Hilton Head Island: sailless; swimming headless; early birds

 

GANNET looks odd to me without sails.  This is the first time she has been sailless since she was launched after being trucked here in September 2020 and she will be for a while.  North cleans sails in bunches and tells me I am not likely to get mine back until mid-November at the earliest and that there is no guarantee the mold and other stains will come out.  As Billy Pilgrim said, “So it goes”

After dropping the sails at the North loft we had an enjoyable lunch with Jason, an American friend who now lives in New Zealand and is back visiting, at a famous restaurant in the historic district of Charleston, and then Carol drove us along the harbor front, past huge old mansions which survived the Civil War and still appear to be privately owned, not turned into hotels or AirBnbs.  Out across the harbor I think I saw Fort Sumter in the distance. The harbor is big and with depths of 52’ the deepest on the East Coast and the eighth busiest container port in the U.S., but not as busy as Savannah, which ranks third.  I was not aware of any of this until we moved to Hilton Head Island.

In the absence of sails I have been desultorily scrubbing GANNET inside and out.

When you fly into Hilton Head you see a labyrinth of land and water below you.  This was reinforced on the drive to and from Charleston where it is still tidal ten and twenty miles from the ocean and neither land nor water dominates.  What land there is is flat, so tidal water has nothing to give it pause.

A neighbor loaned me THE REPUBLIC OF PIRATES by Colin Woodard.  I have no special interest in pirates, though I have read about them from time to time.  I knew some of the history, but Woodard introduced me to men of whom I had not heard.  He states the ‘golden age of piracy’—I did not know they had a ‘golden age’—lasted only ten years, from 1715-25–and most of them ended on the gallows.  Even those who were instrumental in destroying piracy ended badly.

I find it curious how tribes make heroes of criminals.  Jessie James, Billy the Kid, Ned Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, and endless others are remembered when almost all of their contemporaries have vanished without a trace.

One pirate of whom I had known is Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.  According to Woodard he was among the most humane of pirates, never mistreating those he took captive.  He was killed near Ocracoke by an expedition sent by the governor of Virginia into North Carolina illegally.  His head was cut off and tied to the bowsprit of the ship, ADVENTURE, and sold for £100 after the ship returned to Norfolk.  Woodard relates, “Blackbeard’s headless body was thrown into Pamlico Sound, where, according to legend, it swam around the ADVENTURE three times before sinking into the brackish water.”  Of course it did.

I am writing near noon on our screened porch on another perfect day in the marsh.  77F/25C, sunny and a slight breeze.  A sailboat about 40’ is powering south on Skull Creek, one of the early snowbirds.  I have noticed a few every day this week, but then it is almost November.  At least this one has his mainsail up.  

Hilton Head Island: two books, two movies: great, excellent, very good and terrible; unjibed

I recently read two books, LORD JIM and M.A.S.H., and then Carol and I watched the movies based on them.  

This was the third time I have read LORD JIM and Conrad was a pleasure as always.  M.A.S.H. was offered by BookBud a few weeks ago, so I bought it.  I probably read the novel when it was first published in 1968, but I am not sure.  Reading it now the book was seen through the prism of the long running TV series and partly the movie which I have seen a couple of times.  I have always enjoyed the movie as an original, gory, dark comedy of men and women forced into the exhausting struggle to save the lives and what parts of the bodies they could of those caught in the maelstrom of war.  In some ways I think the movie is even better than the book.

So the great is LORD JIM, the novel.  The excellent is M.A.S.H., the movie.   The very good is M.A.S.H., the novel.  And the terrible is LORD JIM, the movie.

I remember when I first saw LORD JIM, the movie.  It was in a Los Angeles first run cinema in 1965.  I was with my wife and another couple who I thought were friends, but proved to be merely acquaintances.  I disliked the movie intensely.  It uses Conrad’s title, but has nothing of the depth of his story of a man who after a single impulsive act of cowardice tries to redeem himself in his own mind.  The movie got bad reviews.  You can find them if you are interested enough to google.  And did poorly at the box office.  Two nights ago Carol and I had enough after forty-five minutes and stopped watching.

