October 12th: my life is meaningless.\

October 13th: OMG The Eras Tour Movie omg Tay’s dress omg BEYONCE omg I’m deceased omg 1989 TV is coming I’m so ready omgomgomg

Oct. 14th-26th: School school school Mom goes back to the US for a hot minute school school school wtf is my life

Oct. 27th: Ladies and Gentlemen & Others. The moment you have all been waiting for. It’s time to PARTAY!!!

Oct. 31st: Nothing super happened for Halloween. Dad and I had pulled the boat out of the water for repairs a few weeks ago and decided to stay in tonight and watch a scary movie. It was awesome (& super scary).

Nov. 1st-17th: Still on the hard, but hauled Dafne back in the water on Mom’s B-day. We’re planning to say “bye loser” to Grenada!

Nov. 18th-23rd: Sailed to Martinique and got lots of food for the holidays. Thanksgiving was da bomb dot com—love Thanksgiving food and I finally get a break from school! *happy tears*

Nov. 24th-Dec. 14th: (the longest three weeks of my entire life) (aka near my death bed, Siri, remind me to order a coffin) (oh, look, it’s Blondie’s b-day; Happy Birthday, sweetie!) (also, sailed to Dominica, which was heaven on earth, and then to St. Croix, which freaking gorgeous)

Alright, now, thanks to that enlightening diary of the past two and a half months, y’all are caught up on what’s been happening. Yeah, there was a lot of stress and anxiety over my classes, lots of happenings with the boat in October, and then making our way up to St. Croix for Christmas & New Year’s over the past two weeks.

My sisters are arriving over the next few days and then my maternal grandparents and my uncle are arriving a bit later than that. We still haven’t decorated our tree (I know, sacrilege), but we’ve been waiting for my sisters to get here. I’ve been cleaning, finishing school work, and submitting applications for semester schools (surprises!) and summer internships. I finally go on full break on the 17th, but my classes have been petering out over the past few days, so that’s why I’ve found time to write this post.

I hope y’all have the most amazing holidays, try not to let the stress of family members get to you, and I hope you get all that’s on your wishlist. Don’t forget to stream TET and the reputation Stadium Tour to celebrate Tay as always!! Love ya!

Alrighty, here’s my annual summer post detailing all the shenanigans I got up to this summer! You’re in for a ride, as I was traveling the whole summer and had a lot of excitement. Also, this is going to be a long post, so get comfortable—you know what that means: extra fluffy socks, a hot drink, something sweet, and T. Swizzle blasting. I mean, that’s my idea of being comfortable, but you do you.

I finished school during the first two weeks of June and then had about a week or so to relax and hang out with the family in the Caribbean. Stella flew in and stayed on the boat with us, then Cleo left to work in LA, and then, drama started happening.

So, hurricane season in the Caribbean was starting, and around the 20th of June, a tropical storm began to brew kind of near where we were at the time, which was St. Vincent. We were worried because we weren’t covered by insurance in St. Vincent, or anywhere other than Grenada. So, we made some quick plans and I packed extra speedily, then went to a hotel with Stella’s friend who had been visiting to wait out the storm on St. Vincent, while my parents and Stella sailed up to Grenada.

We had about two days to wait out the storm and then, thankfully, our flights were still on. It was a long tough haul, but we made it to our final destinations. I swear, after spending a night camping in an airport and then landing in LAX (aka the worst destination on the planet), I wasn’t in the best mood. But, I sucked it up and luckily had a day to relax before I headed over to camp at UCLA.

A few months before, I had been applying to camps and decided I wanted to apply to the UCLA Theater Summer Institute, which would give me college credit over three weeks of camp on the UCLA campus. For three weeks, we spent about nine hours a day in classes (two of which were college credit, and the rest were ensemble and workshops of different theatrical aspects), and had two days off. Yeah, I was dead the first day in. Keep in mind, I just spent five days traveling, not getting nearly enough sleep, and having to stay chipper while being filled with stress. So, yeah, I was definitely feeling run over by a train by the time I got to camp. Though, that didn’t make it any less fun. It was amazing to go to such cool classes, and I made some awesome friends that I’m still keeping in touch with. Plus, I found those Swiftie friends I talked about in “Speak Now (Tay’s Version)”.

