I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I LOVE our Advanced Elements inflatable kayak. Yesterday, after driving out to Skidaway Island State Park and going for a two-hour sunset paddle, I found myself thinking about all the wonderful mini-adventures we’ve had with it. It is a seriously amazing toy, especially because of the ease with which we are able to tote it around and set it up virtually whenever and wherever we want. It was a wonderful companion to our sailboat and now a wonderful companion to the jeep! To honor the ‘yak, I put together a photo gallery of some of the great times we’ve had with her. Enjoy!
My shop is officially open for business! — Phase one has begun. Or maybe this is phase two? Regardless, I am taking orders, and I can’t tell you how excited I was to package up my first few shipments today.  Thank you to those of you who bought one (or two!) of my hand-printed tees this week! It’s so exciting for me to finally deliver on this goal. Hopefully this endeavor will pave the way for future sailing trips and art projects — and provide fuel for future blog entries.
Speaking of projects: the next phase of Forest and Fin is going to involve some environmental non-profits and a few new t-shirt designs, which means it’s back to the drawing board for me. Although I mean that in a good way, of course. Time to bust out the dusty old sketchbook and grab my pens and watercolors. I am going to be designing some new tees to promote a couple amazing people and organizations that I know, and I can’t wait to tell you more about it.
It’s been important for me from the beginning to come up with a collaborative way to support non-profit organizations that are pertinent to the ideals of Forest and Fin. Why? Because the work they do inspires me, it informs my artwork, and enriches the environments that surround me. Forest and Fin is not just a blog, although it started out that way; it’s not just about my lifestyle or the art that I produce; and it’s certainly not simply a way for me to make money selling my t-shirts. But it has become an integrated platform for all of these outlets. Forest and Fin is multi-faceted; none of these things work by themselves, because they only identify with one aspect of my personality at a time.
When I am true to all of the different facets, it all comes together in a circular way that makes sense. Forest and Fin is about lifestyle, conscious sustainable living, art, and the appreciation of the nature that surrounds us. But why stop there? It’s time to take action. I want to donate my skills as an artist and t-shirt designer to organizations that protect, preserve, or conserve the environment. I am putting together a non-profit line: shirts designed specifically for a particular environmental non-profit. I will donate a percentage of my profits to the organization and the organization will be able to sell the shirt themselves to raise money for their projects. I am just getting started, but I have at least one organization on board already. I will be posting about it soon I hope!
And last, but not least (of course), if you know anyone at all (individual, shop, boutique, environmental non-profit, etc. etc. etc) who would be interested in a Forest and Fin shirt, please send them a link to my shop. Thanks everyone, and have a lovely weekend!
Brian and I have been in Savannah for two weeks now, and I am still learning my way around. We decided to document our summer here through a Tumblr called Savannah Summer. This is just a little side project that Brian started to document our time on land and encourage us to get out and explore this new city as much as possible while we are here. He (we) will try to post one new photograph of Savannah everyday until September. These preliminary photographs were taken in the neighborhood around the house we are currently renting. You can click on the link to check out a few more with captions!
That’s what I’m calling myself this week. After some trial and error (and a few setbacks), my press is now in operation. That’s right, friends, I am really and truly, finally printing t-shirts again. Whew! It’s certainly felt like an uphill battle for a long time, so I am excited to have reached this point. Here is a little peek at my setup in Savannah. It’s been overwhelming, because I am learning everything as I go, but as with the boat, I’m slowly making progress and growing by leaps and bounds. Even though I know it takes time to gain experience or build a business (even a small one), sometimes I get a little impatient. There are so many “tricks of the trade” to learn! I’m taking lots of deep breath, working towards establishing a yoga routine in the morning, and attempting to take every mistake with a grain of salt. It reminds me of working on the boat in so many ways, especially when I compare the number of trips to the hardware store! But with a little more experimentation, I hope to be offering my Forest and Fin tees through the website soon! Oh, and I should probably mention that I am working in a little boy’s bedroom (hence the random toys in the background). 
I found these photographs when I was looking through my Bahamas albums last night. It’s such a shame that I didn’t get to post them while we were in the islands, but better late than never right? Brian and I have been so busy since we got back, and we’ve spent so much time in the car, driving here to there…ugh! But we are now set up in a little house in Savannah, GA — wonderful. Brian is still doing IT work remotely and decided to take up a couple new hobbies (like learning how to brew beer!), and I have finally (as of yesterday) finished setting up my print studio. I am so excited to start printing new tees and also to move on to some other art projects that have been on the back burner for a long time. More on all that soon!