We rented both movies from Amazon Prime.  They are also available elsewhere.  Enjoy M.A.S.H.  Don’t bother with LORD JIM. 

Day after perfect day continues in the marsh.

Carol drove us the short distance to the marina parking lot this morning and I pushed a dock cart out to GANNET.  The intent was to lower the jib from the furling gear and trundle both it and the mainsail which I had stowed below deck after removing it a few days ago back up to the car to be driven on Friday to North’s loft in Charleston to be cleaned.  Because I have not removed the jib from the furling gear for two or three years, I wondered how this would go.  In the event it went perfectly.  Carol eased the halyard while I stood at the bow and pulled down on the luff.  We had chosen a morning with only a few knots of wind and the sail came down smoothly.  I had sprayed the luff tape with McLube when I bent it on, but as noted that was quite a while ago and I don’t know if it was still effective.

I will be interested is seeing how clean North can get the sails.  They are now six or seven years and 8,000 or 9,000 miles old and spotty.  But then so am I, though I have the excuse of being much older and having covered considerably more miles.

Hilton Head Island: voted

In South Carolina anyone over 65 can vote with an absentee ballot.  Not liking to stand in lines, I requested such a ballot.  It arrived Saturday.  I completed it and mailed it back today, but as I have already noted, it won’t matter.  One man, one vote sounds good, until you consider that the vote of an individual who believes in the current conspiracy theory that the U.S. Government is engineering hurricanes to sway the election counts just as much as does a vote of one who is sane, and when you consider that not all votes are equal.  Thanks to the anachronistic Electoral College put in place by our Founding Fathers who did not trust the common man, this election will be decided by votes in several ‘swing’  or ‘battleground’ states, of which neither South Carolina nor Illinois are one.  No matter how I vote, South Carolina’s votes in the Electoral College will go to the Republican candidate.  Those in Illinois to the Democratic.

Unfortunately Georgia is one of those swing states.  Unfortunately because Hilton Head’s television comes from stations in Savannah and the political ads are relentless.  This is a bipartisan complaint.  I am tired of them all.  I am tired of this campaign that has been going on seemingly forever.  I read that some voters are still undecided.  How can anyone be undecided with all that has been thrown at them unless they live under a rock?

I googled to learn how much is being spent on this election.  I found various numbers, but $15 billion dollars is common.  $15 Billion.  I don’t know whether to put a question mark or an exclamation mark after that.  

More than a decade ago I wrote:   

        Democracy does not work and never has, except perhaps on a village scale.  

        The United States is a plutocracy and always has been in which the monied nobility maintain their control by political contributions and lobbyists, while giving the masses the illusion of the vote.

Other countries similar to the United States do this better.  They call an election, campaign for a month, have the election, and the country moves on.

I have done my civic duty and I will be extremely glad when this election is over.

 

Hilton Head Island: unbent; two comments; five poems

 If one bends on sails, does one unbend them in removal?  If so I have unbent GANNET’s mainsail for the first time in six years and about nine or ten thousand miles.

I did so because a week from today Carol is going to drive us to Charleston where we will leave the sails with the North loft there to be cleaned and have a few minor modifications.  The sails came to GANNET while she was in Marathon in 2018.  They are North 3Di sails, laminated not sewn, and I have no knowledge how to clean them.  I do observe that mold lives in the marsh.

Unbending the mainsail on GANNET is complicated.

All of my boats since RESURGAM have had fully battened mainsails and Tides Marine luff tracks to enable them to be raised and lowered easily.  Fully battened mains sometimes don’t.  

The Tides Marine luff track is what complicates unbending the mainsail.

The process requires disconnecting the solid boom vane from the boom and disconnecting the boom from the mast.  In all five fittings with small, fiddly parts have to be removed.

I have done this before with the previous mainsail and it all went as smoothly as possible.

The roughly rolled mainsail is inside GANNET and the mainsail cover is at a local canvas shop for minor repairs.  I will lower the jib in the next few days.

When I go to sea, I go to sea and I disconnect from everyone, with the exception of a few word email to Carol once a week.  

Ashore I communicate.  On my own terms.  No social media.  I actually like email which gives time for a considered response.  I like comments for the same reason.

