Assume the Posture
A yoga instructor shares her secrets about staying fit and loose aboard.
In a sense, the best boats are those most able to adapt to their surroundings, keeping their crews safe and content even when wind, current and course are at odds. Such vessels remain centered, poised and balanced in the face of ever-changing conditions. So should it be with your body, especially if you’re spending any great length of time on board. The balance, strength and flexibility inherent to yoga may help you find your way through the shifty winds, rugged seas and other challenges. And since all you need is a flat surface and a little deck space, it’s an ideal form of exercise for guests aboard yachts.
Yoga is a voyage of awareness that will help you find the flow of your life. The physical postures stretch and strengthen your muscles and joints. The still work of breathing and meditation helps you to acknowledge a relationship of balance: between self and nature, between body and mind, between intention and attention.
Stretching does not need to include four walls, incense and a guru. Your boat can be your “studio.” No allotted time is too little to enjoy the space between the rush of schedules. Relax, kick back and stretch. The poses shown here are suggestions, and many more may work for your needs.
The real teacher—the one inside you—will guide you to better balance. Take your time and remember that yoga is referred to as a “practice” because it’s a constantly shifting, evolving thing. The body lengthens and contracts just as the sun rises and sets. Get tuned in with the currents, and you’ll be on your way. If you don’t have an existing yoga practice, why not make today the day to start? Here’s where to begin. it’s no wonder adho mukha svanasana (sanskrit for “downward-facing dog”) is often referred to as the one yoga pose you should choose, if you could choose only one daily. it stretches many major muscle groups and is grounding in its layers of contact with the deck. if your space is limited, use the yacht’s rails, an extra line or whatever else you have on board for props. You’ll be thankful for the additional support (particularly if the seas and wind are up). take your time in all transitions, not just because you’re balancing on the water, but because yoga should feel good. Place your hands on the rail or on the deck, at least shoulder distance apart. Walk your feet back so the arms are straight. send the hips back to stretch the spine long, and take stock of your hips and hamstrings. Feel it: as part of the stretch, your upper chest should get closer to the deck. now maintain this pose for a few breaths and, with your eyes turned down, reflect on the stretch. Where do you feel tight? are you holding any tension? Perhaps in your neck and face? You may be surprised what you’ll find.
With your hands still on the rail or on the deck (from downward-facing dog), bring your right foot in front of you and scoot the other foot back. Stretch out through your forward knee until it finds its way over the heel. From the hip, lift the rear thigh way up and press back through the heel, straightening the back leg. Hold it: Breathe in and out gently through your nose as you strengthen quad and stretch hip, calf, heel and muscles between the toes that can stiffen after a long ride. Stay here and close your eyes for a beat. Keeping the shape of the legs (from lunge), reach the right arm up, with your palm facing away. Stay with it: Your gaze may stay down or turn toward the horizon or up to the sky. Check in with the neck, as an extension of the spine, to help with that decision. The twist occurs here in the upper back and shoulder. The spine should feel refreshed. Look down and step the back leg forward, and then the front leg back, and repeat the lunge and twist on the other side. As a variation if the boat’s movement challenges your balance, drop the back knee down to the floor. Grab the boat’s rail, stack shoulders over the wrists and turn to the outer rim on your right foot, stacking hip over hip. The left foot may “drop anchor” in front of the right shin. Lift hips to maintain one long line from the feet to the crown of the head and engage the obliques, which are along the sides of your core. Keep breathing. Lift the left arm over the ear as side ribs decompress from all that time spent sitting at the helm.
Hunching over a split-screen display all day or night and watching radar and ais targets in conditions with reduced visibility makes your body cry out out for a shoulder stretch. reach hands, with palms facing forward, behind your back, checking in with any feedback from your rotator cuff. turn palms to face one another and interlace your fingers behind your back. reach your hands away from your lower back and peel open your chest to the sky. Loosen up: tight shoulders could lead to neck or back problems, so consider adding a neck stretch like dropping ear to shoulder while hands are interlaced or gazing over one shoulder and then the other. While standing, bend your knees and send your hips back so you can see your toes. Keep glutes, quads and core firm. one hand or two hands can stretch up or hold a rail for support. Press your feet down evenly to stand up, slowly, to full height. take a quad stretch by reaching the right arm back to the right, lifted foot and gently pressing that foot back into the hand. Keep it up. move back and forth between these two poses, pausing for a few breaths where you deem fit.
