1/22
It’s my last day in port before our western passage across the Atlantic and a brief but exciting dip below the equator. We’ve been in the Cape Verde Islands for about a week. No one is really doing any touring, or going on excursions though. There seems to be a national holiday here once or twice a week, and half of those are independence days, so not much is open. We’re all taking this time to relax, provision for the next month or so at sea, send our last communications, and just generally taking care of personal business. I am trying to download the season premier of LOST. I am pathetic.
The Islands here are barren, desert mountains and dunes, desolate and dramatic. They look like they might have been formed when some ancient titan kicked the dirt off his heel on a stroll from Africa to the Americas, the clods plopping here in the Atlantic. Beautiful terrain from a distance, however this would be a miserable place to find yourself left to your own devices. I’m impressed people live here at all, but they do – and well – and their villages are quite nice, actually. The atmosphere is more Caribbean than African, at least more so than Dakar.
Though we are nearly finished with the third leg, this feels more like the turning point of the voyage than the actual, mathematical middle in Mallorca. Something about crossing back to the west, the turn up north again coming soon, has people onboard talking about the ever looming A-word: after. Often times these discussions are instigated by questions containing the lesser known, though still disconcerting, N-word: next. It’s good to think about I suppose, but we still have lots of sailing to do, islands to explore, and several thousand miles between us and all that after/next business. Not to say it hasn’t crossed my mind though…
So signing off for now, westward bound for a short stop in the sapphire Brazilian island, Fernando de Noronha, and then turning out our fresh shellbacks and heading up to Grenada, four-thousand miles later. Should be fun.
January 22, 2009
January 6, 2009
Christmas and Senegal
12/22
We got underway today from La Gomera, one of the western Canary Islands (beaches, cafes, cozy, quiet, lots of German tourists, lots of SPF 90), after signing on a new crew member, Weronika, who’s sailed with us before, and in fact was one of the off-going sailors when I joined the ship in Dominica nearly two years ago. As soon as she had her gear in her bunk we had our anchor up, lashed to the rail, and, with the Canaries astern, we aimed our pointy end towards Senegal.
We got underway today from La Gomera, one of the western Canary Islands (beaches, cafes, cozy, quiet, lots of German tourists, lots of SPF 90), after signing on a new crew member, Weronika, who’s sailed with us before, and in fact was one of the off-going sailors when I joined the ship in Dominica nearly two years ago. As soon as she had her gear in her bunk we had our anchor up, lashed to the rail, and, with the Canaries astern, we aimed our pointy end towards Senegal.
La Gomera
Buddy stitching sails in La Gomera.West Africa is known for its northerly trades, but we might push through some weird bits for a while before we find them. A high altitude, low pressure system is forming right over the islands, so it will be interesting to see what the winds do. Right now it’s an easterly force six. We’re on a beam reach with t’gallants set. The whole sky is in flux as the system deepens. High cirrus clouds before a thick haze, then cirrostratus and more haze. Hopefully we will be south before it really kicks in.
12/23
A trainee, who has been aboard since day one in Lunenburg, just asked what needs to be done to clean the galley. This person, a full grown adult, said he/she has never before, in nearly eight months, cleaned the galley of the Picton Castle. Priceless. Little episodes like that make me a bit slower to shake my head when I hear about high-school graduates in America who are illiterate.
It’s a good thing our galley stove isn’t a part of a union. It would have gone on strike long ago. Or if it was French. Then it would strike too. French and unionized? Forget it. Cold cuts and canned mackerel till Lunenburg, and probably since Lunenburg. Maybe we’d get porridge on Thursdays.
As it is, though, the old stove has been at it nonstop for nearly 48 hours in preparation for Christmas, and it doesn’t look like a break is coming before the famous morning.
12/26
Christmas was a great success. Our little tree, center stage on the hatch amidships, was trimmed with tinsel, ornaments, popcorn garlands, and twinkling lights. In the morning our stockings and ditty bags were stuffed with candy and trinkets, and around the tree the packages quickly piled up into an impressive bunch of yuletide loot.
12/23
A trainee, who has been aboard since day one in Lunenburg, just asked what needs to be done to clean the galley. This person, a full grown adult, said he/she has never before, in nearly eight months, cleaned the galley of the Picton Castle. Priceless. Little episodes like that make me a bit slower to shake my head when I hear about high-school graduates in America who are illiterate.
It’s a good thing our galley stove isn’t a part of a union. It would have gone on strike long ago. Or if it was French. Then it would strike too. French and unionized? Forget it. Cold cuts and canned mackerel till Lunenburg, and probably since Lunenburg. Maybe we’d get porridge on Thursdays.
As it is, though, the old stove has been at it nonstop for nearly 48 hours in preparation for Christmas, and it doesn’t look like a break is coming before the famous morning.
12/26
Christmas was a great success. Our little tree, center stage on the hatch amidships, was trimmed with tinsel, ornaments, popcorn garlands, and twinkling lights. In the morning our stockings and ditty bags were stuffed with candy and trinkets, and around the tree the packages quickly piled up into an impressive bunch of yuletide loot.
The Tree
Donald in the spirit of the day
Weronika has a cookie
"Fat Nick" (I don't know how he got that nickname) and the ship's doctor, Gary
Lynsey's Christmas wig. Spongebob looks on.
Captain surveys the scene from the bridge.We had a pig on a spit, roasting on the barbecue starting at eight that morning under the watchful eyes of young trainee Nick and Chief Mate Mike, along with, invariably, two cents from pretty much every other testicular member of the crew. Help is not always helpful. Nick, a new addition since Las Palmas, is South African, and seems well versed in the ways of barbecue. He says where he’s from it’s called a braai, and they grill up ostrich, warthog, spring buck, kudu, zebra, water buffalo, wildebeest – basically half the cast of ‘Lion King’ – with the same regard as we do chickens and cows. All day our stove’s hard work was in full splendor on the hatch, as platter upon platter appeared, each crowned with a pyramid of cookies and fudge.
After the dinner and festivities, an impromptu music session erupted on the hatch, and our house musicians, Gunner, Sam, and Buddy, put on a great show for the rest of us.
After the dinner and festivities, an impromptu music session erupted on the hatch, and our house musicians, Gunner, Sam, and Buddy, put on a great show for the rest of us.
Sam on the banjo
Gunner and Buddy on the fiddle and guitarThe night was as picturesque as a Christmas night at sea could be. Not a ripple on the ocean, it was like our barque sat bobbing in a big bowl of water with glassy reflections of the stars on the surface. Sirius and Procyon, the two cardinal stars of the celestial dogs and navigational markers for centuries’ worth of mariners, shone doubly by the sea’s mirror, and we sat, mostly silent, before the view until the next watch relieved us at midnight.
It was an unforgettable Christmas. Though it was my first one away from my family, as it was for many of us, we were all here with a different kind of family, but a family nonetheless. The week had brought me the greatest feelings of homesickness I’ve ever experienced, but I was never sorry to be here, and feel lucky to have shared such a special time with my shipmates aboard our surrogate mother, the Barque Picton Castle.
12/27
Spectacular phosphorescence. A constant sparkle on the sea, scattered flashes the size of basketballs below the surface, the other worldly dolphin-comets, a gentle neon cloud around our hull as it ghosts through the water, a steady trail behind us of brilliant jellyfish creating a glowing tail of nearly three ship’s lengths, and every so often we pass through a glowing ribbon of algae stretching as far as we can see in either direction. Spirits are high.
12/28
Today I was annoyed to come into my bunk after watch and find a blue Moroccan headdress on my sea chest. This particular one had been floating around the focsle for a while and no one had claimed it.
“Whose turban is this?” I huffed at Ryan.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged back.
I don’t think that that particular question has ever crossed my mind before, but here it came so easily.
Only in the Picton Castle focsle are queries about banjos, wigs, pool toys, shrunken heads, beer, whiskey, gummy bears, and turbans so blasé. Sometimes we take our little never-neverland for granted.
12/29
300 miles from Dakar. Northerly trades finally setting in as we escape the influence of that big fat low forming overhead. Running before a friendly Force 5. Glow of jellyfish trailing 100 yards behind us. Wind just on our port quarter.
1/1
Rang in the New Year properly. The 12-4 watch spent the afternoon constructing a giant glowing ball, ala Times Square, and the thing was spectacular. Four feet in diameter, they wrapped it all in the sparkling lights and tinsel we had onboard, and even a few hundred watts worth of the engineers’ drop-lights made all spiffed-up and space-age gave it a glowing core within the outer twinkling layer.
Mike played Dick Clark, and we all danced a lot, too. From 0030 on, after each song, captain would bellow, “Bonus song!” and we’d all cheer and dance. We did this for another hour. Then we hoisted upper tops’ls, sheeted home the lowers and courses, set a couple jibs, and got back to business.
1/4
Spent my first day in Dakar, Senegal today. It’s as different from Prairie Village, Kansas, as you can get. When we were coming around the cape to our anchorage we could see, near the rocks in the distance, a black spiny strip just at the surface of the water. ”Is that some kind of reef?” someone asked.
Then it appeared to be moving. We were all lined along the port rail watching this long spiny thing get closer and closer, gaining definition bit by bit. The black strip became a long boat, the spines were people, and some were waving. The boat was about 40 feet long, and couldn’t have been more than five feet wide. It was like a floating needle, and it was loaded with people. As we came around the cape, we saw a harbor teeming with these boats, some completely jammed, stem to stern, with people.
It was an unforgettable Christmas. Though it was my first one away from my family, as it was for many of us, we were all here with a different kind of family, but a family nonetheless. The week had brought me the greatest feelings of homesickness I’ve ever experienced, but I was never sorry to be here, and feel lucky to have shared such a special time with my shipmates aboard our surrogate mother, the Barque Picton Castle.
12/27
Spectacular phosphorescence. A constant sparkle on the sea, scattered flashes the size of basketballs below the surface, the other worldly dolphin-comets, a gentle neon cloud around our hull as it ghosts through the water, a steady trail behind us of brilliant jellyfish creating a glowing tail of nearly three ship’s lengths, and every so often we pass through a glowing ribbon of algae stretching as far as we can see in either direction. Spirits are high.
12/28
Today I was annoyed to come into my bunk after watch and find a blue Moroccan headdress on my sea chest. This particular one had been floating around the focsle for a while and no one had claimed it.
“Whose turban is this?” I huffed at Ryan.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged back.
I don’t think that that particular question has ever crossed my mind before, but here it came so easily.
Only in the Picton Castle focsle are queries about banjos, wigs, pool toys, shrunken heads, beer, whiskey, gummy bears, and turbans so blasé. Sometimes we take our little never-neverland for granted.
12/29
300 miles from Dakar. Northerly trades finally setting in as we escape the influence of that big fat low forming overhead. Running before a friendly Force 5. Glow of jellyfish trailing 100 yards behind us. Wind just on our port quarter.
