“The sound of water is worth more than all the poets’ words.”
–Octavio Paz
Everything moves
Move with it. Anticipate, release, reconnect. Keep moving in time.
Lighten the load
What objects, obligations, concerns or cares can I do without today?
Live in wonder
Observe every sunset possible. Delight in shooting stars and smiles.
Live to wander
Take the boat ride, paddle the bay, hike over that hill. Go in unfamiliar directions.
Keep it shipshape
Tend daily to yourself, to the ship and the logbook. “The sea finds the weakness.”
Steer lightly
Don’t white knuckle the helm or chase that compass needle
Pay attention
Keep the watch with care. What is every observable thing in this moment?
Be a great mate
Smile and listen. Be tidy and calm. Live lightly. Be quite humble yet highly skilled.
Live slow
Loaf with purpose. Read and think. Watch the clouds and the waves.
Laugh it off
Greet the day with a grin. Assume a sailor’s swagger. “Life is far too important to be taken seriously.”
Practice rituals
Make the bunk. Flake the lines. Do these things just so.
Aid those in distress
Keep your own ship ready and your lamp alight. Always help another if it does not harm you or your crew.
The Way of a Sailor is a thoughtful study of those practices most significant to a successful passage. This is not about learning rope work or sail trim but something deeper: How to observe, evaluate and even how to move. These are the true essence of the sailor. As it turns out, they are also essential practices for our shared voyage of being human, that most treacherous, beautiful and demanding passage of all.
The book is a collection of seagoing essays, meditations and small adventures which explores what it truly means to be a sailor—and ultimately, how to better navigate life itself.
“We are shipmates, you and I and all the rest, on a wandering passage through the stars . . . Because to be a human is to be a sailor of the highest magnitude, embarking with undue confidence out into wild uncertainty, vowing to hold fast and to keep ready the ship no matter what comes.”
“I absolutely enjoyed this journey under the Milky Way. From his lofty lookout perch, Kilmer leads us through an experience that both immerses us in the joy of sailing and reconnects us with our spiritual selves, which have always been there but which life has traumatized and tranquilized.”
-Mike Patrick, author of Full Speed Behind
Books by David Kilmer
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The Way of the Sailor
What are the qualities of a true sailor? And how do they help us navigate life itself?
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A Peril To Myself & Others
Taking a plunge into the compelling existence of a boat captain in the Caribbean islands.
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The Million Dollar Fish - A Novel
A burned-out pilot, a sailor with a secret and a raving mad casino boss pursue the last salmon up the Columbia River.
“Terror, comedy, self-awareness—unfolds like a voyage unto itself in this witty, insightful, most pleasurable seagoing coming-of-age account.”
-Herb McCormick, author of One Island, One Ocean
“Kilmer’s writing is visceral and emotional . . . There is a lyrical, poetic way he plays with words. It will intoxicate you.”
-Sally Erdle, The Caribbean Compass
What magic is left, you ask? Let us simply get a little taste.
Say we drop the anchor with three other sailboats off a small fishing village on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Let us wave to the fishermen as they come home. Watch the light fading on the mountains, hear the pure trumpet notes from shore and discover a bright southern star we have never known existed.
There is no effort in falling asleep on a boat on a night like this, moving in exquisite motion; back to the origins, the gurgle and sway of amniotic fluid and then dreams of the best things you can dream.
Morning comes in shreds of sensation: long rumbling roll of surf on shore, chatter of seabirds and all the splendors of water. When you go on deck, it is slick under your bare feet, proof of Mother Nature’s respirations and all the rest of her hidden ways.
So watch the insolent sun breach the day and let your skin cool until you shiver and then go ahead and crawl back into the cabin, under the covers with someone you love and their hot skin is all against your cool skin. Stay right there and think of absolutely nothing else except this, as the boat moves underneath you and the sunlight and sea make bright flickering patterns, each more fantastical than the last . . .
-Excerpt from The Way of the Sailor
Stories by David Kilmer
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Back in Baja and Loving It!
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Hosts with the Most
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Bellingham to the Bahamas
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Gunkholing Florida
About the author
David Kilmer is a sailor and storyteller who craved adventure at sea ever since his father launched a little wooden boat for him named Skipper-N-Dad. He found exactly what he was looking for—and so much more—on his first bluewater passage at the age of 25, which took him 2,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean.
By his early 30s, he ran off to the Caribbean hoping to become a boat captain and worked in the Grenadines for five seasons. His book A Peril To Myself and Others is about those colorful and tumultuous times.
His latest book, The Way of the Sailor, is a collection of seagoing essays, meditations and small adventures that explores what it truly means to be a sailor—and ultimately, how to better navigate life itself.
From 2009-2019, David and his co-captain, Rebecca, cruised their 36-foot sailing sloop from Bellingham, Washington to the Bahamas with stops in 12 countries including Cuba and a transit of the Panama Canal along the route. David is the captain of the private sailing yacht Sizzler.
His stories have appeared in CdA Magazine, Cruising World and Invictus, among others, and his work has been awarded by Boating Writers International and the Society of Professional Journalists.