After being on my bike by 7 AM for more than a week, sometimes reluctantly, I took today off and lolled in bed until 8 reading and sipping coffee. I will be back on the job tomorrow, touching up paint on the port side of the hull.
Yesterday while applying another coat of Deks Olje on the companionway wood and touching up paint around the compass I noticed that conditions were perfect for turning GANNET around at her slip. A light wind from the south and just after high tide, so both wind and current would push the little boat out of the slip. I tied two long lines together and attached the end of one to the port bow cleat and the end of the other to a dock cleat. Pushed GANNET back and when she was clear spun her around and pulled her in. I have done this before and it went smoothly and now her port side is against the dock, so tomorrow I will touch up her topside paint and wax and polish Tuesday.
I am writing at 7:30 PM, sitting by our bedroom window. We have not yet had our daily thunderstorm, but the sky to the west looks as though we soon will.
We have been rewatching LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. At almost four hours, it has now stretched across two nights and we still have most of an hour left.
I have been thinking about water, which certainly comes to mind when watching the desert crossings in the movie.
Permit me to think aloud here.
Water presents problems on GANNET. Both sea water coming over and in and having enough fresh water to drink.
Fresh water weighs 8.34 pounds a gallon. Out of curiosity I goggled and found that sea water weights 8.57 pounds a gallon. For those of you who live in sensible countries that use metric measurements I ask forgiveness for not converting the numbers.
There is an old rule of .5 gallon of fresh water per person on an ocean voyage. However during GANNET’s circumnavigation I found repeatedly that I use .37 a gallon of fresh water. I also have other liquids.
The weight of carried water is significant on ultralight GANNET.
When I left Darwin, Australia, for the 6,000 mile passage to Durban, South Africa, I had about 35 gallons of fresh water on board, which weighed almost 300 pounds. At .37 a day that should have lasted me 94 days. Far more than enough. But as you may know I have twice almost died of thirst and don’t want to face that again.
Now this is not for public consumption. This is between friends.
You know I am planning another voyage and I want to make as few stops as possible. I have seen a lot of the world and while I like many places, I really want not land but the experience of the sea.
I don’t think I can carry much more than 35 gallons of water on GANNET. Maybe 40. But I want to make long passages, perhaps longer than the 6,000 miles GANNET and I have already done and I don’t want again to be living on six sips of water a day. My body shudders with the memory of that now forty year old thirst which is still indelibly imprinted on every cell. So I am considering a hand operated water maker. One company now seems to have a monopoly on them and charges a lot. They would be awkward to use on GANNET, but could be at times. And when adrift after CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE’s pitchpole I would have given anything for a long drink of water.
Here is some of what I have recently read.
Wei Ying-Wu 737-792
Po Chu-I. 772-846
William Butler Yeats.
I recognized this one having heard it sung on a Chieftain’s Album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUp8IO48ma8
The photos are two old ones I chanced across.
I wish you well from the dimming marsh.
2 comments:
I was just rewatching Lawrence. This time paying attention mostly to the music, although I appreciated Jack Hawkins as Allenby the more, and Jose Ferrer this time the less. The analogy of the desert as an ocean is fairly explicit: "The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped".
Still completely confused by the geography, and why the Hawaytat were always on horses, and the Harith on camels.
We, too, noticed and wondered at the horse/camel division. I know almost nothing about either.
We are enjoying the film which neither of us has seen for years. David Lean was a master of epic films.
I find the Jackson Bentley/Lowell Thomas character interesting. Thomas as a young reporter made himself famous by making Lawrence famous.
We’ll finish this evening.
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