San Diego: Australian sunrise; LOST HORIZON; all the way

I thank Patrick for permission to post the above beautiful sunrise over Burrum Heads, Harvey Bay, Australia.

Congratulations and condolences are in order now that the Rugby World Cup is down to the two finalists.  The accounts I have read agree that England dominated the favorite Kiwis in one semi-final while South Africa edged Wales in the other.  Australia and Ireland went out in the quarters.  Scotland earlier.

Of the twenty teams at the Rugby World Cup only about half are competitive, including this year the hosts, Japan.  The other ten just fill in the numbers, including the US which did not win a match.

I have friends in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.  Congratulations and condolences as appropriate.

From Durban, South Africa, Chris recently mentioned James Hilton’s novel, LOST HORIZON.  This is a novel everyone knows of, having introduced ‘Shanghri-La’ into the tribal consciousness, but I doubt few now read.  I had not, so I downloaded a Kindle edition which I finished two days ago.  It is much different and much better than I expected.  Four Westerners—two young men in the British counselor service, an English woman Christian missionary, and an American wanted for Wall Street fraud—are on a small plane that deviates from its expected course and takes them to a monastery in the high Himalayas.  I am not going to say more.  The book is well worth reading.  James Hilton also wrote GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS.

Seen on my walk beside the flood control channel to the supermarket today.  Obviously high tide.  Obviously life thrives wherever it can.

Two days ago I did the first and second sets of my workout.  I felt I could have done the third set, but stopped.  I have just come down below after having done the full workout, including 160 push-ups and crunches in sets of 80-40-40 and I really only have to do 77 in the first set for a few more weeks, for the first time since my fall on August 17.  I am still smiling.  Even old bodies heal.

San Diego: two absurdities; two poems; a habit; loaf

That Halloween has become an adult holiday is a triumph of marketing and inanity.  Even the marina has been invaded by this absurdity.


Another absurdity is a bottle of whiskey that just sold for $1.9 million.  That is not a misprint.  We all know that a few people have far, far too much money, but this is not only absurd it is obscene.  I realize that the purchase  might be seen as an investment.  That too is absurd.  Whiskey is not meant to sit in a bottle and increase in price—not value—as rich fools strive to outbid one another.  Whiskey is meant to be drunk.

I thank Zane for the link.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/whisky-auction-record-trnd/index.html


As I have noted I read some poetry and listen to some Bach everyday.  I read other things and listen to other music, but these are fundamental  pleasures of my life.

Recently I have mostly been reading the Kindle version of an anthology, IMMORTAL POEMS, edited by Christopher Burns.

In it yesterday I chanced upon an old friend that I believe I quoted in one of the many storms at sea during the STORM PASSAGE voyage.  The author is anonymous.  It was written about 1500.

Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.


And here is a poem by Emily Dickinson written in 1862 that is particularly apt in our age of social media mobs.


Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye
Much sense, the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevail.
Assent and you are sane,
Demur, you’re straightaway dangerous
And handled with a chain.


In the introduction Christopher Burns suggests that poets have a greater emotional response to life than most and goes on to say, “An increased capacity for emotional response may allow people greater enjoyment of love, beauty and the world around them, but it also makes them vulnerable to greater disappointment, depression and despair.  Of the 121 poets in this collection, four died of alcoholism and eight took their own lives—a rate of suicide one hundred times greater than the norm.”



Although the hose is reachable from GANNET’s deck, useful in fending off sea lions, and I do not have to row every drop of water out to GANNET as has been usual In the past, I still find myself habitually conserving.   After breakfast in the morning, I first pour a little water in the tumbler from which I have drunk juice.  I rinse and then pour that water into the coffee cup. I rinse and then pour that water over the tablespoon with which I ate my uncooked oatmeal.  I do that over the plastic measuring cup from which I ate that oatmeal so it partially rinses that too.



As I knew long before the myth of multi-tasking arose, I am a serial machine, not a parallel one.  I do one thing, concentrate on it, finish, and then do another.  There is slippage in this process, but that is all right and even beneficial.  Recently I have been in writing mode.  In the past several weeks I have written and sold articles to CRUISING WORLD, YACHTING WORLD, LATITUDE 38 and completed a long email interview for SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR. I have no idea when any of these will appear and now that I have nothing more to write for a while I am uncertain what to do with myself until Carol flies to San Diego week after next for a business conference that she will extend into a mini-vacation.  I might follow Walt Whitman’s good advice and ‘loaf and invite my soul.’  Or I might walk around to the Royal Rooster and eat a taco.  Maybe both.

