Tallyho Thailand! The six-pack sails again!

Four years ago three couples met up in Athens, Greece and assembled themselves aboard a 40' sailboat named Daphne. Amidst the tubs of olives, crates of feta and bottles of ouzo was
one bonafide sailor, one sailorette in training and four extremely enthusiastic and completely inexperienced sailing crew. The "six-pack" would spend the next two weeks exploring at free will the Cyclades Islands in search of the perfect calamari....

But that is a story for another day...and I promise to tell it if you make a request.

Fast forward four years. Since I do a lot of business with Thailand it seemed only sensible to schedule my planned December trip to Thailand to coincide with the itinerary of our friends, Gar and Nic (enter bonafide sailor and sailorette-in-training from previous sailing trip in Greece---only now sailorette's training is more than complete and she is bonafide first mate) who are on a five year sailing journey around the world in their 40' sailboat Dreamkeeper. Yes, I said five years. No, I don't have time for the whole back story now but if you simply must have the details, visit svdreamkeeper.com (it's a wildly fun site, and totally worth checking in on regularly).

Of course, Billy and Deanne (enter two of the four enthusiastic and completely inexperienced sailing crew from Greece) had been planning to meet up with Dreamkeeper for some sailing/climbing in the south islands so the trip quickly shaped up into a full fledged six-pack reunion...sailing the seas of Thailand in search of the perfect pad thai.

I had a meeting scheduled with my silver dealers in Chiang Mai so Gar and Nic parked DK in a marina in Phuket and flew up to meet Mike and I for a few days before Billy and Deanne flew in and we set sail. My purpose for this trip was twofold: one was that I'd begun to do a great deal of business with a particular silver dealer in the past year and, while the quality and service had been stellar, I couldn't rest easy until I'd met in person the people who were making the raw materials for my jewelry business. Call me a skeptic, call me suspicious, call me downright paranoid if you must but I am a "hands on" kind of gal--and it is of grand importance to me to KNOW the people I work with. Besides, with weekly reports of baby formula laden with formaldehyde, drywall infused with carcinogens and dismal working conditions for children who should be in school rather than working I needed personal confirmation that the silver scene was just as beautiful at it's origin in Thailand as it was when it finally landed on my bench.

Secondly, I'm a big believer in mixing business with pleasure whenever possible and since my back had unexpectedly decided to "break" on me three weeks prior to our departure--and I was therefore taken off the climbing team roster--Nic and I decided instead to use our time together to focus on making pictures. Quick note on picture making: as most of you already know, Nic is responsible for 90% of the images you've ever seen associated with my brand and it's in this picture-making space where I feel we connect most deeply as friends. Some girlfriends connect by shopping together. Some girls connect by drinking together. Some girls connect by talking deeply. Some girls connect through sport. Now I'm not saying that Nic and I can't shop until our husbands threaten to present us with divorce papers or that we haven't been known to toss back a margarita (her) or two (me) together or that we can't kill a good four hours underwater together studying the patterns on giant clams and parrot fish. Oh we can. And we do--but when we are making pictures together it is a very special place for us as friends. It's almost as if we slip into a perfect rhythm with our hearts and visions concatenated as we march toward the exact same undiscussed destination. For me, this is the place where the lines between work and play become absolutely blurred and I'm so pleased to announce that it happens with overwhelming regularity. Mike puts in his time as reflector holder

So after taking a tuk tuk to my meeting with my silver dealer (which is my idea of a perfectly fun mode of transport to a "business" meeting) I breathed a huge sigh of relief at discovering about six cheerful Thai women and men sitting at spotless jewelry benches chatting away and crafting custom silver beads and pendants for my spring/summer 2011 line (which, if I may toot my own horn for a moment is coming along swimmingly!). I could now officially erase the image in my mind of a dark and damp factory full of malnourished retired one-armed Thai prostitutes perched on cement benches hammering and soldering my next seasons collection and instead talk story with my dealer a.k.a new friend for the next few hours. Uh-oh, lines blurred again.
Remind me again why we have lines in the first place?

A quick note about my epiphany in the tuk tuk ride back to my hotel (you are growing impatient with my quick notes? I'm sorry, dear reader, break for a cup of tea if need be). About three years ago I was in a work crisis. I was teaching yoga and working as a medical rep and satisfied in many ways and yet deeply unsatisfied in many more and I felt I was on the verge of...something...something very special but not yet certain WHAT. I was lying torpid in the cockpit of Dreamkeeper as we floated lazily in the atolls of the Tuamotus, French Polynesia where Mike and I had joined Gar and Nic for three weeks of sailing and pearl-hunting. I was expressing my dissatisfaction with my work situation and we four were slurping on fresh papaya spears and brain-storming my options. I knew what I wanted. I knew all the components of what I wanted and yet I was unclear about how to achieve them. Gar asked me what I would be doing if money were no object and I could simply "live my bliss." I wrote a list that night. Here is my list verbatim.