So here are two responses I made to comments today.

https://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/8396539239718442243/7202333056847037904

And in the YouTube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYTwmVzCJh4

I wrote:

Today is October 18, 2024.  This is the first time I have watched this video in a long while.

I think it does as good a job as possible in reducing a life that has now included six circumnavigations, six marriages, several more significant relationships, seven books and a million or so more words, into nine minutes.  However it seems we have killed the Storytellers project in the first episode.

The video is not mine.  The project is not mine.  I only participated in it in the hope that perhaps some who saw it would seek and read my words who otherwise would not have.  I don’t think that much happened, though the number of viewers may be greater than shown by YouTube. Other websites provided links.  Whether they are counted by YouTube I do not know.

A smart ass claimed bull shit because the location of Sebastian Inlet was not accurate on a chart.  He did not note that so was the location of Cape Horn probably because he has no idea where Cape Horn is.

I first saw the video only a few days before it was released and saw three errors of fact and one sentence I would have liked to have added.  I emailed Johnny Harrington, the director, but it was too late to make changes.

The first error is in the introduction where it is written that I have completed six solo circumnavigations.  I have not and have never claimed to.  Of my six circumnavigations, only three were completely solo.  A fourth was except for a few thousand miles.

The second is in showing a photo of THE HAWKE OF TUONELA and stating it is RESURGAM.

The third is misspelling RESURGAM as RESURGEM.

Some of not great importance, but I have a precise mind and like to be accurate.  And I note that no one else has ever commented on the mistakes.

The addition I would have added is before the comment about having nerve.  I have always prefaced that with “After planning and preparing to the extent of one’s resources nerve is…”

I am about to become 83, older than I ever expected to be.  And time and chance permitting, I may not yet be used up.

Here are the poems.

I read some each morning, some ancient, some modern.  It is a good thing to do providing perspective.  I have never claimed my way is the right way about sailing or anything else, but it has worked for me.  This might be good for you too.

From Tu Fu, 712-770 AD.

And from Robert Frost, 1874-1963.

I think they speak to one another across the ages.  I would have liked to be part of that conversation.

 

 

 

Hilton Head Island: sailed—a little

 

Saturday morning Carol walked down to GANNET with me at 8:30.  I had prepared the little boat the day before.  The Evo was on the stern.  The Pelagic tiller pilot in place although that proved futile.  The interior in semi-passage mode with the dinner food bag and a clothes bag that normally live on the port pipe berth moved forward to the v-berth and my sleeping bag and pillow moved aft to the pipe berth.  The anchor and rode deployment bag were under the forward hatch. I wanted to leave early to have some of the tide with me.  It was due to change and start coming in at the mouth of Skull Creek at 10:30.  

Light wind from the northwest required some use of outboard reverse, which I don’t like, but our exit from the slip went as planned and I waved goodby to Carol and we were off on a sunny morning.  Only light wind was forecast and I accepted that once the tide turned we might not get out of Port Royal Sound.  I was pleasantly surprised to be able to raise the main as we rounded the curve of Skull Creek and then the jib when we reached the sound and GANNET moved at 4 knots toward the ocean.  She has not been antifouled now for more than two years, but I had a diver clean the bottom two days earlier, so she slipped smoothly through green water.  It was good to be sailing again after so long.

Our speed dropped to 3 knots as we passed Hilton Head and entered the Atlantic.  Shoals extend out five miles on both sides of the entrance channel, some with water too shallow even for GANNET.  While in the sound the water is mostly 30’ to 50’ feet deep and there is room for a fleet to anchor, I am impressed that ships were able to enter in the days of sail in vessels that did not go well to windward.  I expect they anchored off, sent boats in to reconnoiter, and waited for a favorable wind angle.

I reconnoitered those shoals myself that morning.  In light conditions I could see slight white crests on some of them, but about three miles out the surface of the water was smooth and I eased off and headed for an area that on the iSailor chart shows a minimum of 11’ of water, hand steering and moving my glance constantly from the water ahead and the depthsounder.  Even though it was then low tide, I never saw a depth less than 22’ before it became deeper and we were through to 30’ and more, where we would remain, and I returned the tiller to the Raymarine, not the Pelagic.