San Diego: Scottish solidarity; a fleet too big

Yesterday I walked a little over three miles to my local Laphroaig supplier in hopes of obtaining a pre-tariff supply.  I was successful and bought two bottles for $50 each which has been the usual price in San Diego.  In Evanston, a bottle only costs $40.  Score one for the flatlands.

The 25% tariff will have no significant impact on my life, but it will on thousands in Scotland where exports of scotch whisky are worth 4.7 billion pounds, or about 5.9 billion dollars, and account for 70% of Scotland’s food and drink exports and 21% off Britain’s.

More than £1 billion pounds of scotch goes to the US.

I do not know for certain, but I expect that the tariff will apply to the wholesale price of single malt scotch, not the retail, but even if it does apply to retail, it would mean a bottle of my favorite liquid will cost $62.50 in San Diego instead of $50.  I don’t want to pay the higher figure, but I can and I will.  I stand beside you Scotland.  I will buy as much 10 year Laphroaig as I always have.  I may even increase my consumption to assist you in your time of need.  One has a duty to stand by friends in troubled times and I will, however difficult, do my duty.

Peculiarly the duty applies only to single malt scotch, not blends.  I smell a lobbyist and probably blend drinking politicians.  All politicians are bad and most are worse.



The NY TIMES has an article about the world’s biggest sailing regatta, which takes place off Trieste, Italy, and is further superfluous proof that we are herd animals.  Or most of us are.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/world/europe/italy-trieste-barcolana-regatta.html


The photos are of birds in the flood control channel of the normally non-existent San Diego River which runs just south of Quivira Basin and the entrance channel to Mission Bay.  Here at the mouth it is tidal and frequented by hundreds of birds and people and dogs using the designated dog beach.   Two or three times in most winters storms drop enough rain on the coast and the 5,000’ mountains forty or fifty miles inland to cause the river to flow and even sometimes flood nearby Mission Valley.

The lower photo is natural color.  The top one Apple Photos ‘Silvertone’.  In this case I like the artificial better.

San Diego: I’m back, baby

After almost seven weeks on the injured reserve list following a sneak attack by a rogue coffee table, I began to ease back into my workouts.  First 40 push-ups with only slight twinges.  Then 50. 60.  70. And yesterday 78 push-ups and crunches and 150 knee bends on the foredeck.  78 in preparation for my reaching that august age in a few weeks.  I am still only doing the first series of my work-out, not all three series, but I’m back, baby.  I’m back.

I rewarded myself by walking around to the Royal Rooster at Seaforth Sportfishing on the other side of Quivira Basin and partaking of what may be the world’s best tacos.


October is often a warm month on the California coast with pressure inland causing Santa Ana winds to blow from the desert to the ocean.  Last evening saw 80ºF/26.6C at sunset, making it pleasantly warm on deck.  No sea lions tried to sleep on the dock beside GANNET, but they were unusually noisy out on the bait barge. 

As I sat sipping box wine and listening to the soundtrack from MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA I observed a lot of squabbling and aggression out there.  Sea lions blocking others from jumping from the water to the barge.  Egrets chasing other egrets until they took flight.  And a cloud of at least thirty pelicans gliding from behind me, circling and landing on the now crowded barge.  Everyone quieted down after dark.

The one negative of the evening was that with the wind blowing more from the north than usual, GANNET and I were downwind of the odiferous  barge.

San Diego: a double double

The handsome violinist is my friend Tim Hazlett.  I have written about him before.  I don’t usually include last names in this journal, not wanting to cause people the public embarrassment of being known as a friend of Webb Chiles, but I know Tim personally and believe he is up to the notoriety.

Scientists tell us that there have been between one hundred billion and one hundred and ten billion of our glorious and ignoble and misnamed species.  A few years ago Tim performed what I believe is a unique double unduplicated in history.  He ran a full marathon one morning and performed in a symphony orchestra that evening.  Well, he just did it again, running his 68th marathon last Saturday morning and playing the violin that evening in the Heritage Philharmonic’s performance of Saint-Saens Third Symphony.  I have a recording of that symphony and listened  on deck at twilight Saturday in spirit with Tim if not in person.  Also in spirits.