Anyway, at the end of those three weeks, we got graded (ofc, ur gurl got an A+), got college credit for two of our classes, and put on a devised piece (that just means we made tf it up)! After all that, I spent another three weeks with family friends still in LA, recuperating, sleeeeeeping, doing summer school to prepare for the fall, and taking advantage of being in LA.

Then, on Aug. 3, ur gurl’s life changed FOREVER:

That’s right!!! I went to THE ERAS TOUR?!?!?!??!? I still literally can’t believe I can say those words, and I’m so incredibly thankful to our Lord and Savior, Taylor Swift, that this tour was created (and that I didn’t experience any amnesia). It was the most magical 3.5 hours of my life—it was actually way more than that, cause we were waiting in line, wayyyy too early, and saw the openers, too. Anyway, I have an instant smile anytime I think about it, and I feel so lucky that my parents did this for me. (Side note: the TET movie that’s set to release [!!!] was partially filmed on the night I attended, I think.) Here are some pics from that wonderful night:

I know, I know, she looks so gorgeous, right? Plus, just look at that smile—so cute! Safe to say, I think I’ve been blessed by God/Taylor that the movie was partly filmed on my tour night—it’s going to be so fun to try to figure out which clips were filmed at my show and if I can spot Cleo and me in the crowd. OMG, what if they do that thing they did in the reputation stadium tour where they zoomed in on people’s faces? What if they did that to Cleo and me??!?! OMG, I would dieeee!

Anyway, enough of getting sidetracked by Taylor, it happens too often. Back to my summer. After the concert, and getting lots of sleep, my parents and more family friends arrived for a fun weekend together in LA. Then, I flew to Nashville to meet up with a close friend who had invited me to spend time with her and her extended family, who lived about an hour outside of the city. We had such a fun time and I’m really thankful I was invited to explore Tennessee, which I’ve never visited before! Also, shoutout to the lovely extended Hornsby tribe!! Y’all are so welcoming!

After that, we all flew to Philly, where I spent about two weeks with my grandparents, hanging out, seeing family, and going up to their lake house for a while. While I was there, my parents, who were still in LA, moved Cleo into her dorm at Pomona College for her first year there!! Finally, I got on a train and I came up here to Connecticut, where I am now, to spend the last part of my trip with my other grandparents. My parents were here for a little bit but then flew to Bolognia, Italy, where Stella’s spending her semester abroad to move her in.

Now, I’m still in CT, spending time with family, but, most importantly, preparing for the coming school year. I’m getting in touch with all my teachers, setting up meeting times, getting all the physical materials I need here in the US, and one of my classes has even started (my history class). Also, my b-day is coming up, which always sneaks up on me, but I’ve planned a super fun weekend with two friends here in CT before we head back to the US! I’m literally so excited, cause they’re arriving today, so wish me lots of fun birthday wishes and I’ll post pics from the weekend soon. Love y’all and hope you had as exciting a summer as I did!

So, this is part two of our stay in Martinique; if you’d like to check out part one, here’s the link: https://jadebennett.com/2023/06/10/tobago-martinique-pt-1/.

Anyhow, I wanted to make a part two to give more detail on all the things we did while in Martinique. We rented a car and spent a few days exploring the island. We loved Martinique and I think we’re planning to sail back there at some point in the next year.

We rented a car last week, and our first order of business was saying “goodbye” to Cleo’s friend who had been staying with us and driving her to the airport. After that, we drove to the botanical gardens on the island, explored the beautiful botany, and had lunch. After that, we stopped by the mall and stocked up on all the food we had been missing. It had felt like forever since we’d had access to a good grocery store with everything we needed, so we ended up with a loooot of bags.

The next day, we drove to a waterfall my mom had heard about and hiked a short distance to it. It was in a cavern, so after descending for a while, we had to walk through the valley-like stone to the beginning of the waterfall. It was so beautiful! And the water was amazing!

