I sit and write this, typing on my laptop in the darkness of a mangrove jungle where I’m camped. It’s hot here, still in the 80s at night with the swampy Florida air completely still. But the bugs really aren’t that bad, although they’re constantly landing on the bright computer screen! The highway is still roaring beside me, I’m located along the Overseas Highway in the Lower Florida Keys, at the southern end of the 7 mile bridge. So I’m on the little island of Ohio Key, a wonderful place I’ve been once before. Living like this, on the ground camping, is really what I love. I don’t mind the curious and seemingly fearless rats scurrying around me, whose eyes gleam in my flashlight. Or the haunting squawk of some swamp bird. The strange perfectly white beetles I’ve never seen before can walk on me and I don’t mind brushing them off. I should mention I’m thankful to have my bivvy sack to sleep in, because there are mild mosquitoes. Here, I am in my element!

So you may be wondering how I got here or why I came here! I have had some eventful days, some of the most extreme days of my life. To properly explain my decision, I think I should share some stories which I had been hearing. These stories I heard from the crew, but all names in this blog have been changed and identifying photos removed. “…An apartment on the top floor of a highrise in Cartagena, 12 naked girls and piles of cocaine. Oh no I don’t do cocaine, but you’re in Columbia, you have to try the cocaine at least once… The girls in Cuba are the horniest girls in the world, they throw themselves at you, you’ll have too many to know what to do with. But they always want something the next morning, “Donde esta la plata?”, and you throw em 40 bucks… I had two Cuban girls one night, the cops caught me and I ran, twisting my ankle in an open storm drain. I woke up in the morning having slept on top of the marina wall… It is illegal in Cuba for foreigners to have sex with Cuban women, and they have sex police, but the girls know where to take you that’s safe… The captain’s girlfriend, she’s a bad influence on him… she’ll want to go back to Cuba, but that is highly illegal. If she gets on this boat, we cannot go to Cuba with him, it’s one thing to smuggle people into America, but to smuggle them back into Cuba… if they catch us all three of us will be locked up in the Cuban prison, indefinitely! …Cuba’s a different world, they have a lot of strange laws…” they chuckle looking at me from the Hooters bar where we’re sitting, a malicious gleam faintly sparkling in their eyes, “Yeah, he’s gonna get thrown in Cuban jail for sure…” they joke…

I got along well with my crew, we were becoming friends and they are calm, quiet and intelligent people. However, on many things we didn’t see eye to eye. When I spoke my mind that I actually would not be going out to party with them, the response I got was generally, “Oh you have to go out, you don’t want to just be a tourist! You have to meet the people, experience the culture, I’ve met incredible people all over the world because I put myself out there.” …I do want to go out and meet people, definitely, but I don’t care to be self-destructive or to break the law. I don’t care to put myself in dangerous situations, or ones where I feel out of control. That’s just me. I realized I had no idea how long we’d be in Cuba, it could have been three months and I’d have no way to leave if I desired to.

I found I had been obsessively researching what other options were out there for sailboats I could work on. I was (and am still) looking for one going to the Pacific from the Caribbean but that is hard to find. It was 8PM at night, I saw a listing to work running charters and sailing adventurously from the small Caribbean island of Grenada up to Martinique and from there who knows. It would be a crew of nine young backpackers from all over the world, and three boats all sailing together. I will have to pay to live with them. Supposedly I will make the money back from the money we make running charters and doing other kinds of gypsy jobs like playing the guitar, making jewelry, and teaching yoga classes. Reading the ad I thought it sounded like the perfect place to be at this time in my life.

So it happened very spontaneously, I saw the ad at 8PM and contacted a woman from Spain named Silvia. She immediately responded and welcomed me aboard. Someone else I met on the internet, I know, but their instagram pictures look like they are amazing people. I talked to my father about it for a long time, my flight would be in four days if I chose to go. But I really wanted to get some use out of this bike I had bought, and I was sad to miss going to Key West. I decided, if I really want to go to Key West I need to leave this current ship as soon as possible. So I made the plan, it took me all night long to figure out what flights I could take, and how I could ride my bike on the Overseas Highway. That was something I had been dreaming about, so it would involve some busses.

