Bermuda to Newport, and a change in heading
Bermuda is an interesting island. It has a very British feel to it, fitting since it was theirs for such a long time. Its quasi-tropical as it has reefs, clear water and shares the same latitutde with South Carolina. It has very neat, pastel painted houses and a wonderful bus/ferry public transportation system. $12 gets you a days pass. Probably the most intersting thing I found about the place thought is what they do for fresh water. Ground water does not exist since they are on a tiny rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Instead, there are rain catchers on every roof (you can see them in the picture below, it looks like a larger step in the roof) and they are painted with this lime wash stuff to act as a natural preservative of some kind. The water quality is comparable to distilled. Each house can collect just under 100,000 gallons annually. Genius.
I also had the extremely fortunate pleasure of meeting this guy Randy West who was on a boat doing the same trip up from St. Maarten and had only beat us by an hour into Bermuda. His stories are epic, I spent days extracting one after another from him (like being the personal sailing instructor for JFK, Jr. among many, many others) and is now working on his second book.
Geoff arrived Monday at 2:30 in the afternoon. We were underway at 4. I know Geoff from Newport a couple of seasons ago, he worked on the schooner Madeline next to Aquidneck. The first afternoon/night we had a fair 15 knot breeze out of the northeast, so we were close reaching on a good course to Newport. The wind fell the next day and we motored for most of it, nothing special. Tuesday night however, the wind back to the southwest and really started to fill in. By the time my 6 am watch came around it was sustained at nearly 30 knots and the seas had risen considerably. We had two reefs in the main and only the small staysail up and were still flying along at over 9 knots with the wind on our beam.
Over the next 36 hours, it kept its strength (gusting to 36 according to the anamometer) but veered around to the north. We followed it as best we could, but were forced to tack, and did so another 2 times. We were in the Gulf Stream at this point and fighting a 3 knot current. The seas were very confused, with the changing wind directions and a strong current, it was like a washing machine...with 12 foot waves. Amerigo slammed into one wave while another gently pushed its stern, only to have another smack its beam seconds later to send water all the way back to the cockpit. An albatross (or possibly a Cory's shearwater), a familiar face from my time in the Pacific, followed us Thursday afternoon as the winds and seas finally started to ease. We were also visited by a pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins off our bow:
By my Thursday night watch it had calmed to less than 5 knots, forcing us to motor the remainder of the way to Newport. We arrived at 9 am Friday.
* * *
"To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with the boats in the sea - "cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free. Why? I don't know unless the answer lies in our diseased values. A man seldom hesitates to describe his work; he gladly divulges the privacies of alleged sexual conquests. But ask him how much he has in the bank and he recoils into a shocked and stubborn silence.
'I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas but I can't afford it.' What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous disciplne of 'security.' And in the worship of securty we fling our lives beneth the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some sort of working activity that will yeild a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneth a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadegetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the cherade."
That passage is from a book I read on this last delivery, Wanderer by Sterling Hayden. A famous actor of the 1950s, he left it all to take his kids on a voyage to the south Pacific, all against a court oder not to. Read it if you get a chance.
I'm staying in Newport for the summer. Once again, my personal reasons for returning to Florida have evaporated. So flows the current, flood and ebb. I'm also taking a new direction in what this vagabond life means to me and what I want to get out of it, and that lengthy quote above sums it up nicely. Reading books by the Pardey couple, as well as Sailing the Farm by Ken Neumeyer and Across Islands and Oceans by James Baldwin, and given my degrees in environmental engineering, self-sufficieny has become by new goal. Along those lines, food and nutrition come to the forefront, and following that meditation, exercise and general well-being.
I will focus on only those essentials mentioned above: food, heat, shelter, six feet of space and a sense of accomplishment. I will hone my celestial navigation skills and be patient with the winds, for if the wind dies the only reason for turning on the "iron spinnaker" is if I have somewhere to be. This follows the philosophy of the Taoist Zhuangzi, who argues it is foolish to fight the natural flow of energy in the universe. I've made that mistake before, sailing to a schedule. The pressing need for myself, and others I've sailed with, to get back to work to make the money to be able to get back to the sea again; the antithesis of self-sufficiency. Deadlines, schedules and all work not intrinsically enjoyed are for people who need money, not the truly rich who do as they please. I cannot wait for the day when I say, "no, thank you, I have enough," however small that amount may actually be.