1/1
Rang in the New Year properly. The 12-4 watch spent the afternoon constructing a giant glowing ball, ala Times Square, and the thing was spectacular. Four feet in diameter, they wrapped it all in the sparkling lights and tinsel we had onboard, and even a few hundred watts worth of the engineers’ drop-lights made all spiffed-up and space-age gave it a glowing core within the outer twinkling layer.
Mike played Dick Clark, and we all danced a lot, too. From 0030 on, after each song, captain would bellow, “Bonus song!” and we’d all cheer and dance. We did this for another hour. Then we hoisted upper tops’ls, sheeted home the lowers and courses, set a couple jibs, and got back to business.
1/4
Spent my first day in Dakar, Senegal today. It’s as different from Prairie Village, Kansas, as you can get. When we were coming around the cape to our anchorage we could see, near the rocks in the distance, a black spiny strip just at the surface of the water. ”Is that some kind of reef?” someone asked.
Then it appeared to be moving. We were all lined along the port rail watching this long spiny thing get closer and closer, gaining definition bit by bit. The black strip became a long boat, the spines were people, and some were waving. The boat was about 40 feet long, and couldn’t have been more than five feet wide. It was like a floating needle, and it was loaded with people. As we came around the cape, we saw a harbor teeming with these boats, some completely jammed, stem to stern, with people.
The city of Dakar is not architecturally beautiful. Aside from the presidential palace, the great circular market, and some legislative buildings, the city is more or less a collection of boxes, some standing taller than others, some not standing too well at all.What is beautiful about this place is the people. I don’t have a grasp of it yet, but I feel a strange glow of awe inside me after every conversation, every interaction, and even just the physical presence of the Senegalese.
There is great pride, but it’s good natured. There is great poverty, but the people are not downtrodden. Rather, there seems to be an overt, if instinctual, optimism here. For all the unhappy, hard elements of life here, it seems to be a happy place.
1/7
We had a spectacular day yesterday. Mike, Nadja, Christian and I took a taxi o the north part of the peninsula of Dakar. We walked through some neighborhoods along the coast, looking for a hotel for the night, making our way along streets lined with very posh, quiet houses, but somewhere along the way we found ourselves in a shanty town, full of people going about their daily business: cooking, cleaning, teenagers kicking a ball around. We had been urged from day one to avoid these places, as they are not known to be safe for visitors, so naturally, we were interested in finding our way back to the main road, but the place was a bit of a maze.
1/7
We had a spectacular day yesterday. Mike, Nadja, Christian and I took a taxi o the north part of the peninsula of Dakar. We walked through some neighborhoods along the coast, looking for a hotel for the night, making our way along streets lined with very posh, quiet houses, but somewhere along the way we found ourselves in a shanty town, full of people going about their daily business: cooking, cleaning, teenagers kicking a ball around. We had been urged from day one to avoid these places, as they are not known to be safe for visitors, so naturally, we were interested in finding our way back to the main road, but the place was a bit of a maze.
The children were thrilled to see us there, though most of the adults managed not to see us at all. The ones who did greeted us with a knowing smirk, or a questioning frown. But the kids just thought we were hilarious.
“Bonjour!”
“Bonjour!”
“Bonjour!”
“Bonjour!”
“Bonjour!”
They stopped their games and ran after us. Some held our hands, but most just followed close behind singing “bonjour” and smiling and waving, until we would round the corner where we had a new group of little laughing guides to escort us to the next block.
Though we were clearly there uninvited, and trespassing into these people’s lives, our overnight bags and urgent demeanor betrayed that we were merely lost, and not here as ignorant sightseers.
There are those kinds of tourists here, whose fascination with the different way of life seems to overwhelm them, and they begin behaving like ignoramuses, treating this whole place like some big cultural zoo for their own joy.
While we were on Goree Island on our first day ashore, we inadvertently wandered into an open churchyard where a wedding celebration was in full roar. We hung back behind the crowd to watch from outside.
The men stood together at the church steps, dressed in suits, chatting and watching the women, who were the stars of the hour. Each woman was wrapped in a vivid cloth, with a matching scarf knotted at twisted atop her head, like a psychedelic wave. They stood in a circle, facing the center, where a man in a gigantic hat, wearing big white sunglasses, suspenders, and a wild neck-tie, hummed on a saxophone that was painted in the motif of a graffiti mural.
The women had wooden boards in the hands, shaped like long, flat almonds, that they were clapping in unison. A barrage of drums constantly ringing.
There are those kinds of tourists here, whose fascination with the different way of life seems to overwhelm them, and they begin behaving like ignoramuses, treating this whole place like some big cultural zoo for their own joy.
While we were on Goree Island on our first day ashore, we inadvertently wandered into an open churchyard where a wedding celebration was in full roar. We hung back behind the crowd to watch from outside.
The men stood together at the church steps, dressed in suits, chatting and watching the women, who were the stars of the hour. Each woman was wrapped in a vivid cloth, with a matching scarf knotted at twisted atop her head, like a psychedelic wave. They stood in a circle, facing the center, where a man in a gigantic hat, wearing big white sunglasses, suspenders, and a wild neck-tie, hummed on a saxophone that was painted in the motif of a graffiti mural.
The women had wooden boards in the hands, shaped like long, flat almonds, that they were clapping in unison. A barrage of drums constantly ringing.
Then, all at once, the music and dancing jumped to full pitch, the women’s throbbing steps elevated into ecstatic hops and kicks, the saxophone’s steady hum wound up into manic wailing, the wooden claps became a machine-gun staccato.
One at a time, a woman would leave the ring and dance in the center, jumping and spinning, her feet never stopping. Then another would replace her, and another and another, until the music and the women regained their steady pulse, sweating, smiling, and anticipating the next eruption. It looked sublime.
But all around this circle were pasty tourists with cameras cocked. They hovered around the circle of dancing women, clicking away photos. Some were even trying to dance into the circle; a few were dancing just outside it. They all had big dopey grins, thrilled at the show being put on for them. I was immediately self conscious. I knew their behavior was not without good intentions, but I found it so troubling, so distasteful, and so unfortunately typical.
It was their deliberate intrusiveness which emerges from a sense of entitlement to the experience, like it was some kind of theme park.
One at a time, a woman would leave the ring and dance in the center, jumping and spinning, her feet never stopping. Then another would replace her, and another and another, until the music and the women regained their steady pulse, sweating, smiling, and anticipating the next eruption. It looked sublime.
But all around this circle were pasty tourists with cameras cocked. They hovered around the circle of dancing women, clicking away photos. Some were even trying to dance into the circle; a few were dancing just outside it. They all had big dopey grins, thrilled at the show being put on for them. I was immediately self conscious. I knew their behavior was not without good intentions, but I found it so troubling, so distasteful, and so unfortunately typical.
It was their deliberate intrusiveness which emerges from a sense of entitlement to the experience, like it was some kind of theme park.
There is nothing wrong at all with experiencing new things, sharing in different cultures. These are prime reasons for traveling abroad, and particularly outside our western sphere of comfort, but this was done so flippantly, without any investment in the people, without any responsibility for the experience or real respect for what they were seeing. It was another kitschy trinket from an excursion to wild Africa.
My visit to Goree Island left me with so many strong feelings.
It was the final processing depot for Africans being exported into slavery, though that is a sterile description of a place of such horrors.
The buildings and layout of the island village are all well preserved French Colonial specimens, though they are now inhabited by African families who live in them like Africans. A stroll through town and you will see families sitting on the ground around massive wooden bowls of rice and fish and chicken, with animals wandering in and out the front door. Some of the vacant buildings were taken over by local artists, of which Goree has plenty.
My visit to Goree Island left me with so many strong feelings.
It was the final processing depot for Africans being exported into slavery, though that is a sterile description of a place of such horrors.
The buildings and layout of the island village are all well preserved French Colonial specimens, though they are now inhabited by African families who live in them like Africans. A stroll through town and you will see families sitting on the ground around massive wooden bowls of rice and fish and chicken, with animals wandering in and out the front door. Some of the vacant buildings were taken over by local artists, of which Goree has plenty.
If you want colorful acrylic paintings of black stick figures rowing skiffs, or playing music, or with baskets on their heads, this is the place. Most of the island’s shops are artisan shops, and half of those sold these paintings, but each set up his gallery as if it was his own unique style.
Of course there was much more diverse artwork and craftwork to be seen as well, people who painted sand on wood, and a handful of men under a grove of palm trees who made and sold djembes, the archetypal African drum.
One of our final stops of the day was at the main slave processing center, a small, two story, stone fortress at the edge of the island. The top floor had whitewashed plaster walls, and was where the slave traders had their offices. The ground floor was a cluster of small chambers, walls of jagged black stone set in cement. Over the portal to each was a succinct placard: “MEN,” “WOMEN,” “SMALL CHILDREN,” “INFANTS.” For so many years these rooms had been crammed with people, no where to sit, no where to sleep, nowhere to piss or shit. Now they were filled with graffiti, left behind as spontaneous cathartic memorials by visitors over the years. Words on top of words, on top of scratches in the masonry, signatures of ghosts, it is a haunted place of frightening tangibility.
Of course there was much more diverse artwork and craftwork to be seen as well, people who painted sand on wood, and a handful of men under a grove of palm trees who made and sold djembes, the archetypal African drum.
One of our final stops of the day was at the main slave processing center, a small, two story, stone fortress at the edge of the island. The top floor had whitewashed plaster walls, and was where the slave traders had their offices. The ground floor was a cluster of small chambers, walls of jagged black stone set in cement. Over the portal to each was a succinct placard: “MEN,” “WOMEN,” “SMALL CHILDREN,” “INFANTS.” For so many years these rooms had been crammed with people, no where to sit, no where to sleep, nowhere to piss or shit. Now they were filled with graffiti, left behind as spontaneous cathartic memorials by visitors over the years. Words on top of words, on top of scratches in the masonry, signatures of ghosts, it is a haunted place of frightening tangibility.
It is a landmark of my troubling, European heritage, as it is to the ancestral legacy of much of the world. Donald could trace his own ancestors from Grenada in the West Indies back to this place. At the center of the building was a door, as if the whole place was a funnel into it, and to the ocean horizon beyond. It was called the door of the voyage of no return.
I told them I needed to go and take the drum home. They insisted I let them carry it to my hotel for me, but I showed them a Picton Castle card and explained that I am not staying in a hotel. They were very impressed and asked to see my ship. I said OK, and brought them all back to the ship for a tour and coffee and muffins.
I walked up to the balcony on the second floor, overlooking the coast. I leaned over the rail and saw two boys fishing off the rocks. They smiled and waved, and I smiled and waved back. Three local women, wrapped in bright robes, came and stood at the rail with their daughters. They smiled and nodded at me, and one of the little girls squeezed my finger and sang bonjour. I smiled and bonjoured back. They got their fill of the view much sooner than me and then left.
It was a passing moment, but it delivered a thick, immediate weight to the place, lined with a strange feeling of optimism, too. This place was the epicenter of the western slave trade, an ugly part of the narrative of the human race for both the Europeans and the Africans involved, because it was not just the white man’s endeavor, and it is a tragedy for all involved as well, both the victims and the perpetrators. Everyone has suffered for it. Yet, somehow, the little beams of optimism still managed to break through, even here.
