Evanston: Rich Huffnagle; the center of the earth

        An inevitability of growing old is that increasingly some of those you knew die, until you become the one who others outlive.

        According to an unofficial class historian, roughly one-third of the 375 who graduated with me from Kirkwood High School in June 1959 have died.

        Last year I was stunned to learn that Jill, one of my ex-wives, had died.  I had not seen her for decades, but she was years younger than I and it never occurred to me that I would out live her.  I was informed of her death by one of her two daughters by a previous marriage, whom I remember as a teen-ager.  Now she is in her early forties and has adult children of her own.

        Jill was a natural athlete and died of a heart attack in mid-stride while running.  The doctors said that it was so massive that she did not suffer; but I am not aware of anyone who has sent back reliable reports from beyond that edge so how would they really know?  Still it would have been, like drowning, two or three bad minutes, rather than months or years of suffering.

        Over the weekend I received an email from Ron that Rich Huffnagle has died.  Rich was the man who sold me CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE.

        Ron worked with Rich for more than twenty years as Orange County, California, park rangers.  I remembered that Rich was a park ranger.  Ron also said that he had brought a Drascombe Longboat from Rich.  The Longboat is a Lugger stretched three feet.

        Over the years I’ve often told the story of how I bought CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, and sometimes I still do.

        Back in 1978 when I was considering an open boat voyage, less than two years after completing my first circumnavigation, Suzanne and I were living in an apartment in San Diego.  Some research, and I don’t recall how I did it in those pre-Internet days, revealed that Rich was the part-time west coast representative of Honnor Marine, the English builder of Drascombes.

        I telephone him, learned that he had a Lugger on a trailer in his driveway, and arranged to drive up one Saturday to see it.

        Suzanne, a New Zealander, had been with me in the California for more than a year, but had still to see all the tourist attractions.

        We drove up the Interstate and pulled off onto one of the many streets lined with small pastel stucco houses that now are worth well over a million dollars.  I’m not sure Rich lived in Anaheim.  If not, he was close.

        When we stopped in front of his house, I was immediately struck by how pretty the Lugger was.  I’ve always thought her lines graceful.

        Rich saw us arrive and came out and introduced himself.
        I walked around the boat, studying the hardware, which was superior, and the construction, which was excellent.  Then I asked if I could step into the boat while it was on the trailer.

        Rich said I could.

        I did.  Looked around what might be called the cockpit, except that the whole boat is the cockpit, and then lay down on the floorboards.  There was just enough room for my shoulders to the side of the centerboard truck.  I stood up, grinned, and said, “I’ll buy one.”

        “Great,” Rich said.  “What are you going to do with her?”

        “I’m going to sail her around the world.  But we’re going to Disneyland first.”

        Rich cashed my check very quickly.

        I saw Rich a few times after that.  Even appeared at a boat show with him once.  And then, as often happens, we lost touch.

        Rich was a nice man.  I hope he had a full and rewarding life and a gentle exit.

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        The last journal entry caused Patrick to view the chart of my circumnavigations and reach an unexpected conclusion.  He wrote:  One thing that is obvious.  Opua is the center of the earth.  There are more tracks leading in and out of it than the U.S.  Eleven tracks in Opua.  Ten out of San Diego and NY.

        In fact, although I did live in NY for a year, the tracks are mostly from Boston.  And the chart is behind times.  Opua should have two more, one in, one out with GANNET.  And San Diego one more for my departure in GANNET.

        Should you wonder, only my first circumnavigation started and finished in the U.S.

        The second and third were Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands, to Nuku Hiva.  The fourth Sydney, Australia to Sydney.  And my fifth, Opua to Opua.

        If all goes well, the sixth will again end in the U.S.

        That Opua is the center of the earth is undeniable.

Evanston: housekeeping and two videos

        I came across the photo above and the one posted yesterday while looking for something else.

        This one was taken sometime during 2001-2002 when Carol sailed with me on the THE HAWKE OF TUONELA from Boston to Cape Town via Portugal, Gibraltar, Senegal and Brazil.  

        You will not be surprised that I don’t have a good recollection or explanation of yesterday’s photo.  You will also not be surprised to learn that it was taken during a weekend on Cape Cod with a group known informally as the Winos.  From the color of my mustache and the hair on top of my head—even that I had hair on top of my head—I date it from the mid-1990s.  I appear to be quite happy.  That’s all I know or will admit to.

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        I have done my clerical work on the main site.

        The Darwin to Durban passage log has been added to the logs page.

        The GANNET in the Indian Ocean has been added to the videos page.

        The 2016 journal photographs page has been brought up to date.  

        Two photos of me have been added to the Webb Chiles photo page.

        Four articles have been added to the article page.

        I looked at my low-tech chart and gave up trying to add GANNET.   I did add a note to that effect.  James Bond and I agree that the world is not enough.  I need more room.

