Author: David Ryan

  Ordinary readers and writers, greetings from Barnegat Light NJ! Presently Mon Tiki and I will be back in New York Harbor, some 5 1/2 months after the above picture what taken. I’d love...

Mon Tiki and I are in Norfolk VA, looking at a weather window opening up this weekend May 2/3 to run the coast up to New York City. If the forecast for southwest winds...

When you are singlehander you are – paradoxically – in situation of rather pronounced self-reliance, but also dependent on the kindness of strangers. As you move from place to place your life is shaped by favors you will never be able to repay.

What I see is my boat, auto helm still engaged, sailing away from me, her twin hulls cutting parallel grooves in the water that close up even as they’re made to glassy slicks that are just as quickly brushed away by the wind.

The impulse to swim after her comes and goes, as does the impulse to cry for help. There’s no hope of catching her, and no one to hear my shout. Why I am here doesn’t matter now because it cannot be undone. I am in the water, I am alone, and no one knows where I am.

A private stateroom on Mon Tiki, a hand-built, neo-Polynesian catamaran during her voyage up the East Coast from Florida to Montauk NY. because you want some uninterrupted time in an inspiring location to think and create.

Hello Ordinary readers and writers. Have you been staying warm? Mon Tiki and I have spent the last two nights waiting out this cold snap at Leland Oil Marina on Jeremy Creek in McClellanville,...

Greetings from Mon Tiki, currently docked in Southport, North Carolina, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

Hello League readers and writers both! A brief check-in: I am back aboard Mon Tiki in Norfolk VA, making her ready for the inside passage to Beaufort NC through the creeks and marshes of...

Mon Tiki’s itinerary for the next several weeks is shaping up. Perhaps you’d like to join us!

Will asks, “Where does your electricity come from on Mon Tiki?”

So you think you were put on this earth for a reason. Now what?

And so it was that last fall, after watching Master and Commander for the 26th or 27th time, that I grabbed my Oster clippers and run it up and down my chin, leaving me with a nice set of chops myself. Then I snapped a “selfie” and posted it to twitter with the text “Eat your heart out @jamespoulos”.

It’s not uncommon for college professors to treat motorcycle mechanics rather shabbily.

Mon Tiki seeking ride-along crew for safety and companionship for the trip from Norfolk though the ICW to Beaufort NC and then on down the coast to points south.

Loving the sea is a bit like loving a beautiful but temperamental and indifferent woman. Maybe you’d be better off loving someone else, but you don’t choose love, love chooses you.

A brief check in from Capt. David on the catamaran Mon Tiki after completing the Montauk to New York City leg of her passage south.

If you want to use a sailboat as transportation rather than mere recreation, you have to get yourself into a Nineteenth Century frame of mind. But what exactly does that mean?

Having only just renounced any claims to being either a filmmaker or writer, let me now tell you about what’s going on with my writing and filmmaking.

Earlier this evening I removed “filmmaker” and “writer” from my twitter bio, and as I was doing so the events related in this post came to mind.