glad about the extra sunglasses.
17°34' N
59°44' W
0615 UT
2.3.08
________________
wow. tired. the transition to the new time zoner should be a tad challenging. or has been. we havbe been keeping the same ship time throughout, and haven't really adopted the time zone thing as we've moved through them.
though, we were in las palmas for a while and were sort of on canary time. total gridlock, mon. antigua time should be quite similar. spent a gerat deal of time with ferdinand today. matt did oil changes and i went in behind and cleaned and then cleaned some more. getting all intimate with a diesel engine. the only way to clean it is to basically lay on top of the thing, and brace yourself in so that any movement doesn't cause slippy fally. i broke my sunglasses and got bit by a jubilee clip / hose clamp last time i was cleaning an engine. though, from what i can tell, the environment in there has improved greatly since the first time i cleaned in there. it's generally cleaner each time, though each time i find new places to get the rag or toothbrush into. keeps coming up yukky, so it must be doing something. loads of the uncomfortable bits have been trimmed and tweaked so it doesn seem like there'll be any flesh left on sharp bolt-ends anymore and i think most of the pointy parts have been smoothed out. still a dirty job. and weirdly tiring top contort and brace, contort and brace all day. every other time we'd done on engine room and then waited a day. then did the next one.
a good policy, though this time if we wait a day, we'll already be in port. last time we got into port i spent a good 2 hours down there and was the last ashore. didn't mind that. i can say that i'm not in a rush to get there (wherever there is, generally but not without notable exceptions).
query of the day: are we supposed to get bored of this or something? i'm not. on the one hand, the sea is pretty much the sea it was when we left. the sky is slightly different. and the sea is not the same, or doesn't seem so to me even from moment to moment.
timing problem: started learning about the sextant today. foolishly not during the day but in nautical twilight. seemed to work our alright. i sighted Sirius and floated the thingy down to where the horizon was. what next? alas, too dark to read the numbers. more tomorrow, if i'm lucky. or more likely, skilled at remembering. today at noon i was under an engine room hatch, all wrapped up in that. an elegant device.
'dunno why we waited for so long.'
dinner: the ship caught another dorado and jenny did it up all simple-like. tasty. after dinner sarah got another guitar lesson. she's up to 5 chords now, and is a few steps closer to the song she wants to learn.
sleepy.
59°44' W
0615 UT
2.3.08
________________
wow. tired. the transition to the new time zoner should be a tad challenging. or has been. we havbe been keeping the same ship time throughout, and haven't really adopted the time zone thing as we've moved through them.
though, we were in las palmas for a while and were sort of on canary time. total gridlock, mon. antigua time should be quite similar. spent a gerat deal of time with ferdinand today. matt did oil changes and i went in behind and cleaned and then cleaned some more. getting all intimate with a diesel engine. the only way to clean it is to basically lay on top of the thing, and brace yourself in so that any movement doesn't cause slippy fally. i broke my sunglasses and got bit by a jubilee clip / hose clamp last time i was cleaning an engine. though, from what i can tell, the environment in there has improved greatly since the first time i cleaned in there. it's generally cleaner each time, though each time i find new places to get the rag or toothbrush into. keeps coming up yukky, so it must be doing something. loads of the uncomfortable bits have been trimmed and tweaked so it doesn seem like there'll be any flesh left on sharp bolt-ends anymore and i think most of the pointy parts have been smoothed out. still a dirty job. and weirdly tiring top contort and brace, contort and brace all day. every other time we'd done on engine room and then waited a day. then did the next one.
a good policy, though this time if we wait a day, we'll already be in port. last time we got into port i spent a good 2 hours down there and was the last ashore. didn't mind that. i can say that i'm not in a rush to get there (wherever there is, generally but not without notable exceptions).
query of the day: are we supposed to get bored of this or something? i'm not. on the one hand, the sea is pretty much the sea it was when we left. the sky is slightly different. and the sea is not the same, or doesn't seem so to me even from moment to moment.
timing problem: started learning about the sextant today. foolishly not during the day but in nautical twilight. seemed to work our alright. i sighted Sirius and floated the thingy down to where the horizon was. what next? alas, too dark to read the numbers. more tomorrow, if i'm lucky. or more likely, skilled at remembering. today at noon i was under an engine room hatch, all wrapped up in that. an elegant device.