Most equipment on GANNET worked at it should despite not having been used for too long, but regrettably the Pelagic was not among them.  It failed three separate ways.  First the remotes did not work.  I have two and had never used the second one.  I changed the batteries in both to no avail.  Not being able to control a tiller pilot from the companionway without having to move to the aft end of the cockpit and push buttons is in light and moderate conditions a mere inconvenience.  In heavier weather it can be difficult and hazardous.  That day only inconvenient, until while we were still in Port Royal Sound, the Pelagic suddenly and inexorably extended the tiller arm full out which of course resulted in a sharp undesired turn.  I switched it from auto to standby, corrected course, centered the tiller arm, and tried again.  And again in a few minutes the arm went full out.  I had moved one of my three remaining Raymarines from the duffle bag in which they are stowed at the forward end of the v-berth farther aft just in case.  A good idea.  I ducked below and brought it up and set it steering.  I have owned more Raymarines than I remember.  I mark the year bought on the back of them with a Magic Marker and by chance the one I had pulled from the bag was bought in 2015.  A true survivor.  Later in the day I changed the batteries in its remote and found that worked too.

To move ahead and conclude about the Pelagic, once at anchor I tried to test it again.  There was no response to any of the buttons on the control panel.  Not then.  Or the next morning.  Or back in the slip.

I like the design of the Pelagic.  I want it to work.  I assume they must work for others.  But I have now had two models, one a prototype, this a production model, and they have never worked for very long for me.

I can get by with sheet to tiller steering alone.  Even better with the addition of Raymarines which are fine up to the point where water starts coming over the deck.

I am still thinking about this, but I do not have confidence in Pelagic and don’t see how I ever can.

More Raymarines may be in my future.

I reclined in a Sportaseat in the cockpit as we sailed pleasantly at 3 knots toward Charleston until 2 PM when the wind died and the rippled ocean went glassy.  I anchored in 35’ of water 5 miles offshore and drank a Heineken 0 and ate cheese and salami and crackers Carol had prepared for my lunch.  Last Christmas she gave me a small Yeti cooler.  My beer was cold and I had ice for my Botanist gin in the evening.  I have become decadent in my old age.

I retired to the Great Cabin to get out of the sun and continued reading LORD JIM until around 6 when I poured some gin over ice and took it and the Boom 2 speakers on deck and sat sipping and listening to music as the sun sank toward the low land to the west.

I slept well that night.  The ocean was as smooth as a good anchorage.

With cursed Daylight Time, dawn here now isn’t until 7:30.  I was up at first light and underway by 7:30.  The same light wind as the day before.  GANNET making the same pleasant indolent 3 knots.  At 10 I still had 45 miles to be off Charleston Harbor and I knew I wasn’t going to make it before dark and that I would not attempt to enter the harbor after dark.  As you may know I almost never enter harbors after dark.  There have been a few rare exceptions, one is Port Royal Sound.  And despite the light wind, the forecast was for more than twenty knots to come up during the night, making just anchoring wherever I found myself at sunset untenable.  There are sounds and inlets to the west in which I could seek refuge, but all have miles long narrow entrance channels which I would have mostly to power in and out.  I had removed the battery from the Evo when we anchored Saturday afternoon and it was still charging.  I had swapped it out for the second fully charged battery, but even so our range under power is limited and uncertain and I don’t like to power, so I turned and headed back which instantly improved our day.

The wind was blowing at 4 or 5 knots directly from Port Royal Sound and with the apparent wind increased rather than decreased GANNET heeled slightly and began making 4 and 5 knots.  Not fast, but good sailing and it soon became apparent we would be back in the sound before sunset.

After several tacks we were approaching the shoal on the east side of the entrance channel in mid-afternoon.  Again the water was smooth and we were closehauled on port tack headed for an area where the chart showed as little as 6’ of water.  GANNET’s draft is 4’1” and we were heeled.  There were no waves, only ripples.  I remembered the greater depth than shown on the chart on the way out and continued on, prepared to tack instantly if the depthsounder showed 15’.  It never did.  The lowest reading was 19’.  Once the depth returned to over 30’ I eased the sheets and the wind increased and on a beam reach the little boat romped toward the mouth of the sound at 7 and 8 knots.  Glorious.

