Dream to be a Skipper

Due to my having two left hands with mechanics, I was assigned to be in charge of cooking and cleaning, the easiest and least challenging duty on boat. But when our boat was anchored and had no moored boats near us, I liked to "play" with the locked steering wheel imaging myself as the French sailing legend, Eric Tabarly, sailing through the big blue ocean.

I don't take life too seriously and I sometimes behave childishly and goofily...

My Luck of Being Seasick

While sailing from Les Saintes to Antiqua, I was feeling nauseous with the violent waves pounding the boat, some slamming up against the side and over and into the cockpit. To reduce the chances of succumbing to seasickness, I followed our skipper's tips–––drank a lot of water, avoided empty stomach, and lay down on deck.

It was a long trip, and I needed to find some fun to keep busy instead of lying immobile and feeling sick and useless. I started to take random pictures, from an unusual angle, to the beautiful sky, the drifting clouds, the birds flying by, the busy crew members, etc.

Some of the photos turned out to be unexpected and interesting. And I was extremely happy to catch the moment while our reliable skipper was checking the sails. This photo was surely my luck of being seasick.

Inspired by The Sea Urchin

One day we anchored in Nonsuch Bay to the South-West of Green Island, an uninhabited island just off the east coast of Antigua. We drove our dinghy over to this beautiful island to explore. I was all over the moon as soon as I set foot in it, and discovered piles of sea urchin shells (tests) lying on the pristine white sand secluded beaches.

The sea urchin, so dangerous yet beautiful, so odd and interesting, serves as an explicit message of paradox and surprise.

As a designer, I admire its alluring form presenting aspects of sharp and smooth for tactile and aesthetic experiences. Many of my designer fellows have came up with witty design objects inspired by the sea urchin such as the interior accessories, jewelry, perfume bottles, etc.

As a food lover, I love the sea urchin's buttery texture, rich and briny with a sweet, mildly fruity finish, and I like to eat it raw with lemon, or soy sauce and wasabi. In the hot summer time in New York, I often treat myself a cool, delicious Uni Soba (sea urchin buckwheat noodles in Japanese) at Soba-Ya.

Just before leaving Green Island, I bent down and picked up a few sea urchin shells, which I can display on the bookshelf of my home to remind myself of the sensation of the Caribbeans.

Celebrate the Sunset with Rhum

Ti'Punch, mixed with Rhum, can sugar, and lime juice, may be the most well-known drink in the French-speaking Caribbean states.

After an exhausting yet enthralling sailing day, we often celebrated the sunset with a few glasses of Ti'Punch on our boat. All crew members agreed that, substituting passion fruit juice for lime juice, emphasizes more the exotic, tropical flavor of Rhum, a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by products such as molasses and sugarcane juice.

In perfumery, Rhum can be explored to interpret the festive mood and the influence of masculine. To name a few of fragrances with rhum in: Guerlain Homme, Locoste Pour Homme, Lolita Lempicka Au Musculin, Hugo Man, and Lubin Indole Du Lubin.

I have no preference for the fragrances, but I'm in favor of the packaging design of Hugo Man: crisp clean and undeniable masculine, just like a slick and beautiful Monohull sailboat.

The Island of Calm in the Caribbeans

As the year of 2010 was approaching to its end, I decided to take a truly luxurious break---be mysterious, unavailable, and unapproachable to the world for a while. Therefore, I joined my sail-loving friends and rented a monohull sailboat in Guadeloupe, the first overseas region of France. Sailing from here to its sisters Les Saintes, and Marie Galante, and then to the English-speaking country Antiqua, we bathed under the Caribbean sun and breathed in the smells of big blue ocean.

Imagined the sailboat Moonlight as my own island of calm, I indulged my senses, and experienced the wonder of the Caribbean islands. And of course, I also managed to preserve a healthy tan to get through the snowy winter in New York and Europe.

In the next few days, please expect to read the articles about my travel highlights in the Caribbeans.