I made this itinerary: Day 1 leave West Palm Beach on my bicycle, get on a train to Miami. Take one bus through Miami, then a different bus to the city of Homestead. Day 2 and 3: Bike 127 miles from Homestead to Key West, or take another bus to Key Largo to shorten the ride to 90 miles. At the end of day 3 I’d need to catch the 5:45 Greyhound from Key West back to Miami and get a hotel room. Day 4: my flight to Grenada to meet Silvia and the new crew is at 6:30PM. I finished planning this itinerary at 2AM (of “day 1”) and realized to accomplish this (insanity) would mean I need to leave this ship ASAP, but I hadn’t actually confirmed a plane ticket yet. I emailed Silvia back telling her my plan, and she responded to it at 4AM, telling me to buy the ticket. I bought it at 4AM. While I was doing this I packed my life into my backpack, it couldn’t all fit. I had to leave my rain boots, I had to leave my pillow, a book, and a few other things. I also lost my rain pants, and my bike lock, as well as my toothpaste now… At 5:30 I tenuously fell asleep, and at 7AM heard the crew rustling around the boat. I would up with my heart pounding in my chest, I woke up scared. I couldn’t believe what I was doing.

I confronted the captain, he knew what was going on by the noise I had made in the night. He became slightly outraged with me, and told me to leave. It was great because we were parked in a marina, so I could just walk off the boat, my bike was already onshore. I shook their hands and I left, was freely biking with my life on my back just like that. “Good morning Sir!” Someone exclaimed to me, “GOOD MORNING!” I shouted back! Now I become homeless, but my home is as always on my back. It was another hot day, and I biked through the dirty slums of West Palm Beach into the opulent downtown. From there I caught the train.

My plans started to fall apart in Miami when I found out the bus was impossible to catch because the traffic was so heinous. The streets were like great raging rivers, only of fiery heated traffic on the asphalt. It was a terrifying city to bike through, with distracted drivers almost running me over constantly, and this mountain bike moves slow. It was extremely hot and my pack was heavier than it had ever been in my life, with things like my snorkeling gear in tow, as well as 4 books. Hours passed as I was following my phone’s gps, when my phone decided to ‘update’ and went out of commission for half an hour! I became COMPLETELY lost, asking random drivers for direction at traffic intersections in the blazing noon day heat. After 5 hours of riding in Miami had passed and I still hadn’t arrived at the Homestead bus, I was incredibly fatigued and in pain, also running on two hours of sleep and hadn’t eaten a bite all day. Modern Miami; the city of broken dreams, built on piles of cocaine and the backs of oppressed immigrants seeking the American dream. To me, Florida is a gateway to America, having the highest percentage of immigrants than any other state.  I was running on adrenaline. It was a rush, a day like I had never had before. To top it all off, everyone encouraged me on Facebook and the support at one point brought me to uncontrollably crying as I was biking the city streets! Through exhaustion and with happiness, such great emotional strife and physical suffering to match, you can imagine the kind of day I was having!

That was yesterday, I ate a giant frozen yogurt and felt human again. I made it to Homestead after dark and decided to just give in and get a hotel room. Today I woke up to an amazing hotel breakfast and caught the bus to Key Largo. From there I got on the bicycle, with my incredibly heavy pack even heavier from food I was now carrying. The 90 degree heat was abominable. This really has not been a sane thing to do, I know this!!! But I made it across Islamorada, over the serene Long Key Bridge and through some gorgeous, pristine Florida swamplands. The sea here is turquoise, but milky and somewhat green, the classic Florida turquoise. I took a swim, but felt like I was swimming in the Everglades, with warm stagnant water, seemingly mutant. I made it through Marathon and at long last crossed the 7 mile bridge. It was the glorious overseas ride I has wanted, but it was a difficult ride on my crappy, rusted mountain bike. I was beyond fatigued, laying on a park bench and passing out to sleep without a choice. 44 miles on the Overseas Highway and the sun was setting on me, but I made it to Ohio Key which was my destination for today.

starting to really feel like the Caribbean now!

The granddaddy iguana

37 miles tomorrow to get to Key West, if I can’t make it I’ll have to drop the bike and hitchhike because I have the Greyhound to catch at 5:45. This is crazy I know, but this is an adventure. This is what I like to do, and I feel empowered for standing up for myself today and yesterday. Really looking forward to whatever the future holds… thanks for reading

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe

Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind

Possessing and caressing me

Jai Guru Deva Om

Nothing’s gonna change my world

-The Beetles