testing pc

The earth is not flat after all

As I sit here on this beautiful beach and watch the sun play with the water I am glad to be alive and reflecting on this past month and humbled by my completely different perspective of this planet. How small we are on this small ball of water. Caught up most days in our ridiculous lives chasing money or clients or being stressed out over inexplicable stock market changes, bombarded with overly sensationalized news depicting the evil of man, and the tragedies of the world that we would be better off to not know. Laughable is our absolute dependence on iPhones, GPS and Siri. Totally taking for granted the amazing set of circumstances that provide us a tiny window of survivability with air to breath, water to drink and a temperature to enjoy. When you calculate the odds you realize how astronomical they really are that you would be here or anywhere at all and you can't help but think on how many other countless trillion experiments like this resulted in nothing, let alone the fact that we have feelings and love and sex and laughter and music and beauty. You can't let yourself believe in an old guy with a beard and robe who sits in a big chair and walks around making pithy comments and watches everything you do and has a plan, but still in your most desperate hours you find yourself curseing at him and screaming, "Why!?!" But really as ridiculously unbelievable is the fact that you exist and can ponder such an idea in the first place. That is perhaps testimony itself of the inescapable conclusion that there is something, a force, a will and a conscienceness behind it all. There is a plan. There is an amazingly beautiful aspect to all of it, in that some simple quantum particle is inexplicable drawn to another, that builds to make an atom and draws towards other atoms to make a rock, a planet, a sun, eventually your world, in such a complicated equation that results in you and all those ridiculous things that contribute to you, your feelings, your experience of love and sex and laughter and music and beauty. There is a will and a fate from all this and a force beyond any you could resist or divert. I didn't expect to come out of the ocean with the entire meaning of life, life is a mystery, but maybe not a coincidence. Over the past three weeks i mostly felt like an ant clinging to a leaf at the mercy of the ocean and the wind. Air, water and life itself seemed much more important then the trivialities of living it. I am happy to again be able to hug my wife and children and tell them tales of the high seas and the lunatics that sail it, because many nights I thought I wouldn't have that opportunity again. I head back to my life with less interest in those things that don't matter and a heightened appreciation for those things that do.

Hi Magnus, blog to follow.
Guys, I'd be interested in hearing whether or not this is how you experienced our time on Losloper.
Steve

--------------------------------------------------------- start portion to put into blog -----------------------------------
Travel to Maui: Losloper vs Westjet

Author: Steve

Lat 49 deg 14.5’ N

Long 123 deg 5.3’ W

The last day of the race was perhaps the best. Magnus helmed as we streaked across the finish under full sail at over 8 knots. Next came the beer boat, followed by a joyous welcome from family on the dock, and FRESH FRUIT with Mai Tai s at the reception. It was emotionally moving.

Over the last few days friends have asked “Was it amazing? Was it difficult?” I have had difficulty giving a simple answer, but I’ll do my best here.

The two days on Maui after the race were wonderful, with short walks to the blowhole and other beaches, visiting a town down a 1-lane road, meeting Hawaiian carvers, snorkelling at Molokini and hiking through a volcanic wasteland with plants from another world (Haleakala Silversword). I have as many memories from 2 days on land as from 19 days at sea. The contrast between being at sea and being on land was striking.

At sea, we were not so much exploring a new place as travelling through a void. Our world was (mostly) NOT the vast sea, but rather the tiny boat, and sometimes, at night, the world would shrink to helm and compass (and only the part of the compass between 200 and 260 magnetic). The routine of the watchkeeping, food preparation and minor boat repairs kept us busy – and I loved it – but it was routine. Small deviations from this routine became highlights (a few fish, a boat on the horizon, a rope wrapped around the rudder). My brain pretended that we were in different places as we moved towards Hawaii, but really we were in one place whose colouring changed with the weather and time of day. Conditions changed as we moved, but no more than they might as you go 60 miles from Johnstone Strait to Desolation Sound over 2 or 3 days.

So, you can get to Maui much quicker and cheaper by Westjet, and you would probably consider it an advantage to skip the strange desolate world of offshore sailing. However, I am glad to have spent time in that world, and would even do it again, on a vessel as sound as Losloper, with such good souls aboard as Nigel, Mike, George and Magnus.