A friend, Hugh, is presently sailing in the South Pacific. His experience of the ocean is much different from mine. Not better. Not worse. Just different. His is probably much more like yours is or would be than mine. He has a website which I view.
To my surprise I found this morning that he is anchored off Emae Island in what is now Vanuatu.
This is the island where I reached land and returned to the living after drifting for three hundred miles and two weeks, living mostly on six sips of water, a half a can of tuna fish, and a vitamin pill a day in a 9’ inflatable dinghy which I tied to CT after she pitch-poled. I cut the dinghy free and rowed the last mile or two and went over the reef in breaking surf on the east windward side of the island. I had no choice. I thought then that CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE was lost, but after being kindly cared for by locals that night, the following morning I learned that the little boat had come over the reef and was on a beach at the south end of the island. I was flown to what was then called the British Base Hospital in Port Vila—when I touched land the islands were called the New Hebrides; when I left they were the nation of Vanuatu. I recovered. New masts, sails, oars, rudder, floorboards, were shipped out from England; and in October we sailed just before the cyclone season for Cairns, Australia, and continued on another fifteen or so thousand miles until I was locked up as a spy in Saudi Arabia.
More than forty years ago. I have experienced a lot. I forget a lot. I remember a lot.
I can no longer update the main site without help. That help is offered by Sheldon freely, but I don’t want to abuse his kindness, so here are three lines I would add to the lines page of the main site, but won’t. I think they are good. I also think the species will struggle on without them.
Stupidity multiplied a billion times is not wisdom.
Lust is easy. Love is hard.
Social media: mediocrity deified.
I am sitting by the bedroom window, sipping Laphroaig and listening to music on AirPod Pros so as not to disturb Carol who is watching something on her MacBook Air a few feet away in bed. Out on Skull Creek at sunset one of the few remaining local shrimp boats is heading in. They are no longer commercially competitive with farm grown Asian shrimp. Thursday night. The crew will spend the weekend with their families. I am pleased for them.
Our experience of the ocean is much different.
They would see an old man on a small boat and dismiss him. I do not blame them. But that old man has known oceans they have never seen and sailed beyond their understanding and imagination.
And if time and chance permit, he will again.
L’Chaim.
6 comments:
I HAVE experienced A LOT.
I FORGET A LOT.
I REMEMBER A LOT.
His speech is poetry.
Hope your procedure went well today!
I thank all three of you for taking the time to write.
My hernia repair did go well with less post-operative discomfort than I expected. I’ll write more in a post today.
I loved the book. I recently got a new copy and it's now on my library shelf. I don't keep too many books. I have two books about CT, two old Lin Pardey books, and a book about Magellan's circumnavigation. Our city library is just down the street. They have a "Friends of the Library" store. Most books go down there. I'm keeping my old sailing books a while longer.
Thanks, Alan. Naturally it is pleasing that some still read my books and a few even have them on their bookshelves.
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