---
Last night, after a walk on the beach, and a nap in the hotel, we went out for dinner and then to a night club that we heard would have live music – and did they.
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Last night, after a walk on the beach, and a nap in the hotel, we went out for dinner and then to a night club that we heard would have live music – and did they.
It was a local band. Electric guitar, bass, drum set, keyboards, a singer who stood at the mic like Bono and sang husky like Harry Belafonte. African drums were brought on stage. Then more, and more, and more drums were brought, filling up all the spare space on the low platform. One man sat behind them. The music started, and his arms turned into hummingbird wings.
Then a guy got up from the audience and started to dance. His purple velvet suit plumed like a cape, his long, thin dreadlocks whipping around his gigantic forehead, and an ecstatic smile of very small teeth. He jumped and kicked, spun and gyrated, slower and faster, than an explosion of movement. Stepping and turning from side to side like he was never sure it was safe to cross the street.
Another guy joined in. He was tall and bald, and was the yin to the other guy’s dancing yang. He slowly walked back and forth, his back stiff and bent slightly backwards, a beer in one hand, the other one raised in testimony. Each time he reached the perimeter of the stage, he would bob down slightly, like an oompa loompa, pop his drowsy eyes and open his mouth in a silent “WOW!” and then about-face until he reached the other side of the stage, where he did the same strange motion. Sometimes he would wave his raised hand. I have never been to a nightclub like that before.
1/9
Another spectacular day in Senegal yesterday. I set out, after a quiet morning, to run a few errands, and ended up last night sipping beer and sprite by the highway with three local guys after celebrating the religious fete with them at their homes.
1/9
Another spectacular day in Senegal yesterday. I set out, after a quiet morning, to run a few errands, and ended up last night sipping beer and sprite by the highway with three local guys after celebrating the religious fete with them at their homes.
I bought a djembe from one of the artisan shops. I didn’t have much money, and ended up bargaining down to a quarter of what they were asking.
It took a long time, and I spent a while hanging out with the guys there. They offered to give me a lesson. They were very proud of the drum they sold me. They led me out of the store and down a beach lined with the long, thin fishing boats. We sat on a rock wall, they put the drum between my legs and one, a gentle guy named Momo, squatted in front of me. He was my teacher. He played a simple beat. I botched it. They laughed. He played it again. I botched it again, and they didn’t really laugh so much this time. He played it again, and I played it back. We played together a bit, and then he left me to go and play it myself while they all laughed and danced and sang. Then they stopped, and Momo knelt back down to teach me another beat, and we did this for about half an hour.
It took a long time, and I spent a while hanging out with the guys there. They offered to give me a lesson. They were very proud of the drum they sold me. They led me out of the store and down a beach lined with the long, thin fishing boats. We sat on a rock wall, they put the drum between my legs and one, a gentle guy named Momo, squatted in front of me. He was my teacher. He played a simple beat. I botched it. They laughed. He played it again. I botched it again, and they didn’t really laugh so much this time. He played it again, and I played it back. We played together a bit, and then he left me to go and play it myself while they all laughed and danced and sang. Then they stopped, and Momo knelt back down to teach me another beat, and we did this for about half an hour.
I told them I needed to go and take the drum home. They insisted I let them carry it to my hotel for me, but I showed them a Picton Castle card and explained that I am not staying in a hotel. They were very impressed and asked to see my ship. I said OK, and brought them all back to the ship for a tour and coffee and muffins.Back on shore, Willie, the one who sold me the drum, said I was welcome at his house tonight for the fete, for the Muslim celebration of Muharram, which comemorates the New Year, and the martyrdom of the prophet Mohammed's grandson.
We took a cab to his house where I met his family, his brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews. The smallest one cried whenever I looked at him. Willie said I was the first white man he’d ever seen. We watched a basketball game on the TV, drank coke, and then went to Ablaye’s house for the first serving of dinner, where I met all his family as well. 
The youngest boy brought a big plate of food into the room, where all the men ate. The food was a cous-cous type of meal topped with roasted meat, vegetables, and a spicy red sauce. It was delicious. Most of us ate with spoons, but a few of the guys ate with their right hands. As the plate was nearly finished, Ablaye’s sister came in with milk and poured some into the dish, everything was stirred together, becoming creamy and sweet.
The youngest boy brought a big plate of food into the room, where all the men ate. The food was a cous-cous type of meal topped with roasted meat, vegetables, and a spicy red sauce. It was delicious. Most of us ate with spoons, but a few of the guys ate with their right hands. As the plate was nearly finished, Ablaye’s sister came in with milk and poured some into the dish, everything was stirred together, becoming creamy and sweet.
I said thank you, “Djir a jif,” in Wolof, and we went back to Willie’s for round two.
After the meal at Willie’s we sat in his room and listened to music, and talked. Then Momo, Willie and Ablaye began dancing. Big goofy dances, they were cracking each other up. All the kids in the house came and looked and laughed as well. Willie and Momo kept asking me, “We are very happy. Are you happy? We are very happy. It’s good you are happy.” I was overwhelmed.
After the meal at Willie’s we sat in his room and listened to music, and talked. Then Momo, Willie and Ablaye began dancing. Big goofy dances, they were cracking each other up. All the kids in the house came and looked and laughed as well. Willie and Momo kept asking me, “We are very happy. Are you happy? We are very happy. It’s good you are happy.” I was overwhelmed.
Soon the dancing stopped, and Willie said, “We’re going to make a walk, to have a look around.” We went out for a walk around the block, and all around the neighborhood were parades of kids playing homemade drums, hassling all the adults on the streets for coins. The adults would pretend to be annoyed, and then relent, giving a few coins to the gangs of kids. Momo, Willie, and Ablaye did this too, laughing together after they’d shooed off the parade. We stopped at a corner store and bought some drinks, beer and pop and chips, and sat by the road. It was a great night. We all laughed and talked and shared with each other. They asked about the ship, they told me about their lives, but most of the time we sat and watched the cars go by. Finally, I had to say goodbye, and I hailed a taxi for the trip back to the ship. They shared their lives with me in a way I will never forget. It was a touching evening among people who I am happy to call friends.
December 21, 2008
Bargaining, Observing, Preparing for Navidad
12/8
Departed Morocco today. We had been anchored at the coastal town of Essaouira, the closest thing to a natural harbor on the west coast. A bunch of people took their liberty time and went to Marrakesh. Apparently it’s sensory overload. Narrow, labyrinthine streets crowded with people, aggressive shopkeepers, and snake charmers who drape a dozen or so vipers over you and then demand money. I opted for the more relaxed, picturesque Essaouira.
I had a fantastic time here. Possibly the best vacation spot I’ve ever found. I’ve never been somewhere so foreign before. Many of the locals walk around in pointy-hooded robes called Jalabas. Spectacular pastries, magnificent orange juice, tajine, friendly shopkeepers who offer you in for tea and then, the day’s entertainment: bargaining.
I love bargaining. I mean I absolutely love it. I had no idea how much fun it was going to be. My first day ashore I didn’t really shop much, but what I bought took about an hour to buy, and man was it fun. The guy asked first for 1500 dirham (about $175 U.S.) and I ended up paying 400dh. I don’t care if he probably got it for 4 dh, it was fun, and I would have paid about that much for a similar product in the states. But the process was just so much fun.
He approaches me on the street, “Hey, my friend, you from le bateau? Le gran bateau? You know Mike? You know Mike? Please come in, I make special price for you.”
And then I say, “Oh, no I can’t, I don’t have very much money, I really can’t spend much.”And he says, “It’s OK, just to look, come in, I’ll give you special price.”
“OK, then, but just to look.”
This is how every bargaining session begins.
Then we sit down in the back, and he offers a cup of hot, sweet, mint tea, and we toast and talk and shoot the breeze for ten or fifteen minutes. He tells me he is twareg, a traveling people from the Sahara. His name is Hasim, he has clear charcoal skin, a friendly, handsome face, and a toothy smile that comes easy. He shows me stuff, mostly knickknacks and crap I don’t want: camel-bone knives, amulets, and rings big enough to bully around most lugnuts. I try to explain carpal-tunnel syndrome to him, but he keeps offering me the damned rings.
The process is pure, theatrical euphoria, and afterwards, everyone is friends because he didn’t accept less than he wanted, and I didn’t pay more than I could afford and we shake hands.
But it is a such a strange process, and a strange game too, that two people, so eager to lie to each other, so happy to bemoan the onset of calamity should the other have his way, can walk away feeling friendliness for one another.
I bought a full hide of camel leather from one of the many leather goods stalls in the market. It was nearly one of the greatest thrills of the trip so far.
He showed me the hide, I was happy with it, and he said, with a smile dripping with insipid innocence, 1800 Dirham – just over $200 U.S. (Side note: This hide is about 8-10 square feet. I can buy cow leather in the States for $10 per square foot. This being Moroccan camel leather, I was willing to pay for it, but, still, the delight of shopping in Morocco lies in the bargain.)
At this point, all the other employees, and a few of the adjacent shopkeepers had gathered to see the crazy “English-Man” who had made such a strange request for a full camel hide.
I laughed and apologized for wasting his time. “I can only afford 400 Dh. That’s the most can pay,” I assured him.
They all went crazy. “400!?” “That’s so low!” “He can make twenty bags with this much leather!” “Do you even know how to bargain?!” And so on.
“My friend,” he strained to remain calm, “why are you even here? Why do you waste my time? We are not even within a few hundred Dirham. How are we supposed to come to terms?”
“That’s really as much as I can pay, otherwise I have no money for the rest of the time in Morocco.”
“His family has to eat!”
“I have to eat too.”
“You can eat at my house!”
I laughed at this.
He grinned back at me. We were testing each other.
“Maybe you want to swap for something?” They asked.
I gestured to my bag. “I guess I have some spare clothes.” I had brought a bag full of clothes, thrift store formal wear and free tall-ships festival t-shirts for precisely this purpose.
“What. Show us.”
A sweatshirt I had saved from the ship’s lost-and-found a few months ago came out. Oohs and Ahhs.
“Columbia?”
"That’s an American brand.”
“Yes, fine. What else?”
I revealed a Budweiser hat I had won during a football trivia quiz at the Grand Banker’s Superbowl party last winter in Lunenburg.
He put it on, struck a pose like Robert DeNiro, and then looked sideways at his cronies. “OK. With the hat, and the sweatshirt, 1650.”
By bartering with two garments which I had acquired for free, I knocked off over $17.
“I don’t have that much money. I’m sorry.” They were livid. “I’m, sorry, but I’m poor. I’m a sailor. I don’t have much money.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “OK. OK. Your maximum price. What is your maximum?”
I searched my wallet, and met him with a forlorn look. “I don’t know, I am sorry. I don’t want to cause you any trouble, but the most I can pay is 500.”