'dunno why we waited for so long.'
dinner: the ship caught another dorado and jenny did it up all simple-like. tasty. after dinner sarah got another guitar lesson. she's up to 5 chords now, and is a few steps closer to the song she wants to learn.
sleepy.
lone rain cloud
i am informed that this is not the case. it's the waves that are close to us. though it certainly IS clear over there, and it's not over here.
like sands.
18°48'45" N
49°55' W
0815 UT
28.2.08
__________________________
weather. we're in some weather. not serious weather, just kinda cool weather. since around sunset, we have been screaming along. i made better than 15 knots near the beginning of my watch, and our avg speed-over-groung has been better than the last couple days.
we're in the trade winds, which means that if we look is the ship's log, we find a couple pages of E 5 or ENE 5, ESE 5 and stuff a whole heckuva lot like that. we're essentially just getting the same thing since rounding that big right turn before capo verde. but right now, since just after dessert, we have been in this localized system. the VRM / EBL (the wwii-lookin' radar thingy) says that there is cloud cover about 1 nautical mile around us in nearly every direction and when i zoom out, it tells me that there is nada for better than 20 nautical miles in every direction. we're surfing.
there's this gust blowing at the low pressure system, the rain cloud. the lone rain cloud that's following us around like that character from Peanuts. it's making a wave, and we're on it. that's great, because it means that we make up for the draggy bits. like when the spinnaker blew up the second time. 2 extra knots meant (or would have meant) that we'd arrive better than a day earlier.
and the other spinnakers (there are two) are reserved for race week. the owner says no go. and since the new (giant pink one) spin sail was in the neighbourhood of 9000 Euros, we'll go along with what boat-owning dude wants. it is indeed a privelige and a luxury to be sailing in this magnificent craft. have i made that clear enough yet? the other spinnakers are bigger. but we're not using them.
___________________
more about sails.
yesterday we hourglassed the gennaker. this is a drag. a giant drag. this fish bit and so what happens when a fish bites is we take the power out of the sails, furl away, turn the boat upwind and reel in dinner / lunch / breakfast.
next what we do is reel it in, et cetera. i lost the fish. this one did not want to be brought in. we also lost the gen, temporarily. hourglass: this is when the wind takes the sail and wraps it up all inconvenient like in the shrouds and so forth. i think of this as a bit of a group effort, as i could have been less interested in getting another fishie and more on the make sure the sail is away part of the process.
matt had been awake and had given some direction about how to cleat thing off. perhaps not as clear in receiving as in the sending. the furling line (this is a rope that winds the sail around a sort of spool at the front of the boat) hadn't been cleated 100% and gave up a little. the explanation about how to cleat off the gen furling line was slightly unclear when i'd received it, and i am thinking it's just hard to explain.
we pulled the sail down. dunked it into the sea. that was a little unnerving, but we managed to haul the offending wet bits out again. dunking a sail in that situation is never a good idea. that's in the how-to-irreparably-damage file. anyway, we got the sail very aboard and onto the trampoline very quickly. pulled it off the halyard (a sailing rope, or 'line' that we use to get the sail up or down the mast), unwrapped the inconvenient bits, took off the sheets (more sailing ropes, these are what lets the sail in and out) and had a little unraveling party. as it was a big undertaking, we roused sarah, who was on the next watch a little early. she in turn woke up First Mate Jenny, inconveniently in the middle of the real sleep in her day.
jenny seems to do a nap and a sleep, whereas i have tended to do to equal parts. marilyn sleeps before her nocturnal watch, slightly afterward and sometimes naps in the afternoon. mostly people get one larger sleep and have minor ones. matt sleeps in fits and starts and wakes up for 15 minutes or half an hour at a time whenever whenever and also seems to get up in the morning and work all day on boaty things. that is why he gets the big bucks.