Now, we’ve sailed away from Martinique and are currently in St. Vincent. We’re parked here for a bit because Cleo is flying out today, and we’re picking up one of Stella’s friends. Then, I’m flying out on the 23rd to start my summer in LA with theater camp (aghghghgh!!). I’m so excited and will try to capture as much as I can and post while at camp, but I can’t make any promises—I expect to be kept very busy!

Hey, y’all! Howdy! What a long few weeks it’s been, huh? I can’t remember when I last posted, but I know it was about Brazil and Fernando de Noronha. I think, in retrospect, not a significant amount of stuff has taken place since then, but it just feels like it’s been a while. Anyway, into what’s been happening…

So, Tobago was awesome! It was definitely super great to be back in full Caribbean mode, which wasn’t happening in Brazil and Fernando. The fruit, the heat, the water, the accent—everything feels like deja vu to me! We spent a year in the Caribbean when I was five, so I have very vague memories of things we’re doing now, which is eerie. But we never got to Tobago, so it didn’t feel particularly nostalgic or odd to me when we walked around town. We checked in in the main town, then sailed around to a nicer anchorage where we spent about a week waiting for Cleo to fly in from Guatemala, where she’d been at camp.

Once, she got on board, we spent another few days in Tobago, doing some exploring with her. We rented a car for a few days, ate amazing Tobagan food, and did some exploration of the island. Then, we sailed to Martinique! Martinique we also didn’t get to when I was younger, so it hasn’t felt too familiar either. But, though I haven’t done as much exploring as my family, I did find it super pretty. The French food is just—*french kiss*. Also, the check-in process was heavenly; online, easy, and didn’t even need Cleo and me.

A few days ago, a friend of Cleo’s and Stella arrived. I’ve been focusing on finishing the school year, so we haven’t done much more exploration of the island, but we plan to in the near future, which is why I’ve made this a part one. I’ll post again with a more in-depth review of everything we’ve done in the future! I’ll also try my hardest to post during the summer, but it will probably be as sporadic as the regular year because I’m going away to camp for three weeks and then moving around the US for a while, but I’ll try to be as regular as possible!

Also, sidetrack, I am absolutely living my most nurtured life as a Swiftie rn! With her being on tour, I’m already at my peak existence, but also with the appearances in NYC, the Speak Now TV announcement (*incoherent screaming*), and the break-up with Ma**y He**y, I’m thriving. Although I did die for a second there when she released You’re Losing Me, I was soon brought back to life and have learned to avoid that song if I wish to remain that way. I just feel so blessed and lucky to be under the T. Swift umbrella of karma, where I know she is the best of the best and will continue to produce better and more art than anyone else out there. She is truly amazing and I want her to be so happy! Love ya, Blondie!

Hey, I’m back—finally!! It feels like it’s been so long since I posted and a lot has happened, both in my own life and in the general world! Of course, by “the general world” I mean the Swiftieverse, but you guys already knew that. It’s so exciting to see The Eras Tour begin over the past month, and see tons of clips of the different eras. I’m definitely okay with seeing spoilers because they help to hype me up for when I get to see her in August. I still have to get through the school year but all I can think about is TET! Aghhh!

And, on top of that, she fricking announced Speak Now TV! What?!?!? Is she trying to make me fail all my classes by taking up 100% of my brain mass? Seriously, I’m convinced she’s trying to kill us all. Hearing that Nashville crowd go absolutely berserk was exactly what was happening in my brain. Anyway, I can’t spend my entire post talking about how T. Swift is trying to give me serious medical conditions; I have to actually tell you guys what’s been happening in my life.

I took my AP Psychology exam on May 2nd, which I’ve been prepping for throughout the past two months, basically. I felt pretty good about it, but we’ll get my scores back in July, so plenty of time to nurture my anxiety and convince myself that I failed the test! Yay!!

After my exam, we spent a few days relaxing in Recife, then packed up the boat and sailed for two days to an island off the coast called Fernando de Noronha. The passage was a little tough, just because we haven’t sailed in a while and Cleo left while we were in Recife. That means Dafne’s crew is down to only three members, which makes my watch schedule longer. I definitely felt a bit overwhelmed by the added responsibility, but we still have time to find the right balance. We’re planning to only spend a few days in Fernando, then head off on a two week passage to Tobago.