At this point, such an uproar erupted that I half expected them to begin thrashing about the floor, convulsing and biting themselves.
“This is your maximum? No no no. Name your real maximum.”
Another man, nearly doubled over, eyes wide, teeth bared, put his face right in mine: “SAY ANOTHER NUMBER!”
“Do you like my shoes?”
“Your shoes?” Instantly, their mood switched from boiling hostility to a feline curiosity.
I showed him my shoes. They were good shoes, but the soles were worse than useless on deck. In any moisture, they were like trying to walk across ice with metal saucers strapped on your feet. In fact, aboard the ship that morning, as the early dew had not quite totally burned off, I nearly slipped and fell while walking the ten feet to the boat for the skiff-run ashore. I wore them deliberately to trade. I knew they were good shoes.
”These are good shoes,” confirmed the man who had so recently screamed in my face, and they huddled again.
“We cannot take your shoes.” They said. “What will you wear?”
“I can figure it out.” I said, “But I just can’t afford what you ask.”
“OK fine. Give us the shoes. 900 Dh.”
Down another $90 U.S. for a pair of shoes I haven’t been able to wear since June. So far so good. I opened my bag, and displayed the remainder of my disposable wardrobe. They collected and folded the garments. The shopkeeper stared at me icily, his hand resting of the sizeable pile of my barter offerings.
“700.”
I ran my hands through my hair, shuffled my bare feet in the dirt. “OK,” I sighed. He wrapped up the leather, smiled, shook my hand, and I returned the smile.
“Are you happy?” He asked.
”Yes, thank you.”
”Good, thank you too. I hope you enjoy your leather.”
And so this is how we parted, with smiles all around and a big laugh as I pulled a pair of flip-flops from my backpack and walked out into the street.
Later, I allowed myself to be coaxed into a store by a man in a gigantic white turban, shaping his head with the same silhouette as a cartoon drawing of Saturn, his two crossed eyes, its moons. I didn’t want to buy anything, but I had a knife I nearly never used that I knew would be a big trade value. It was stainless steel, had a regular blade, a saw with a flathead screwdriver on the end, a Philips-head driver, and a small, adjustable crescent wrench on the handle. I got it for $10 in a bargain tub at a hardware store.
He showed me the same jewelry and camel-bone knives and medallions I’d been already been disinterested in. I showed him my knife. He gasped. He asked me what I liked. I said I liked his Jalabas, which are the pointy, camel-wool robes many Moroccans wear. He asked me to name a price. I said 100 Dh. He said 600. I handed him my now empty backpack, which I’d had since high-school, and offered 200.
He looked at me, looked at the backpack, and laughed. ”My friend, I am Berber. But you are more Berber.”
We shook hands, smiled, and he threw in a free headscarf for me. What a blast.
12/16
Sitting here at a beachfront cafe in Las Palmas, the capital city of the Canary Islands. We've been alongside here for a few days. Las Palmas is just another big European tourist city, but here, on this side of town, it's a nice enough place. We are all spoiled rotten after Essaouira.
I ordered a cannoli. I hadn't had one for a while, and was looking forward to it. The waitress gave me a funny look, and a dimpled smile when I ordered it, because most people don't order cannolis for breakfast. I assured her I knew what it was, but I don' think she was convinced. I tried to affirm my understanding of the menu by describing a tube pastry with cream filling in the middle, which was accurate enough, but my accompanying hand gestures were, inadvertantly, a touch obscene. She brought me the cannoli. It was indeed good. With my coffee, she brought out a small pastry as well: spongy, sweet, with a slightly soapy flavor, though not in a bad way.
The walkway is packed.
A stream of school children, ninos pequenos, dressed in blue jumpers, double file and about a quarter mile long, buzzes by, singing and chattering, peppered with the tall, wrinkly towers of teachers and nuns.
A hairy little man tromps across the square towards the beach at top speed, looks like Roberto Benigni with a habanero up his stern. He is clothed only in a towel wrapped around his waist. His wife is three meters behind, more suitably dressed for the cool morning weather in a sweater and trousers, half running to keep up. He is going to have a swim. He is going to freeze his balls off.
Without breaking stride, he whips off the towel to reveal a speedo underneath, thus bestowing on the rest of us the future pleasure of verifying that he has indeed emerged, sin huevos.
I thought we finished with Europe weeks ago, but such a rich history of imperialism has left its speedo-clad legacy everywhere, it seems. Here I am, on an Island just off the coast of Africa, and I'm sitting at an Italian cafe, speaking Spanish and English, and like clockwork, another speedo geezer strolls past. I don't understand these men. It's mid December, I am wearing a wool coat and sipping hot coffee. I think they are really just bald polar bears with health care plans and pensions.
Only from the Europeans do I see so many couples of short, ugly men with tall, beautiful women. And all this time we've branded America as the "Land of Opportunity."
Two more flocks of schoolchildren.
Igor just walked past, wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater.
--
The Danmark is here, the famous Danish trainish ship where our Captain cut his teeth as a seaman. It's a beautiful ship. Spent the afternoon there a couple days ago, had a tour and a coffee. I've gotten to know some of the crew. Great folks. We went for beers the other night and had a great time. Lots of laughs, lots of food, lots of beer; I love the Danish! It is harder to find a group of people who are generally as happy and prosperous and pleasant as Danes.
12/21
Anchored at La Gomera, a small Island in the Canaries. This is really where the charm of the islands must live. To be sure, Las Palmas and Gran Canaria was not at all without its charm, quite a good bit of it, in fact, but this island, with its steep, volcanic cliffs and villages nestled into every cove, and warm sunshine, and German families on holiday, is a bit more of the tropical paradise that we were all looking for.
The whole island is like a giant bowl. The outside is stark, brown, and barren. It looks like something out of Dante's imagination, a terrible place. But Mike, Nadja, and Christian and I walked around the face, through a couple towns, and past a lush green valley, the heart of the island, with towns blossoming out of the hillsides like roses on a bush. It's a good day for doing nothing.
Aboard the ship, though, the steady buzz of holiday preparations continues to build. People have been baking fresh bread and sweet treats constantly for the better part of a week now. Deb, in a fit of ambition, has set out to construct a gingerbread ship. I wonder if it will have licorice halyards.
No one is really sure what to expect, though, as this is the first Christmas away from home for many of us, and the first Christmas on a barque for even more. We are all very excited for the day, and I can't think of a group of people I'd be happy to have as surrogate family; we are as close to the real thing as people can get in eight months, besides.
Merry Christmas to everyone. Think of us in our Holiday celebrations on our way to Senegal.
Departed Morocco today. We had been anchored at the coastal town of Essaouira, the closest thing to a natural harbor on the west coast. A bunch of people took their liberty time and went to Marrakesh. Apparently it’s sensory overload. Narrow, labyrinthine streets crowded with people, aggressive shopkeepers, and snake charmers who drape a dozen or so vipers over you and then demand money. I opted for the more relaxed, picturesque Essaouira.
I had a fantastic time here. Possibly the best vacation spot I’ve ever found. I’ve never been somewhere so foreign before. Many of the locals walk around in pointy-hooded robes called Jalabas. Spectacular pastries, magnificent orange juice, tajine, friendly shopkeepers who offer you in for tea and then, the day’s entertainment: bargaining.
I love bargaining. I mean I absolutely love it. I had no idea how much fun it was going to be. My first day ashore I didn’t really shop much, but what I bought took about an hour to buy, and man was it fun. The guy asked first for 1500 dirham (about $175 U.S.) and I ended up paying 400dh. I don’t care if he probably got it for 4 dh, it was fun, and I would have paid about that much for a similar product in the states. But the process was just so much fun.He approaches me on the street, “Hey, my friend, you from le bateau? Le gran bateau? You know Mike? You know Mike? Please come in, I make special price for you.”
And then I say, “Oh, no I can’t, I don’t have very much money, I really can’t spend much.”And he says, “It’s OK, just to look, come in, I’ll give you special price.”
“OK, then, but just to look.”
This is how every bargaining session begins.
Then we sit down in the back, and he offers a cup of hot, sweet, mint tea, and we toast and talk and shoot the breeze for ten or fifteen minutes. He tells me he is twareg, a traveling people from the Sahara. His name is Hasim, he has clear charcoal skin, a friendly, handsome face, and a toothy smile that comes easy. He shows me stuff, mostly knickknacks and crap I don’t want: camel-bone knives, amulets, and rings big enough to bully around most lugnuts. I try to explain carpal-tunnel syndrome to him, but he keeps offering me the damned rings.
The process is pure, theatrical euphoria, and afterwards, everyone is friends because he didn’t accept less than he wanted, and I didn’t pay more than I could afford and we shake hands.
But it is a such a strange process, and a strange game too, that two people, so eager to lie to each other, so happy to bemoan the onset of calamity should the other have his way, can walk away feeling friendliness for one another.
I bought a full hide of camel leather from one of the many leather goods stalls in the market. It was nearly one of the greatest thrills of the trip so far.
He showed me the hide, I was happy with it, and he said, with a smile dripping with insipid innocence, 1800 Dirham – just over $200 U.S. (Side note: This hide is about 8-10 square feet. I can buy cow leather in the States for $10 per square foot. This being Moroccan camel leather, I was willing to pay for it, but, still, the delight of shopping in Morocco lies in the bargain.)
At this point, all the other employees, and a few of the adjacent shopkeepers had gathered to see the crazy “English-Man” who had made such a strange request for a full camel hide.
I laughed and apologized for wasting his time. “I can only afford 400 Dh. That’s the most can pay,” I assured him.
They all went crazy. “400!?” “That’s so low!” “He can make twenty bags with this much leather!” “Do you even know how to bargain?!” And so on.
“My friend,” he strained to remain calm, “why are you even here? Why do you waste my time? We are not even within a few hundred Dirham. How are we supposed to come to terms?”
“That’s really as much as I can pay, otherwise I have no money for the rest of the time in Morocco.”
“His family has to eat!”
“I have to eat too.”
“You can eat at my house!”
I laughed at this.
He grinned back at me. We were testing each other.
“Maybe you want to swap for something?” They asked.
I gestured to my bag. “I guess I have some spare clothes.” I had brought a bag full of clothes, thrift store formal wear and free tall-ships festival t-shirts for precisely this purpose.
“What. Show us.”
A sweatshirt I had saved from the ship’s lost-and-found a few months ago came out. Oohs and Ahhs.
“Columbia?”
"That’s an American brand.”
“Yes, fine. What else?”
I revealed a Budweiser hat I had won during a football trivia quiz at the Grand Banker’s Superbowl party last winter in Lunenburg.
He put it on, struck a pose like Robert DeNiro, and then looked sideways at his cronies. “OK. With the hat, and the sweatshirt, 1650.”
By bartering with two garments which I had acquired for free, I knocked off over $17.
“I don’t have that much money. I’m sorry.” They were livid. “I’m, sorry, but I’m poor. I’m a sailor. I don’t have much money.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “OK. OK. Your maximum price. What is your maximum?”