In addition to running and playing the violin, Tim is a husband, son, father, reader of old newspapers online, a business man, and an occasional sipper of Laphroaig.  His goal is to run 100 marathons  by age 60.  I don’t recall his current age, but with 32 to go I am confident that he will make it and when he does if I am still alive I will be one of those congratulating him at the finish line wherever in the world that finish line is, and I will bring the Laphroaig.

San Diego: neighbor; photos; 70

The above was taken a few minutes ago.  I’ve had to chase him off the dock twice today.  He now goes without complaint whenever I step on deck.  If I remain standing in the companionway, he stays put


I walked to the entrance channel yesterday and through the boat yard.

The ocean is to the left.  Quivira Basin to the right.  Mission Bay ahead.

There are some expensive high tech boats in the yard.  This is looking up at the bow which overhangs the fence and juts above the sidewalk of the boat on the left.  I am not a good judge of the length of boats this big, but it is at least 80’.

This has been in the far corner of the yard for a long time.  I don’t know its story.

This passes for wit.

Yesterday I did 70 push-ups and 80 crunches.  7 more push-ups to go.

San Diego: twilight; another roadside attraction; 60

Dawn and twilight are my favorite times of day.  We are creatures of the light and at night during storms at sea I count the hours until dawn.  Twilight at sea or ashore almost always sees me sipping something and when on GANNET listening to music.

Twilight on GANNET’s ringside seat to Quivira Basin is lovely.  Birds making their last excursions.  Sea lions swimming.  Seaforth day trip fishing boats returning.  Other boats heading for their slips.  Usually a few kayakers waiting to view the sunset.

“And I can sit with silence on the gentle sloop.”  A line from a poem I wrote forty-seven years ago.  I still sit with silence, though now on a different sloop



Twice now in the past few twilights, the small sailboats with benches on the foredeck have on their wine tours around Quivira Basin which are quite popular with groups of young women paused a respectful distance from GANNET.  The first time I wondered about this.  Last night I saw the man operating the boat say something and then point our way, following which four young women all turned and stared at GANNET and me and I heard one of them say, “No!  Really?”  

I have passed on the dock the men who run those boats and said, “Hi” but have never had a conversation.  There are many in the marina who were here when GANNET and I began our voyage and presumably word gets around.

This had been a year of triumph.  I completed my sixth circumnavigation.  I have been quoted on tea bag labels.  And now in my old age I have become another roadside attraction.  What more can a man dream of?



Yesterday afternoon I did 60 push-ups and crunches on the foredeck.  I am not doing the full routine, just the first series.  I may do 60 once more before reaching for 70.  We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.  I have a little over three weeks before I need to get to 78.  I will make it

San Diego: pelagic not litteral

The sound of nearby snoring woke me just after midnight.  I had reconfigured the interior to harbor mode and was sleeping on the v-berth with the forward hatch open above me.  I smelled fish.  I did not need to look out to know what had happened.

I rolled into the Great Cabin and got dressed.  I had hoped to catch him unaware, but he must have been sleeping lightly for as my upper body emerged above deck, he reared up and snarled at me.  I have arranged to be able to reach and turn on the hose without leaving GANNET, but I did not need to.  As I climbed onto the deck, he gave one more irritated ‘arkk’ and rolled into the water.  He swam around a few yards off for a minute or two and then went elsewhere.

Being awakened by snores is one thing.  Having the beast on the dock when I come back in GANNET would be quite another. There is not a lot of room here and he is considerably bigger than I.  Maybe I need to buy a water pistol.

A few readers have emailed suggestions of places I might use as destinations in Southern California waters.  I have sailed to many of them, though not for fifty years.  I have sailed from San Francisco to San Diego and from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  This last was between my second and third attempts at Cape Horn and one of the few boat deliveries I have ever done. 

As I have noted before, California, like South Africa, has few natural harbors and anchorages.  It also has a lot of regulations.  Southern California does have many marinas, but I have no desire to marina hop.  And all this is beside the point.