so we had a 'whole crew moment,' for a while everyone was working on one task all at the same time. perhaps the first time in the whole trip. everyone in harnesses, clipped in. when you launch a spinnaker sail, you often have 'woolies' which keep the thing bunched up at 6 foot intervals so it doesn't get away from you (and hourglass) as you're pulling up the halyard (see above). we tied up the gen sail with piles and piles of elastic bands, as there is no yarn aboard. and bits of saran wrap. we clingfilmed the sail shut. ha ha. so then we were all ready to boom! hoist that rag.
the operation went pretty smooth, though i had put an inconvenient twist in the gen halyard. oops. rather than undo the shackle, matt opted to tie the spin halard onto the furling mechanism and move it around my mistake, alas. more dynamic and did get more people involved. undoing the shackle and tying it off again would have taken probably better than 5 minutes and then we would have had the whole crew waiting around for me to fiddle with the stupid tiny knots again.
sail goes up. saran wrap and elastics go pop, sail billows out and gets some wind. mostly good and mostly without a hitch. we had to wind the sheet around the forestay by hand a little, as it did start to try and get away from us again, but we caught it. i ate an apple and everything was fine. oh. yeah. the fishing pole went off sometime during the process and matt said to put more drag on. this i did. and after the sail was furled away and everything was done, i reeled in a whole pile of line. there was a surprising amount of resistance. but it dind't feel like the fish was fighting. it wasn't running away. and there was a whole lot of line out there. reel reel. crank crank. my arm was getting tired. also somehow i had got up slightly early for watch to look at the sky. tired. still reeling.
no fish. saran wrap. at least two pieces on the hook.
49°55' W
0815 UT
28.2.08
__________________________
weather. we're in some weather. not serious weather, just kinda cool weather. since around sunset, we have been screaming along. i made better than 15 knots near the beginning of my watch, and our avg speed-over-groung has been better than the last couple days.
we're in the trade winds, which means that if we look is the ship's log, we find a couple pages of E 5 or ENE 5, ESE 5 and stuff a whole heckuva lot like that. we're essentially just getting the same thing since rounding that big right turn before capo verde. but right now, since just after dessert, we have been in this localized system. the VRM / EBL (the wwii-lookin' radar thingy) says that there is cloud cover about 1 nautical mile around us in nearly every direction and when i zoom out, it tells me that there is nada for better than 20 nautical miles in every direction. we're surfing.
there's this gust blowing at the low pressure system, the rain cloud. the lone rain cloud that's following us around like that character from Peanuts. it's making a wave, and we're on it. that's great, because it means that we make up for the draggy bits. like when the spinnaker blew up the second time. 2 extra knots meant (or would have meant) that we'd arrive better than a day earlier.
and the other spinnakers (there are two) are reserved for race week. the owner says no go. and since the new (giant pink one) spin sail was in the neighbourhood of 9000 Euros, we'll go along with what boat-owning dude wants. it is indeed a privelige and a luxury to be sailing in this magnificent craft. have i made that clear enough yet? the other spinnakers are bigger. but we're not using them.
___________________
more about sails.
yesterday we hourglassed the gennaker. this is a drag. a giant drag. this fish bit and so what happens when a fish bites is we take the power out of the sails, furl away, turn the boat upwind and reel in dinner / lunch / breakfast.
next what we do is reel it in, et cetera. i lost the fish. this one did not want to be brought in. we also lost the gen, temporarily. hourglass: this is when the wind takes the sail and wraps it up all inconvenient like in the shrouds and so forth. i think of this as a bit of a group effort, as i could have been less interested in getting another fishie and more on the make sure the sail is away part of the process.
matt had been awake and had given some direction about how to cleat thing off. perhaps not as clear in receiving as in the sending. the furling line (this is a rope that winds the sail around a sort of spool at the front of the boat) hadn't been cleated 100% and gave up a little. the explanation about how to cleat off the gen furling line was slightly unclear when i'd received it, and i am thinking it's just hard to explain.
we pulled the sail down. dunked it into the sea. that was a little unnerving, but we managed to haul the offending wet bits out again. dunking a sail in that situation is never a good idea. that's in the how-to-irreparably-damage file. anyway, we got the sail very aboard and onto the trampoline very quickly. pulled it off the halyard (a sailing rope, or 'line' that we use to get the sail up or down the mast), unwrapped the inconvenient bits, took off the sheets (more sailing ropes, these are what lets the sail in and out) and had a little unraveling party. as it was a big undertaking, we roused sarah, who was on the next watch a little early. she in turn woke up First Mate Jenny, inconveniently in the middle of the real sleep in her day.
