Hilton Head Island: from the past; a reply to a comment

In writing the GANNET book I have been reading journal entries from the time of the voyage and have come across some bits that I believe are worth posting again after a decade, including the above cartoon sent to me in 2015 by Larry who knows that I share Carl Sagan’s view of the universe.  It brought a smile now as then.  I thank Larry again.

On November 13, 2014, I wrote:  I just read on the Internet a study that concludes that men who have had sex with more than twenty women are less likely to get prostate cancer than those who have not.

That’s a relief.

Also, a reader with the fine name Chance sent me:  The meek shall inherit the Earth; the brave will get the oceans.

To one journal entry the ubiquitous anonymous commented:

I may have missed a post where you have listed all of your offshore equipment, food, safety, extras, sails, water, beer, something to make you laugh when it gets rough, or wondering what am I doing here.  Thank you for your reply.

I told him that I have written about all those things, but not in one place and to respond fully would take a book.  However when I had time I would respond as a journal entry because others might be interested.  I have time today, so here it is.

Offshore equipment.  For the year Carol sailed with me I had a life raft and an EPIRB.  I normally do not carry either and when those died, I did not replace them.  I have survived in an inflatable dinghy for two weeks and three hundred miles.  If a boat sinks almost instantly a life raft may save my life.  If it takes ten minutes I can pump up the dinghy.  Of EPIRBs, I have always saved myself.  I do have a Yellowbrick tracking device on GANNET which can send up a distress signal.  I do not carry it for that, but to let Carol and others who might be interested know where I am and how I am progressing, or not.  I would disable that feature if I could.  I have on GANNET a Jordan drogue which I am glad never to have used.  I also have a dry suit, which I am also glad never to have used.  I  have two sets of foul weather gear and the required life jackets, flares, fire extinguisher, and fog horn.

Food.  As should be well known, I do not cook.  I only boil water.  My breakfast at sea is uncooked oatmeal, trail mix, dried fruit, protein powder, dried milk, water; a box of juice; a cup of black instant coffee.  Ashore I have the same except the fruit and milk are fresh and the coffee is not instant.  Dinner is a freeze dry meal.  Lunch in the past has been a can of fish or chicken or Laughing Cow cheese.  I seldom eat lunch any longer.  I also have chocolate, some chips, cookies, etc.

Sails.  For four decades my boats have been three sail boats.  Fully battened main, furling jib, asymmetrical spinnaker.  The jibs have over the years become increasingly smaller.  GANNET’s is nominally a 110%, but with the tack set above the deck on a furling gear drum is really only about a 100%.  On GANNET the asymmetrical is set on a short carbon fiber bow sprit and top down furling gear so it can be quickly furled from the cockpit.

Something to make me laugh.  Nothing specifically.  I have a sense of humor and easily find things to laugh at, including myself.

Wondering what I am doing out here.  I sometimes would end a voyage at a given moment if I could, but I can’t, so I carry on.  I never wonder what I am doing out there.  I have known from the beginning.

Hilton Head Island: water and a shipwreck

 

The above image comes from The Astronomy Picture of the Day.  If you can't read the caption, the biggest blue ball represents all the water on, in, and above the Earth; the middle ball is liquid fresh water; and the tiny, almost invisible ball fresh water in lakes and rivers.  We don't have much.

For a fuller explanation:

ap250907.html

This is THE ASTROLABE "Falling suddenly on the reefs in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand' drawn by St. Aulaire.  It came to me via Jack for which I thank him.  I am including it just because I like it.

Hilton Head Island: The Human Factor; cooler

I found William Langewiesche’s article about the Air France Flight 447 crash.  It is titled The Human Factor.  Although some pop up ads appear and cover some of the words, the article is readable and I found it interesting to do so again.  Here is the link.

 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-flight-447-crash

It appears that like last year the extreme heat ended while we were away in August.  Carol and I have gone for walks and bike rides in afternoons, something we had not be able to do for at least two months, and I biked ten miles today to a skin cancer appointment.  Three biopsies and lots of areas frozen.  I need a full skin transplant, but unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—they are not available.

Hilton Head Island: complications and cascades

In reading the passage logs and relevant journal entries while writing the GANNET book I came upon an entry about an article I read by William Langewiesche on the crash of Air France Flight 447 into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.  

Langewiesche’s name was so unusual that I easily recognized it.  I read many of his articles over the years, mostly about airplane crashes.  I also saw his obituary a few months ago when he died at age 70 of prostate cancer.

The journal entry appeared here eleven years ago.  It is worth reading again.

        I read online a long article by William Langewiesche about the crash in 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean of Air France Flight 447.  Although I would not have remembered it, I recognized Mr. Langewiesche’s unusual name from having read an article of his many years ago about the crash of, I think, a Boeing 737 over Pennsylvania.  That crash was due to a cascading series of minor problems that combined to create disaster.

