Jordan starts the Samurai's engine

I'm elbow deep in the Guana Coop's Samurai, a Japanese built compact that's painted garishly with the colors of the Guyana flag and plastered with coconut related bumper stickers. It's more rust than metal, and appears to be bound precariously together by the litter that pours out of its every orifice. Earlier, before packing up our coconut water stand at a local beach, we began the day with a practical game of find that smell. Something in the car has taken a trip to the great beyond. The first few rounds were unsuccessful, although we poked curiously around in the Samurai for at least twenty minutes. Now, after a moderately busy day of chopping coconuts and selling the water to thirsty beach-goers, it's time for round two. The fact that the Samurai's been baking in the white sunlight all day has made the game, well - easier.

I've been working with the Guana Coop for a few weeks. The primary gig is collecting young coconuts from the Key West area and selling them, as a beverage, to locals and tourists. We also harvest coconut water, coconut meat and coconut jelly, that's young coconut meat, for a local restaurant which uses the goods in a variety of vegan and vegetarian dishes. In addition to all things coconut, the Guana Coop composts garbage collected from restaurant kitchens, monitors soil production at a local community garden, and builds relationships with Key West's undercurrent of transients, derelicts, street performers, etc.

While plenty of my time has been dedicated to chopping coconuts, shimmying up thirty-five foot palm trees and improving the community's composting facilities, I've also had plenty of time for sailing. I'm finally beginning to feel really comfortable handling Jordan's Ghost and am truly enjoying sailing as far more than a means to an end. I've sailed out to the reef several times to dive, and make it out for a short day-sail some twice a week or so.

Jordan, Christine (behind the lens) and I take a day off to sail

Improvements are moving along nicely as well. My most recent projects include the installation of a lazy-jack system (a sail cradle which allows me to raise and lower the mainsail underway more easily), and the beginning of a slow transition to LED lighting. The lazy-jacks basically keep the mainsail tucked into a sort of loose netting rigged from the boom to the spreaders. That means that dropping the mainsail underway no longer results in a hectic, messy, loud and difficult to control flapping - a phenomena that's had me reluctant to deal with the mainsail while single-handing. Switching to LED lighting will be a great move as well. While it's far more expensive at the outset, the low-draw lights save an incredible amount of energy in the long run. Having switched just the main cabin light over so far, I've already been able to cut off my solar panels for a day at a time here and there. Hopefully that will translate to a longer battery life.

I'll be joining my neighbors of the past several weeks, Mark and Anna, on their voyage back to Mobile, Alabama on or around the 27th of this month. Their thirty foot oceangoing vessel is gorgeous and well equipped - excepting of course its engine which is currently out of commission. The voyage should make good use of the Gulf Stream and the prevailing winds this time of year. We're expecting less-than-dramatic seas and an offshore stint of no more than four to eight days covering the necessary 500 miles. It will be my longest non-stop passage so far.

Single handing to Florida's reef

What's that smell has progressed charmingly. I'm choking back what I now believe to be fetid rat carcass fumes while removing the dashboard of the Samurai and dropping the heating unit to the floor. Bits of rodent nest continue to slump out of dark places in the chassis, and the smell is developing from rancid to intolerable. Jordan, the Guana Coop's current principal, his girlfriend Christine, and Andy, another party member, are standing dutifully beside the brightly colored car holding hands over faces and handkerchiefs over noses. When the back panel of the glove compartment comes off, a new wave of heavy, foul rot wafts out like bad luck so that all of us gasp and some of us retreat. A hairy leg protrudes; the dead rat is the length of my palm. Judging from his generous stature, the amount of coconut bits in his lair and the toothy grin that's still on his contorted face, I'd assume he lived about as luxuriously as a rat in Key West could really expect to. Coconuts are good for everybody.

I'll miss working with the Guana Coop over the next few weeks, but am happily anticipating the passage to Alabama as well as whatever else the future may hold. With any luck I can expect plenty of sailing, diving and interesting people.