Hud closes out a wave in the Pauhana Surf Competition. Photo Credit: Chameleon Creative Arts

Truer words were never painted on a concrete electrical post.

A great big ocean with great big waves makes it easy to get lost, and sometimes its just more fun to share a wave with your friend (Hudson and his amigo Alex)

Background: "LG the Master" shares his endless knowledge of the sea with the curious and willing. Foreground: Our friend Diony.

Trav's Mom Ginger and her husband Tom came to visit us. They arrived the day after Hurricane Irma and stayed through Hurricane Maria.  That's a whole lotta hurricane!  With them, they brought treasures from the US, such as...

The new camera we had ordered! (As seen in Jen's glasses).

And  Jen's new Swatch, which is obviously fascinating and of great interest to all...

This talented Hatian woman walks around with 20lbs of fruit in a large bowl balanced on her head. She will slice you up a fruit salad at a moment's notice with her machete.

La Chabola ("The Shack", pizza restaurant extraordinaire) is one of the zillion reasons why it is going to be hard to leave Cabarete and return to our boat.

Johnny making pizza magic.

Finally, an energy drink for strippers.

Somehow this returnable bottle of tonic water did not get the memo that all beverages need to be made from nonreturnable plastic so we can throw them on the ground at the beach.

Tom enjoys an introspective moment at the Belgian Bakery.

One of the big reasons we decided to hang out in the Dominican Republic for the hurricane season is that the protected Luperon harbor makes an excellent hurricane hole.  When a storm heads towards the north coast of the DR, many boats seek protection here by burying their bows into the mangroves and tying a bunch of lines to the stout mangrove trees.  Mangroves are smart things to tie your boat to in a hurricane.  But what about tying your boat to a...

...half-sunk dock?!? We are not sure of the mind set of "Wayward Sun".  Our limited hurricane preparation experiences have led us to steer clear of sinking docks and grounded sailboats (note the powder blue one in the background) when a storm approaches.

Hurricane Maria was forecast to peel off the north coast of the DR before it reached Luperon.  So we  decided to keep Moxie on the mooring ball and deploy a couple of extra anchors (just in case).

Luperon harbor

Hurricane Day! When the wind cranks and the sea gets mad, its time to....

...have a bunch of friends over and have a hurricane party!  And these guys can dance.

"Can we play with playdough on the floor?"  Sure, it's a hurricane party! Anything goes.

Serious reconsideration going on about the party playdough policy.

The day after the party.  Compared to how other islands have suffered, the damage here in the DR was nothing.

Vivian took Grammie horseback riding in the mountains!

Cheese puffs make any dog your best friend .

This guy was not having it, any of it.  We now know what "squealing like a pig" sounds like.

Beautiful views on our horseback ride.

Good byes are tough. "That bridge has a dent in it, and another and another." P.S. We drove over this bridge.

I would say this girl has a little raccoon in her.  Once they taste the trash it's hard to get them back to the pasture.

Circus school is a bi-weekly obsession for Hud and Viv.  Here's Viv's first go at the silks.

Waiting for Aunt Sarah to get off the plane.

Jen & her sister Sarah, windsurfing it up.

Hud's first windsurf with the harness!

We loved having Aunt Sarah here!

And it was so sad to say goodbye.  Especially since right after we dropped her at the airport...

...our car wouldn't start.  6 or 7 random strangers attempted to help us get one last start out of our cheapo rental car.  These guys worked on the car for a solid 40 minutes.  NOTE TO THE WORLD: 98% of humans are kind, helpful, and generous.

Pool time is the daily, late afternoon ritual.

We were so lucky to spend time with some of our Telluride friends who were working on a film here in Cabarete.  Thanks you Suzan, Stash, Jim and Doug for the fun  (and all the juicy T-ride news we've been missing out on).

Here's Sadie rockin' her new shell collar at Encuentro.  Now she can hang in style with the other beach doggies.

Viv loves to catch waves with her pal Cairo.

We are so proud of our surfer girl.

In a gorgeous cave in El Choco National Park

Jumping into a pristine cave pool at El Choco

Cave swimmers, post leap

Ever had a sweet little crush?  It starts out innocently enough...a few walks on the beach, a delicious dinner or two...but it's just a fun flirtation, it's not like it's going to turn into anything serious. In fact, there a bunch of things about your crush that totally irritate you, such as... My crush drives like a maniac!  My crush needs a stronger appreciation of art! My crush could maintain better hygiene! And you say to yourself "This is fun for NOW, but this could NEVER be a long-term thing." And then, out of the blue, something changes.  You get to know your crush on a deeper level.  Your crush starts to really open up to you.  You realize how much you and your crush have in common.  A lot of the things that used to bother you about your crush now seem...endearing. And then, it hits you.  Your heart pounds and your palms get sweaty, and you realize, "This is no crush. I AM IN LOVE."