Take a comfortable seated position. Place your hands on your thighs, or use the end of a dockline to add an additional shoulder stretch or two. Work out the kinks. Slide your hands up your legs to round in the upper back and look down. Then slide your hands back toward your hips and look up, and stretch your back and shoulders. Or with a line, reach the arms forward as the hands move away. Then reach the arms up overhead and back. next, place the right hand next to the right hip, and stretch the left arm overhead. Or using the line, elevate it overhead and hinge over to the right, hands moving away from each other. Gaze can turn up to the top arm. repeat on the other side. in a seated position on the rail or covering board, or on a chair, bring one ankle up and cross it over the opposite thigh. Flex your foot to engage the shin and protect the knee. a stretch occurs here in the inner thigh, outer hip, and lower back. Unwind. Stay where you are or hinge forward gently.
Not every yacht chef is a seasoned veteran with years of culinary experience and a curriculum vitae touting Michelin-star restaurants and well-known superyachts. Frida Eklund, chef on 100-foot (30.5meter) Ferri Cantieri Navali sailing yacht Jupiter, is in fact a newbie to the field. Blonde and blue eyed with a beautiful smile, Eklund presents a pictureperfect Swedish ingénue. Our initial conversation was quite tentative. However, she holds her ground. At age 25, she has assumed tremendous responsibility for keeping the American owners of Jupiter happy—they have four kids, some the same age as Eklund and her captain, Zachary Wallen— not to mention the yacht’s charter guests.
Growing up with her parents and three sisters in the copper-mining town of Falun in Dalarna County, Sweden (which she insists is the most Swedish part of Sweden), Eklund had no aspirations of being a yacht chef. “My friends and family were very surprised by my life choice,” she recalled with a laugh. Her childhood dream was to be a dancer, so her culinary career was more by fluke than by design. She is the only member of her family who has taken to the sea. In 2013, she accepted a summer job in Greece on a whim working as a hostess for a Swedish company that ran 40- to 50-foot sailing yachts. When the opportunity to cook full time on a yacht presented itself, Eklund thought, Why not?
She’d always enjoyed dabbling with cooking at home, and she knew how to create the traditional Swedish dishes of herring, potatoes and gravlax. She quickly gained a real interest in food experimentation. After determining that being a yacht chef was a viable career path, she took a Le Cordon Bleu course in Chicago, and then trained one-on-one with a yacht chef.
While Eklund’s natural proclivities are for seafood and health-inspired fare, she also loves to bake. Her muffins, cakes and cookies have a distinctly Swedish flair, often utilizing a special home brew of cloudberry jam ( hjortronsylt)— a special berry related to raspberries. These wild berries are harvested in the north of Sweden and are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and antioxidants.
citrus crab verrine of avocado, shredded crabmeat in grapefruit vinaigrette, grapefruit segments, green pea sprouts and red peppercorn (left)
corn and golden beet soup with shiso-infused oil drizzle
crispy pan-seared atlantic salmon fillet over Pernod and fennel, green pea purée, julienned cucumber and radish salad with lemon vinaigrette
Blueberry lemon cheesecake (vegan and gluten-free), blueberry sauce and chocolate shavings (bottom)
Eklund’s cuisine is eternally evolving, with her palate inspired by travels in Norway, Spain, France, French Polynesia and the Caribbean. She reads about food like someone might read novels, and she conducts a lot of online research.
Her modest nature precludes her from claiming to know it all. And what Eklund doesn’t know, she is determined to find out. At last year’s Newport Charter Yacht Show chef ’s competition, she was required to make a vegan dish. With no experience in that cuisine, she persevered, placing third among stiff competition. One can only assume a great deal of talent helped her as much as her research did. —Jill Bobrow