        I was thinking of that toward the end of the passage from Neiafu when GANNET was coming unravelled.  No one failure was critical:  split floorboard, broken pipe berth, failed flashlight, limited solar charging, failed tiller pilots, sheered off tiller pedestal tube; but our resources and options were diminishing, and in addition to personal comfort I wanted to reach port before the cascade became serious.

        Air France 447 was a very different story, one of pilots unable to respond properly when automation failed.  In the Air France case the failure was minor:  a brief loss of air speed indication; but 98% of flying commercial jets is now automated turning pilots into system managers and rendering them ever less capable of flying the aircraft when they have to.

        There is more here than a mere analogy to sailing.  I have prepared all my boats to sail themselves with only minor intervention from me.  That is true of GANNET as well.  I often think of myself as a system manager; but when the time came in the gale as we approached Opua that I had to steer, I did.  When the time came on Flight 447 that the pilots had to steer, they—and there were three—did exactly the wrong thing and killed everyone on board.

        I found many interesting observations in the article, among them that the average pilot thinks he is better than he is; there are cultural differences in pilots willingness to take over the controls from automated systems—the Irish are most willing; Asian pilots least so; and Wiener’s Laws, formulated by Earl Wiener, an engineer who taught at the University of Miami.

        Every device creates its own opportunity for human error.

        Exotic devices create exotic problems.

        Digital devices tune out small errors while creating opportunities for large ones.

        Invention is the mother of necessity.

        Some problems have no solution.

        It takes an airplane to bring out the worst in a pilot.

        Whenever you solve a problem, you usually create one.  You can only hope that the one you create is less critical than the one you eliminated.

        You can never be too rich or too thin (Duchess of Windsor) or too careful what you put into a digital flight-guidance system (Wiener).

        People universally say GANNET is a pretty boat, often they say beautiful.  That is because there is none of the stuff—and I almost chose a harsher word—many people put on their boats.  

        One of the more pleasing compliments I ever received wasn’t even directed to me.  Many years ago while down below on RESURGAM on a mooring in Sydney, Australia, another boat sailed by and I heard the owner tell someone aboard, “That boat has sailed around the world.”

        The incredulous reply, “Why it doesn’t have enough stuff on it.” 

Hilton Head Island: from view to view

We arrived home on a rainy Saturday afternoon.  We enjoyed our time in the Blue Ridge Mountains which were beautiful and tranquil and cooler than the marsh.  We were both also glad to be home.

I could see the top of GANNET's mast and so knew she was still there and walked down this morning.  Except for some rain water in the bilge I found her as I left her.  Not even any bird droppings on the deck or the dock.  There are either fewer birds around or those that are have become dock broken.  I sponged the water from the bilge and walked home.  

Last year when we returned on August 21 from the Azores the extreme heat had ended.  I have hopes that it has this year too, but although the temperature was only 84, GANNET's Great Cabin was 96 when I first went down below today.  Despite opening the forward hatch and turning on the fan it did not improve much while I was on board.

A comment on an earlier post asked if I have any sailing plans.  I do, but there are two problems in sailing the North Atlantic:  summer and winter.  At this latitude winter is limiting only in that you can't go very far north.  Summer is limited by heat and hurricanes.  Heat has kept me from spending much time on GANNET since June.  The heat today still does.  When it becomes tolerable I will sail for a day or two and anchor out.  I will sail some over the winter.  I have no destination in mind, and I am considering a sail for next summer.

I have in fact a three part plan for the next year which when you are one of the oldest 1% of our species is long enough.  

A few weeks ago I began writing a book about GANNET's circumnavigation.  Using the passage logs and journal entries as sources it is progressing well.  I write an hour or two each morning and stop when I know what the next sentence will be.  I am presently almost ready to leave Vavau, Tonga, for the final leg across the Pacific to New Zealand.  However it will be months before I am finished with the first draft and then there will be inestimable re-writing.  l am pleased to be engaged in a long endeavor.  What I will do with the book when it is finished I have not yet decided.

Part two is to video myself reciting all of the poems found on the poetry page of the main site.  People don’t read, so perhaps they will watch and listen.  Two have already been videoed.  'Ithaca, Illinois' and 'Departure'.  The first is on my YouTube Channel.

watch

The second in the SafeHarbor Storytellers video.

watch

And a third has been put to music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBw2C7PzBqY

Part three is the sailing I may do next summer.  This is not my now discarded five year plan.  I like living in the marsh.  I like living with Carol, who with the difference in our ages likely faces a long widowhood.  That plan would have kept me away from both for too long.  I am still considering part three.  If I embark on it, you’ll know.

Amicalola Falls Lodge, Georgia: bad news

Taken together these two explain a lot.