I searched my wallet, and met him with a forlorn look. “I don’t know, I am sorry. I don’t want to cause you any trouble, but the most I can pay is 500.”
At this point, such an uproar erupted that I half expected them to begin thrashing about the floor, convulsing and biting themselves.
“This is your maximum? No no no. Name your real maximum.”
Another man, nearly doubled over, eyes wide, teeth bared, put his face right in mine: “SAY ANOTHER NUMBER!”
“Do you like my shoes?”
“Your shoes?” Instantly, their mood switched from boiling hostility to a feline curiosity.
I showed him my shoes. They were good shoes, but the soles were worse than useless on deck. In any moisture, they were like trying to walk across ice with metal saucers strapped on your feet. In fact, aboard the ship that morning, as the early dew had not quite totally burned off, I nearly slipped and fell while walking the ten feet to the boat for the skiff-run ashore. I wore them deliberately to trade. I knew they were good shoes.
”These are good shoes,” confirmed the man who had so recently screamed in my face, and they huddled again.
“We cannot take your shoes.” They said. “What will you wear?”
“I can figure it out.” I said, “But I just can’t afford what you ask.”
“OK fine. Give us the shoes. 900 Dh.”
Down another $90 U.S. for a pair of shoes I haven’t been able to wear since June. So far so good. I opened my bag, and displayed the remainder of my disposable wardrobe. They collected and folded the garments. The shopkeeper stared at me icily, his hand resting of the sizeable pile of my barter offerings.
“700.”
I ran my hands through my hair, shuffled my bare feet in the dirt. “OK,” I sighed. He wrapped up the leather, smiled, shook my hand, and I returned the smile.
“Are you happy?” He asked.
”Yes, thank you.”
”Good, thank you too. I hope you enjoy your leather.”
And so this is how we parted, with smiles all around and a big laugh as I pulled a pair of flip-flops from my backpack and walked out into the street.
Later, I allowed myself to be coaxed into a store by a man in a gigantic white turban, shaping his head with the same silhouette as a cartoon drawing of Saturn, his two crossed eyes, its moons. I didn’t want to buy anything, but I had a knife I nearly never used that I knew would be a big trade value. It was stainless steel, had a regular blade, a saw with a flathead screwdriver on the end, a Philips-head driver, and a small, adjustable crescent wrench on the handle. I got it for $10 in a bargain tub at a hardware store.
He showed me the same jewelry and camel-bone knives and medallions I’d been already been disinterested in. I showed him my knife. He gasped. He asked me what I liked. I said I liked his Jalabas, which are the pointy, camel-wool robes many Moroccans wear. He asked me to name a price. I said 100 Dh. He said 600. I handed him my now empty backpack, which I’d had since high-school, and offered 200.
He looked at me, looked at the backpack, and laughed. ”My friend, I am Berber. But you are more Berber.”
We shook hands, smiled, and he threw in a free headscarf for me. What a blast.
12/16Sitting here at a beachfront cafe in Las Palmas, the capital city of the Canary Islands. We've been alongside here for a few days. Las Palmas is just another big European tourist city, but here, on this side of town, it's a nice enough place. We are all spoiled rotten after Essaouira.
I ordered a cannoli. I hadn't had one for a while, and was looking forward to it. The waitress gave me a funny look, and a dimpled smile when I ordered it, because most people don't order cannolis for breakfast. I assured her I knew what it was, but I don' think she was convinced. I tried to affirm my understanding of the menu by describing a tube pastry with cream filling in the middle, which was accurate enough, but my accompanying hand gestures were, inadvertantly, a touch obscene. She brought me the cannoli. It was indeed good. With my coffee, she brought out a small pastry as well: spongy, sweet, with a slightly soapy flavor, though not in a bad way.
The walkway is packed.
A stream of school children, ninos pequenos, dressed in blue jumpers, double file and about a quarter mile long, buzzes by, singing and chattering, peppered with the tall, wrinkly towers of teachers and nuns.
A hairy little man tromps across the square towards the beach at top speed, looks like Roberto Benigni with a habanero up his stern. He is clothed only in a towel wrapped around his waist. His wife is three meters behind, more suitably dressed for the cool morning weather in a sweater and trousers, half running to keep up. He is going to have a swim. He is going to freeze his balls off.
Without breaking stride, he whips off the towel to reveal a speedo underneath, thus bestowing on the rest of us the future pleasure of verifying that he has indeed emerged, sin huevos.
I thought we finished with Europe weeks ago, but such a rich history of imperialism has left its speedo-clad legacy everywhere, it seems. Here I am, on an Island just off the coast of Africa, and I'm sitting at an Italian cafe, speaking Spanish and English, and like clockwork, another speedo geezer strolls past. I don't understand these men. It's mid December, I am wearing a wool coat and sipping hot coffee. I think they are really just bald polar bears with health care plans and pensions.
Only from the Europeans do I see so many couples of short, ugly men with tall, beautiful women. And all this time we've branded America as the "Land of Opportunity."
Two more flocks of schoolchildren.
Igor just walked past, wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater.
--
The Danmark is here, the famous Danish trainish ship where our Captain cut his teeth as a seaman. It's a beautiful ship. Spent the afternoon there a couple days ago, had a tour and a coffee. I've gotten to know some of the crew. Great folks. We went for beers the other night and had a great time. Lots of laughs, lots of food, lots of beer; I love the Danish! It is harder to find a group of people who are generally as happy and prosperous and pleasant as Danes.
12/21
Anchored at La Gomera, a small Island in the Canaries. This is really where the charm of the islands must live. To be sure, Las Palmas and Gran Canaria was not at all without its charm, quite a good bit of it, in fact, but this island, with its steep, volcanic cliffs and villages nestled into every cove, and warm sunshine, and German families on holiday, is a bit more of the tropical paradise that we were all looking for.
The whole island is like a giant bowl. The outside is stark, brown, and barren. It looks like something out of Dante's imagination, a terrible place. But Mike, Nadja, and Christian and I walked around the face, through a couple towns, and past a lush green valley, the heart of the island, with towns blossoming out of the hillsides like roses on a bush. It's a good day for doing nothing.
Aboard the ship, though, the steady buzz of holiday preparations continues to build. People have been baking fresh bread and sweet treats constantly for the better part of a week now. Deb, in a fit of ambition, has set out to construct a gingerbread ship. I wonder if it will have licorice halyards.
No one is really sure what to expect, though, as this is the first Christmas away from home for many of us, and the first Christmas on a barque for even more. We are all very excited for the day, and I can't think of a group of people I'd be happy to have as surrogate family; we are as close to the real thing as people can get in eight months, besides.
Merry Christmas to everyone. Think of us in our Holiday celebrations on our way to Senegal.
December 3, 2008
Mallorca, Gibraltar, Morocco
11/17
It’s been some kind of whirlwind here aboard the Picton Castle.
We left Cascais, Portugal, with a quick stop in the small town of Lagos, and made our way towards Mallorca, a Spanish Island in the Mediterranean. On the seventh of November we passed through the straits of Gibraltar and into the azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea. To our port was the famous rock, to starboard Africa. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on the gigantic continent. I took in the view, snapped a couple pictures, and then got back to work.
Another quick stop, anchoring next to a private island near Ibiza belonging to someone with more cash than architectural imagination. (Only one house there, might have been cool looking in 1982)
We wanted to really shine up the ship before coming into Mallorca. There were going to be lots of family and friends meeting us there, so looking sharp was key. We painted the entire topsides (the outside of the hull, not the wet part) in just one afternoon, among many other little jobs.
Then, once we arrived in Mallorca, the floodgates opened and the rivers of work and play converged with stunning violence. We sent down the mizzen topmast, my cousin Allison arrived literally minutes after this. I knocked-off work and we trekked away on bikes around the coast all afternoon, tapas for dinner, and a blues club very late into the night. When I arrived back at the ship, Donald was up cooking breakfast. Then work all day. Sister Katherine comes to visit from studies in Brussels. Bonfire at Nadja’s house, roasting sausages, guitar playing, singing, laughing, telling stories, catching up, relaxing. Cousin leaves the next morning. Then work all day again. Then another evening with sister and her two accompanying classmates from Brussels. Then a day off work, driving and seeing finally other parts of the island besides Palma, which is mostly big-city, party-central. Not really my scene.
The island of Mallorca has some beautiful little towns nestled away. We rented a car and stopped in three towns tucked inside coastal coves. Soller, Deia, and Valldemossa. Beautiful. Deia looked like concept art for a movie set, something Jim Henson would have liked, with stone dwellings lining the valley of a waterfall that cut through the village, all networked with timber walkways between patios. We stopped for coffee and watched the sunset over the mountains.
Then a last evening out with Katherine and her friends and my friends before she had to go. It has been a fantastic treat getting to see her and Allison while we were all in Europe. The long distance from family and friends that life seems to inevitably bring is weird and unwelcome, but the warm glow of reunions and the making of memories like these are superlative consolations
11/20
Squally weather since we left Mallorca. The wind’s been driving us hard; we’re screaming through the water. Trainees Gunner, Rich and Matt took a big wave down their coats while hauling on the starboard fore braces.
The wind piped up last night. I was called from my bunk to help get a stow on the t’gallants. Cold, wet, stiff canvas. Not easy stowing sail in those conditions. Drive down the highway, lean out the window, and origami some plywood. You’ll see.
11/22
Landfall at Gibraltar, capping our smartest passage so far. We had our best day’s run of the voyage yesterday, 156 nautical miles, and the day before we did 150. Though we’re hardly the Cutty Sark, it was pretty good for us. There’s a reason the Picton Castle slogans is, “We may be slow, but we get around.” It’s a strange place.
It’s a British colony, the gateway to the Mediterranean, home of the monolithic Rock of Gibraltar, the anchorage is littered with tankers and freighters, fueling or waiting for orders, the bayside is lined with pungent refineries and neon condominiums, and the city itself is comprised of Moorish and spansih stonework with a serious British veneer. English pubs, newsstands, double-decker busses, and a downtown jam packed with enough jewelry, clothing, and electronics stores to make you think for a moment maybe it’s some weird London borough, but then it’s pierced by a dirtbike buzzing down the road, a rooster tail of dust trailing, hanging in the air, and sun-baked adobe, Africans, Spaniards, Indians and every type of person in between. Plus they drive on the right-hand side of the road here.
This place has been a site of siege for over a thousand years. It’s been held under more queens than Christopher Lowell. Lord Admiral Nelson was killed near here at the famous battle of Trafalgar. Outside the old southern city wall is the Trafalgar cemetery, burial site of many British sailors who died from wounds sustained in the battle. The rock is more or less hollow now after centuries of military tunnels, and scattered with bastions, batteries, and abandoned towers, left behind by Spanish, Moorish, British, and American militaries.
At 10:00 AM, while walking through the city, I came to a square in the center of which were a dozen women, aged 50-99, dressed in pink, doing dance routines to Top-40 music.
Its identity crisis is its identity.
It’s a strange place.