Simply as we all know I am pelagic not littoral.  If I were any creature other than human, I would be a wandering albatross.  Not a sea gull.  I am designed to sail across oceans, not beside coasts.  I don’t want land to always be in sight or just over the horizon.  I don’t want always to see four or five boats and ships or at night their lights.  I want land to be a thousand miles away and not to have seen another boat for weeks.  What I am going to do about that I do not yet know.

I know Southern California weather.  I pretty much know the world’s wind patterns, storm seasons, and currents.  San Diego’s weather is among the most consistently good in the world.  The wind is very predominantly from the NW.  I had hoped to sail to windward far enough to set the G2 for a long run back.  It didn’t happen, but I did get a bit farther north than the Yellowbrick track shows.  I was off Camp Pendleton, the Marine base, when I tacked.  Ironically this is the only undeveloped coastal land left in more than two hundred miles from Tijuana, Mexico to the south to past Santa Barbara in the north.

GANNET needs some work.  The pipe berth covers need replacement or repair.  The standing rigging replaced after a circumnavigation, though I see nothing wrong with it.  The jib furling gear inspected.  The masthead anchor light is not working.  The topsides haven’t been painted in six or seven years.  But essentially the little boat is better than ever since I repainted the interior and reorganized stowage.  It was significantly easier to change from harbor mode to passage mode and back this time and I like that the interior is less cluttered and I can with ease find whatever I want.  During our twenty-five hour sail, everything functioned as it should.  Life on GANNET has never been more of a pleasure.

Now if I can just figure out this sailing thing.

San Diego: no where in particular

October 14, Monday

0930  Although I had planned to wait for the wind, I wanted to get going so I fit the Torqeedo and powered from the dock at 0930.  Blue sky.  No wind.

As we entered the Mission Bay entrance channel the surface was lightly ruffled and I raised the mainsail.  While doing so one of the reef lines caught under the tiller, lifting it and somehow breaking off the plastic tip that goes over the tiller pin.  It may have hit the boom.  I hand steered for a few minutes, then ducked below to get another tiller pilot.

We entered the ocean at 1000.  Beside us was one of the trawlers that feed the bait barge and a big sport fishing boat.  When the turbulence from their wakes quieted, I removed the Torqeedo and raised the jib.  The wind is still a bit south of west and no more than 4 or 5 knots.  We are sailing at 4 to 5 on a port tack in the general direction of Catalina 60 miles ahead.  I don’t plan to stop there, but may sail around the island.  Sky blue with only a few wisps of cloud on the western horizon.  The sea gently undulating and almost flat.

1300 The wind has veered and increased a knot or two and we are now sailing 330º at 4.8 knots in 5 or 6 knits of wind.  The sea is blue and glistening and GANNET is moving smoothly, heeled 5º-10º.

While none are close, there are always three our four other boats or ships visible. 

The tip of the tiller arm screws into place.  The one that broke was on a tiller pilot I bought this year, so I transferred the tip from my oldest pilot, dating from 2015, that I suspect is about to fail to the newer one.  

1430 We are ten miles offshore and at last have open ocean free of boats and ships ahead of us.

An hour ago a Navy ship was dead in the water directly in our path.  I wanted to give her a wide berth, so fell off 20º, but as we neared she steamed slowly ahead, so I came up again and passed her astern.  She is still visible inshore.

A clear day.  I can see probably fifty or more miles of coast, from Point Loma to the south to Dana Point to the north.

I topped up the Torqeedo battery. It was at 85% when I turned it off.  I had powered a little more than a mile, so this is consistent with a range of about 7 miles.

I also changed the Yellowbrick to transmit updates every four hours rather than six.

We continue making 5 knots on 330-335º and will converge with the land between Newport Beach and Long Beach.  I will tack offshore before sunset.

1700  As sunset nears we are making 5 knots around 345-350º 8.5 miles off Oceanside.  We’ve sailed 28 miles since leaving the Mission Bay entrance channel.  Heading us, as expected, the wind now has GANNET converging with the shore somewhere between San Clemente and Laguna Beach, 12-15 miles ahead.  I put a couple of rolls in the jib because we were heeled more than 20º.

I have been listening to music and sipping Plymouth gin and will again after writing this, but I don’t know about sailing no where in particular.  I like seeing the water flow by.  I like the little boat motion underway.  But...  I am not sure what the ‘but’ is.  I’ll give it more time.` 

1820. Tacked and now sailing in dying wind 225º.  I don’t know that anyone else will understand, but this is not me.  I have furled the jib. The wind is dying as expected with the setting sun.  I will head back in tomorrow.  