jenny seems to do a nap and a sleep, whereas i have tended to do to equal parts. marilyn sleeps before her nocturnal watch, slightly afterward and sometimes naps in the afternoon. mostly people get one larger sleep and have minor ones. matt sleeps in fits and starts and wakes up for 15 minutes or half an hour at a time whenever whenever and also seems to get up in the morning and work all day on boaty things. that is why he gets the big bucks.
so we had a 'whole crew moment,' for a while everyone was working on one task all at the same time. perhaps the first time in the whole trip. everyone in harnesses, clipped in. when you launch a spinnaker sail, you often have 'woolies' which keep the thing bunched up at 6 foot intervals so it doesn't get away from you (and hourglass) as you're pulling up the halyard (see above). we tied up the gen sail with piles and piles of elastic bands, as there is no yarn aboard. and bits of saran wrap. we clingfilmed the sail shut. ha ha. so then we were all ready to boom! hoist that rag.
the operation went pretty smooth, though i had put an inconvenient twist in the gen halyard. oops. rather than undo the shackle, matt opted to tie the spin halard onto the furling mechanism and move it around my mistake, alas. more dynamic and did get more people involved. undoing the shackle and tying it off again would have taken probably better than 5 minutes and then we would have had the whole crew waiting around for me to fiddle with the stupid tiny knots again.
sail goes up. saran wrap and elastics go pop, sail billows out and gets some wind. mostly good and mostly without a hitch. we had to wind the sheet around the forestay by hand a little, as it did start to try and get away from us again, but we caught it. i ate an apple and everything was fine. oh. yeah. the fishing pole went off sometime during the process and matt said to put more drag on. this i did. and after the sail was furled away and everything was done, i reeled in a whole pile of line. there was a surprising amount of resistance. but it dind't feel like the fish was fighting. it wasn't running away. and there was a whole lot of line out there. reel reel. crank crank. my arm was getting tired. also somehow i had got up slightly early for watch to look at the sky. tired. still reeling.
no fish. saran wrap. at least two pieces on the hook.
18°49' N
49°43' 30" W
0700 UT
28.2.08
_______________________________
this evening after dinner, i was playing 'andy's tune' sitting on top of the saloon there. half watching the sunset. minding my own business and was half absent-mindedly staring off the starboard side of the boat, when the surface of the water broke and this rather large thing kind of flopped its way upward and then sort of slid back into the sea. it was a ways away and was pretty big, or must have been. for the distance i judged it to be from the boat, i reckon it was out of the water and at least as tall as half our mast, if not as tall. probably as much distance as the maryland bridge is long, but a even little further off than that. the first time i saw it i was all curious and then just sort of kept playing. saw the thing jump maybe 4 or 5 more times. it cleared the water, but this wasn't a dolphin. we've had dolphins before. this one was rather large, and went nose first out. a big blunt sort of not pointy at all nose. sometimes almost all the way out. splashy splash, and then slid back into the water. too far away to see what kind of tail. not so much splash going back in.
i thought about getting:
-someone else
-the excellent binoculars
-the toy camera
-maybe a less of a toy camera
and decided instead that i should extend richard's solo-in-absentia as it was feeling good and funky and was just having a whale of a good time. ar ar. i didn't want to disrupt anything by trying to document anything. photos of that kind of thing rarely measure up to the memory part anyhow.
i do realize that we were moving forward but thing was far enough away that we were't actually passing it quickly or anything. in the next song, i kept an eye peeled. the following song i thought, oh, i should look aft slightly as we are moving forward (and i think at the time doing about 9 knots, so at a decent clip). perhaps this one likes andrew ross, i thought and dug out the sew buttons tune. as i have never been forced to sing that one at gunpoint or anything*, the beginning of the third verse rather eludes me. this is why we have singers in the world. or one aspect of why: the singer person remembers words. regardless, no more fishy.
