We are on the loose in San Francisco!
(photo unknown)
In the present situation I am resorting to a flashback in the quest for interesting material to blog about. At breakfast a few minutes ago I was gazing out of the window at the breathless fog/smoke toxic atmosphere outside. It has settled in here with a vengeance. And each day the weather man or gal push back in time promised relief. It’s the classic quagmire.
In that act of gazing I flashed back to a similar situation I encountered years ago. In 1974 or 5 I got a chance to sail from Hilo, Hawaii to San Francisco. I was aboard a 55 foot schooner that I had help build and rig off and on for a couple of years. Our voyage, there were six of us on board, took 26 days to get to the Golden Gate Bridge and we sailed 2600 miles.
Traveling northeastward at some point we had to get through the doldrums or horse latitudes that separate two major bands of winds the Trade Winds and Westerlies. It is where one set of the Doldrums occurs, this transition. We got caught there for three days in the quagmire of that.
I am reliving it in my memory at the moment. The boat was literally dead in the water. Zero wind and there was a constant slow swell of the ocean that caused the boat to rock back and forth for three days. Pieces of gear and parts of the rigging banged constantly with this rocking. Normally when the boat is underway the rigging and everything is silent because the wind holds everything taunt. This constant banging, night and day, starts to drive you crazy.
Why does this remind me of today? It is a so similar feel of no progress of being dead in the water and waiting and waiting. We the people that thrive on progress cannot stand being “dead in the water”. At least that is what I am seeing.
There was a redeeming memory of that long ago time that I am savoring now. We got the idea to fish. I lowered a hook and line over the side with a quarter can of DAK canned lunch meat as bait. We had piles of these cans aboard that we had bought somewhere for 8 cents a can for emergencies. Looked like bait to me. I did manage to catch a maybe twenty pound Mahi Mahi on that handline, bloodied my palms. We feasted on that and it was the start of more fishing adventures to come.
We eventually were able to catch some wind also and continue toward California. It was a trip of a lifetime like the Camino. And a great flashback for me today. What is the takeaway?
fishy loves, Felipé.
Phil, I am stunned by your story. First, an apt metaphor for where we Westerners are today, stuck indoors, surrounded by brown skies that make the world look like a Civil War sepia print, dead in the water. Second, I am astonished (but not surprised) that you helped build a 55 ft. schooner and sailed it 2600 miles from Hawaii to California! You are a real Thor Heyerdahl. I am in awe of you!
Gone fishing,
Henriette Anne
Henriette ~ Thor Heyerdahl!! I read all those books as a teen, loved them, loved him and the crews. There was Kon Tiki and Ra and maybe more. It was long ago. The boat that we built and sailed is now a training vessel for some country in the South Pacific. I was not a principal with that effort but a young apprentice carpenter. Anyway an adventure! And yes you get the prize for the take away from the Doldrums’ post, “go fishing”! Felipé.x
Hi boss,
What an amazing story! It made me think that I was probably a new born baby when you were fishing Mahi Mahi with DAK canned meat, and right now, we are both experiencing the same “dead water” and sharing this space. Anyway, I am not making this comment to make myself look young, but I was just thinking that this reality we are living today, in a way, has invited us all, young and old, healthy and sick, to be in the same boat in dead water, and it was a unique situation as humanity to reinvent ourselves, but I believe that we are in the path to massive failure. And I think it is because we have this idea that we can make the wind blow…
Modern life has us all used to this thing that we have a solution at hand for almost everything, or at least, we have an active role fighting back… this virus is asking us to be as still as dead water, and it is testing the very thing we have so hard tried to avoid. In modern life there is no time to sit still, and there is almost no place to find dead water (and in lots of places where there is dead water, we invented turbines or wave machines to make the water move)…
But, we know that love is patient, and therefore, for me, the take-away is that this is a time for love and to love,
Love you,
Cris
Cris ~ yes, these are very challenging times for everyone. We aren’t used to being dead in the water. Our usual measurements to brag about are not available. We didn’t walk 20 km or we didn’t do this or do that. We think we are worthless because we are not bolstered by our usual numbers. No apparent progress. But you are pointing to something else. We can’t really make the wind blow, you are right. Felipé.x