However, we’ve encountered some maintenance malfunctions in Dafne, so my dad is trying to fix those before we start that passage to Tobago. I also have some school and classes to catch up on, so that’s what the last few days have been. I do like being on passage, but it’s going to be tough to try to do school on passage these next weeks. Ugh. I wish I was in the US going to Taylor’s concerts every night. Well, at least I can live vicariously like all other international Swifties!

After being disappointed by St. Helena, we set off for the longer of the two passages, heading to Recife, Brazil, on the coast of South America. I’ve been excited to visit South America for years—it’s super high on my bucket list—so I was excited when we planned to spend the last few months of the school year and my AP exam in May in Brazil.

The passage was about two weeks long and actually flew by without any hiccups. I did a ton of schoolwork, however, mostly centered around the AP Psychology course I’ve been taking this year. I plan to take the exam in May and wanted to finish the course with plenty of time to review and feel secure in my knowledge—though I have a feeling I’m not going to do super well. So, over the passage to Brazil, I buckled down on the course, not focusing on my other classes (which is paying off now), and instead finishing it before we pulled into Recife. Since then, I’ve refocused on my other classes and caught up in time to begin meeting with my teachers again.

We’ve been docked in Recife now for about a week and we’ve cleared into the country, explored some of the city’s history, and gotten familiar with the layout of the marina. For me, I’ve been focusing on school, but we all took a break yesterday for my dad’s birthday to explore all the cool stuff he wanted to know about Recife.

This past week, we’ve been marking Recife on our checklist of a new place that I mentioned in my St. Helena post. So far, we’ve run into some basic problems: the water is dirty, there are rats at the marina (a really big “no, no” for us!), and the climate is so different from Southern Africa, we’ve been sweating nonstop. Even as I sit here after the sun’s set, I am still sweating illogically! After that, some other frustrations we’ve had is with the language barrier here. Recife is a large city in Brazil, but not as big as Rio, so it’s not exactly centered around catering to English-speaking foreigners. All the same, we’ve been super surprised by the lack of any English and had to quickly up our game in Portuguese. Also, of course, it’s Portuguese—of course! They just had to be the only Portuguese-speaking country in South America! Argh!

Other than that, we had a ton of fun exploring everything about the city, and the history is super novel and interesting to us. If we can get past the basic problems, I can see us loving it here for the next six weeks!

St. Helena is a pretty cool place to say you’ve been to, but the same can’t be said about actually experiencing the island. There are different sides to the coin of this opinion, and I’m sure many people have visited the island and found it charming and perfect. But, this wasn’t the view of my family and me upon arriving, and even though we found some cool activities to do, there were many downsides to our visit.

From the Dafne Crew’s perspective, St. Helena island was not at all superb. A lot of the things we look for in a place that makes it a great experience are small(ish) things that are almost unique to travel on a boat: a clean harbor/marina, good moorings or anchoring area, dinghy access, clean water to swim and filter, no bugs, etc. These things are basic stuff we’ve discovered has a nasty tendency to drive us away from a perfectly nice place. The second priorities after these basic ones are met are less bothersome frustrations and more pleasing inclinations: great natural life to experience cheaply or easily, accessible and interesting culture/history. We’ve been to a lot of places that don’t tick many of these boxes, and we find that we tend to not like to spend much time there, depending on the priority of each unchecked box. St. Helena was a bit of a mixed bag on this checklist.

On the one hand, our basic priorities were met, for the most part. The harbor was safe and clean, with no bugs, but the transportation to and from land was tricky, as there was only a ferry service that was poorly managed. Our secondary priorities were much more skewed to the other end of the spectrum. Even though the natural world was great and we went diving and swimming much more than in Namibia, the whole island was extremely expensive and so was, for the most part, inaccessible to us. We went on a few touristy trips and hikes to see the island and its history, but not as many as we wished for. On top of that, and probably most importantly, the internet was expensive, difficult to find, and not an option for us at all. Although we had planned to get back to classes and work comfortably after passage, we couldn’t do that in St. Helena, which cause us to cut our visit to the island shorter than we intended.