October 15, Tuesday

0700  I furled the jib and let us sail south under main alone until 0400.  There were always lights of boats or ships visible.  One with bright yellow lights was west of us most of the night.  At 0400 we were 20 miles due west of the Mission Bay channel.  I turned east.  The wind went very light and the main began to fill and collapse on inch high wavelets.  I tied a preventer to the boom.  When I woke a few minutes ago I set the jib.  We’re making 3 knots on a close reach beneath coastal cloud 13 miles off the channel entrance.  A boat is visible to the south.

1200 I docked a half hour ago to find a huge sea lion dropping on the end of the dock.  Obviously someone was pleased with our absence.  The hose is now reachable from the deck.   I am prepared to defend my turf.

The wind rose to 8 knots this morning and we had the best sailing of our brief jaunt, making 5 and 6 knots on a beam reach under jib and main.

I lowered the main a half mile off the channel entrance and deeply furled the jib once we were in the channel while I fit the Torqeedo to power into Quivira Basin.

I found myself first thinking that this was a failed experiment, but on further reflection it was not.  It successfully reaffirmed something I already knew:  sailing no where in particular is not for me.

One failure was that I shot a video with a new camera only to discover that its default format is not recognized by my iPad.  I believe I have changed that to a format that is.

I am still trying to figure out this third part of my life.

San Diego: passage mode

GANNET is in passage mode, though I am not going on a passage.  Quite probably I am going to go out and drift around under a full moon.  The above photo was taken from the companionway last evening.  San Diego has many fine qualities, but it lacks wind.

The transformation took less time than usual, in part because I filled only two jerry cans with water, in part because I removed a lot of stuff from the boat when I was last here.

I seldom check the weather in San Diego, but did download a GRIB with the LuckGrib app, which as I think I have said before is even better on the iPad than my MacBook.  I am glad I did because just outside the Channel Islands later in the week atypical wind of 30+ knots is forecast.  I don’t want 30 knots.  I don’t want an ordeal.  I don’t even want to get wet.  Inside the Channel Islands the wind will be light and fluky as usual.  I may get bored quickly.

I will turn the Yellowbrick on tomorrow morning, but I plan to sail from the dock and so won’t leave until the wind comes up which may be noon or later or never.  It is likely that with no destination that I will heave to at night to sleep, so if you find us more or less stationary remain calm.

I did dig out the Torqeedo to determine if it would start.  It did.  In fact the new Torqeedo has always started as it should, with the single exception of when I inadvertently fit the old tiller arm to it.

Yesterday I walked to the Ralph’s supermarket in Pacific Beach,  It is 3.5 miles, a mile farther than the one near the Sports Arena I usually go to, but a nicer walk, much of it on the Mission Beach boardwalk.  

Although it is mid-October and the ocean is cool, a lot of people were on the beach.
The ones in the foreground are taking surfing lessons.

Marina Village which occupies the east half of Quivira Basin is also a conference center and site of outdoor weddings almost every Saturday.

A nice place to be married.  But I’ve done that.

San Diego: neighbors

Daily temperatures here remain in the low 70sF/23C, but sea lions are often sleeping in the water with flippers extended perhaps to cool off.  For myself, I was slightly too cool last night and will change to the heavier sleeping bag.

When I stood in the companionway yesterday afternoon I discovered a large sea lion sunning himself on the dock beside GANNET.  He had arrived quietly and I had not known he was there.  When he saw me he reared up and arrked with loud irritation.

Before GANNET’s circumnavigation I learned from a dock yard worker that sea lions can surprisingly be driven off by water.  They don’t like to be sprayed with a hose.  Mine was on the dock a little too close to the beast, so I got the plastic bowl I use as the kitchen sink and reached over the side to fill it.  The instant I threw the contents at him, he dove from the dock.

He circled around, but when each time he approached the dock he saw me now armed with the hose, he finally gave up and went elsewhere.

There are four fenders tied to GANNET’s port side.  I tried to keep them high enough so that the bottoms did not touch the water, but one of them did.  The amount and variety of growth in two months was remarkable and several inches deep.  It all came off easily with a putty knife and scrub brush, following which I tied the fender higher.