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        Yesterday afternoon I watched the New Zealand/Ireland rugby test on YouTube via a link sent by Mark.  I thank him.

        It was a good, hard match.  A couple of close calls by the referee went New Zealand’s way and their defense was mighty.  Toward the end of the video the commentators say that these are two of the three best teams in the world right now.

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        I thank Jay for sending me a link to ‘Slomo’ whose philosophy I have long espoused.  During much of the video he is skating along the ocean front in Mission Beach, where my grandmother’s house used to be, and near where GANNET’s voyage began and may next year end.

Evanston: Bacchus

Evanston: reviisted: BARBASHELA; requiem; rugby; Agulhas

        Above is the elegant BARBASHELA built by the equally elegant Kent and Audrey.  I have written of this before, but can’t locate the entry.  This was not a restoration or even a rebuild, but a reconstruction as close to possible to the original based on research, love and skill.  Kent tells me she rows as beautifully as one would expect seeing her lines.  
        BARBASHELA is now in the museum for which she was intended.  I hope she is taken out and rowed from time to time.  

        I don’t send out Christmas cards, but this photo would make a good one.

        I express my admiration for what Kent and Audrey have done and my thanks for their permission to share their photos.

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        Bill in the UK—I know about where he lives, but am not sure if it is in England or Wales—found all the music in my requiem on YouTube and created a playlist.  I am pleased and flattered.  I thank him.  

        “Nova Scotia Farewell” is on twice because Bill cannot view one link and I cannot view the other, perhaps due to regional restrictions.   If you actually play the entire list, view one or the other.  Not both.  Bach is included three times intentionally.  But Ian and Sylvia are not Bach.

        You can find out why I choose this music here.

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        Last Saturday New Zealand had a rematch with Ireland two weeks after the upset Irish victory here in Chicago.  I could not find any television broadcast of the match in the U.S.  Nor even a mention of the match before or after.  I was also unsuccessful online, though I did have a live radio feed for a while that somehow vanished into a blast of obnoxious music.

        For the record New Zealand won this time 21-9.

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        I sailed across the Agulhas Current approaching Durban in August and will be sailing in it again next year as I continue west around the end of Africa.  Chris sent me a link to an interesting short video about recent research on the Agulhas.  I thank him.
        As I watched I found myself wondering how the researchers retrieve their instruments.  I would not like to run into a big surface buoy at speed in GANNET.

Evanston: alternatives; alerts; bookends

        Twice in the past few months all my charts have disappeared from iNavX.  The first vanishing followed a software update, the second the merging of X-Traverse’s, the chart provider, website with Fugawi.  Emails to support resulted in the charts being restored, but the second time I also paid for annual updates for two regions and was confronted with a warning message that they couldn’t be uploaded.  This, too, was resolved.  But all the hassle caused me to give thought to iSailor, an alternative to iNavX first brought to my notice by Nico in Durban.

        My needs for a chartplotting app are relatively modest.  With the addition of AyeTides, which I think costs $8, iNavX does everything I want it to, and a great deal more.  However, the only way to get charts, other than free NOAA charts of the U.S., into iNavX is through X-Traverse.  So X-Traverse/Fugawi's problems are very much iNavX’s problems, too. 
        It is difficult to compare the full costs of iNavX and iSailor.
        The iNavX app costs $50.  The iSailor app is free. iSailor make its money on in app purchases of charts.

        iSailor chart regions are smaller than the Navionics regions I use in iNavX.  If you sail in just one region, as most sailors do, iSailor will be less expensive, particularly since thus far updates are issued free and the charts are available on all devices.  If you sail the world, your charts will cost you less on iNavX, though you will have to pay for annual updates, which I don’t always do; and you will have to buy separate charts for iPhone and iPad.  Also it is X-Traverse’s stated policy that you can only download charts to two devices.  Ever.  Though I have been told they make exceptions.

        I’ve downloaded iSailor, but I haven’t bought any charts and may not.  I already have world coverage charts in iNavX on two iPhones, an iPad and an iPad mini, as well as C-Map 93 world coverage in my laptop.  That ought to be enough.

        However, if I were starting out again now, I’d definitely give iSailor careful consideration.

        Here is a more complete comparison of iNavX and iSailor.

        Although I’ve already done my Christmas shopping, browsing through one of the countless catalogs we receive, I came across Glencairn crystal whiskey glasses.  I have been known to drink whiskey. Generally I do from Dartington crystal double old-fashioned glasses, two of which are carefully stowed on GANNET, as well as several here in Evanston.  In the catalog the Glencairn were $40 for two.  Before buying I checked Amazon and found them for $13.57.  Quite a catalog markup.

        I ordered a pair and have been using them.

