Hilton Head Island: active; fall; a lock-in

 

A sunny windy day in the marsh welcomed after three days of solid low overcast.  The Spanish moss seems to be reaching out for me.  

Carol and I walked to GANNET this afternoon.  The little boat is fine and clean.  The birds have been remarkably polite.  I wiped up a little water in the bilge with a paper towel.

Fall has come to the island.  50ºF/10C when I woke and went to the factory at 6:15 this morning.  In the first draft I have just reached Darwin.  Shorts have been replaced by Levis and we wore jackets during our walk this afternoon.

Most of the trees here remain green year round, though a duller green in winter.  There is a quarter mile long line of maples along a nearby street whose leaves turn yellow and fall.  The flaming colors of New England and the upper Midwest are missed.

The stitches in my shoulder are not due to be removed until a week from today.  The ones in my temple and ankle are dissolvable.  I don’t know why they used the different types.  I will ask.  However I am tired of being inactive.  My ancient body wants to be used.  So yesterday I carefully did my standard workout.  I did not believe the stitches in my shoulder would be stressed by push-ups and they weren’t.  I think they might be by my weight workout and so will not attempt it until they are removed. I will do my standard workout again tomorrow.

Carol and I have not been much affected by the government shut down.  A few websites I usually visit are not being updated.  Fortunately the National Hurricane Center site is.  But the shut down is unconscionable, especially when members of Congress are still being paid when most government employees are not.  Clearly they are not doing their jobs and I have a solution:  a lock in.  Assemble them all in their capital chambers and lock the doors until they come to an agreement.  Provide mattress for them to sleep on the floor.  Provide food, but no drink beyond water.  I doubt the shut down would have lasted thirty days as it already has.  I doubt it would have lasted two.

 

Hilton Head Island: Band-Aids; a good ad

I had my third and hopefully for a while last chopping yesterday.  I am now officially a piece of Swiss Cheese held together by Band-Aids.

Böcker, the German firm that manufactured the lift used in the Louvre robbery, has run ad extolling its virtues, among them “when you need to move fast” and that it is “as quiet as a whisper.”  

The ad has received widespread approval including from me.  My favorite of the comments on the ad:  ‘Your messaging takes the crown.’

Hilton Head Island: message; mosquitos in Iceland

The statue is of Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet who is considered one of the most significant writers of the Twentieth Century.  It is located outside the Cafe A Brasileira, his favorite coffeehouse in Lisbon.   Carol and I have seen that statue.  There is another of him in the central plaza of the city.  Not bad for a man who died expecting he would be forgotten, as will I.  Pessoa also happens to be one of the modern poets I most admire, along with the Greek, Constantine P. Cavafy.

During his lifetime Pessoa published four books in English, but only one, Mensagem (Message), in Portuguese.

I had read several of the poems from MESSAGE at various times, but had never read all forty-four until I recently found a translation at Amazon. 

The poems are mostly about Portugual’s epic seafaring and empire building history.  Here are eight.

I read this morning that Iceland now has mosquitos.  I had not known that until recently Iceland was one of the few countries on this planet mosquito free.  That it is no longer scientists attribute to global warming, but our government tells us that there is no global warning so that can’t be true.  My personal belief is that some species of mosquitos have evolved fur like polar bears to survive the cold, but then what do I know.  I’m not a scientist or even a politician.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/21/mosquitoes-found-iceland-first-time-climate-crisis-warms-country

I wonder how soon it will be before tourists to Iceland are advised to take anti-malaria pills.

Hilton Head Island: A Slice of Life Revisited

A great writer has observed that life is the process of turning baby smooth skin into scar tissue.  I can report that scar tissue production is booming, a true growth industry.  I had my second of three chops this morning.  The third is scheduled for a week from today.  My beauty is temporarily compromised by a large bandage on my right temple.  Therefore it seems appropriate to post again ‘A Slice of Life’.  The doctor here unfortunately  is not beautiful, but he is a good surgeon.

A Slice of Life

2018

        Once not so long ago there was a sailor who crossed oceans alone in small boats.  He did this for many, many years and became a legend.

        He found purity and joy alone in what he called the monastery of the sea and loved sailing toward the setting sun or toward the dawn.

        When as a young man he departed on his first voyage, three tantalizing sirens kissed him good-bye and waved until he disappeared over the horizon and then, as sirens often do, forgot him.

        He suffered hardships, not eagerly but inevitably.  Sometimes he starved.  Twice he almost died of thirst.    He learned that thirst is much worse than hunger.  Eight times he survived the great storms that are called hurricanes and cyclones.