The diver is due to come at 1 PM.  I may walk to a supermarket afterwards or, more likely, I will wait until tomorrow.  While GANNET already has enough lunches and dinners on board for several weeks, I need more oatmeal and powered milk and trail mix, etc.

I have not checked the weather, after all this is Southern California, but will.  Unless I find the unexpected, I will go sailing next week.  I will try to remember to turn on the Yellowbrick.  Do not be alarmed if you see us sailing straight out away from land for two or three days.  I am not running away from home, but I don’t have any destination and may just pick a comfortable point of sail and follow it for two or three days and then turn around and sail back.  Or I may stop at one of the islands.  Or not.  

San Diego: a silver evening.

I tried to upload photos that show the silver or perhaps pewter, but the system does not seem to be working.  We are better, at least some of us, than the platforms.

So take my word for it—and as I recently wrote to a magazine editor I care more for my words than for my voyages—it is a gray evening.  That is good.  

As I have noted here the ‘boating’ season ends in San Diego as in places in this nation with less temperate climates, in early September on Labor Day.   

Few people are around now, both on the docks, and on the water.  The kayak rental business is dead.  In the little more than twenty-four hours I have been back, only a handful of kayakers and stand up boarders have passed.  Yet this is perhaps the best part of the year.  

I arrived yesterday around noon.  Kevin, my marina neighbor and friend, had offered to pick me up at the airport, which is only three or four miles from the marina, and we then went and had lunch at the Royal Rooster on the other side of Quivira Basin which may have the best tacos in the world.  Certainly their carne asada taco is the best I have ever had.

After lunch I found GANNET in good condition.  Kevin had hosed some bird droppings off that morning.  The interior was understandably musty, but Southern California being a desert dry and mold free.

I slept well after listening to Bach accompanied by sea lions on deck in the evening.  During the night sea lions woke me from time to time.  One must have been swimming close to GANNET.  He was very loud.

This morning I scrubbed the deck and then walked to the supermarket to get essential supplies.  Although I Ubered back, my watch tells me I walked four miles today.

In Evanston we have a very nice condo.  The interior space is light, comfortable and convenient.  I appreciate that.  Life on GANNET is inconvenient.  I love being with Carol.  I love being on GANNET.  Convenience is not the highest value.

I am settled in.

I have arranged for a diver to scrub GANNET’s bottom on Friday.  I have inventoried provisions and find that with only a few additions I have enough on board, once I fill jerry cans with water, to sail to Hawaii.  I don’t intend to sail to Hawaii, but I expect to sail some next week.  I will turn the Yellowbrick on if any want to follow.

There are more big birds here than two months ago.  Cranes or egrets, perhaps both.  I am not sure.

Sitting on deck an hour ago, sipping tequila, watching birds and a few kayakers, listening to Vangelis’s OPERA SAUVAGE, I felt peace and serenity.  You know that if I could live wherever I want, I would be in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, but I can’t, and, although I have lived almost half my life in the Midwest, San Diego’s Mission Bay and Mission Beach are more truly my land home than anywhere else.  Careful readers may recall that I quoted the Greek poet Kazantzakis Ulysses, ‘my voyages have been my native home.’  My voyages have been my home, but so is Carol.

I love being with her.  I love being here.  I love being a thousand miles from land.  And I have had all.

Evanston: ready

I’ve dusted, vacuumed, made the bed, cleaned the bathrooms, emptied the dishwasher, did 35 push-ups and crunches, and as you can see am packed and ready to go.

My life in Evanston is quite comfortable.

Tomorrow no headroom, no hot and cold water, no refrigeration, limited Internet and television, a long walk to the shower, a much longer walk to a supermarket, and my evening drink on deck.  It will be wonderful.

Evanston: wrist navigation; triumph; bad idea; the meaning of Ithacas

I have replaced my Series 3 Apple Watch with a just released Series 5.  I sold the old one to Klyman who paid me $100.  Apple had offered $70.

The Series 5 has several features the Series 3 did not, of which the most significant is an always on display.  The 5 can also take ECG’s, which I have found don’t work at a pulse rate of less than 50 as mine usually is at rest, and has a compass, which you can see above.  Ever since the Series 3 Apple Watches have had built in GPS chips.  Now, I who navigated my first two circumnavigations using a sextant, can read out far more precisely my position simply by glancing at my wrist.  I suppose the young take this for granted.  To me it is amazing.