I planned to sail up the sound until we were just north of the entrance to Skull Creek and anchor for the night.  I thought I could have made it to the marina, but was happy to remain on the water for another night. 

Halfway up the sound I moved the anchor and rode deployment bag on deck. 

Two miles south of Skull Creek, the wind suddenly died.  It was as though someone had flipped a switch.  I let us drift for a few minutes hoping it would return, but when it didn’t I went forward and eased the anchor over the side.  We were in 40’ of water.  I had tied the rode off at about 70’ to set the anchor.  When I felt it catch, I eased out another 50’ of rode.  By the time I had done that the wind had returned.  After a few expletives, I decided to remain where we were, for which I paid a price the next morning.

The wind picked up during the night as forecast and we bounced around more in the sound than we had the previous night exposed in the ocean.  Still I slept well enough and was again awake around 6.  I turned on one of the solar lights and drank apple juice and a cup of coffee and read.  Later in the morning I emailed Carol—I had cell phone coverage—that I was going to wait for the tide to turn at noon before heading in.

The wind continued to build and was soon gusting 20 knots directly out of Skull Creek.  Had I been able to anchor where I planned on Sunday, reaching the mouth of the creek would have been an easy half mile reach.  Now it was a difficult two mile beat.

6” to 12” white crested wavelets covered the sound when I started bringing in the anchor rode at 11.  I am the windlass and it was hard work pulling even light GANNET forward against wind and tide, holding every 5’ or 10’ with my right hand while flaking the rode into the deployment bag with my left.  Finally, gratefully, I felt the anchor break free, got the rest of the rode and it on deck, then below on the v-berth, and hurried aft to set the jib.  I thought I could beat my way to the creek under jib alone.  It soon became obvious I couldn’t.  I partially furled the jib and raised the main.  This got us going at 3 and 4 knots, heeled gunnel deep.  I furled more of the jib and got GANNET back more on her bottom and began tacking.  However I was disappointed to find that the clutch holding the main halyard allowed it to slip a few inches causing a sag at the tack of the mainsail.  This had happened in the past and I had installed a new clutch designed to hold line the size of GANNET’s main halyard.  It worked for a while.  Perhaps the line had stretched and become thinner.   

While most of the sound is deep, there are shoals, some unmarked.  I had to keep glancing at the iSailor chart on my iPhone which I had with me in the cockpit, usually stowed in one of the sheet bags, to keep clear of them.  The wind was too gusty for the Raymarine, swinging from 8 or 9 knots to 20 and 21, so except when I put the tiller in the Raymarine to tack, I hand steered.

Being pushed back by wind and tide, it took us an hour to get to Skull Creek, where I furled the jib, engaged the Evo, then lowered the main and powered at 2 to 2.5 knots, now partially tide aided the 1.8 miles to the marina and our slip where we tied up at about 1 pm.

I had to hand steer some of that as well as the wind and tide kept pushing GANNET around.  I was able to use the Raymarine long enough to drink another Heineken 0 and set up the fenders and dock lines.

I checked the Evo battery and it was still at 84% when we reached the slip, so I could have powered faster or farther had I wanted to.

I received a new Yellowbrick, this a model 3, a few days before we sailed.  My previous one was a model 2 and more than ten years old.  Yellowbrick sent an email about a sale, so I decided to replace it.  The two units look the same, but the 3 sends up positions in much less time, reportedly has much better battery life, is obviously much more powerful, and is considerably less expensive.  My memory is that I paid almost $900 for the Model 2 ten or eleven years ago.  The Model 3 on sale was $500. 

I took the new Yellowbrick down to GANNET to test it and after sending up a manual position which appeared on the tracking page, which is the same as the old tracking page, left the unit on the boat, but forgot to turn it off.  It was stowed in the compartment at the head of the starboard pipe berth with the antenna pointed forward away from the main hatch’s clear view of the sky and under a counter top.  I had it set to upload positions every two hours and as you can see it did and they were received.  I am impressed.  

Also note the one aberrant position.  Most were very close to the true position, but that one was not.  A lesson learned.

I am glad to have sailed a little, to have spent time on the water, and live the routine of boat life again.