*like that would help.
49°43' 30" W
0700 UT
28.2.08
_______________________________
this evening after dinner, i was playing 'andy's tune' sitting on top of the saloon there. half watching the sunset. minding my own business and was half absent-mindedly staring off the starboard side of the boat, when the surface of the water broke and this rather large thing kind of flopped its way upward and then sort of slid back into the sea. it was a ways away and was pretty big, or must have been. for the distance i judged it to be from the boat, i reckon it was out of the water and at least as tall as half our mast, if not as tall. probably as much distance as the maryland bridge is long, but a even little further off than that. the first time i saw it i was all curious and then just sort of kept playing. saw the thing jump maybe 4 or 5 more times. it cleared the water, but this wasn't a dolphin. we've had dolphins before. this one was rather large, and went nose first out. a big blunt sort of not pointy at all nose. sometimes almost all the way out. splashy splash, and then slid back into the water. too far away to see what kind of tail. not so much splash going back in.
i thought about getting:
-someone else
-the excellent binoculars
-the toy camera
-maybe a less of a toy camera
and decided instead that i should extend richard's solo-in-absentia as it was feeling good and funky and was just having a whale of a good time. ar ar. i didn't want to disrupt anything by trying to document anything. photos of that kind of thing rarely measure up to the memory part anyhow.
i do realize that we were moving forward but thing was far enough away that we were't actually passing it quickly or anything. in the next song, i kept an eye peeled. the following song i thought, oh, i should look aft slightly as we are moving forward (and i think at the time doing about 9 knots, so at a decent clip). perhaps this one likes andrew ross, i thought and dug out the sew buttons tune. as i have never been forced to sing that one at gunpoint or anything*, the beginning of the third verse rather eludes me. this is why we have singers in the world. or one aspect of why: the singer person remembers words. regardless, no more fishy.
*like that would help.
18°43" N
46°22" W
0645 UT
27.2.08
_______________________
broke my sunglasses. and i thought they'd go for a swim. i was getting all intimate with ferdinand diesel and slipped. i cut my leg on a jubilee clip and i think got a slightly less than significant bruise, and broke my sunglasses. sunglasses don't heal themselves, so that's the only real drag. another engine room afternoon was great except for that.
changed my strings. it's like playing another instrument. the old ones ryan the aussie put on in august i think sitting on the steps of the lodge. it's louder. hee hee. tonight was overcast, though the moon is finally rising later and at least part of my watch will be without the moon, which is now about half and 'it's laying on its back,' as jenny said when we were in france.
i am struck by the angle at which i see the crescent. reading in the celstial navigation training manual, there's a lot to get your head around. really funny stuff like:
101. All the heavenly bodies are at very large distances from the Earth, varying from tens of thousands of miles in the case of the Moon to millions of light years in the case of stars and planets. It is however convenient for the Navigator to think of of these distances as equaln so that the heavenly bodies can be considered to lie on an imaginary ball with the Earth at its centre. This ball is known as the CELESTIAL SPHERE.
202. In practice we know that the Earth rotates around on its axis as it orbits the sun. However it is convenient to think of the situation as seen by an observer on Earth - a stationary Earth with a celestial sphere rotating overhead.
recently i was asked if i'd seen the 'Lion King' and, actually, i haven't. apparently the stars, according to that film, are fireflies trapped in black sticky stuff. shades of the Truman Show.
Hm.
so last night i slept out on the foredeck and thought that the angle at which i view seven sisters and orion here compared to the angle from which i view them from the dining hall deck at the end of august gives me an idea just how big this planet we're on actually is. (long sentence of the day). yes, i still prefer to sleep with my head facing North. so the astounding part of all this is that like kelly (louis!) says:
we are still under the same sky.
