Evanston: shags at twilight
Evanston: shags at twilight
Two birds flew high over head last Thursday evening, less birds than calligraphy, black ink against fading twilight, awkward rapid wings beating in the struggled flight of birds barely evolved from reptiles, cormorants--shags in New Zealand--not gannets, flailing their way west.
It has taken me more than a year to find the right place to sit on GANNET up by the mast. Alone on the little boat, even my moderate weight on the side deck farther aft causes excessive heeling.
A few minutes after the two cormorants disappeared inland, the sky filled, briefly, with dozens of small birds, wrens? finches?, flitting like fireflies. To me their movements seemed random; to them I suspect not; and it is more important that they understand than I.
This year has been more significant than I expected. Seventy is a serious number. But sometimes, as when seeing cormorants rather than gannets overhead, I sense the loss of my connection to THE HAWKE OF TUONELA and Opua and what was my mooring. I do not regret my decisions. But that was a good part of my life for which I have not yet found equivalents for rowing to and from the shore each day and walking up the Opua hill. And I prefer gannets.
And, while compared to others it is a trivial frailty, I sometimes miss no longer having a wide angle view of the world.
That afternoon I had used a Dremel tool to cut off the almost foot long ⅜” diameter threaded rods provided by Forte for the sprit saddle. I also lashed the Blue Performance lee cloths to the pipe berths. And I had tried, and failed, to sort out the Simrad tiller pilot.
The lee cloths were hardly of high priority, but they were on the boat and better in place than being loose. They are very well made and would be quite easy to install with screws on a conventional berth. On GANNET, I thought I could lace them to the grommets on the pipe berths, and I was right; but it required some odd contortions, during which I discovered that I do own a boat hook that was hidden beneath the port pipe berth.
GANNET came with two Blue Performance cockpit bags. I added two more in the cockpit and five in the cabin, which has greatly helped in organizing storage.
Of the Simrad, I have learned over the decades to cut my losses over non-essential frustrations. There is peace is disposal and moving on, and I have done both.
GANNET’s interior is becoming better organized.
I experimented during the day, and later after dark, with the Silva compass without coming to a final conclusion. The position I prefer is too close to where I store the FoxL speaker which causes deviation. I either have to find a different place for the speaker or for the compass.
I now have four five gallon jerry cans on GANNET. All presently empty. When full they will combined be the greatest weight aboard, slightly more than I myself, and will be awkward to handle at sea. I need a day bottle of about two quart size.
I also need to collect my minimal medical supplies: BandAids; hydrogen peroxide; aspirin; Ibuprofen; Polysporin; in one plastic box. I have never tried to prepare for every contingency, which I don’t believe is possible, trusting instead on being basically healthy and adaptable. And knowing that, as always, if certain things happen, I’m going to be destroyed.
And I need a shaving bowl.
Sipping a glass of box wine, I touch the mast with my right hand. It is old. Both are. The mast built by Kenyon. The hand perhaps by whatever formed the tyger’s fearful symmetry. Empty drilled holes in the mast show positions of discarded fittings. I can afford to replace it, but wonder how many miles it has on it--probably not many having spent much of its life on a lake in Texas--and how much it has been stressed. I sense that Moore owners are given to pushing their boats. On the other hand, everything works: the Tides Marine mast track; the Furlex furling gear; the deck fittings leading lines from exit boxes to winches.
I finish my wine and take the step down into GANNET’s Great Cabin to prepare a dinner of freeze dry Backpacker Pantry Cajan Style Rice with Chicken--possibly a keeper--before retiring to read on the v-berth.
In retrospect the most amazing aspect of the CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE voyage to me is not the sailing, but that for almost five years an 18’ open boat was my home. Although I had some things stored at my grandmother’s beach house in San Diego and flew back to see her frequently before she died, I Iived aboard CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE during passages and in port, and in port often with Suzanne as well.
As I wait for the JetBoil to boil, I look about GANNET’s interior and know that, thanks in part to technology--more than five hundred albums on an iTouch and more books that I can read on a Kindle--except for my life with Carol, I could live full time on GANNET. I used to say that if something would not fit on a 37’ boat, I could do without it. Way too much.
I don’t expect for GANNET to be my only home as CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE once was. But I could reduce my possessions to what fits within her confines. Easily.
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I took the photo of some of the members of Northwestern’s marching band practicing beside the lake during a bike ride an hour ago.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012