Lake Forest: THE FATAL SHORE and an epic open boat voyage; half price; death of a thousand cuts; relapse; and a poem

 I am rereading Robert Hughes’ excellent THE FATAL SHORE about the British colonizing of Australia.  Hughes was an Australian who went to England to make good and did as an art critic, writer and television personality.  I first read THE FATAL SHORE not long after it was published in the late 1980s and am enjoying it very much again.

There is something to be said for having sailed and experienced much of the world.  I have spent more than four years in Australia on my voyages, two of them in Sydney, and I have sailed an open boat around Cape York.  Recently I read Nathanial Philbrick’s MAYFLOWER, and I have anchored where the Pilgrims first did at present day Provincetown and at Plymouth, and so bring that knowledge to these books.

Here are some excepts from THE FATAL SHORE.  The first about scurvy.

It is estimated that between the 16th and 18th Centuries more than 2,000,000 sailors died from scurvy, far more than from all other causes, including drowning, combined.

And here are the observations on the Māori by Joseph Banks who was with Cook when he first reached New Zealand and found the Māori a far different people than the welcoming Tahitians.

I do not know if this observation by Hughes is true, but it is interesting and may be:  All people, but especially the young, tend to become what society says they are. 

Somehow I had forgotten one of the great open boat voyages of all time, that of Mary and William Bryant, their two infants, and seven other convicts, who stole an open boat to escape from Sydney and sailed more than 3,000 miles up the coast, around Cape York and across the Timor Sea to Kupang.

Here is a link to an article about that impressive voyage.

https://navyhistory.au/mary-bryants-open-boat-voyage-from-sydney-to-timor-in-1791-opportunist-convict-or-our-most-magnificent-heroine/

I had a routine eye exam this morning.  Having to exam only one eye, the doctor should charge me only half price, but doesn’t.

I also learned this morning that the growth removed from my lower right leg a week ago is a squamous cell carcinoma and I have to return next week for further chopping.  This is no surprise.  I have seen enough of these things to be able to diagnose them myself.  This was the third squamous cell on my right shin in the past year.  What I need is a full skin transplant.  In its absence it would be more efficient just to amputate my right leg at the knee instead of this death by a thousand cuts.  I could then have a peg leg.  I already have an eye patch, though I seldom wear it.  I would then need only an ear ring and a parrot to look like a real sailor, though I realized a long time ago that whatever I look like is what a sailor looks like.

I have been back in the upper flatlands less than two weeks and I am already suffering from my self named captiterraphobia—fear of being trapped by land.  I have detuned myself.  I am good for the duration, as is my nature, and we are making progress.  Retiring is complicated.  I am glad I never have.  But I am missing the coast and Skull Creek and GANNET.

From the BEING HUMAN anthology: