Loading two sixty-five-foot masts from the ground under the trees on a friend’s beach property in Kapaa, Kauai.

Three guys, and a ten-year-old moved two sixty-five-foot masts (bigger than telephone poles) onto a Mazda quarter-ton truck and a U-Haul flat-bed trailer … hummm … 

Impossible load, improbable vehicle, eleven miles of congested island highway … and the eventual safe arrival in the boatyard! 

In a way, this was the implausible precedent for the following four years of the Elixir Project. 

Some of the scenarios that followed this example included: 

jackhammering several tons of cement and car parts out of the bilge

untangling and accurately reassembling truckloads of old wire and line

melting down 3500 pounds of lead

moving a 34,000-pound boat after the only crane large enough to move her, left the island

finding and using cane train wheels for a new boat trailer

finding hardwood large enough to fabricate new structural timbers for a fifty-foot vessel

using shelf paper around the dining room as a four-year project management system 

using a loupe on old and faded 3x5 long distance photographs to figure out the running and standing rigging

crossing the Pacific Ocean going into the wind, when you have never sailed across an ocean before

crossing an ocean when you know you get sea-sick 

… but then, who decides to pack up a life, and fix up an old schooner when you don’t know anything about sailing or boats? …  just saying …

As we transition into 2025, with crises on many fronts, (environmental, geographic, political, social, and economic, to name just a few) I am reminded of the above list, and how we navigated successfully, somehow. I say somehow, because we choose a project without knowing clear steps of the way forward and without any assurance of a profitable outcome. 

Once again, I am somehow, slightly outside the usual rational thought process of choosing a life path. I can see the issues, but only a fraction of them. In my mind I can see a finished, new world, even though I cannot see precise steps forward or how to take them. Every day, I can take miniscule steps in the right direction. Many years in the future, even though the years of transition may be more than my lifetime, there will be a completed boat, ready to sail across unknown territories. 

Navigating the long private drive down onto the Kapaa highway.

Stuck in island traffic going the eleven miles into Lihue. The boys are checking the load.

A successful journey and the masts are finally at home in the boatyard and reunited with their mother ship after many years apart.