I also had the extremely fortunate pleasure of meeting this guy Randy West who was on a boat doing the same trip up from St. Maarten and had only beat us by an hour into Bermuda. His stories are epic, I spent days extracting one after another from him (like being the personal sailing instructor for JFK, Jr. among many, many others) and is now working on his second book.
Geoff arrived Monday at 2:30 in the afternoon. We were underway at 4. I know Geoff from Newport a couple of seasons ago, he worked on the schooner Madeline next to Aquidneck. The first afternoon/night we had a fair 15 knot breeze out of the northeast, so we were close reaching on a good course to Newport. The wind fell the next day and we motored for most of it, nothing special. Tuesday night however, the wind back to the southwest and really started to fill in. By the time my 6 am watch came around it was sustained at nearly 30 knots and the seas had risen considerably. We had two reefs in the main and only the small staysail up and were still flying along at over 9 knots with the wind on our beam.
Over the next 36 hours, it kept its strength (gusting to 36 according to the anamometer) but veered around to the north. We followed it as best we could, but were forced to tack, and did so another 2 times. We were in the Gulf Stream at this point and fighting a 3 knot current. The seas were very confused, with the changing wind directions and a strong current, it was like a washing machine...with 12 foot waves. Amerigo slammed into one wave while another gently pushed its stern, only to have another smack its beam seconds later to send water all the way back to the cockpit. An albatross (or possibly a Cory's shearwater), a familiar face from my time in the Pacific, followed us Thursday afternoon as the winds and seas finally started to ease. We were also visited by a pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins off our bow:
By my Thursday night watch it had calmed to less than 5 knots, forcing us to motor the remainder of the way to Newport. We arrived at 9 am Friday.
* * *
"To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with the boats in the sea - "cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free. Why? I don't know unless the answer lies in our diseased values. A man seldom hesitates to describe his work; he gladly divulges the privacies of alleged sexual conquests. But ask him how much he has in the bank and he recoils into a shocked and stubborn silence.
'I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas but I can't afford it.' What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous disciplne of 'security.' And in the worship of securty we fling our lives beneth the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some sort of working activity that will yeild a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneth a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadegetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the cherade."
That passage is from a book I read on this last delivery, Wanderer by Sterling Hayden. A famous actor of the 1950s, he left it all to take his kids on a voyage to the south Pacific, all against a court oder not to. Read it if you get a chance.
I'm staying in Newport for the summer. Once again, my personal reasons for returning to Florida have evaporated. So flows the current, flood and ebb. I'm also taking a new direction in what this vagabond life means to me and what I want to get out of it, and that lengthy quote above sums it up nicely. Reading books by the Pardey couple, as well as Sailing the Farm by Ken Neumeyer and Across Islands and Oceans by James Baldwin, and given my degrees in environmental engineering, self-sufficieny has become by new goal. Along those lines, food and nutrition come to the forefront, and following that meditation, exercise and general well-being.
I will focus on only those essentials mentioned above: food, heat, shelter, six feet of space and a sense of accomplishment. I will hone my celestial navigation skills and be patient with the winds, for if the wind dies the only reason for turning on the "iron spinnaker" is if I have somewhere to be. This follows the philosophy of the Taoist Zhuangzi, who argues it is foolish to fight the natural flow of energy in the universe. I've made that mistake before, sailing to a schedule. The pressing need for myself, and others I've sailed with, to get back to work to make the money to be able to get back to the sea again; the antithesis of self-sufficiency. Deadlines, schedules and all work not intrinsically enjoyed are for people who need money, not the truly rich who do as they please. I cannot wait for the day when I say, "no, thank you, I have enough," however small that amount may actually be.
Comments
Please keep posting I enjoy reading all about your adventures!
May God bless you be staw unto you the greatest riches one may recieve that is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Sincerly in Christ,
Christopher P Emery & Ensign <-- Dog Guide
K, Thx, Bye.