Sailing the Adaman Sea

I truly believe that every person has a talent. Some can play music and some can negotiate peace treaties or memorize the periodic table. I am not one of those people with very noticeable talents except one and only a handful would think this be a skill worthwhile...and I got it from my Mom. I grew up watching her make deals from trading ride sharing to trading houses and boats. She is an opportunist and has honed her skills to lead a very interesting life filled with adventurous opportunities. I think I have learned to simply take this somewhat odd talent to the next level. Hence, I dedicate the next blog entry to my Mom and personally thank her for teaching me how to lead a life through opportunity...It has been a dream of mine for a few years to go on a sailing trip somewhere exotic. Knowing how expensive it is and overwhelming to actually figure out how to pull it off, I filed it in the back of my head as ONE DAY. While driving around on Langkawi Island in Malaysia, we stopped at the Kuah Yacht club to check out sailboats. While there using their free internet and the free infiniti pool, I met this crazy looking Ozzy named Brett Steele (not kidding, that is his awesome name) and he is only crazy looking, quite tame in actuality. He showed me pictures of his sailboat moored out in the bay and gave me his email address. A few days later I asked if we could come out and visit his boat and chat about his lifestyle. He was kind enough to meet us at the jetty and bring us all out for a swim and chat. He is super easy going, very generous with his time and quite adventurous himself. We got along so well I decided to take the plunge and ask him if he would take us back to Thailand on his boat. He waited a week to answer but then he said in proper Aussie style, lets meet for beers and discuss. So began 11 days on his boat visitng six different islands, some with nobody on them. It is something I cannot actually describe very well as we were simply charmed by Brett's endless patience with our children, exotic locals with coral reefs, untouched tropical forests, beaches with sand soft as flour, sunsets, sunrises, lively conversations in the moonlight and seeing things very few have been privileged enough to see. I am deeply grateful to Brett and his willingness to open his life to us and deeply grateful for my children and their beautiful curiosity about everyting from small blue fish to garbage rafts. These are the moments you remember during those last breaths of life, happy we tried, happy to have them embedded in the memory card. Dave joined us with his Swiss girlfriend at the end to catch up on our two months worth of adventures and say good-bye to Thailand for now. It's been a blast, it has been moving and it has been fantastic to see my kids growing into their own adventurous souls filled with a zest for life and compassion for people of the world. We'll be back sometime in the next year, living in a stick house, planning another adventure possibly on a sailboat. Until then, peace to y'all! OlfzHsI/AAAAAAAACf8/hyW7ef9zFBw/s1600/Diana's+Photos+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" > var sc_project=5522094; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_partition=60; var sc_click_stat=1; var sc_security="0de55644";