11/26
Departed from Gibraltar. Weighed anchor, sailing off the hook, as they say, all canvas loosed, and wove our way out of the harbor amid the tankers and freighters, bound out to sea and headed for Africa! A square rigger leaving her anchorage by power of sail, past the noses of so many belching metal tubs, out from under the sour smog of the refineries, all with numbered days, our kites were flying signals that the sailing ship still prowls the seas. We’ve been catching wind for centuries, and we will still be long after all the petroleum sucking hulks have rusted out. The clockwork of the tradewinds will outlast any clunking contrivance, as long as the Earth keeps spinning.
Gibraltar turned out to be fun stop. At first I wasn’t impressed, though I think that was more from a desire to keep at sea for a while rather than stopping at another port. But Gibraltar was well worth it. There’s no where else on the planet quite like it. If you get a chance, you should see it.
On Monday, Mike and Nadja and I had a great hike up to the top of the rock. We found the famous Gibraltar apes, which are the only wild apes in Europe, and inhabit the mountainside like Central Park squirrels. They are notorious pickpockets and gluttons. The first one we saw assaulted Nadja immediately.
Then we made our way up to the top, to the mouth of some of the famous military tunnels, and a good view of our little barque out in the harbor. After that we meandered back down the rock to the ancient Moorish castle, erected in the 1300’s.
The evening we went to the local movie theatre, housed in a converted British fortress at the waterfront. One of the features was “Ghost Town,” featuring the theatrical support of Picton Castle shipmate Billy “Ollie” Campbell. He plays an uptight, wanker lawyer. It was his first movie since punching J-Lo in the face in “Enough” (A film for which he’s hinted a desire for a sequel). It was a funny thrill seeing our friend up on the big screen with Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, and Tea Leoni. “Oh Lord! Please spare this man!”
I wanted to turn around and declare to the other four people in the theatre, “That guy had the Guinness-shits when he drove me to the airport!”
We’ve had a good work period here too. We changed out our braces, sent down and overhauled the fore tops’l footropes, and back up, and Buddy’s been cranking out sails like crazy. Since arriving in Mallorca he’s laid out and seamed up an upper tops’l, t’gallant, and inner jib, and nearly finished our new spanker.
We’re running westward now before a force 5, headed for Essaouira, Morocco, and hopefully warmer weather. It’s been cold here. The weather has been seriously unsettled here lately, and the forecasts conflicting, but the wind is fair so we are going to take it. We left this morning ready for bad weather, hoping for good, and taking what we get. Today it is a moderate easterly breeze.
11/28
The wind’s been shifty since leaving Gibraltar. Last night and this morning it seemed to have settled a bit, but two days ago it was as erratic and gusty as I’ve ever seen it, keeping us at the braces and sheets for nearly the entire watch. It would often make a full 360 degree shift, sometimes slowly, and sometimes within the passing of barely a minute, but always it had the helmsman on his toes. Even this morning it had been a nice and steady force 4, we had every stitch of sail set, and in the blink of an eye it piped up and came forward and we doused out kites.
We are having out Thanksgiving celebration today, on account of yesterday being so squally. Last night each watch was busy in the galley baking up desserts, and Donald has two big turkeys roasting in the oven.
11/29
Thanksgiving was fantastic. We had our feast in the salon, hove-to off the coast of Morocco, the lights of Casablanca glowing just on the horizon. All hands were present. Then we spent the next few hours with guitars out, making music and singing songs. Though the thought of a Thanksgiving away from family is a bit gloomy, the ship provides a unique sort of family, and it was in full bloom last night.
We remained hove-to for the remainder of the night, as the weather had been deteriorating, the wind increasing. Nobody slept much. The wind built to gale force soon after my watch, and I was on deck at points in the night to help secure flogging gear, and otherwise take in the spectacle of the howling wind and frothing seas.
This morning the wind had abated slightly, though it was still a steady force 7, and the seas were still very large, some peaking at 20 feet. At one point during our morning watch, a very small bit of diesel was inadvertently splashed on the deck, making a surprisingly large mess, and for nearly half an hour, as we scrambled to clean it up, scrubbing the area with degreaser and dish soap, the decks were transformed into oily ice. We were quite a sight for the helmsman, careening around the quarterdeck on our butts with deck brushes and pails of water in hand. I was almost constantly sliding into the mizzen mast and charthouse and Lynsey, scrubbing vigorously as I glided past the epicenter of the dribble. I felt like a hockey puck. After watch I slept like the dead until the dinner bell.
12/1
Arrived in Essaouira today. The beach is teeming with people on horseback and camelback, robed in dark, full length garments. It’s a cozy little seafront town of squat, white, Moorish buildings surrounded by a turreted stone wall.
It’s a busy fishing port here. They make their own boats in Essaouira of a distinct flavor. They’re beamy wooden tubs, with a steep, arching bow, the stem nearly as tall as the keel is long, designed to work in the large swells that are almost constantly rolling in. Essaouira is as close to a natural harbor within 500 miles. There’s a reason no one has heard of the Moroccan navy.
So, today, I begin my first explorations in this country, on this continent, to see a bit of Africa.
It’s been some kind of whirlwind here aboard the Picton Castle.
We left Cascais, Portugal, with a quick stop in the small town of Lagos, and made our way towards Mallorca, a Spanish Island in the Mediterranean. On the seventh of November we passed through the straits of Gibraltar and into the azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea. To our port was the famous rock, to starboard Africa. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on the gigantic continent. I took in the view, snapped a couple pictures, and then got back to work.
Another quick stop, anchoring next to a private island near Ibiza belonging to someone with more cash than architectural imagination. (Only one house there, might have been cool looking in 1982)We wanted to really shine up the ship before coming into Mallorca. There were going to be lots of family and friends meeting us there, so looking sharp was key. We painted the entire topsides (the outside of the hull, not the wet part) in just one afternoon, among many other little jobs.
Then, once we arrived in Mallorca, the floodgates opened and the rivers of work and play converged with stunning violence. We sent down the mizzen topmast, my cousin Allison arrived literally minutes after this. I knocked-off work and we trekked away on bikes around the coast all afternoon, tapas for dinner, and a blues club very late into the night. When I arrived back at the ship, Donald was up cooking breakfast. Then work all day. Sister Katherine comes to visit from studies in Brussels. Bonfire at Nadja’s house, roasting sausages, guitar playing, singing, laughing, telling stories, catching up, relaxing. Cousin leaves the next morning. Then work all day again. Then another evening with sister and her two accompanying classmates from Brussels. Then a day off work, driving and seeing finally other parts of the island besides Palma, which is mostly big-city, party-central. Not really my scene.
The island of Mallorca has some beautiful little towns nestled away. We rented a car and stopped in three towns tucked inside coastal coves. Soller, Deia, and Valldemossa. Beautiful. Deia looked like concept art for a movie set, something Jim Henson would have liked, with stone dwellings lining the valley of a waterfall that cut through the village, all networked with timber walkways between patios. We stopped for coffee and watched the sunset over the mountains.
Then a last evening out with Katherine and her friends and my friends before she had to go. It has been a fantastic treat getting to see her and Allison while we were all in Europe. The long distance from family and friends that life seems to inevitably bring is weird and unwelcome, but the warm glow of reunions and the making of memories like these are superlative consolations11/20
Squally weather since we left Mallorca. The wind’s been driving us hard; we’re screaming through the water. Trainees Gunner, Rich and Matt took a big wave down their coats while hauling on the starboard fore braces.
The wind piped up last night. I was called from my bunk to help get a stow on the t’gallants. Cold, wet, stiff canvas. Not easy stowing sail in those conditions. Drive down the highway, lean out the window, and origami some plywood. You’ll see.
11/22
Landfall at Gibraltar, capping our smartest passage so far. We had our best day’s run of the voyage yesterday, 156 nautical miles, and the day before we did 150. Though we’re hardly the Cutty Sark, it was pretty good for us. There’s a reason the Picton Castle slogans is, “We may be slow, but we get around.” It’s a strange place.
It’s a British colony, the gateway to the Mediterranean, home of the monolithic Rock of Gibraltar, the anchorage is littered with tankers and freighters, fueling or waiting for orders, the bayside is lined with pungent refineries and neon condominiums, and the city itself is comprised of Moorish and spansih stonework with a serious British veneer. English pubs, newsstands, double-decker busses, and a downtown jam packed with enough jewelry, clothing, and electronics stores to make you think for a moment maybe it’s some weird London borough, but then it’s pierced by a dirtbike buzzing down the road, a rooster tail of dust trailing, hanging in the air, and sun-baked adobe, Africans, Spaniards, Indians and every type of person in between. Plus they drive on the right-hand side of the road here.
This place has been a site of siege for over a thousand years. It’s been held under more queens than Christopher Lowell. Lord Admiral Nelson was killed near here at the famous battle of Trafalgar. Outside the old southern city wall is the Trafalgar cemetery, burial site of many British sailors who died from wounds sustained in the battle. The rock is more or less hollow now after centuries of military tunnels, and scattered with bastions, batteries, and abandoned towers, left behind by Spanish, Moorish, British, and American militaries.
At 10:00 AM, while walking through the city, I came to a square in the center of which were a dozen women, aged 50-99, dressed in pink, doing dance routines to Top-40 music.
Its identity crisis is its identity.
It’s a strange place.
11/26
Departed from Gibraltar. Weighed anchor, sailing off the hook, as they say, all canvas loosed, and wove our way out of the harbor amid the tankers and freighters, bound out to sea and headed for Africa! A square rigger leaving her anchorage by power of sail, past the noses of so many belching metal tubs, out from under the sour smog of the refineries, all with numbered days, our kites were flying signals that the sailing ship still prowls the seas. We’ve been catching wind for centuries, and we will still be long after all the petroleum sucking hulks have rusted out. The clockwork of the tradewinds will outlast any clunking contrivance, as long as the Earth keeps spinning.
Gibraltar turned out to be fun stop. At first I wasn’t impressed, though I think that was more from a desire to keep at sea for a while rather than stopping at another port. But Gibraltar was well worth it. There’s no where else on the planet quite like it. If you get a chance, you should see it.
On Monday, Mike and Nadja and I had a great hike up to the top of the rock. We found the famous Gibraltar apes, which are the only wild apes in Europe, and inhabit the mountainside like Central Park squirrels. They are notorious pickpockets and gluttons. The first one we saw assaulted Nadja immediately.
Then we made our way up to the top, to the mouth of some of the famous military tunnels, and a good view of our little barque out in the harbor. After that we meandered back down the rock to the ancient Moorish castle, erected in the 1300’s.
The evening we went to the local movie theatre, housed in a converted British fortress at the waterfront. One of the features was “Ghost Town,” featuring the theatrical support of Picton Castle shipmate Billy “Ollie” Campbell. He plays an uptight, wanker lawyer. It was his first movie since punching J-Lo in the face in “Enough” (A film for which he’s hinted a desire for a sequel). It was a funny thrill seeing our friend up on the big screen with Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, and Tea Leoni. “Oh Lord! Please spare this man!”