I pause.

I like living here.  I like having GANNET so close.  But the truth is these are waters for power boats.

Hilton Head Island: compensation; Conrad; worked out; sailing; peace

 

Within an hour or two from when I am writing this Wednesday, October 9, at 8 PM Eastern time, storm 13 will come ashore on the west coat of Florida.  I refuse to accept the naming of these inanimate storms.  M is the 13th letter in the alphabet.  I will continue to include the letter, so you will know what I am talking about, but I am through with this foolishness.  As Carol points out the naming of storms benefits insurance companies who have exclusions and demand higher premiums for ‘named’ storms.  An event is named a tropical storm at 34 knots, which is the lowest level of a gale, which is really just unpleasant weather.  I have been in more gales than I know.  Given sea room and not trapped on a lee shore I don’t even count them.   

I am perhaps the only US citizen who is not a scientist who wishes this country would give up and accept the metric system.  I have written this here before.  Only three countries on the planet do not use the metric system:  the USA, Liberia, Myanmar.  Quite a group of allies.  The five hundred years of European domination of this planet that began with the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama are over.  The American Century is over.  This country is still the richest and the third most populous—though that will not last much longer—but the historical aberration of our dominant position after the end of WW2 has passed.  Get over it and go with the world standard.

That was an aside.

Even the talking heads whose stock in trade is frightening the masses acknowledge that Storm 13 will have minimal effect on the Low Country.

I have sympathy for those in west Central Florida, but we all know where we live.  From at least Cape Hatteras south to who any longer knows how close to the Equator, hurricanes are a risk.  There used to be a southern limit, but that in recent years has been breached.

Yet this storm has been startling.

I wrote a long time ago and have been often quoted as saying of barometric pressure 1020 mb is high.  1000 mb is low.  And what matters is the direction and rate of change.  I understand barometric pressure in mb rather than inches.

I regularly observe barometric pressure.  I can read it out on my watch and the lock screen of my phone.  I don’t recall seeing a pressure here above 1025 or below 995.  But last Monday morning in a few hours this is what happened in Storm 13M:

Beyond belief, except that it happened.

Here is another quote from a weather scientist:

The talking heads and incompetent journalists who keep talking and writing about thousand year storms happening every few years are simply evincing their lack of intelligence.

I am among the last who circumnavigated using a sextant.  I also used pilot charts, which were large impressive portfolios of monthly charts of various oceans divided into five degree areas of latitude and longitude showing probability of wind direction, percent of gales and calms.  As I have said in the poem, ‘Ithaca, Illinois’ “he holds the world in his mind”.  I do hold much of the information in those pilot charts in my mind.  But what was collected from tens of thousands of reports from ships in the past is no longer relevant.  There has been a paradigm shift.

So Hilton Head has been passed in the past few weeks by a storm to the west and now one to the south.

I feel a bit like a warship in a naval battle where the enemy has fired straddling salvos.  Shells landing to port, then to starboard.  Assuming the enemy is competent they have our range.  Fortunately in this case the enemy is not sentient and so does not deserve a name.  But that a strong hurricane will strike Hilton Head Island is certain as it is every place on this coast.  I hope it does not happen in my life or Carol’s, but if it does, it is a risk I have chosen to accept considering I can’t live in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands.

So the three progressive photos of tonight’s sunset are some compensation for the risk of hurricanes and alligators.  There are more compensations here.  Other beauty and tranquility.  Tranquility is not my highest value, but I have lived a life of sufficient stress that it is appreciated.

I am rereading Joseph Conrad’s LORD JIM for I think the third time and am thoroughly enjoying it.

When in the past I have been asked who are my favorite authors I have said Thomas Hardy and Emile Zola.  Reading as I am all of Zola’s twenty Rougon/Macquart novels has changed my evaluation of Zola.  His best half dozen or so are very great indeed, and he courageously wrote “J’Accuse” in the Dreyfus affair, but he also wrote to fill pages in serial publications, as did many others, and I find too many words and too prolonged descriptions in many of his lessor works. I do not find this in Conrad who almost always is a pleasure to read.  I recall reading Conrad first as a teenager in my room in that landlocked suburb of Saint Louis.  It was a collection of short stories titled I think TWIXT LAND AND SEA.  I did not want to be where I was.  Conrad pointed a way toward a better place.