This is what has happened to us.  The Moxie crew is head over heels in love with Cabarete.  If you had asked us two years ago what was our favorite place on earth, we would have cheerily answered, "Telluride, of course!"  Well move over, Southwestern Colorado.  We met a new babe, a badass one and a real looker to boot.  It's still too soon to say that she's THE ONE, but it has crossed our minds to start looking at rings. 

The PEOPLE of the Dominican Republic have stolen our hearts, hook, line and sinker.  Just about every Dominican you meet will smile at you in an explosion of sincerity that involves all facial muscles and displays every tooth.  (No U.S. tight-lipped, perfunctory half-smiles here).  Dominican smiles elevate your entire day.  When Dominicans smile at you, even (and especially) complete strangers, it feels like they are saying, "I See You.  I acknowledge that we are sharing the same place and time on earth, and I'm glad that we are."

There's a bumper sticker in Colorado that we're not fond of.  It proclaims, "NATIVE" inside an outline of the state.  This sticker seems to say, "You might like living here, but I am FROM here.  Therefore, I belong here in a way that you do not."  (Trav says he's going to make a NATIVE sticker that's in the shape of the earth. I like that one better.)  In Cabarete, no one makes you feel like a tourist.  In fact, it's the opposite-- we've found that locals here really appreciate the fact that you like Cabarete; they seem to find joy in your like-mindedness.  The locals here have treated us with the utmost kindness, warmth, and kinship.  Dominicans tend to live simply, and from what we've observed, they live happily.  The vibe is casual, relaxed, nature-loving and family-oriented.  There is very little in the way of "keeping up with the Jones'" (an American friend of ours recently told us that since she moved here no one has ever, not once, asked her what she does for a living).

In our 6 months of living here, our family has relished the opportunity to learn Spanish.  We have many friends that speak no English and it's these awesome relationships that have pushed us as a family to keep making connections and grasping new phrases.  My Espanol has been seriously tested lately as I've begun teaching dramatic play classes at Charlie's Foundation (charliesfoundation.org),   a local educational organization for local children aged 3-14.  (I can't wait to start sharing some photos of my students.  They are among the most beautiful children on this earth, I swear.)  I will share more about my Cabarete drama teaching here in a future blog post, but for now I will tell you: I ABSOLUTELY LOVE being a drama teacher again, especially having been given an opportunity to put my skills to such valuable use.  I am exhilarated! Thank you, universe!!!   

Like many romantic tales, our Cabarete love story will eventually come to a bittersweet end.  We did not embark on this sailing trip to stay in one place, after all; the point is to SAIL.  And we do miss living on Moxie and all the challenges and sweetness she brings.  This crew is getting soft living in our cushy, air-conditioned pad and when it's time to shove off, I know it will feel right. (Because when things get too easy, history has shown us that we are not on the right path.) The plan is to get back to Luperon and live on the boat starting in December, and shove off for Puerto Rico when the wind allows.  When we leave our beloved Cabarete, I know there will be tears.  
Breaking up is hard to do.

Thank you, sweet reader friends!  We love you!

Marshmallow gets prepped for take off!

Two weeks ago, Trav and I were driving a Land Rover Discovery and a 2013 Toyota Tacoma.  Today, these are our wheels.  She's a 1995 Chevy van with a blue velvet interior.  She's got a TV/VCR unit that plays VHS tapes and she smells like a former smoking room at the Days Inn. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet "Marshmallow"!!  (Naming credit goes to Vivian). Every single item we are taking with us to start our new life fits inside (or on top) of Marshmallow.  The plan is that Marshmallow will take us to Maine, and then in October, to Florida.  We are about to become very well acquainted with Marshmallow.  I hope she likes us.

In typical Julia fashion, the launch that was supposed to happen on Monday is happening today (Thursday), but it's 9 am and Trav is still emailing clients and finishing billing and doesn't look like he'll be done any time soon.  At this rate, we may still be here when our renters arrive.  (We'll all bunk in together, I bet they'll LOVE that!)

The house is an echoey shell, everything packed and stored away.  We've been sleeping in sleeping bags because I washed the bedding and put it all away 3 days ago. We have signs on 3 out of 4 bathrooms that say DO NOT USE because I scrubbed them to an immaculate shine and they're going to stay that way.  Last night was our last night sleeping in this house we love.  I was expecting to have some sort of ceremony or special moment or family hug or something but we were all so exhausted and stressed out there was none of that whatsoever.  The kids tumbled like dirty zombies into their sleeping bags, Trav worked on property management stuff until super late, and I made a disgustingly sweet bowl of oatmeal mixed with a packet of Swiss Miss dry instant cocoa and ate it while watching Orange is the New Black, the episode where we find out why Crazy Eyes is in prison, and it seriously upset and disturbed me.  It was not a good night.