I wanted to turn around and declare to the other four people in the theatre, “That guy had the Guinness-shits when he drove me to the airport!”
We’ve had a good work period here too. We changed out our braces, sent down and overhauled the fore tops’l footropes, and back up, and Buddy’s been cranking out sails like crazy. Since arriving in Mallorca he’s laid out and seamed up an upper tops’l, t’gallant, and inner jib, and nearly finished our new spanker.
We’re running westward now before a force 5, headed for Essaouira, Morocco, and hopefully warmer weather. It’s been cold here. The weather has been seriously unsettled here lately, and the forecasts conflicting, but the wind is fair so we are going to take it. We left this morning ready for bad weather, hoping for good, and taking what we get. Today it is a moderate easterly breeze.
11/28
The wind’s been shifty since leaving Gibraltar. Last night and this morning it seemed to have settled a bit, but two days ago it was as erratic and gusty as I’ve ever seen it, keeping us at the braces and sheets for nearly the entire watch. It would often make a full 360 degree shift, sometimes slowly, and sometimes within the passing of barely a minute, but always it had the helmsman on his toes. Even this morning it had been a nice and steady force 4, we had every stitch of sail set, and in the blink of an eye it piped up and came forward and we doused out kites.
We are having out Thanksgiving celebration today, on account of yesterday being so squally. Last night each watch was busy in the galley baking up desserts, and Donald has two big turkeys roasting in the oven.
11/29
Thanksgiving was fantastic. We had our feast in the salon, hove-to off the coast of Morocco, the lights of Casablanca glowing just on the horizon. All hands were present. Then we spent the next few hours with guitars out, making music and singing songs. Though the thought of a Thanksgiving away from family is a bit gloomy, the ship provides a unique sort of family, and it was in full bloom last night.
We remained hove-to for the remainder of the night, as the weather had been deteriorating, the wind increasing. Nobody slept much. The wind built to gale force soon after my watch, and I was on deck at points in the night to help secure flogging gear, and otherwise take in the spectacle of the howling wind and frothing seas.
This morning the wind had abated slightly, though it was still a steady force 7, and the seas were still very large, some peaking at 20 feet. At one point during our morning watch, a very small bit of diesel was inadvertently splashed on the deck, making a surprisingly large mess, and for nearly half an hour, as we scrambled to clean it up, scrubbing the area with degreaser and dish soap, the decks were transformed into oily ice. We were quite a sight for the helmsman, careening around the quarterdeck on our butts with deck brushes and pails of water in hand. I was almost constantly sliding into the mizzen mast and charthouse and Lynsey, scrubbing vigorously as I glided past the epicenter of the dribble. I felt like a hockey puck. After watch I slept like the dead until the dinner bell.
12/1
Arrived in Essaouira today. The beach is teeming with people on horseback and camelback, robed in dark, full length garments. It’s a cozy little seafront town of squat, white, Moorish buildings surrounded by a turreted stone wall.
It’s a busy fishing port here. They make their own boats in Essaouira of a distinct flavor. They’re beamy wooden tubs, with a steep, arching bow, the stem nearly as tall as the keel is long, designed to work in the large swells that are almost constantly rolling in. Essaouira is as close to a natural harbor within 500 miles. There’s a reason no one has heard of the Moroccan navy.So, today, I begin my first explorations in this country, on this continent, to see a bit of Africa.
October 28, 2008
France, Spain, and Portugal
10/6
Today Nadja and I took a daytrip with a local aficionado I’d made friends with the day before during deck tours. His name is Guillaume, and he was a regular volunteer and ambassador for the Pride of Baltimore II during her seven month refit here in St. Nazaire after her dismasting in 2005.
He took us first to a beautiful medieval town, Guerande, complete with stone walls, an ancient cathedral, a moat, narrow streets, fantastic shops and cafes. It felt like a little fantasy village. Being in such and old and beautiful city, inhabited and functioning for centuries, made me feel a bizarre, specific, pride for the human species. I think I’d like to live there for a while, maybe retirement or extended honeymoon or something. It seems like a great place to get up early and be lazy and sit in cafes and eat late lunches and spend an afternoon with a bottle of wine.
We stopped in another coastal town for a coffee, then bought baguette, cheeses, Serrano ham, tomatoes, cheesecake, and a big bottle of grapefruit juice, and headed out for a picnic on a cliff overlooking the Bay of Biscay.
After lunch we drove around the countryside. We saw lots of salt marshes where they harvest the salt by feeding sea water into a series of shallow paddocks and eventually end with big piles of coarse white salt. The people here have been getting salt this way for generations. We stopped in a fairly large resort town that was all but deserted at this point in autumn, took a stroll down a beach and were passed by horseback riders on the way. Then we went for a beer, talked about life, family, and sailing, and then went back to his house for another coffee, and met his family, and shared pictures of ships and more stories. It was a great day.
10/11
A ripping sail last night, making six knots under full sail. Air is getting warmer. I’m studying and learning the stars, getting a map of the sky in my head. It’s a beautiful morning. Pink puffy clouds to the west, bright yellow sun to the east. Bruce-Bruce is steering. He can really steer the hell out of the ship. A pair of owls joined us along the way. Beautiful faces. We’ve locked Chibley in the port cabin below until they go away.
10/13
Arrived in Spain yesterday. We stopped for an afternoon of beach time in Cariña, a sleepy little coastal town. The water was cold, but the short swim felt good. Then a healthy dose of Frisbee, cold beers, Mike on guitar, and a sunset over the brown Spanish mountains, made us feel … well, we sighed a lot, and giggled, and commented on what the hell did we do in the supernatural realm to justify this kind of treatment.
Today we’ve found a new port, setting the anchor in the town of Ares, a resort town in the summer, though this time of year it’s pleasantly empty. As we came in past the marina, the voice of a toddler echoed from the P.A. system, flooding the small harbor with goo’s and gah’s and tiny Spanish gibberish.
There are worse places to spend an afternoon.
10/16
The bonfire last night was a success, though our feelings about it gained significantly in favor once the ordeal was over. We listened to music, sang, roasted weenies, talked about more or less everything there is to talk about, and then fell asleep under the stars as the fire dwindled. And then I woke up and it was pouring. I exhausted my vocabulary, and moved up the beach to sleep in a pile of weeds growing up out of rocks tucked up under a concrete staircase at the base of a graffitied retaining wall. At least it was dry. When I came out of my daze, as close to sleep as I could manage, I was at eye level with a snail who had slimed up the wall and was resting three inches from my face.
At 0700h the skiff beached and took us back to the ship where I changed clothes and set out immediately for an excursion into Santiago to see the old city there. At the heart of it was the famous Cathedral, a dark and imposing structure. Standing there outside of it, you feel like the thing might crush you at any instant. It’s a marvelous thing, and inside was gilt with all the ornamentation and icons and relics to be expected in a place like that, including a sarcophagus with the remains of St. James.
The place was swarming with pilgrims, who had hiked many lonely miles to come to this cathedral. I met a German woman there who just finished her pilgrimage. I asked her what compelled her to make the journey.
“Before, I have many problems,” she said, “and so I go walking, and now no more problems.” She said the journey afforded her peace inside herself. Several of the other pilgrims stood still out front, some squatting or sitting on the ground, tears streaming.
My time at sea has brought a better understanding of the cathartic power of a journey and the peace brought about through the meditative process of steady onward progress. I am always fascinated by the ways people pursue greater awareness of themselves, and deeper understanding of their place in the universe, whatever that may be to them. As far as I can tell, it’s this earnest pursuit of truth that brings us closer to the honest, peaceful clarity of life so many pilgrims and potential pilgrims seek.
10/17
Cruising along at six knots. Snotty rain. It’s cold. City lights are twinkling to the east of us, glowing from between the round mountains of the Spanish coast. 350 miles to Cascais, Portugal.
10/19
I’d like to talk about taking off pants after night watch. When we’re at sea, generally, the ship has a rhythmic pitch and roll, and one’s adaptation to the motion become second nature so that maintaining balance is more or less effortless. This is all part of “getting your sea legs.” It seems that, after negotiating the pitching and rolling of our barque all day with zero problems, as soon as I’m below decks trying to get my pants off for bed, achieving a momentary stork-like stance, an erratic swell invariably comes and sends me hopping desperately across the focsle before crashing into sea chests and disturbing my sleeping shipmates. This happens every night.
The weather’s been beautiful the past couple days. We deserve it after our damp summer in the North Sea. We expect good warm and sunny work days in Portugal. Should be there by Tuesday.
10/21
Another sweet sail, and now we find ourselves in Cascais, Portugal. We were escorted in to our anchorage by the German training barque, Gorch Fock, who was continuing on to the capital city of Lisbon, just a little further down the coast.
10/22
A gale followed us into the harbor here, and we spent most of the night securing the ship, hoisting boats, setting the port anchor, etc. Took my two days liberty ashore today and headed to Lisbon. It’s a spectacular city, decked in the same kind of fantastic, otherworldly feel and cultural vibrancy that made me fall so much in love with Copenhagen.
Note the large print of the hanging on the building. Pretty cool to be walking in the same square depicted in this famous painting that I had to know for Fine Arts class in college, and don't remember the name of anymore.
I got my first tattoo today. It’s something I’d been mulling over for a while, and this particular design has been on my mind for over a year.
It's a black armband of mourning, specifically inspired by the life and death of my friend Spencer last fall, but it’s also a representation of all the hardships and struggles life brings. It's made of three stripes symbolizing faith, hope, and love, love being the greatest of these, and with faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. This is how Spencer faced his own mortality and lived out his life. By holding fast to these things in spite of the seeming hopelessness of his cancer, he exemplified a powerful, light filled life, and was an inspiration to so many people. This is how I work to live and face my own struggles, and the tattoo is not only a reminder to myself, but also an outward mark of the kind of man I strive to be.
Plus, I think it looks cool.
10/28
It’s blowing like hell here. We just finished a good three day mini-shipyard period, taking the time to open and close some big projects that the snotty weather of northern Europe has denied us. On the boat run to shore today we were pounded with waves, as the winds whipped upwards of 40 knots, gusting even higher, us dressed in our civvies getting soaked.
My circumstances overwhelm me. All the humility and hardships lain against the magnificence greeting me daily lends life a surreal flavor, as if I’m walking through some infinite story-book. Though, another moment’s reflection reminds me that these are the circumstances of all who venture seawards, who pursue watery horizons. I can never remember feeling such constant challenge and satisfaction as I have since taking up life as a sailor.
Today Nadja and I took a daytrip with a local aficionado I’d made friends with the day before during deck tours. His name is Guillaume, and he was a regular volunteer and ambassador for the Pride of Baltimore II during her seven month refit here in St. Nazaire after her dismasting in 2005.
He took us first to a beautiful medieval town, Guerande, complete with stone walls, an ancient cathedral, a moat, narrow streets, fantastic shops and cafes. It felt like a little fantasy village. Being in such and old and beautiful city, inhabited and functioning for centuries, made me feel a bizarre, specific, pride for the human species. I think I’d like to live there for a while, maybe retirement or extended honeymoon or something. It seems like a great place to get up early and be lazy and sit in cafes and eat late lunches and spend an afternoon with a bottle of wine.
