This beautiful photo comes from Mat in Tasmania. I thank him for permission to share it with you. Mat writes that his boat, I believe named SCUPPERS, is one of only two Drascombe Luggers in Tasmania.
I have sailed past Tasmania to the south and the north, but never stopped. From all I have heard and photos I have seen this is my loss.
On my first circumnavigation I sighted the southwest coast of the island on February 22, 1976, the first land I had seen since the Diego Ramirez Islands near Cape Horn 9,000 miles to the west on the late gloomy afternoon of December 11, 1975, I recall sailing on and being unlikely becalmed in Storm Bay.
I completed that circumnavigation in the 37’ EGREGIOUS San Diego to San Diego in less than a calendar year. I completed my fifth circumnavigation in the 37’ THE HAWKE OF TUONELA Opua, NZ, to Opua, in less than 18 months. My extremely slow fourth circumnavigation Sydney, Australia to Sydney took thirteen years and two boats and two wives. During its final leg from Fremantle to Sydney I sailed through Bass Strait north of Tasmania. I don’t recall if I saw Tasmania itself, but I did see several small islands in the strait which is an obstacle course.
On the remote chance I ever get down that way again I’ll stop.
I finished THE MAIAS last evening. Carol and I were reading in bed. When she wanted to go to sleep she said I could leave the light on, but I turned it off and went back out to the living room and read the last page at 9:45.
The book was a continued pleasure. Perhaps having been in Lisbon many times, I appreciated it more. Slow moving by thriller standards, but I don’t read thrillers anyway. There were unexpected twists in the plot and amusingly ironic last sentences. It must have created quite a sensation and scandal among Lisbon’s high society whose empty values, foibles and failings it mercilessly portrays when it was first published in 1888.
No comments:
Post a Comment