Now it's the morning, the supposed morning of our departure, and I keep creeping into Trav's office, asking him if he needs any help and when he thinks he might be done.  I know I am not actually helping when I do this, but I can't stop.  WE NEED TO LEAVE TODAY!!  We absolutely, positively need to be in Maine by the 10th because Trav has an important family thing and we have to be there. It's a 40 hour drive to Maine, and if we don't leave today we'll have to rush there and we'll be miserable the entire drive.  I'm also trying not to think about the fact that Marshmallow's AC isn't working and Trav fixed it himself using some kind of epoxy, a technique he learned on YouTube.

 I think that I'd be sad about leaving Telluride and all of the people and things we love here but I'm too stressed out to think about it.  Maybe that's a good thing.  SIGH. Until next time friends, we send heaps and bucketloads of love and appreciation and gratitude to everyone who has helped us, hugged us, and wished us well on our journey.  Thank you, Telluride. We love you so.
(Now cross your fingers for us! xo)

       

Moog reads a chart, Hud at the helm

Our Telluride time is ticking away, just three more weeks and we'll be on the road! I've managed to purge 75% of our belongings and the acoustics of our house have seriously changed-- there's an echo now that all the "stuff" used to absorb, and our house feels lighter and larger. What Trav and I find most interesting about this major purge we've done is that neither of us can remember most of the things we've gotten rid of.  Which proves, I suppose, that none of those things were ever very important or necessary in the first place.  Our closets rattle with empty hangers, our shelves sit silent and empty. Only the things we truly USE are allowed to stay.  The minimalist life begins!  And it feels right.

In the midst of all the packing, I found these two photos, taken four years ago in the San Juan Islands. As you can see, our kids have been sailing since they were knee high to grasshoppers, and as a result, being on the water is as natural to them as skiing.  They are mountain/ocean kids.  When we asked them over a year ago if they would like to live on a sailboat, they didn't hesitate to scream, "YES!", and then follow up with the question, "Can we leave tomorrow?" Our kids have giant appetites for adventure, natural curiosity about just about everything, and serious cases of wanderlust.  This makes us proud.

One of the most challenging tasks Hud & Viv have tackled recently is selecting the playthings they'll take on the boat.  We gave them each a small plastic bin about 2 feet wide and one foot deep, and told them that whatever they could fit into their box, that's what they could take.  (Books, games, sand toys and art supplies are separate, of course, and we are taking abundant amounts of those things).  Watching the kids sort through their belongings and decide what matters most to them has been fascinating.  For Viv, it's all about tiny plastic ponies and snuggle toys.  Not a single doll made the cut.  Hud's box is filled with Tech Decks (mini skateboards) and Legos.  My gut tells me that it doesn't matter very much anyway, for just as Trav and I already can't remember what we've sold or given away, the kids will also lose interest in their belongings.  My guess is that once we're on the boat, those toy bins will be stowed and seldom opened as the natural playground that surrounds us takes hold of their imaginations. OR I could be totally wrong and they will be begging us to ship in some plastic crap from Amazon...only time will tell.

Until next time, friends!  Thank you for reading.

This is our handsome Captain, "Dad" (or Travis).  A true Maine boy, Trav has been skiing and sailing with style since he was knee high to a grasshopper.  A serious goofball (an oxymoron, but intended as a high compliment), this amazing Dad keeps all of us laughing and is the inspired instigator of our new life plan.  He has successfully transformed his family into a boat-loving, water-obsessed, nature freak gang of wanderlusters.  Lucky us!

This is Hudson: expert dingy-driver, sick mogul skier, talented artist and fish taco enthusiast. (According to Hud, the lionfish tacos at Hatchet Caye, Belize are the best he's ever tried, and he's tried a lot,) At ten years old, there's no adventure too large or small for Hud.  He's also a super loving, very protective and wonderfully fun big brother.

This is Vivian: passionate traveler, ballerina, ardent student of the Mandarin language (really), and asker of deep questions.  Viv is a seven year old with a true appetite for adventure and learning.  She loves snuggling and refers to Hud as her best friend.

This is me, Mom (also known as Jen).  I'm a children's theater director and playwright, but currently full-time first mate and homeschooling mom.  I love life and am natually curious about just about everything.  Spending time with my family is what I love best.