6:30 pm. I am on the screened porch. A good day. I seldom have bad days, but some are better than others. The weather here continues perfect. Today was the hottest so far. 82ºF/28C, but the humidity was low and it was not oppressive. I biked early to a supermarket and nearby liquor store, which tragically was out of Laphroaig. After I regained control of myself I bought a bottle of tequila, and then sushi and Cherries Garcia ice cream at the supermarket, which have comprised my consolation dinner. The sushi will make two dinners for me, which along with a store bought salad will carry me through until Carol arrives on Saturday. The glass in the photo holds my second and last tequila and tonic.
My GoPro rail mount broke, so I bought a new one through Amazon. It is simpler, stronger, and less expensive than the GoPro mount. I decided to test it on my bicycle today and made a video of part of my ride which I may upload. If I do, I’ll let you know.
This afternoon I was feeling strong as I passed 30 on my first set of push-ups and so went on to the 100 level, where I increase every set of the routine. I hope to do this at least once a month and thus far this year I have.
I paused and took a sip of my drink and looked up. You see above what I see. It is quiet and beautiful here.
I thank James for a link to a BBC repeat of the last thirteen minutes of the flight ending in the first human landing on the moon. It is as dramatic now almost fifty years later. I did not remember that they had less than thirty seconds of fuel left when they touched down. I do remember listening to those communications as they happened. I was in the cabin of my first sailboat, an Excalibur 26, which I never named, at Seaforth Marina in Mission Bay’s Quivera Basin, from which I left in CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE on my second circumnavigation and on GANNET on my sixth.
It was so long ago that I had forgotten that wanting to be the first man on the moon was my earliest childhood ambition.
Some of you may remember Colliers magazine, once popular but long defunct. They ran a series of articles with illustrations of potential space stations and craft by a man I believe called Willi Lea. I am not sure of the spelling and in googling find no record of him. So the best you can do is set your own standards and live up to them. This would have been about 1950. Whatever his name, they were great illustrations, and I knew we would go to the moon and wanted to be the man.
That was a forlorn hope on many levels. I was born too late. I was born too blind. And as I later learned from reading THE RIGHT STUFF, even if I had possessed all the other essential qualifications, I grew to be too tall. Because of limitations within the capsules, the first astronauts could be no taller than 5’11”. I am 6’1”. So I learned to seek other goals which I could accomplish by myself without anyone else’s permission.
We now are preparing to send after a lapse of decades another team to the moon. Those who might have gone in between were on the wrong side of time. When that happens, some will find ways to bend time to their wills.
I finished Tennyson’s IDYLLS OF THE KING today and I am stunned as I have been continually while reading the poem. It is a work of almost incomparable imagination and poetry and tragedy. There are plot twists and detail upon detail that are exquisite. What a loss that I had not read it before. Given time I will certainly read it again.
One reader wrote that the Amazon link to the free version did not work for him. It did for me, but it is only a copy of the free version at Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/610
You have probably seen the movie BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI.
Last evening I watched a one hour documentary about the reality behind the building of that railroad by POWs during WW2, MOVING HALF THE MOUNTAIN.
The film was made in 2013 when a few survivors, both British prisoners and Japanese guards, were still alive, and consists of archival footage and mostly of interviews with those men. The differences of what the prisoners remember and what the guards remember is illuminating.
That railway has been called the Death Railway. Around 400 miles long, at one point the documentary observes that a man died for every railway tie. 120,000 in all if I recall correctly.
At another point comes confirmation from both British and Japanese of the justification of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The British prisoners watched machine guns being set up to slaughter them before they could be liberated by approaching Allied forces. The dropping of the bombs prevented that happening. And one of the Japanese guards said that had the bombs not been dropped the Japanese would have fought until they all were dead. What happened on Iwo Jima and Okinawa is proof that is true.
Well worth an hour of your time if you have Amazon Prime and worth seeking elsewhere if you do not.
I have been known to get frustrated, and then recover and try again. So it is with the cockpit bulkhead compass.
I bought plastic discs to cover the hole, but I think the compass looks better in place than will the discs, so I went down to GANNET yesterday and removed the backing plate on the compass, which could only be done by destroying it, and now can attack the leak from the inside as well as outside.
I carefully inspected the outside rim. Saw two tiny spots that might provide a way for water to leak in. Sealed them. Then from the inside applied sealant all around the edge of the compass.
With no backing plate, if there still is a leak I may be able to see it.
There is much to be said for persistence.
The last sip in my glass.
L’Chaim.
We had an Excalibur 26 for a relatively short time. I sold it because my wife kept bumping her head on the companionway. We needed a boat with full headroom. Hence the Newport 30, which we still have. The Excalibur 26 sailed really well. My kids and all their friends loved it. A guy once told me that the inspiration for the design came from the legendary Cal 40. He said that the first effort to design the Excalibur 26 was simply projecting the line drawing of the Cal 40 on the wall and reducing it to 26 feet. When you look at the keel it might make sense. There is an add on to the back end of the keel that looks like a quick fix to make the boat balance better and give the boat more lateral stability. At any rate, it's a pretty design and I kind of wish I had it back.
ReplyDeleteThe Excalibur 26 was a scaled doiwn Cal 40, which was the race boat at the time.
ReplyDelete