Hilton Head Island: an easy fix; an ironic death; it’s been done; Rapa Nui Odyssey

I biked down to GANNET this morning and removed the furling line frozen lead block and replaced it with a ‘Harken 40 mm Carbo block stanchion block assembly’—a long name for a small block—and it solved the problem.  I also bypassed another block, though I left it in place in case I find I need it in the future.  The jib now furls without undue effort.  Sometimes solutions are easy,

I thank Dan for a link to a NY TIMES obituary of Aleksander Doba who kayaked across the Atlantic three times.  I recall reading of him, but would not have recognized his name.  Note where and how he died.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/world/europe/aleksander-doba-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1

I read that an attempt to circumnavigate in a sailboat leaving no carbon footprint has been delayed.  The article seemed to consider such a voyage novel.  It isn’t.  It has been done countless times by all the ships before about the mid-1800s and by everyone who ever sailed an engineless boat around the world.  I have done it twice.  In the engineless EGREGIOUS and in GANNET.  As you know if the world does not, GANNET is totally self-contained.  She works on sails, solar power and my aged body.  She has never been attached to shore power or taken a drop of fuel on board.  It could be said that GANNET did have a minuscule carbon footprint in the fuel used by the truck that towed her across Panama, but I don’t think that  is significant enough to count.  They are trying to reinvent the wheel.  Perhaps in ego; perhaps ignorance.  It’s been done, people.

I consider the $9.99 I pay each month for Apple News+ to be a bargain.  With it I have access to digital issues of hundreds of magazines, of which I actually do regularly peruse twenty-five or thirty, among them the BBC Music Magazine, the current issue of which ended up costing me $40.  

Articles and reviews caused me to buy from iTunes a recording of the Sibelius Symphonies No. 3, 6, and 7 performed by the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska.  Sibelius is among my favorite composers and I already have recordings of those symphonies, but this rendition is said to be exceptional.  

Another review caused me to buy The Mozart String Quartets, Vol. 3 performed by The Armida Quartett. (sic)

And a third, Rapa Nui Odyssey performed by Mahani Teave.  I had already watched a documentary about her, Song of Rapa Nui, on Amazon Prime.  Rapa Nui is known to many of us as Easter Island.  I enjoyed the movie, both for her story and the beauty of the island, and highly recommend it.

Mahani Teave is a remarkable woman of rare talent.  She left the island and became a concert level pianist, then left her career to return to Rapa Nui to start a free music school for the children of the island.  

The review of the album in the BBC Music Magazine is filled with praise for Mahani Teave.  “There is genuine virtuosity without a note of bluff or bluster.”  and “This is sincere, magnificent and pure artistry.”  I have not yet listened to the album, but am about to.