46°22" W
0645 UT
27.2.08
_______________________
broke my sunglasses. and i thought they'd go for a swim. i was getting all intimate with ferdinand diesel and slipped. i cut my leg on a jubilee clip and i think got a slightly less than significant bruise, and broke my sunglasses. sunglasses don't heal themselves, so that's the only real drag. another engine room afternoon was great except for that.
changed my strings. it's like playing another instrument. the old ones ryan the aussie put on in august i think sitting on the steps of the lodge. it's louder. hee hee. tonight was overcast, though the moon is finally rising later and at least part of my watch will be without the moon, which is now about half and 'it's laying on its back,' as jenny said when we were in france.
i am struck by the angle at which i see the crescent. reading in the celstial navigation training manual, there's a lot to get your head around. really funny stuff like:
101. All the heavenly bodies are at very large distances from the Earth, varying from tens of thousands of miles in the case of the Moon to millions of light years in the case of stars and planets. It is however convenient for the Navigator to think of of these distances as equaln so that the heavenly bodies can be considered to lie on an imaginary ball with the Earth at its centre. This ball is known as the CELESTIAL SPHERE.
202. In practice we know that the Earth rotates around on its axis as it orbits the sun. However it is convenient to think of the situation as seen by an observer on Earth - a stationary Earth with a celestial sphere rotating overhead.
recently i was asked if i'd seen the 'Lion King' and, actually, i haven't. apparently the stars, according to that film, are fireflies trapped in black sticky stuff. shades of the Truman Show.
Hm.
so last night i slept out on the foredeck and thought that the angle at which i view seven sisters and orion here compared to the angle from which i view them from the dining hall deck at the end of august gives me an idea just how big this planet we're on actually is. (long sentence of the day). yes, i still prefer to sleep with my head facing North. so the astounding part of all this is that like kelly (louis!) says:
we are still under the same sky.
the pure tenor quality of the voice of harold.
19°20' N
40°39' W
0645 UT
26.2.08
___________________________________________
today's big epiphany about the sea:
i am filled with not-envy for the particular one of the seven chinese brothers who had the ability to swallow the ocean. it tastes bad.
the comparison test:
a) in la grande motte, the mediterranean tastes bad. of course i was skin diving in a marina.
b) in the atlantic, even in the middle of the middle, tastes bad. i took a mouthful when i was dragging behind the boat. (recreationally).
this afternoon we stopped the boat, in order that the crew could actually swim (and shower afterward). a nice diversion. captain matt was teasing me that i am afraid of sharks, but mostly i was sittin' on the bimini enjoying the sudden lack of purpose.
something about the boat inexorably moving toward its destination. every second of every day, and if the sails aren't making 7 knots the engine goes on.
and then dove off the bimini and i swam a little. even drifting, the flying cloud lives up to its name. if you think about that the 'average' canoe goes around 3 knots - around 3 mph, trying to swim after a canoe that is moving away from you is difficult. it's unlikely that you'd catch up. at 7 knots, there's no way to even consider catching up, sprinting for everything you're worth. we were drifting close to 3 knots i think.
one thing rose e. mentioned was that in her goal-setting process, she considered weighing the value of having commitment and security versus more freedom and less stability. this is a theme of mine. when flying cloud takes a break, i like to as well. all of a sudden, it's just the feeling of being adrift. a rest from the purposeful advance to the next mooring. that's something i respond to well. and then i like swimming and all that, but if it's actually a break, then a break it shall be.
ha ha. rose's ma marilyn said in conversation that in antigua there are plenty of restaurants to work at. somehow i think i didn't hesitate to suggest that i didn't want to work in a restaurant. though i certainly would be happy to work in the week i have there after flying cloud splits on charter. plan is that the boat leaves about 10 days before my flight. a fate i resist: work in a restaurant. i believe i'd much rather work in or on a boat. and perhaps i'll sit in the shade with my guitar for a day or two. working in the right restaurant wouldn't be so bad. it's just a lot of work. as marilyn well knows, she and rose are part of a team that runs one, and they're busy busy.
i still really like working for a block of time and then hiding at the cabin for a week with a book and the espresso machine. and living mostly off the grid. earn less, spend less. and then there's the music part, which depends on nebulous factors; and is a terribly inefficient way in which to eke out an existence, but occasionally has great reward for all the unpaid, nonlinear, non-directed study / practice / creative endeavour. and then the cabin for a week.