Now, this bleak description is a response to my family’s own specific needs; if you’re not looking to have access to the internet while on St. Helena, you will greatly satisfied with your situation. However, that’s not what we wanted.

For one thing, everything was expensive, but nothing more than the stuff we needed most: the internet. St. Helena is a British colony, so they use pounds, but even then, they are a tourist economy, so most of the touristy stuff we wanted to do (hikes, whale shark dives, etc) was expensive. On top of that, SIM cards and other internet options were just as pricy, as well as supposed internet cafes charging by the hour wifi access. To say the least, we were all expecting to get work done, have internet after a week of none, and, most of all, DO SOME SCHOOl, but had to absolutely abandon these plans after one day of exploring our internet options and coming up both empty handed and penniless.

Secondly, the island is super small and there aren’t a ton of tourist attractions. This was a fine revelation for us until we realized that the main thing we wanted to do (hike) was expensive and not worth it. After a week of being cooped up on a boat, the first thing you want to do is stretch your legs, and we were frustrated we couldn’t do that on St. Helena.

But, like I said, all of these things and other grievances we had were completely subjective and we meet plenty (or as many as a tiny island can generate) of other cruisers and tourists who didn’t feel this way about St. Helena. Also, we found joy in other things, as the natural life of the island was beautiful and we budgeted for a trip to see the famed whale sharks.

All in all, the trip wasn’t a complete bust, but we did end up cutting our time short on St. Helena, as I really wanted to get back to classes with my teachers and my dad had pressing work deadlines. I’d not say I’d want to go back there, but, for all the frustrations we faced, it was good to know there was a silver lining.

Hi all! Sorry for going MIA for like a month and a half, but we had some pretty big plans for these past weeks and I’ve been busy catching up on school since then, so I’m just now finding the time to update all of my EXTREMELY patient readers on what’s been happening. I’ve already told you guys this, but let me remind you that this blog has been (barely) functioning for nigh on four years, so you all have had ample opportunity to drop my ghosting and lazy butt. But, because you haven’t and you’ve chosen to stick with me through all my shenanigans, I have a feeling you have a soft and mushy spot for me (aww) and will be patient with me when I disappear for a month(s) at a time without any heads-up. So this is me turning over a new leaf and not apologizing multiple times in a single post for all my past-due updates, which would take way more time than simply moving on to content. In conclusion, yes, I am sorry I didn’t get these posts up by now, but this is the scattered person I am and you better deal with it! Slay, queen, if I do say so myself!

Last time I posted, I told you guys all about our Namibian travels and excursions into that fantastic country, which was, to say the least, full of desert. That, however, was only half of the time we spend in Namibia, as after we left Luderitz, we traveled up the coast to Walvis Bay.

Walvis Bay was underwhelmingly rainy and cloudy for the week or so we were there, but we didn’t do much exploring there, so it didn’t really matter. We traveled a few times to the cute, neighboring town Swakopmund, which was near Walvis Bay, but not every day because I had classes and my dad had work calls. I did a lot of schoolwork and classes, trying to get as much face-to-face time with my teachers as possible before we set out to cross the Atlantic and I wouldn’t have a connection or be able to submit work at all.

At the end of our time in Namibia, Cleo’s friend who had been crewing with us left to go home to Cape Town and we rechecked all our metaphorical straps before setting out on the first leg of our journey across the big blue sea to the island of St. Helena.

I realize I haven’t fully explained passages to you guys and for this, I am truly sorry and embarrassed to have been a freaking BOAT blogger for years and not have posted about the true act of sailing somewhere. I’m going to remedy this situation at some point with a lengthy and as academic as I can muster description of all things nautical. However, that will have to wait, so I’ll just give you guys a quick crash course of our first passage crossing the Atlantic.

For those of you not familiar with sailing vocabulary, a “passage” is what we sailers call a period of time spent transiently moving between two destinations on a boat. I realize it is a general term, as it can refer to anything from a few hours to months at sea and to distances that range just as much. But, the important thing to remember is that most short passages, specifically a day or less, can be referred to as “day sails.” In context: “The day sail yesterday was lovely and short and gave us ample opportunity to sunbathe.” “The six-day-long passage rained 90% of the time and I was miserable and cold for most of it.” Capisce?