I did my standard workout today for the first time in three weeks, since before my most recent skin cancer removal.  I was told not to exercise while the stitches were in for two weeks and then not to do much with my upper body for another week after they were removed.  That would have been tomorrow, but I have missed not using my body and pushed a day early.  No problem.  As is my custom I went to the next level a few weeks before my birthday and did 83 push-ups and crunches in the first series.  I am good for another year.  I have no idea how long I can keep this up.  One more each year.  My life has become beyond my imagination.

Despite the apocalypse to the south, our weather forecast is good and if it holds I will leave the dock Saturday morning and try to sail to Charleston, fifty miles away.

To do so I will have to sail more than fifty miles to get out of Port Royal Sound and into Charleston Harbor.  Little wind is expected Saturday and the tide will mostly be against me.  I hope only to get out into the sound or perhaps the ocean and anchor and be underway early Sunday morning.

I have not sailed since February.  I hope I never go so long again.

The circumstances are not important, but I said to Carol this evening, “The only peace I will find from now on will be at sea.  Perhaps it always was.”

Hilton Head Island: more Tim Robinson; three movies; old milk

I thank Gary for informing me that some of Tim Robinson’s books are available at the Internet Archive.  I found there one of the Aran Island books, PILGRIMAGE, and two of the Connemara trilogy, LISTENING TO THE WIND and THE LAST POOL OF DARKNESS.

https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%28tim%20robinson%29

So you can if you wish discover if Tim Robinson suits you for free.

On the past three evenings we have watched three movies:  one great; one excellent; and one a very successful bit of fluff.

The great was SUNSET BOULEVARD from 1950, starring Gloria Swanson as a former Hollywood star who is seeking a come back and William Holden as a young out of work writer who is brought into her delusional world.  After watching the movie on Paramount Plus I was surprised to learn that Gloria Swanson was nominated for but did not win the best actress Academy Award that year, which went to Judy Holliday for her part in BORN YESTERDAY.  Some of SUNSET BOULEVARD is almost melodrama, but it is rightly considered among the best movies ever made.

The excellent was THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSIE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD.  I bought the novel of the same name by Ron Hansen via BookBud and found it much better than I expected, so when I discovered it had been made into a movie starring Brad Pitt as Jessie James and Casey Affleck as Robert Ford I wanted to see it.  The movie is excellent in all respects:  acting, direction, cinematography.  Casey Affleck in particular is impressive in portraying the nuances of Robert Ford’s insecurities and complicated relationship with Jessie James from hero worship to killer.

The book describes more of Robert Ford’s life after the killing—he was only twenty when he shot Jessie James—than does the movie.  He became wealthy running a bar in a Colorado mining town before being assassinated himself.

I recommend both book and movie.  We rented the movie from Amazon Prime.

The successful bit of fluff is WOLVES starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt.  I read that it is the most viewed movie on Apple TV+ ever.  It is a crime movie with an often implausible plot, but entertaining enough if one suspends judgement.  I was curious what the stars were paid to participate in this and find that reportedly they received $35,000,000 each, and the director $15,000,000.  My word!

I have been making daily visits to GANNET.  Yesterday I checked the duffle bag with breakfast supplies and discarded a zip-lock bag with oatmeal that had turned suspiciously black.  I have no idea how long it had been on board.  Probably years.  I also found a sealed pouch of powdered milk that I opened and moved to a plastic canister. It looks all right, but it is a brand that I seldom buy and think I last did in Durban, South Africa.  If so, it is now seven years old and extremely well travelled.  I think I might throw it away too.

Hilton Head Island. the year of Tim Robinson and moving

Yesterday morning with regret I finished reading STONES OF ARAN:  LABYRINTH, the fifth of Tim Robinson’s incomparable books on the Aran Islands and the facing Connemara coast of Ireland.  I do not say incomparable casually.  There may be their equal, but if so I do not know of them.  

The five books total 2120 pages.  Reading them as I have about ten pages each morning, I have been enjoying the company of Tim Robinson almost since the beginning of the year.  I will miss him.