'no wait, i want to go to china.
or vietnam.
i'm a commitment-phobic man'
-jacques lussier, from shed your skin
40°39' W
0645 UT
26.2.08
___________________________________________
today's big epiphany about the sea:
i am filled with not-envy for the particular one of the seven chinese brothers who had the ability to swallow the ocean. it tastes bad.
the comparison test:
a) in la grande motte, the mediterranean tastes bad. of course i was skin diving in a marina.
b) in the atlantic, even in the middle of the middle, tastes bad. i took a mouthful when i was dragging behind the boat. (recreationally).
this afternoon we stopped the boat, in order that the crew could actually swim (and shower afterward). a nice diversion. captain matt was teasing me that i am afraid of sharks, but mostly i was sittin' on the bimini enjoying the sudden lack of purpose.
something about the boat inexorably moving toward its destination. every second of every day, and if the sails aren't making 7 knots the engine goes on.
and then dove off the bimini and i swam a little. even drifting, the flying cloud lives up to its name. if you think about that the 'average' canoe goes around 3 knots - around 3 mph, trying to swim after a canoe that is moving away from you is difficult. it's unlikely that you'd catch up. at 7 knots, there's no way to even consider catching up, sprinting for everything you're worth. we were drifting close to 3 knots i think.
one thing rose e. mentioned was that in her goal-setting process, she considered weighing the value of having commitment and security versus more freedom and less stability. this is a theme of mine. when flying cloud takes a break, i like to as well. all of a sudden, it's just the feeling of being adrift. a rest from the purposeful advance to the next mooring. that's something i respond to well. and then i like swimming and all that, but if it's actually a break, then a break it shall be.
ha ha. rose's ma marilyn said in conversation that in antigua there are plenty of restaurants to work at. somehow i think i didn't hesitate to suggest that i didn't want to work in a restaurant. though i certainly would be happy to work in the week i have there after flying cloud splits on charter. plan is that the boat leaves about 10 days before my flight. a fate i resist: work in a restaurant. i believe i'd much rather work in or on a boat. and perhaps i'll sit in the shade with my guitar for a day or two. working in the right restaurant wouldn't be so bad. it's just a lot of work. as marilyn well knows, she and rose are part of a team that runs one, and they're busy busy.
i still really like working for a block of time and then hiding at the cabin for a week with a book and the espresso machine. and living mostly off the grid. earn less, spend less. and then there's the music part, which depends on nebulous factors; and is a terribly inefficient way in which to eke out an existence, but occasionally has great reward for all the unpaid, nonlinear, non-directed study / practice / creative endeavour. and then the cabin for a week.
'no wait, i want to go to china.
or vietnam.
i'm a commitment-phobic man'
-jacques lussier, from shed your skin
one more colour.
20°35' 30" N
41°30' W
0700 UT
25.2.08
___________________________
this afternoon i stoppd briefly en route to the tool hatch and decided that the ocean is reallly... blue.
not just sort of blue. but blue blue, and as far as you can see in every direction for days and days.
here's one. google maps accepts lats and longs. so i should put a link to the google maps thing. or maybe google earth, but less people use that than the maps thing i think. also, if i write the word google many times, perhaps google will like me better and aweard me with a higher google ranking, or perhaps some kind of google points. we watched a film the other day in which the word 'google' came up lilke three times in the first half hour. i wonder how much they paid for that one. product placement is indeed the way of the future.
got a bit of a sunburn. sorry, winnipeg. not gloating, just saying. oops on the burn. i was enjoying the afternoon more than usual. or more outside than usual. my noctuarnal watch usually has me in the don't need to be in the sun but there i was in the sun and only partially suncreened. d-uh. well. on the plus side, there's some great moisturizer on the boat that is for the inevitable drag of not using enough of the boat's sunscreen.
spin sail repair was a bomb. it lasted maybe 15 minutes and then tore in the spot that was repaired before by the pro dudes. the one marilyn did today by hand seemed to have held just fine. but it appears that the patch was UV damaged or something. reminds me of ripsalot, the fly on lise brown's 6 wk in 2002. ultraviolet damage makes me sad.