While we miss life on Illusion, we are happy to be taking advantage of a little more space and AC during the hot summer months! We are cleaning up the boat and taking as much of our junk off as possible in the hopes of completing some new projects. Some of you may have heard rumors that we are looking at boats again. Well, as if we don’t have enough to worry about, yes, we are looking, but we’ll see what happens. Because we have been living aboard for two years, we have a pretty good idea of what we want! We are looking for something of similar length, but with more living space, a better layout, and a longer waterline. If we upgrade boats, we want an ocean-going vessel, heavier, more stable, and with more free board, in order to sail farther more comfortably. But, as of now, we are still planning to cruise on Illusion again this winter – hopefully probe a bit farther down into the Caribbean. I’ll try to post more pictures from our trip soon (and also some photos of the new press). Bear with me — life on land is busy, busy, busy!
Sunset over an uninhabited island, surrounded by clear blue water and coconut palms; relaxing music plays in the cockpit, while I crack into a green coconut. I pour the water from the coconut into a small blender with rum, add in some pineapple juice, sweetened condensed milk, a squeeze of lime, and a few precious cubes of ice: the perfect cocktail for a sun-downer.
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Living on the boat for Lara and I is about participating in the natural world in a more consistent way. Before we moved onto the boat, rain was something that just happened, wind mysteriously appeared and disappeared, water came from the tap, and electricity was a bill you paid. When we lived on the dock, power and water was readily available, but when we cast off the dock lines, we had to be much more aware of every drop of water that left our tanks and every amp that came out of the batteries. Developing a balanced system took time and an understanding of our needs based on the level of comfort we wanted.
We started with just a wind generator and a non-mounted 80 watt solar panel that we laid out on deck while at anchor. In general, we found that the Kiss wind generator began putting out 2 amps of power at 10 knots of wind, and at 15 knots, it generated about 6-7 amps (in the Bahamas, we averaged about 3-4 amps per hour for a 24 hour period). However, we still didn’t have enough battery capacity to keep up with the draw of the fridge, so we left it off. Surprisingly, we didn’t miss much, but we did find that sometimes a cold beer would have taken the day up a notch. While planning projects on the boat, one of the better pieces of advice I received was to decide which small bits of “luxury” made us feel most comfortable and then figure out how to incorporate it on the boat to make the trip that much better.
Lifestyle: it cannot be stressed enough. Cranking up a loud generator and constantly worrying about power doesn’t fit my image of life on a boat. I looked all over the internet and found that increasing our solar capacity was a no-brainer. Compared to running the engine (sub-optimal for diesels to run without a load) or listening to the hum of our Honda generator, solar panels were clean, quiet, and cost effective. So after 6 months of cruising without a fridge, we decided to get rid of our “sometimes” solar panel and add on two semi-permanently mounted panels to supplement the wind generator and to make us truly energy independent (and keep the beers cold).
We decided to wait until we reached Miami so that we could go to Sun Electronics and pick them out from their stock at the warehouse — no shipping and if the panel didn’t fit how we wanted it to, we could just return it. We picked out a 95 watt panel and a 75 watt panel for a total of 160 watts of solar. Not much, but the the most our transom could comfortably support. Since mounting solar panels on a boat is a notoriously tricky business, we kept it simple. We built an aluminum frame on the bottom of the smaller panel and mounted it to the stern rail with Magma Grill Mounts so it would be easily removable. For the larger panel, I used a simple bracket that I attached to the pole with hose clamps, making it easy to remove, rotate, and angle towards the sun (the arm is adjustable through 90 degrees).
All in all, the mounting and wiring process took about a day, and two panels generating 10 amps between them at full sun cost us a total of less than $600; the cold beers, silence, and ice! in the Bahamas were priceless. Now we have a more balanced system. On most days, between wind and solar, the energy flowing into our batteries matches our out-flow — and we can even afford to use a blender.
Written by: Brian Young
 In honor of the fact that I am gearing up to print t-shirts again and that I just bought a 4-color, 4-station screen-printing press, I thought I’d share a page from my sketchbook along with a few art-related tidbits that have been at the front of my mind. I am particularly fond of the page pictured above; not only are hummingbirds amazing creatures, but this little guy seemed to be begging to have his portrait made. After several days of wandering around Stocking Island (Bahamas) with my camera and my sketchbook, I captured him on camera sucking nectar from a red flower. Later, as I was making this sketch, a hummingbird flew onto a nearby porch, becoming trapped among the rafters. Obviously in need of a little help, Brian and I aided another friend of ours in offering the trapped bird a little assistance. With his tiny heart beating at hyper speed and his chest heaving, he evaded our first attempts at capture. Finally as he began to tire, we managed to trap him in a soft laundry hamper with which we were able to carry him outside. All told, it took three people, a straw hat, a tennis racket, and a laundry hamper to set him free. I’m quite sure we looked ridiculous in the process (as one can imagine), but hey, mission accomplished!