One measure of my appreciation of them is that I read them in paper.  There are no e-editions and reading ‘real’ books only re-enforced my strong preference for e-editions where I can change the font and its size, can read them at night without external light, hold them comfortably in one hand, and have hundreds of books in a space no larger than a small magazine.

The books are shown above in the order he wrote them, left to right.  That is not how I read them.  I started with the middle book, LISTENING TO THE WIND, the first of the Connemara trilogy, read the next two in that trilogy, then read the two STONES OF ARAN.

Robinson and his wife, to whom he refers in the book only as M, moved from England to live on the Aran Islands for several years before shifting to the mainland coast.  He walked, bicycled, rode in cars and boats, almost every inch of the islands and the coast.  He writes with intelligence and style and wry humor of their geology, biology, botany, archaeology, mythology, history and people.  He must have been a likable man and a good listener for he was an outsider in closely knit and isolated communities, an Englishman in a land England treated cruelly, and an avowed atheist in societies where people have killed one another over religion for centuries.

Here are a few quotes from the last pages of LABYRINTH.

Certain families used to keep a lookout posted for sailing vessels inward bound for Galway, so that their menfolk could row out in the currachs to meet them and propose themselves as pilots through the rocks and shoals of Galway Bay.  (Jokes were made about these Aran pilots.  For example:  the Araner assures the captain of the ship that he knows every rock in the bay, and is taken on as pilot.  Soon afterwards the ship shudders to a halt against a rock.  Captain:  “I thought you said you knew every rock in the bay?”  Araner:  “I do—and that’s one of them!”)

When I read of an old Aran Island man, who was probably younger than I am, say, “There’s nothing for an old man to do”, I thought to myself:  Well, perhaps there is.

Robison wrote two endings to LABYRINTH, both of which are serendipitous endings to my reading all five books.

Indeed I have been gone far too long about this island (but see, my darling, the book I have found you among its stones!)  And now, have I reached the end of it so soon?  With so little seen, less understood, nothing possessed?  Not quite, it seems, for at this last moment something comes into view to the west.  Perhaps it is just a path of foam kicked up by dolphins, perhaps it is the material of a postscript to my Aran…

And that postscript ends:

The virtue of reality is that no understanding is equal to it; no walk, however labyrinthine, wears out the stone.  And so, the Aran I have written myself through is inevitably the Lesser one.  But, whether it be the terrestrial paradise, an airy illusion of clouds on the sea, or the work of delusive spirits, I have brought back a book as proof that I was there.  Perhaps when I open it in seven years’ time it will tell me what I had hoped to learn by writing it, how to march one’s step to the pitch and roll of this cracked stone boat of a cosmos; but for the time being I cannot read it.

Tim Robinson must share this year with Carol’s retiring and our moving full time to Hilton Head Island, and my not writing for publication or sailing much.

This is the first year in almost half a century I have not written anything for paid publication.  Some of you will recall that I sold an article last year and the experience was not enjoyable.  I have outlived agents, publishers, editors.  I expect editors of most sailing magazines still know who I am, but I do not have the rapport with any of them that I have had with some in the past.  So a writer writes and most of what I write now is this journal, which may be my masterpiece and you get it for free.  

I also write a fiction manuscript I have titled VARIATIONS ON A THEME.  I have added to it for almost two decades as thoughts and images and bits of dialogue occur to me.  It is about one of the three essential subjects of my life.  It is not about wind or words, so I leave it to you to figure it out.  It is for my eye (sic) only and now runs to more than 160,000 words.  One day soon I will reread it from the beginning and delete it.  To share it would be unjust.

Of sailing, the stitches from my most recent skin cancer surgery were removed this morning.  I brought the canisters that hold oatmeal, trail mix and protein powder up from GANNET to fill and I will soon make the vast fifty mile voyage to Charleston.

Given time and continued health I will sail more.  Much more.  Beyond the edge.

Some of you may know that I have often quoted my fellow born in Saint Louis, who sought to distance himself from it as much as I, T.S. Eliot, “Old men ought to be explorers.”  

He only talked it.  I am living it.  At my own rhythm.