1. I wanna always be authentic
2. I wanna make stuff with my hands
3. I wanna travel internationally
4. I wanna meet interesting folks from all corners of the globe
5. I wanna be surrounded by creativity, color, shape and texture
6. I wanna help make other people feel really good

In the tuk tuk ride home I thought about that list and realized that I was living every single item on my list right now and yet, at the time, never could have predicted it. The mystery of life never fails to delight me and I certainly don't mean that in an oovy-groovy way. I just simply mean that my god life is mysterious and magical and painful and hard and fun and spectacularly surprising sometimes.

For the record, Chiang Mai is a must. It quickly made my top three favorite international cities list alongside Buenos Aires and Rome. It is a smallish city nestled at the base of lush electric green mountains where the Hill Tribes people live and work making fantastically intricate and decorative textiles and silver work. The food is excellent (in fact, the best pad thai was actually consumed in Chiang Mai) and inexpensive and there are lotus blossoms on practically every street corner. Tight, perfect unopened lotus buds in every shade from honeydew to magenta. I flipped out over these lotus buds. If the gang would suddenly notice me missing, they could be certain I'd be across the street kneeling in front of a bucket of lotus buds exclaiming to myself about their beauty. The Thai people are lovely. I've got nothing against muslim countries but I so prefer traveling in buddhist countries. There is a gentleness and reverence for beauty that I find absolutely tranquilizing in the buddhist countries I've visited. Being greeted with a smile, a bow, hands in prayer and the cheerful sing-songy "sawasdee ka" just really works for me. It feels so sweet, so relaxed, so human-like. You can't help but be cheerful!

The four of us flew to Phuket and spent the day provisioning Dreamkeeper with kilos of bananas, papaya, pineapple, sweet chilis and Singha. We stowed luggage and tightened knots, charged batteries, rigged sails, organized gear and prepared to set sail early in the morning once Billy and Deanne arrived. I vaguely remember seeing Billy's bald head and big smile coming down the companionway late that night from my bed in the salon where I'd already been asleep for four hours. I also vaguely remember having a moment of sheer claustrophobia as the reality of six adults and their luggage, including climbing gear were finally stowed and we were all nestled in our respective sleeping quarters. From my bed space in the salon (I call it a bed "space" because there are very definite lines of what space is available for me what space is available for Mike and our general sleeping position is one of two straight sticks lying side by side, flipping in unison so as to maximize our collective space most efficiently) I can see all of Nic in the V berth, most of Gar asleep beside her and if I lean out and crane my neck just a bit I can see both Billy and Deanne from head to knee in the quarter berth. Communication is easy. From our lying down in bed positions, we can all six have a conversation in our normal inside voices! My moment of sheer claustrophobia had completely disappeared by noon the next day as I sat on the rails at the bow of the boat, wind whizzing through my hair and I felt the expansive growing feeling in my heart brought on by the joy of being with five other humans I love fiercely.


Dreamkeeper, our home. The dinghy, our car. The islands, our playground. The fun of it is almost painful at times. Painful because you know that ultimately the trip will come to an end but yet so fun that I'd catch myself spontaneously giggling for no apparent reason other than a giddy overload of joyful emotion!


By day we'd load up the dinghy with climbing gear, camera gear and food and zip out to deserted climbing islands accessible only by boat. Nic and I would drop off the climbing crew and then take the dinghy scouting around limestone formations jutting out of the water and secret paradise beach bays looking for interesting sites to take pictures. In the afternoons we'd come home to Dreamkeeper, anchored peacefully out in some gorgeous and empty bay and put on goggles and go for long swims to shore to explore OUR beach. Longtail fishing boats would buzz up to Dreamkeeper in the early evenings and sell us freshly caught gung (shrimp) which we'd douse in butter and garlic and barbeque up for dinner. After the dinner dishes had been done, we'd all sit in the cockpit by candlelight sipping Singhas and sharing stories of our separate life experiences and our ideas for the future...both together and apart. Being together, so easy; there is such comfort in friendships that feel as natural as being alone.