For recreational and private yachts, like Dafne, when, where, and how, we sail is entirely our own choice, but there are certain universal rules or norms that help to govern and ensure safety for a lot of boats. To the best of my ability, I will try to summarize them here. For safety, people always arrange a watch system, where someone is always awake, or, for people sailing alone (called “single-handers”), a timer is set to wake them up periodically (usually not longer than an hour) and check everything around them. On Dafne, because we have enough people, we arrange three-hour shifts for each of us, rotating throughout the day so that someone is always awake and keeping the boat safe. I have the 9-12 shift, so I’m awake and alert during those hours, AM and PM, where the weight of the whole world—erm, just Dafne and my family—rests on my slouchng shoulders.

What are some dangers that prompt this schedule and make watches so important? Well, if you’re sailing in a populated area, which is most of the time, there are often other boats, land masses, or underwater obtrusions that you can run into. So, scanning the horizon is an important part of watches. I’ll go into this and many other aspects of passages and watches in the previously mentioned scholarly articles I plan to post sometime in the ill-defined future. For now, all you need to know is that life on passage consists of sectioned times in the day where you’re responsible for everything. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone else is asleep—although sometimes they are—and it also definitely doesn’t mean that if something happens, you’re responsible. No, if anything out of the ordinary happens, I definitely wake up my dad and ask him what to do—successful aquatic human, you’re looking at her (actually you’re looking at a screen).

Passage is, for my sister, equivalent to death, as there is nothing unusual or stimulating happening. But, for me, it’s a kin to peace and serenity; no one bothering me for any reason, not having to hang out with anyone. The passage to St. Helena was like this for all aboard Dafne, as the seas were surprisingly gentle and calm and the wind was our friend. But, we didn’t see any wildlife, and things changed when we got to our destination, which was not all it was cracked up to be.

Hey all! We’re back with a travel post, and let me tell you, this is a big one. We’ve been in Namibia for the past three weeks, and for the past week and a half or so, we’ve been road-tripping around the country. This was such a beautiful trip because of how unique the Namib desert is, but also because of all the animals, views, new experiences, and good times we had on the trip!

We set out from Luderitz on January 18th, and spent the first week or so day driving between campsites. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking. There’s nothing quite like the desert. It’s a full experience—the sand, the dryness, the windswept hair, the sunburns, the SAND. I swear, it was such an experience to find sand in everything and everywhere. My mom was thrilled about that!

During that first week, we stopped at scenic places for pictures, climbed a dune for sunrise, and tried (and failed) to avoid the heat of the day. We stopped at campsites for the evening, sleeping on top of the car in tents—and, in my case, in the backseat of the car. Then, my dad had a trip to go on for work to London, so we dropped him at the airport in Windhoek and continued on to a coastal town called Swakopmund.

We spent three days in a nice, urban campsite in the town, exploring (them) and doing school (me). I was still on school while we were road tripping, which is not as easy as it sounds. There was a lot of intense study sessions over a few hours and then days of nothing, which is basically the only way to do school/work when your on a trip. It wasn’t super fun, and I complained a lot, but what could I do? I also had classes with my teachers, which was probably the worst because I had to do them in restaurants or cafes with Wifi. So annoying!

Anyway, after Swakopmund, we drove back to Windhoek and picked up my dad, then drove up to Etosha, which is a park of animals. We spent two days driving around within the park, looking at whatever game we could find. It wasn’t super great, as it was just more time in the car, but I did like seeing all the animals. We saw giraffes, zebra, buffalos, wildebeest, hyenas, antelopes, and more!

After Etosha, we decided we wanted to cut our originally two week trip down to around ten days. We started heading back to Luderitz, which would turn into a day and a half trip. That’s a lot of driving!

We’re back in Luderitz, and I’ve been slaving away at school for the past two days as we wait around for good wether to continue our trek up the coast of Namibia. Our next stop is Walvis Bay, and we plan to start sailing there tomorrow. It will probably be about a two day trip, and I’ll have a few days after to do some school before I start classes again. Ugh, why is life so difficult? At least we have the desert!