I have just come back from the living room where I went to stand and make ‘victory’ signs with both hands in front of Carol.  A few moments earlier I did ten push-ups and ten crunches.  It will take a while to build back up to doing my age.  I am going to go gradually.  But my rib is healed.

Along with jet skis, this is certainly among the worst ideas our strange species has ever had.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/world/glenlivet-scotch-whisky-capsule-glassless-trnd/index.html

No sipping.  No enjoying the aroma.  No pleasure of feeling a smooth crystal glass in hand.  No holding it up to the light and viewing the amber liquid.  Just an explosion.  

Which may be appropriate for our times.

My friend Michael has written about his intended retirement home and the open ended land voyage he and Layne, his wife, are planning.  

https://conchscooter.blogspot.com/

He quotes ‘The Golden Road to Samarkand’ which caused me to remember the excellent advice for all those who make long journeys on land or sea given by the modern Greek poet, C.P. Cavafy in his ‘Ithaca’.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51296/ithaka-56d22eef917ec

Evanston: too much; save birds

Having bad parents has benefits.  One learns to be self-reliant and to distrust authority figures, which as history too amply demonstrates is appropriate.  That I am not fond of or impressed by politicians in general and less fond of many in particular has probably been deduced by regular readers.  Usually I try to ignore their folly, to use Barbara Tuchman’s word, which she also calls wooden headedness, and live my life, but now they have gone too far.  This has become personal.

You may have seen that in retaliation for an EU ruling in favor of Airbus the US government in its wisdom is imposing 25% tariffs on various EU goods including coffee, some cheeses, certain tools and aircraft, pork products, butter and yogurt, and single-malt Irish and Scotch whiskies.

That Scotland is part of the UK and due to exit the EU, however reluctantly, at the end of this month does not seem to have occurred to the best and brightest who run what could charitably be called the government.



You may also have read recently that in the last fifty years, the bird population of Canada and the United States has decreased by three billion birds or 29%.  The two primary reasons are loss of habitat and use of pesticides.  In other words, us.

I have two bird identification apps.  One from the Audubon Society; the other from Cornell University.  Cornell sends me a newsletter once a month and the most recent gave several ways in which we can help birds.  One way I had not thought of is to buy shade grown coffee.  Birds live in the trees and bushes that shade such coffee and more than earn their residence by eating insects that harm coffee plants.  

I had not known of shade versus sun grown coffee.  Cornell provides a link to a Smithsonian site that lists brands of shade grown coffee.  In the US, the only national one I recognize is Peet’s.  We often buy Peet’s and will endeavor to do so regularly in the future.

https://nationalzoo.si.edu/migratory-birds/where-buy-bird-friendly-coffee

Evanston: incredible and absurd

One of the best things that can be said about me is that with no musical ability I really like Bach.  I can’t read music.  I can’t play a musical instrument.  Yet somehow Bach speaks to me as no other, really in any field.  I have been enjoying watching and listening to videos from the All of Bach project every day and have come across more of his music with which I was not familiar, including the organ sonatas.  In the performance of the second, the coordination of hands and feet is to me incredible.  Hands on two keyboards and feet simultaneously performing an intricate and precise dance across pedals.  Such skill does not seem humanly possible.  But obviously for a few it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=729&v=tPZkWw1h8BQ

Contrary to my desire to simplify GANNET, I have bought her a television set. 

That is it above.  Made by Tyler, a company I had never heard of and bought through Amazon, of course.  The screen is 7”.  The price $69.  It comes with three antennas, AC and DC power cords, a stand, and even a remote, though why you would need a remote for something you can’t see from more than an arm’s length away I do not understand.

Carol and I get TV streaming via YouTubeTV, which is excellent and available on all our devices.  However it requires a wi-fi connection which the marina in San Diego does not have.  There my Internet access is via my cell phone data plan and watching television or videos would quickly exhaust it.

The TV came late yesterday.  I went through the setup and let it autoscan.  To my surprise it came up with more than thirty over the air channels, most of which I have no interest in, but which include all four major networks and PBS.  

The purpose of this is obviously to watch some sports and 60 Minutes while GANNET is tied to the dock.  This is absurd, but none of us is perfect or perfectly consistent.