Hilton Head Island: lighted; destinations; change in Atlantic hurricanes; shock of recognition; the use of fear

 

Beautiful weather in the marsh this week.  Temperatures in the 70sF/low 20sC and sunny.

I biked to GANNET yesterday and secured the wiring to the new deck lights, filled some holes with sealant, and combined wires from the bow lights and the stern light to one switch on the electrical panel.  Previously the stern light was connected to a different switch.  And then marked ‘bow lights’ off my to do list.

However I have some reservations about the new bow lights.  They are from a name brand, Hella, and expensive.  They cost $170 for the pair.  I hope this is a case where you get what you pay for but I was disappointed when I first saw them.  The housing is plastic.  Well, so is GANNET.  But this is not impressive plastic.   The lights themselves are well sealed.  I hope they endure, but they do not seem more robust than lights costing a fraction as much.  I considered returning them.  Obviously I didn’t.  And for the present GANNET is legally lighted.

Scott wrote to me:  “readers would appreciate learning why you have decided not to embark on any future sailing to planned destinations.”  I will do so, but probably not until I sail again without a destination in late April or May.  I thank him for writing.

I thank Larry for a link about Atlantic hurricanes forming and moving farther south than in the past.  This change is peculiar to the Atlantic and interestingly the research comes from China.  I have observed this trend.  Places such as Venezuela and Trinidad that were formerly considered safe, no longer are.

For us in the traditional hurricane zone, the greatest concern is the increase in storms with rapid intensification which is beyond current forecast ability.

https://studyfinds.org/hurricanes-shifting-south-threats-caribbean-us-coastlines/

In his books on the Aran Islands, Tim Robinson makes reference to an earlier book by J.M. Synge, the Irish playwright best known for THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD.  I found it in a Kindle edition of his collected works, which for $2.99 includes six plays, poems, two books, and essays and articles.  Allow a writer to say that books are the greatest value.

Synge visited the islands at least four times in the late 1890s, staying for several months on each visit, mostly on Inishmann, the middle of the three.  Although he was educated and travelled and came from an affluent family, he got on well with the poor and primitive islanders.  I enjoyed his THE ARAN ISLANDS and look forward to reading his poems, of which I had not known, and re-reading PLAYBOY which I have not since college.

In reading Synge’s ARAN ISLANDS on one page he writes, “A little after mid-day as I was coming back one old half-blind man spoke to me.”  And the thought immediately came:  ‘old half-blind man’:  that is me.

On a later visit Synge was talking with another old man, a part-time fisherman, as almost all the men on the island then were.

I particularly like “and we do only be drownded now and again.”

I do not claim to be brave, but I am not afraid of the sea, though I do not leave port on days when I shouldn’t. I consider that prudence, not fear.  Fear is often, perhaps usually, fear of the unknown.  The local often rough waters were known to the men of Aran, but as Synge reports so was superstition.  Tales of fairies and miracles were common and their world and understanding did not go more than a few miles.  Galway was its farthest extreme.  I know a wider world and of discoveries by scientists over the past hundred years which makes my unknown much less than theirs.  When on a boat things get out of control, such in a knockdown, the adrenaline gushes and the animal reacts, but thus far as least, the action and response are brief, almost instantaneous.  I am at home at sea and one is not normally afraid at home.