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Life Aboard LULU ... the adventures of two born-and-bred New Yorkers, Louise Wollman and Gary Strutin, who retire and buy their first-ever sailboat. After three hours of sailing lessons, they head for the Caribbean and a completely new life.
Two hurricanes in the first year, the surprising new friends they meet in this unique lifestyle: syllable-bashing Rastafarians, London drag queens, adventurers from all over the U.S. and characters from around the world. Follow them in their endless search for the very best restaurants, markets, sights and sailors.
In the first two years their travels take them 5,000 miles, through virtually every Eastern Caribbean island and deep into Venezuela.
Two years-plus later, they’ve waved at the Panama Canal, sailed and scuba-ed the Western Caribbean, made landfall in Florida, sauntered back up the East Coast and, with 10,000 nautical miles to their credit, reach home base—New Rochelle. But only for a refit and refurbish because they’re soon off again for the Bahamas…
Incredibly, they’re still at it into Year Twelve. A few wrinkles, hundreds of mediocre burgers, thousands of corks, millions of laughs and 34,000 nautical miles later, they have taken the plunge and are conquering the Med…which includes finally getting some great meals.
Snorkeling, sunsets, sloop repairs and sailing adventures. Piracy in peaceful anchorages and friends lost at sea. Each of these web pages answers the most frequently asked question of the mystified who stayed at home: "Yeah...but what do you DO all day?"
A typical answer: Not as much reading as expected but sleuthing proves a new hobby.
In Year Three, Louise revives her feature-writing career with a published exposé of Ignacio Miro, AKA Ignacio Marnier, AKA Nacho AKA “Don Juan,” a single-handing Spanish sailor who’s not only fast with his hands, but a wandering Lothario and skilled con man.
Her story [See below “Scam, Bam, Thank You Ma’am”] has legs and dogs him around the world as bewildered victims turn to their computers and Google his name.
Years later he’s arrested in New Zealand and loses his boat. At least one victim gets some justice, but--out of the slammer and undaunted, the creep continues to ply his trade back in Spain, Central- and South America. Reports from the scandalized and victimized surface frequently. Look for him in Valencia…and stay tuned.
By Year Eight, amid a maelstrom of LULU boat breakages and engine meltdowns, Captain Gary struggles to stay afloat and to keep his fingernails clean for the restaurant forays, AKA research missions that fuel indeFATigable Louise’s bi-monthly column, “Sailing On Your Stomach.”
From Day One the retirement plan was six months in the Caribbean and on to the Mediterranean but at the time they hadn’t gotten the cruiser tee-shirt reading: Cruising Plans are Written in Jello. Almost Eleven Years to the day, in October 2010, LULU was hoisted onto a transport bound for Palma de Mallorca, where the Lulu’s picked her up and sailed her 120 miles to Barcelona. Little Lulu had big dreams about spending their first Mediterranean winter just steps off the boat from the center of this much-heralded metropolis. But they didn’t quite work out as she’d hoped. Read about the typically idiosyncratic start of their Mediterranean journeys below…
These postings, which began as updates written to family and friends left behind, cruisers and landlubbers befriended along the way, are frequently read by would-be cruisers who, Googling something or other, somehow find this site. To you wannabes, we blatantly plagiarize Nike and tell you to, “JUST DO IT!
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| Lulu and LULU
(Click picture to enlarge ) Louise (AKA Lulu) worked with Gary for many years and, in a late-life career shift, became an award-winning journalist. |
Gary & his Lamborghini (Click picture to enlarge) Gary was a physicist/entrepreneur, Lucite furniture manufacturer and -- following his mother's advice -- real-estate owner. |
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Sailing On Your Stomach |
China |
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Temporarily abandoning ship… A number of you—a combination of print-deprived liveaboards and landlubbing
cheapskates—apparently want to read my Blue Water Sailing Magazine columns. I
can only assume you’re making the assumption you might actually finish
articles by me limited to no more than 1,000 words. |
Nonetheless, I’ve taken your written requests seriously. I’ve gotten permission to send the Sailing on Your Stomach articles individually, as published in Blue Water Sailing, to our Aboard Lulu mailing list directly and to post them to the website. Currently these pieces will dribble out into print at the rate of one every two months—unless there’s a groundswell (or sea-surge) of approval in the form of Letters to the Editor. No, I’m not suggesting you, my loyal readers, commit such morally reprehensible—and easily detectable—dishonesties, but with some such unsolicited luck, eventually they’ll appear monthly. Which would be quite excellent, since I’ve been writing them at the rate of about three per month. And “researching” at the rate of 10 a month, which a cursory glance at my lower torso would confirm. This introductory piece was printed as an endpaper, in their Blue Horizons column. It did not address food per se, but rather their question “What is your favorite anchorage?” My answer—predictable to some—was plural.
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The LULU’s traveled China—a good part of that vast country, actually--in
September/October 2007.
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Skipping the Slow-Boat-to- option, we launched ourselves on a 35-day passage by 747—2 over-the-top (of the world) crossings, 9 interior flights, 19 separate hotel check-ins, plus one overnight train excursion and too-numerous-to-count van expeditions. The logs that follow detail our experiences of this phenomenal and surprising country. Written sometimes by Gary, sometimes by me (you’ll be able to tell the difference stylistically and, of course, by their comparative length) they were originally emails sent to people at home who requested such commentary. Or, to those we decided would be happy about (as opposed to affronted by) having our observations about China appear unsolicited in their mailboxes. A third category of recipients was literally Shanghai’ed by genetic accident—that would be our kids. Word-of-mouth caused a modest groundswell of demand to develop amid friends who ran the gamut from merely curious to slightly miffed to feeling excluded altogether--but mostly to downright insistent about wanting to read them. So we’ve decided to post them on this website. If you’re in none of these categories—or in the exclusive but largely accidental group who have already gotten them--we apologize. Pass them by. But meanwhile, here they come… |