A quick note about living aboard a 40' sailboat with five other adults, sometimes not going ashore for a few days at a time. In order to maintain sanity, there needs to be not only a strict organizational code that all parties adhere to but a high tolerance for virtually zero personal space. Billy's clothing hammock was lashed to the bookcase just above my bed space so that when I was in bed the hammock and I looked like two small seals hovering parallel to one another. Alternately, my toiletries were stowed hanging on the door about seven inches from Deanne's head so when I'd creep in to get my vitamins in the early morning hours she'd have to exercise extreme patience and compassion when I'd accidentally spill a container of Q tips all over her sleeping head. No space onboard was truly private, including the bathroom, and if you needed alone time or privacy you'd simply have to go overboard to get it. Which is precisely why I developed my own patented program of DWS.

Many people go to Thailand to go DWS, or 'deep water soloing,' the act of being taken out to a remote vertical limestone crag to boulder/climb unroped so that when you fall you simply fall into the ocean. On my last trip to Thailand, I went deep water soloing and, make no mistake, it is great fun!! However, my new DWS program combines stealing a moment of absolute privacy with a necessary daily bodily function. I proudly introduce Thailand's best DWS: deep water shitting.

The concept was conceived of by sheer accident one morning when I decided to take a long swim and was caught unawares with the "urge" far from both shore and the toilet aboard Dreamkeeper, but by the end of the trip it was a preferred method by more than just one of the six-pack crew. When you are anchored out in a sailboat the waste from the toilet is pumped directly out into the ocean and immediately becomes fish food. Because we only had one toilet aboard Dreamkeeper, we all had to be mindful of each other's pooping schedules. Nic, conveniently, is a first-light pooper. Every morning I'd hear her quietly swish past my bed in the salon and soon after the bathroom door hatches were latched came the telltale sound of the manual pump flushing out the lines and making space for Mike who was usually followed within the next hour. Gar is a nighttime pooper and by day three aboard Dreamkeeper, we all had an easy routine of rushing through our bathroom chores of brushing, flossing and washing faces before 9pm when we would be ushered out by Gar as nature called at the same exact time every night. There was generally much cajoling around this time of night but by the time Gar emerged with a magazine in hand, we were all safely nestled into our beds with our own books.

The bottleneck happened at about 9-10am when Deanne, Billy and I would all lunge for the bathroom at the same time and ultimately the two who didn't win would stand around hopping from one foot to the other and loudly urging at the door for the person who did win to please make it speedy! So when I chanced upon the concept of DWS I was rather smitten to find the experience not only highly relaxing and entirely private but also supremely clean! This only backfired once on me while anchored in an a bay which boasted a higher than normal number of tiny stinging jellyfish and therefor rendered me unwilling to swim too far for my DWS experience. I can still see Deanne and Mike sitting in the cockpit sipping their morning tea and shouting out derogatory encouragements to me as I tried to ignore them and relax enough to get the job done. Then, as my luck would have it, the current was moving swiftly toward Dreamkeeper and...well....you can imagine...this is probably an appropriate place to end this topic of DWS.

We spent a week anchored out at Railay where we ran multiple daily shuttles of dinghying in to drop off climbers, pick up swimmers, play on the slacklines, meet the hikers, drop off laundry, pick up models for photoshoots, gather for cocktails with friends--old and new--that we'd chanced upon on our travels. About the time that Mike and I were due to depart, via longtail boat to Ao Nang then fly out of Krabi, I was just beginning to settle into this watery rhythm of life aboard Dreamkeeper. I was beginning to hear myself say..."I could really get used to this."

Gar interviews Bron and Mike one last time as they depart Railay

We had a final six-pack send off breakfast and we all walked to the beach and Mike and I clambered onto the longtail with our freshly washed hair and our one set of non-salty traveling clothes. We stood on the longtail and waved at our four friends on the beach as we sped out to sea and we all continued waving until they looked like tiny specs of black on the sand. This is a moment I'll never forget in my life. I cried the entire boat ride to Ao Nang, as we zoomed along past the limestone cliffs that we'd been sailing through and climbing on for weeks and now felt so familiar to me because they represented a bedrock bank of memories that I'll always cherish in the deepest and most protected chambers of my heart.

The six-pack crew in Tonsai: Nic, Billy, Bron, Mike, Deanne, Gar

There are moments in my life when I experience what I've come to think of as "moments of piercing feeling," and they happen most often when I'm traveling. Perhaps I seek these moments and that is why I travel so often. Our everyday lives are swamped in narrative but there are sacred in-between moments of silence when I'm far away from my routine, my regular life and suddenly new and important questions yawn before me and it occurs to me with laser-precision that I'm exactly where I should be at that moment in time. I will forever continue to simply surround myself with people whom I love and who love me back with such relentless abandon that I may radiate my highest purpose in life: to be happy.

Aboard Thai Airways, the attendant greets me with an unopened lotus bud. I smile and bow.
Bronwen