As many of you know I am a reader.  Among the many ways you can divide our species I believe readers and non-readers is among the most significant.  As I have written here before if what you are is what you actually do as opposed to what you like to believe you are, I am a sleeper, as are all of us who spend roughly a third of our butterfly’s cough of consciousness sleeping, and then I am a reader.  I have spent more time sailing than all but a few men, but I have read more than I have sailed and still do.  I read for the pleasure I find in skillfully combined words, but I also read to learn, even now as an old and extremely experienced and read man.

I have often felt for other reasons that I am an anachronism.  I never considered that I would be one because I read or that as a writer I have become as obsolete as a lamplighter.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jun/17/social-media-overtakes-tv-as-main-source-of-news-in-us-analysis-finds

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/20/reading-for-pleasure-study

Mineral Bluff: last view

As you will have realized from the sunrise photo our view is to the east.  For unknown reasons when we first arrived I thought we were looking north.  This house is about as far north as you can go and still be in Georgia, so though perhaps some of the mountains on the left edge of the photo are in North Carolina, most of what we see is Georgia.  I am no judge of how far we can see.  As I am writing the Apple weather app shows visibility of fourteen miles.

The house is said to be in Mineral Bluff, but Mineral Bluff is a crossroads several miles distant and a thousand feet below us.  It is said to have a population of 220.  

This whole area is mostly wilderness.  There are a few other houses nearby, though except for the one across the road, mostly hidden by trees, but none seems presently inhabited.  I expect almost all are second homes and/or rentals.  The one next door is for sale with an asking price of 1.3 million.

One comment to a previous journal entry asked if we came here to escape Erin.  We did not.  Erin has never been forecast to have much effect on Hilton Head Island.  Carol planned this long ago to escape the summer heat in the marsh and to celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary which we did with a bottle of champagne on the porch last Saturday.

Almost every day we walk up the road to the top of the mountain, which is 130' higher than the house, and each afternoon Carol beats me at pool.  This is not difficult because I have never played pool  and she is a shark.  Well, perhaps a minnow, which is enough to beat me.  I did win one afternoon when she inadvertently sank the 8 ball.

The house is big and has more amenities than we want or need.  Below is the link to the rental listing if you would like to see more.   

We leave Thursday.

We have very much enjoyed our time here and are likely to return, though not next summer when I have other plans.  

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/53859411?c=.pi80.pkTUVTU0FHSU5HX05FV19NRVNTQUdFX0VNQUlMX0RJR0VTVA%3D%3D&euid=840eca7e-85c5-a0de-3dc4-9064ea6e6bf7&source_impression_id=p3_1755621462_P34j2SjPiORaJkbj

Mineral Bluff: rose

The sun and I rose at the same time this morning.  I grabbed my phone and took the above.  The sun just kept on rising.

This house and our condo are both about the view.  Carol has observed that the view here is usually static, like looking at a painting, while the view from the condo is alive.  In part that is because here we are looking at greater distance and there are few people.  The clouds and shadows change as does the angle of light and it is very quiet.  From the condo water ripples, Spanish moss and live oaks sway, squirrels and small birds flit about, egrets and herons wade and hunt in the spartina, pelicans glide, boats are underway, people walk the docks.  

Both views are beautiful and the differences appreciated.

We are taking short walks.  Short because the roads end not far away and are nearly vertical.  I exaggerate, but they are steep and challenging for those of us who are used to sea level flat land.

Mineral Bluff: elevated

 

I am atypically at altitude,  2533', in northern Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains where we have rented a house for ten days.  As you can see the view north into North Carolina is spectacular.  Last evening while sitting on the deck sipping drinks Carol and I counted five separate ridge lines.  The place is quieter even than Skull Creek.  We came to escape some of the heat in the Low Country, but in fact it has not been bad there for the past week or so.  Upon our arrival yesterday afternoon I did my usual workout.  I wondered if I would be short of breath a half mile high.  I wasn't.  There are a few other houses nearby, but we have seen no other people.  We did see a deer walk down the road this morning.

Hilton Head Island: poems and gannets

There are three species of gannets.  One in northern Europe and eastern Canada.  Another in southern Africa.  And a third in New Zealand and Australia.  They are coastal birds, and although GANNET and I are pelagic, they are beautiful and graceful and I am glad I named the little boat after them.

I thank Martin for links to two short videos of one of the biggest northern European gannet colonies on Bass Rock off Scotland.

While I watched I found myself wondering at the number of fish needed to feed all those birds.

watch

watch

As some of you know I read poetry each morning, some ancient Chinese or Japanese, some usually modern Western.  When I come across a poem I think worth sharing, I make a screen shot of the page.  Having recently been preoccupied with RETURN TO THE SEA, I have been remiss in passing those on.  So here they are.  

The Chinese are from 300 TANG POEMS.  The Tang dynasty ran from 618-907.

The Western poems are from the BEING HUMAN anthology.

I don't think you will have any difficulty knowing which is which.

'On A Political Prisoner' is by William Butler Yeats.