so the plus side might be that i can make som hammocks out of the remnants. and spinnaker sails are HUGE. so i'd be able to make a hammock for everyone on the boat, matt says: 'and then sell the rest to tourists in antigua.' ha ha. or possibly make a sun canopy for the front part of the boat. i'd also consider replacing the kinda yukky hammocks that i am storing under my mattress. they're just not in the 'as new' condition in which the boat is maintained, and to which i have become accustomed. except for my foul weather gear.
more rheostatix back catalogue today. played guitar for nearly the entirety of my watch. i used to listen to 'introducing happiness' nearly every day. you'd think i'd be able to remember more words than i do. also that scott nolan tune:
since you've been gone
it's all i've been dreaming of
what the summer felt like
to the person that i was
maybe our hearts fooled us somehow
it's all over. all over, now.
this tune must have more (other) words than:
'she always looks like she's leavin'.
but the problem with learning piles and piles of songs is that the words where there are backup harmonies are the words i learn first. and first lines of songs and sometimes of verses. though last time i didn't get a mic and only had one gig or maybe two with the scott band after i finally got a recording of the tunes. that's okay. i was too scared to sing anyway. that would require actual rehearsal and all kinds of nebulous factors, the correct phase of the moon, red gummi bears, another gig with the scott band. stuff like that. also scott nolan doesn't use a set list. ever. so i actually have no idea what this song is called. it's the one in C that goes: 'she always looks like..' scott wins with this one the 'most killer first line' award.
41°30' W
0700 UT
25.2.08
___________________________
this afternoon i stoppd briefly en route to the tool hatch and decided that the ocean is reallly... blue.
not just sort of blue. but blue blue, and as far as you can see in every direction for days and days.
here's one. google maps accepts lats and longs. so i should put a link to the google maps thing. or maybe google earth, but less people use that than the maps thing i think. also, if i write the word google many times, perhaps google will like me better and aweard me with a higher google ranking, or perhaps some kind of google points. we watched a film the other day in which the word 'google' came up lilke three times in the first half hour. i wonder how much they paid for that one. product placement is indeed the way of the future.
got a bit of a sunburn. sorry, winnipeg. not gloating, just saying. oops on the burn. i was enjoying the afternoon more than usual. or more outside than usual. my noctuarnal watch usually has me in the don't need to be in the sun but there i was in the sun and only partially suncreened. d-uh. well. on the plus side, there's some great moisturizer on the boat that is for the inevitable drag of not using enough of the boat's sunscreen.
spin sail repair was a bomb. it lasted maybe 15 minutes and then tore in the spot that was repaired before by the pro dudes. the one marilyn did today by hand seemed to have held just fine. but it appears that the patch was UV damaged or something. reminds me of ripsalot, the fly on lise brown's 6 wk in 2002. ultraviolet damage makes me sad.
so the plus side might be that i can make som hammocks out of the remnants. and spinnaker sails are HUGE. so i'd be able to make a hammock for everyone on the boat, matt says: 'and then sell the rest to tourists in antigua.' ha ha. or possibly make a sun canopy for the front part of the boat. i'd also consider replacing the kinda yukky hammocks that i am storing under my mattress. they're just not in the 'as new' condition in which the boat is maintained, and to which i have become accustomed. except for my foul weather gear.
more rheostatix back catalogue today. played guitar for nearly the entirety of my watch. i used to listen to 'introducing happiness' nearly every day. you'd think i'd be able to remember more words than i do. also that scott nolan tune:
since you've been gone
it's all i've been dreaming of
what the summer felt like
to the person that i was
maybe our hearts fooled us somehow
it's all over. all over, now.
this tune must have more (other) words than:
'she always looks like she's leavin'.
but the problem with learning piles and piles of songs is that the words where there are backup harmonies are the words i learn first. and first lines of songs and sometimes of verses. though last time i didn't get a mic and only had one gig or maybe two with the scott band after i finally got a recording of the tunes. that's okay. i was too scared to sing anyway. that would require actual rehearsal and all kinds of nebulous factors, the correct phase of the moon, red gummi bears, another gig with the scott band. stuff like that. also scott nolan doesn't use a set list. ever. so i actually have no idea what this song is called. it's the one in C that goes: 'she always looks like..' scott wins with this one the 'most killer first line' award.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