On another art-related note, I’ve been quite busy since we got back trying to get my ducks in a row as far as my art career is concerned. Over the past year, my life has been a little unbalanced in the artistic respect, the boat taking first priority in most cases. It was great to be sure, but now it’s time to shift gears. After much deliberation about how to find a better art-boat balance, I’ve come up with a goal for myself. It seems to me that something like six-eight months of intense art immersion in a year followed by a period of extended travel would be ideal, allowing me time to generate a large body of work in one go and maintain the aspects of the life on the boat that I’ve grown to love. The idea is that once the work is created, sales can trickle in over the course of the rest of the year through various avenues (i.e. internet, gallery, and boutique sales) — while I am searching for new inspiration for my next body of work. Of course, that is simply the ideal (something to work towards), and the split could always be a little different, etc.
In the meantime, I am furiously working to jump start this whole process starting with the further development of my small line of Forest and Fin t-shirts (which I plan to offer through this website soon!), and then expanding into a new series of watercolor drawings and paintings inspired by my trip. Hopefully, the former will support me for the duration of the later! I’ve rationalized it, talked myself into and out of this plan several times, but am determined to support myself with my art. If screen printing allows me to paint and painting allows me to screen print, then I will be a very happy girl.
In just two-and-a-half-days Illusion sailed from Great Sale Cay in the Abacos to Hilton Head Island, SC, the same distance that it took us a month to travel (mainly motor) via the ICW last December. This means that Brian and I are quite literally back where this whole thing started. But even though our departure from the Bahamas felt like the ending of our trip, with 3,000+ miles behind us and some 25+ islands visited, we sure have come a long way.
I have learned magnitudes: about sailing, about myself, but most importantly about the life I want to live. Although Brian and I keep putting off such decisions as where we want to be for the next six months or whether or not to sell the boat in order to get a bigger one, we have made a couple other big decisions lately. And the biggest one is this: we like the lifestyle and we want to incorporate it into our long-term plans – in other words, we want to do it again! But when and how are the more recent questions on our mind.
It was a tough decision to head back to the States (mainly a financial one), especially since we know how hard it is to actually leave in the first place. Consider that it took us a whole year after our planned departure just to make it to the Bahamas! But I have always loved the saying, the journey is the reward, and I think it is particularly fitting. We learned so much in our first year, traveling from Hilton Head Island to Annapolis, MD, and learned so much more in the process of bringing the boat back south last fall.
It was because of all of our coastal cruising, that the Bahamas truly felt like a playground. I still don’t consider myself a great sailor, but I know how to handle the boat in so many different situations. Certainly Brian and I found ourselves to be a functioning team. I’m not sure why I needed to prove it to myself, but I feel much better having come to the realization that, as far as cruising is concerned, we measure up. I think now I am finally ready enough to let the chips fall where they may.
On the last morning of our passage back to Hilton Head Island, a pod of spotted dolphins came to visit us four separate times over the course of the day. Beginning with a morning show for Brian, they played in our bow wave and launched out of the water around us for a good thirty minutes each time. I put Brian on dolphin duty, meaning he had to take the tiller so that I could run up to the ratlines and take a hundred or so photos. It was such a beautiful sight to behold, that it was hard to feel sad about leaving. Plus, the fact that the same pod of ten or so dolphins returned four times to escort Illusion home seems like a pretty good omen to me. So let the chips fall where they may! I am rolling with it and coming to terms with the fact that our plans are still yet-to-be-determined. After all, that is one of the most important lessons of cruising.
Or perhaps you can help us determine when and how the next adventure will take place! Stay tuned….
Zebra-striped snail shells cover the rock shoreline, while sea urchins cling to the inner pockets along the divide between land and surf. Waves pound against bluffs that twist into vertical rock formations or flatten onto deserted beaches. Someone has created a trash sculpture of a man. He sags under a burden of miscellaneous plastics that even the fierce elements cannot destroy. Fitting really, if you think about it. Man creates trash; man builds trash sculpture in his likeness — something to remember him by. His presence is felt all along the deserted stretch of shore. But just over the next bluff lies another lagoon-like beach without a trash man.