        They are lighter and smaller than the Dartington and do seem to concentrate what Amazon calls “that all important bouquet”, which is, indeed to me, one of the pleasures of Laphroaig.  They fit easily in the hand, but I do enjoy the smooth weight of the Dartington.  

        Do they enhance my enjoyment of 10 year Laphroaig?  Well, that would be hard to do.  I guess I’ll have to drink enough to use both. 

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        Google sends me alerts when something I’ve written appears suspiciously online.  I don’t know why and I don’t recall asking them to do so.  However, I find the alerts interesting.

        In the past week I have been told that a Russian site is offering the free PDF download of A SINGLE WAVE, which has been downloaded 2048 times in a month.  I didn’t know I had that many readers.  But then the price is right.

        And I am advised that the above painting appeared on something called Scoopnest with the caption, a sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind.

        I’m losing track.  That makes a greeting card, boat shoes, a sweatshirt, a painting, and I can’t remember what else.

        It’s great to have a literary legacy.

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        A reader, who shall remain anonymous less he receive hate email, observed that posts in this journal bookending the recent election are ‘a city turned upside down’  and ‘you want it darker’.

Evanston: birthdays past; YOU WANT IT DARKER

        Chicago’s mild autumn continues.  Temperatures have often been 10ºF/5.5ºC above normal and we have yet to drop to 32ºF/0ºC.  Usually the first freeze comes in mid-October.

        My birthday was cloudy and windy.  Walking to the lake we were protected by buildings until we reached the lakefront, where we were buffeted by twenty and twenty-five knot gusts.  Three lines of four foot waves were breaking.

        The day was just as I had envisioned, ending with an excellent bottle of wine, followed, naturally, by Laphroaig.

        There was a small delay when Carol had to go to the Fire Department to obtain a bonfire permit before lighting all the candles on the cake.

        At one point she asked me where I was on past birthdays.

        We both remembered that on my sixtieth we were on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA in a gale near the Canary Islands during the passage from Gibraltar to Dakar.

        I knew that I was here on my seventieth, a few months after my first eye surgery, but I wasn’t certain about sixty-five.  This journal goes back that far, and that's what journals are far, so I looked it up and found that I was on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA on her mooring in Opua.

        I was amused to read that ten years ago I thought I might run into problems doing my age in push-ups around 2013.  Despite a torn shoulder, I’ve blown past that and, if I avoid further injury or illness, now think I’m good until at least 2021.

        A few people wrote asking the secret of my longevity.  That's easy.  The good die young.

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        Leonard Cohen had to die before I knew who he was.  I had heard and liked his songs, some of which were generational anthems, but did not know that he wrote them.  Articles about him following his death few days ago at age eighty-two caused me to buy several of his albums from iTunes last evening.  I listened to them while watching the Seahawks/Patriots with the television sound muted and regretted my long ignorance of his music.

        His talent endured, perhaps even strengthened, to the end.  YOU WANT IT DARKER was released three weeks before his death.  I like every track.

        Here is a link to a tribute to him from a friend.

Evanston: 75

        I was born seventy-five years ago today In St. Louis, Missouri, three hundred miles to the south-southwest.  That’s not much movement for three-quarters of a century, but I didn’t quite sail the rhumb line to get here.

        I have been looking forward to becoming seventy-five.  The number is something out of science fiction.   That I, who risked everything for so long, have become old is a cosmic joke, and as you can see in the photo below, I’m laughing.

        If you are wondering, yes, I’ve done my new age in push-ups.  Actually I did 155 push-ups and crunches in sets of 75-40-40 along with other exercises this morning, shortly after Carol took the two photos.

        The three heads in the one above was her concept.  Me now, my shadow looking back at me as I was in a drawing made by the French magazine, VOILES ET VOILIERS, almost forty years ago based on a photo taken in 1975.

        During some of the sailing on GANNET this year, conditions were atrocious.  I was constantly wet and in pain.  I deliberately sought to move my mind somewhere else and chose to think about this day, spending it quietly with Carol.

        The day is as I imagined.

        We will walk down to the lake this afternoon.  Dinner here with what I hope is an exceptional bottle of wine.  Followed, of course, by Laphroaig.

        To paraphrase myself:

        Smile, old man, and sail on.

Evanston: a city turned upside down

        As presumably all of you know the Chicago Cubs won the World Series after a game seven that ESPN called ‘the greatest game ever’ and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED on its cover called ‘The Greatest Game of All Time.’  I don’t know about ‘greatest’, but it was certainly a dramatic, great game. 

        We lived in Boston when the Red Sox ended their 86 year World Series drought in 2004.  That was big, but the Cubs’ victory even bigger.  In both cities generations of fans lived their entire lives without seeing their teams win.  The NY TIMES reports:  During the previous two days, legions had visited cemeteries around the Chicago metropolitan area. Perched on tombstones and laid across grave markers were an assortment of Cubs caps and pennants, both new and vintage.

