Wishful thinking
30 May 2009 | Same old for now
Cap'n Mike: Warm/cold Sun/rain
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride
Time is flying by and the weather has deteriorated to Seattle-like ambiance, reminding us of the urgency in getting north for a season in Fiji/Vanuatu - a bit over a thousand miles north. If everything goes as planned, and it usually doesn't, the passage will take eight days. Now, if I had my old crotch-rocket and a concrete slab in front of me, I'd be there in hours rather than days!
There are similarities too, between my VFR and the Argonaut. The Song of the Sirens wailing in the rigging in a gale isn't unlike the shreik of a 105 horsepower V-4 spooling up to full song. Maniacal, is the word that comes to mind. Surprisingly, the sensation of speed is quite similar whether surfing nine tons at eight knots or unrolling a ribbon of super slab at one six ought. Time travel is all relative, so I've been led to believe.
Alas, all the wishing in the world won't make a magic carpet ride of a long, wet, bumpy one. We see the world from the deck of a boat in a vast ocean at walking speed. Fiji will appear on the horizon when the wind gods damn well decide it will. Ideal when you're lazing along between islands in your little ship painted upon a painted sea, but I really like my long ocean passages behind me.
The next blog will be in about two weeks... from Fiji.
Ta-ta. Be good... or be better. Check out the new gallery, courtesy of the Boston Globe.
'Make fast the guns, tonight we sail when the high tide floods the bay.
Cut free the lines and square the yards, get the black flag stowed away."
Emerson Lake & Palmer