We stopped in another coastal town for a coffee, then bought baguette, cheeses, Serrano ham, tomatoes, cheesecake, and a big bottle of grapefruit juice, and headed out for a picnic on a cliff overlooking the Bay of Biscay.After lunch we drove around the countryside. We saw lots of salt marshes where they harvest the salt by feeding sea water into a series of shallow paddocks and eventually end with big piles of coarse white salt. The people here have been getting salt this way for generations. We stopped in a fairly large resort town that was all but deserted at this point in autumn, took a stroll down a beach and were passed by horseback riders on the way. Then we went for a beer, talked about life, family, and sailing, and then went back to his house for another coffee, and met his family, and shared pictures of ships and more stories. It was a great day.
10/11
A ripping sail last night, making six knots under full sail. Air is getting warmer. I’m studying and learning the stars, getting a map of the sky in my head. It’s a beautiful morning. Pink puffy clouds to the west, bright yellow sun to the east. Bruce-Bruce is steering. He can really steer the hell out of the ship. A pair of owls joined us along the way. Beautiful faces. We’ve locked Chibley in the port cabin below until they go away.
10/13
Arrived in Spain yesterday. We stopped for an afternoon of beach time in Cariña, a sleepy little coastal town. The water was cold, but the short swim felt good. Then a healthy dose of Frisbee, cold beers, Mike on guitar, and a sunset over the brown Spanish mountains, made us feel … well, we sighed a lot, and giggled, and commented on what the hell did we do in the supernatural realm to justify this kind of treatment.
Today we’ve found a new port, setting the anchor in the town of Ares, a resort town in the summer, though this time of year it’s pleasantly empty. As we came in past the marina, the voice of a toddler echoed from the P.A. system, flooding the small harbor with goo’s and gah’s and tiny Spanish gibberish.
We had originally planned on staying at La Coruña, a big, bustling port-city, though their port authority was a bit brick-like in their dealings with us.
We: “Can we anchor here, in this spot you said we could anchor when we called ahead?”
They: “No. Es impossible.”
We: “There’s a big empty dock over there. Can we tie up to it?”
They: “No. Es impossible.”
We: “Well what about that big empty area over yonder marked on the chart as an anchorage?”
They: “No. Es impossible.”
So we left.
10/15
Today is the first of two days liberty. I slept in, awoken by a distant chant of “hip, hip, hip, hip.” I dozed in an out for a few minutes, the hip-hip growing louder, coming closer. I dozed again. Then it was “HIP! HIP! HIP! HIP!” right outside my porthole. I looked out and saw a rubber raft full of uniformed men with paddles row past. A moment later and a cheer erupted from the well deck outside. I ran out and saw three identical boats, all full of soldiers, waving and rowing and general rowdydow. I suppose they had come out to greet us. Then they all broke off from each other a ways, turned, and, rowing furiously, converged in a great burst of silly violence, ramming, and boarding each other, soldiers flying from boat to boat, sending others from boat to water, water to boat, and then, quick as they came, they hustled away, hip-hipping back to base, or wherever they came from.
I went ashore with Matt, one of the trainees, for a day of nothing and lots of it, besides. The whole town is at siesta. Everything here shuts down and goes to sleep, including the people. The ships is a quarter-mile offshore, and is the loudest thing around by far. The tokk-tokk and clanging of rust-busting on the hull echoes throughout the town.
We found Wild Bill, sitting at a picnic table in the park, writing postcards. He’s something else, one of those special kind of personalities you don’t run into too often. He had six little local kids on bikes running around town for him, helping him with errands. One of the kids spoke English, and proud to show off his skill, asked the big old guy with the Brooklyn accent if he needed any help with anything.
Bill said, “OK guys, I need a Hotel, postcards, a post office, a restaurant, a bus station, and a bus schedule.” And all the kids tore off and found for him what he needed.
Matt and I spent the rest of the day lounging on a sunny beach with a big rock shaped like the head of a giant crocodile looking out to sea. Lounging, book reading, snippets of conversation, and some napping ensued. Tonight some shipmates are coming for a beach bonfire and campout.
We: “Can we anchor here, in this spot you said we could anchor when we called ahead?”
They: “No. Es impossible.”
We: “There’s a big empty dock over there. Can we tie up to it?”
They: “No. Es impossible.”
We: “Well what about that big empty area over yonder marked on the chart as an anchorage?”
They: “No. Es impossible.”
So we left.
10/15
Today is the first of two days liberty. I slept in, awoken by a distant chant of “hip, hip, hip, hip.” I dozed in an out for a few minutes, the hip-hip growing louder, coming closer. I dozed again. Then it was “HIP! HIP! HIP! HIP!” right outside my porthole. I looked out and saw a rubber raft full of uniformed men with paddles row past. A moment later and a cheer erupted from the well deck outside. I ran out and saw three identical boats, all full of soldiers, waving and rowing and general rowdydow. I suppose they had come out to greet us. Then they all broke off from each other a ways, turned, and, rowing furiously, converged in a great burst of silly violence, ramming, and boarding each other, soldiers flying from boat to boat, sending others from boat to water, water to boat, and then, quick as they came, they hustled away, hip-hipping back to base, or wherever they came from.
I went ashore with Matt, one of the trainees, for a day of nothing and lots of it, besides. The whole town is at siesta. Everything here shuts down and goes to sleep, including the people. The ships is a quarter-mile offshore, and is the loudest thing around by far. The tokk-tokk and clanging of rust-busting on the hull echoes throughout the town.
We found Wild Bill, sitting at a picnic table in the park, writing postcards. He’s something else, one of those special kind of personalities you don’t run into too often. He had six little local kids on bikes running around town for him, helping him with errands. One of the kids spoke English, and proud to show off his skill, asked the big old guy with the Brooklyn accent if he needed any help with anything.
Bill said, “OK guys, I need a Hotel, postcards, a post office, a restaurant, a bus station, and a bus schedule.” And all the kids tore off and found for him what he needed.
Matt and I spent the rest of the day lounging on a sunny beach with a big rock shaped like the head of a giant crocodile looking out to sea. Lounging, book reading, snippets of conversation, and some napping ensued. Tonight some shipmates are coming for a beach bonfire and campout.
There are worse places to spend an afternoon.10/16
The bonfire last night was a success, though our feelings about it gained significantly in favor once the ordeal was over. We listened to music, sang, roasted weenies, talked about more or less everything there is to talk about, and then fell asleep under the stars as the fire dwindled. And then I woke up and it was pouring. I exhausted my vocabulary, and moved up the beach to sleep in a pile of weeds growing up out of rocks tucked up under a concrete staircase at the base of a graffitied retaining wall. At least it was dry. When I came out of my daze, as close to sleep as I could manage, I was at eye level with a snail who had slimed up the wall and was resting three inches from my face.
At 0700h the skiff beached and took us back to the ship where I changed clothes and set out immediately for an excursion into Santiago to see the old city there. At the heart of it was the famous Cathedral, a dark and imposing structure. Standing there outside of it, you feel like the thing might crush you at any instant. It’s a marvelous thing, and inside was gilt with all the ornamentation and icons and relics to be expected in a place like that, including a sarcophagus with the remains of St. James.
The place was swarming with pilgrims, who had hiked many lonely miles to come to this cathedral. I met a German woman there who just finished her pilgrimage. I asked her what compelled her to make the journey.“Before, I have many problems,” she said, “and so I go walking, and now no more problems.” She said the journey afforded her peace inside herself. Several of the other pilgrims stood still out front, some squatting or sitting on the ground, tears streaming.
My time at sea has brought a better understanding of the cathartic power of a journey and the peace brought about through the meditative process of steady onward progress. I am always fascinated by the ways people pursue greater awareness of themselves, and deeper understanding of their place in the universe, whatever that may be to them. As far as I can tell, it’s this earnest pursuit of truth that brings us closer to the honest, peaceful clarity of life so many pilgrims and potential pilgrims seek.
10/17
Cruising along at six knots. Snotty rain. It’s cold. City lights are twinkling to the east of us, glowing from between the round mountains of the Spanish coast. 350 miles to Cascais, Portugal.
10/19
I’d like to talk about taking off pants after night watch. When we’re at sea, generally, the ship has a rhythmic pitch and roll, and one’s adaptation to the motion become second nature so that maintaining balance is more or less effortless. This is all part of “getting your sea legs.” It seems that, after negotiating the pitching and rolling of our barque all day with zero problems, as soon as I’m below decks trying to get my pants off for bed, achieving a momentary stork-like stance, an erratic swell invariably comes and sends me hopping desperately across the focsle before crashing into sea chests and disturbing my sleeping shipmates. This happens every night.
The weather’s been beautiful the past couple days. We deserve it after our damp summer in the North Sea. We expect good warm and sunny work days in Portugal. Should be there by Tuesday.
10/21
Another sweet sail, and now we find ourselves in Cascais, Portugal. We were escorted in to our anchorage by the German training barque, Gorch Fock, who was continuing on to the capital city of Lisbon, just a little further down the coast.
10/22
A gale followed us into the harbor here, and we spent most of the night securing the ship, hoisting boats, setting the port anchor, etc. Took my two days liberty ashore today and headed to Lisbon. It’s a spectacular city, decked in the same kind of fantastic, otherworldly feel and cultural vibrancy that made me fall so much in love with Copenhagen.
Note the large print of the hanging on the building. Pretty cool to be walking in the same square depicted in this famous painting that I had to know for Fine Arts class in college, and don't remember the name of anymore.I got my first tattoo today. It’s something I’d been mulling over for a while, and this particular design has been on my mind for over a year.
It's a black armband of mourning, specifically inspired by the life and death of my friend Spencer last fall, but it’s also a representation of all the hardships and struggles life brings. It's made of three stripes symbolizing faith, hope, and love, love being the greatest of these, and with faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. This is how Spencer faced his own mortality and lived out his life. By holding fast to these things in spite of the seeming hopelessness of his cancer, he exemplified a powerful, light filled life, and was an inspiration to so many people. This is how I work to live and face my own struggles, and the tattoo is not only a reminder to myself, but also an outward mark of the kind of man I strive to be.Plus, I think it looks cool.
10/28
It’s blowing like hell here. We just finished a good three day mini-shipyard period, taking the time to open and close some big projects that the snotty weather of northern Europe has denied us. On the boat run to shore today we were pounded with waves, as the winds whipped upwards of 40 knots, gusting even higher, us dressed in our civvies getting soaked.
My circumstances overwhelm me. All the humility and hardships lain against the magnificence greeting me daily lends life a surreal flavor, as if I’m walking through some infinite story-book. Though, another moment’s reflection reminds me that these are the circumstances of all who venture seawards, who pursue watery horizons. I can never remember feeling such constant challenge and satisfaction as I have since taking up life as a sailor.
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