        People often told him he was brave because he made voyages that not only had no one else ever made, but that no one else had even thought of.

        He did not consider himself brave.  He did not fear the sea and he knew that men do not conquer the sea or mountains, they only transit them.  Still he was at home at sea as few others have ever been.

        He did fear thirst.

        After every voyage he made a pilgrimage to a beautiful sorceress.  Wise men told him he must do this and so he did.

        The sorceress dwelt in a high tower beside a lake so vast some called it an inland sea.  That lake was deceptive, sometimes as turquoise as the Caribbean, sometimes as black as the North Sea in a gale.

        The sorceress had coal black hair, a friendly smile, and a gay laugh. 

        Each time the sailor visited her she sliced small pieces of flesh from him.  Though the pieces were small, they did not grow back and over the decades they added up.  Each time the sailor returned to the sea he was smaller.

        The sailor lived far longer than anyone expected, including himself, and though he grew old he kept crossing oceans.  Sometimes he wondered at this.  He did not believe in the gods and never asked them to protect him. 

        Finally when he was very, very old, he sailed his small boat into port and made his customary way to the sorceress’s lair.

        The sorceress did not age.  She was still beautiful.  Her hair still jet black.  Her smile still friendly.  Her laughter still gay.  She welcomed him and cut the tiny remnant he had become into three pieces and he vanished.

      (I made my biannual visit to my skin cancer specialist, who is a beautiful woman, today and amused myself on the train ride in by writing this in my mind.  I typed it out when I returned home.

        Originally the title was a dull “A Modern Myth”.  Steve Earley in an email called it a slice of life.  Knowing a good thing when I read it, I stole it.  Thanks, Steve.)

Hilton Head Island: NUMBER 24; a missed memo

NUMBER 24 is a Norwegian film based on the life of Gunnar Sonsteby, one of the leaders of the resistance against the Nazi occupiers during WW2.  I watched it on Netflix a few afternoons ago, thinking that Carol would not be interested, but it turned out to be an exceptionally good film.  Here is a link to what I consider a just review.  

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/number-24-movie-review

Carol and I went for our COVID and flu shots yesterday.  It quickly became apparent that I was the only one who had not gotten the memo that summer is over because I was the only one in shorts and t-shirt.  Everyone else was bundled up as though they expected snow.  The temperature was 64ºF/18ºC which is not cold.  Nevertheless the day was overcast and rainy and when we got home I went with the program and put on Levis and a long-sleeved shirt.

Hilton Head Island: two mystical experiences; a quote; two Portuguese poems; and a stupidity

I go to the factory, also known as our guest bedroom, within minutes of my waking every morning, usually between 5 and 6 AM, and work the early shift on what I am presently calling GANNET SIX.

In doing so I came across something I wrote long ago about mystical experiences.

And Tolstoy quoting Lermontov:

            He in his madness prays for storms

            And dreams that storms will bring him peace

The poems are from Fernando Pessoa, 1888-1935.

The stupidity I read at Apple News+ in a sailing magazine article about those who despise technology and claim that GPS stands for ‘General Paralysis of the Sailor’.  I am certain that Captain Cook would not agree with them.  He had no conflict about carrying an early chronometer with him on his voyages, John Harrison’s invention that enabled sailors for the first time to be able to ascertain longitude with certainty.

I am of the last generation who had to navigate by sextant.  On my first two circumnavigations there was no alternative.  I still carry a plastic sextant on GANNET and believe that if you cross oceans it is probably advisable to know at least how to take a noon sight for latitude.  But I have not taken a sextant sight in more than thirty years and I dare say that I have probably sailed far more in those years than the fools who shun technological advances.  I trust that they are still using cotton sails.

Hilton Head Island: chop, chop, chop; Imelda; a poem from a Holy Roman Empeeror

I was chopped this morning.  I will be chopped again two weeks from today and again a week after that.  I am swiftly getting smaller.  In the meantime the marsh is having perfect weather.  I’d rather be sailing.

Imelda considerately turned away and had no effect on us other than reported higher surf on the ocean side of the island.  The official rain gauge at the mouth of Skull Creek showed less than a half inch of rain.  I just visited that site and found a notice that due to the government shut down “it would not be updated except to provide important public safety information”. The highest wind gust recorded at the airport three miles away was 21 knots.  All storms should be so well mannered.

In rereading the journal entries from 2015 I came across a poem allegedly inscribed in chalk in a castle cellar by Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I.                                 

It occurs to me that an excellent anthology could be made of the words of others that I have shared in the now nineteen years this journal has been online.  If I live long enough, maybe I’ll do it.