        It is not by chance that Theo Epstein was on hand for both the Boston and Chicago victories.  General Manager of the Red Sox; President of the Cubs.  He deserves to go into the Hall of Fame.

        The city has been turned upside down.  Literally in the photo above, posted as the Astronomy Picture of the Day.  It was taken on a flight approaching O’Hare when the reflection of the downtown skyline was inverted on Lake Michigan.

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        Two other streaks ended in Chicago this weekend, one a losing streak even longer than the Cubs, one a winning streak, when Ireland defeated New Zealand 40-29 in rugby at Soldier Stadium.  The match was said to be a sell out and when the camera panned to the stands, all 61,500 seats certainly seemed to be full.

        This was Ireland’s first win over the All Blacks ever, going back to their first meeting 111 years ago.  And it was New Zealand’s first test match loss after a world record setting eighteen wins in a row.

        I watched a delayed television broadcast.

        The two sides meet again in Ireland in a few weeks.  I doubt it will be telecast here.

        I did not see any mention of the match on Chicago television or in the news.

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        Chicago’s lovely autumn continues.  Yesterday we went for a bike ride, my first since last March.  The day was warm and sunny.  The lake was flat, blue and beautiful.  Red and gold leaves were falling from trees.  And the bike path was filled with people oblivious to that beauty and their surroundings, from young eyes locked onto phone screens, to a middle aged man walking a dog, to older women just walking.  All apparently under the delusion that they were alone on deserted islands and not surrounded by ten million other people, some of them on bicycles.

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        NASA’s Earth Observatory site has run two interesting ocean photos the past two days.

        These are Von Karman vortices in the lee of St. Helena, whose highest peak is 2,685’/820 meters above sea level.  St. Helena is 8.5 miles long and by my rough measurement disturbs the air for more than 100 miles.

        I’ll try to remember that next year and head north for a while before I turn northwest.

        Today’s Earth Observatory photo looks to me like a painting.  It is of the Little Bahama Bank.

Evanston: briefly; two very different years; another possibility

       

        I took the above photo three days ago.  Yesterday the leaves were withered and brown; today they are on the ground and the limbs are bare.

                                                          -----------

        

        Here are GANNET’s Yellowbrick tracks for 2015 and 2016.

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        If I reach Panama too late for the hurricane season off Mexico, I could sail across the Equator to French Polynesia, Tonga and New Zealand, completing a circumnavigation upon reaching Neiafu, Tonga.

        The outcome of next Tuesday’s election could make that option irresistibly attractive. 

Evanston: remeasuring and reconsidering; the World Series and the All Blacks

        I had thought that the sailing distance from Durban, South Africa to San Diego is about 9,000 miles.  However, I have remeasured more carefully and come up with a figure closer to 11,000 miles.

Durban to Walvis Bay, Namibia      1600

Walvis Bay to St. Helena                  1200

St. Helena  to St. Lucia                     3800

St. Lucia to Panama                        1100

Panama to San Diego                     3000

                                                         10,700

        I am due to arrive back in Durban on January 12 and expect to have GANNET ready to depart before the end of the month.  Even if we are ready, we may not get away then.  Weather in South Africa is variable and changeable.  It is a serious coast.

        The next consideration is the hurricane season off the west coast of Central America.  Nominally this begins in June, but out of season storms have become more common.  I’m not sure I can arrive in Panama in time.  I will know in St. Lucia.  If I can’t, I’m not sure what I will do.   Maybe kill time by sailing to the U.S. east coast.   And, of course, I’m not even sure I can get GANNET through Panama.

        Reading about changes in Walvis Bay since I was there on RESURGAM in 1987 is causing me to reconsider my route.  I may sail Durban—Cape Town—St. Helena, which is 300 miles shorter than via Walvis Bay.

        This is thinking aloud, not yet a firm decision, but I am leaning toward Cape Town.

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        I’m writing this two hours before the start of the seventh game of the World Series.  Unless rain intervenes, later tonight a deserving team will be in rapturous celebration and another deserving team will be facing a winter, and perhaps a lifetime, of despair.  I wish the Cubs were playing someone like the Yankees who have won the series so often.  I hope the Cubs win, but I will have sympathy for whoever loses.

        New Zealand’s All Blacks, the best in the rugby world, are meeting Ireland in a test this weekend in Chicago.  There has been no mention of this, and I doubt that even if the Cubs were not dominating the news, there would have been.  

        I checked and found that tickets start at $94 and go up beyond $700.  Far less expensive than World Series tickets, but more than the experience is worth to me.  I’ll watch a delayed television broadcast.

        The test is being held at Soldier Field which seats 61,500.  There are ten million people in this metropolitan area.  I don’t know how many of them are rugby fans.

        Go Cubs.

        Go All Blacks.