Sometimes it’s easy to get carried away here — or maybe even a little bit lost. You could imagine that you are the first to set your foot in this exact spot, that even though this island was discovered hundreds of years ago, that you are seeing it just as it looked the first time. Then you notice a length of neon-blue line tangled around a piece of driftwood or the rusty nails protruding from a weathered board. Don’t worry, I tell myself. It’s just the trash-man assembling his limbs. In fact, this shattered blue bucket could be the next trash-man torso. It may never have a heart, but already it has a presence.
When you live on a boat, there is still nothing better than stretching your legs on a new piece of earth, especially when it’s filled with beauty and life. With each step, your muscles rejoice, reaching out to meet the ground. I place my footprints in the sand next to the tracks of lizards and birds; I squat down to peer at snails and to look for fish trapped in pools of water; and I examine sun-bleached chunks of brain coral. Just as the trash-man, my presence is certainly felt, but the difference is that I do not linger.
Four sailors set out to hike the beach and bluffs of Great Guana Cay. Little did they know, they were in for some bushwhacking. But what adventure doesn’t involve a few scratches? Or forging a path through heavy underbrush and shrub palms while traversing caverns of porous rock formations? Or a race to get back to the dingy before dark only to find that the tide has really fallen, and it is now beached far from the water? Next adventure: getting back to the boat. Such is a day in the life of a traveling artist.
*I could not find a picture of the trash-man among my photos, but you can click on the link above to see a photograph that Brittany of Wind Traveler took.
At 4:30 pm Illusion sat in the sand mere feet away from the Staniel Cay waypoint, but the tide was at dead low. Brian put the motor on the dingy and attached the spinnaker halyard, running straight out from our starboard beam. Illusion strained ever so slightly and heeled over a tiny bit more. Even with full sails, we couldn’t tilt her over far enough to get her keel out of the sand.
It wasn’t long before a deluge of dingies came into sight, surrounding Illusion like a school of fish. It seemed that everyone wanted to lend a hand. We sent two dingies to the bow to “push” and the largest dingy to the other side to pull on the spinnaker halyard again. On the count of three, I gave Illusion half throttle forward and the tug-o-war began.
Illusion rocked over to her port side and slowly began to spin in a half circle, but to no avail. It’s an especially low tide today, one man told us, but any minute now the tide will begin rising and you should be able to float off. Scott and Nat, showed up in Rasmus‘s small inflatable, coming from beyond the famous Thunderball Grotto (of 007 fame) on their two-horsepower motor. They had arrived an hour before us and were well into a batch of sangria, when we had radioed. Although it was obvious that there was nothing to be done, they kept us company while we dropped anchor and waited for the tide to rise.
By the time we floated out of the sand, it was nearly dark. We motored into the deep channel that wound its way past the Staniel Cay Yacht club and around the giant rocks to where our friends were anchored behind the Grotto. Since it had grown dark and the current had become quite strong, we picked up a mooring for the night. It wasn’t until several evenings later that five of us headed over to the Grotto to see what it was all about.
Our first view of the Thunderball Grotto was of the giant rock in which it resides. The entrance itself is not overly obvious, except for the small dingy mooring that sits in front. At high tide, the entrance is actually covered with water, but at low tide, you can swim into it without having to hold your breath.
Amazing. I pulled on my flippers and stuck my feet in the cool water before hopping all the way in. It was slack tide. Small yellow-and-black stripped fish swam up to me looking for food. We were in maybe ten feet of water hovering over a white sandy bottom. Little schools of fish swam past us, the larger fish darted for the entrance to the cave. As I approached, the bottom became more interesting and the fish began to increase in size. There were little patches of coral and vegetation covering the ground.
I snorkeled through the entrance to be sure that I didn’t scrape against the rocks. A bright teal-green parrot fish swam under me, puckering his big yellow lips, and a brown-stripped grouper cowered in a small pocket in the rock. When I lifted my head and peered above the water, I realized that I was in a huge chamber. In fact there were two-chambers, the second even larger than the first. The ceiling of the cave was dome-shaped with a small hole in the center that let in a small amount of sunlight. On a small scale, it reminded me of the Pantheon in Rome. We swam around the rocks and chased the small schools of fish at the entrance until the current grew stronger and the sun was setting in the sky.
We stayed in Staniel Cay for three days. It was a beautiful and remote little town, and seemed to be quite the popular place.
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In early 2009, I moved onto an old Chris Craft sailboat with my boyfriend, and I decided to become an artist. This blog chronicles the pursuit of my dreams, exploration, travel, and art.
Join me for the adventure!
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