SailBlog

Oh the Saga of the Storm and the next and the next...

When I woke this morning and cracked open the upper companionway hatch... I paused as it was a wonderful new scent I sensed... A warm balmy smell, like as if the fragrance of the blossoming vegetation on the land had finally made its way to me, this far away, infusing the smells of the salt and sea water clouds, with their fragrance...just a hint of it...but enough to usher in the official beginning of the summer season out here...far from where humans normally pass... where I ponder as to if the birds notice it for is it normal as the sea is their habitat year round...the balmy 60s temperature instills new energy for a good day of sailing. A new hope seems to make its way to my smile... maybe there will be a summer yet on this ocean... a time to strip down from the 6 layers of fleece and linings of clothing for more than a surprising afternoon sunshine on a light breeze day... it is still early. (BTW... that was an assignment in John Gardners book, The art of fiction...writing a long paragraph sentence...I think it works. )

Last night, I was amazed that I could feel so sleepy so early...the sun hadn't even set. But it had been a wonderful day...first attending to weather speculating as I can now call it...as it is way more speculation than true forecasting until the two day forecast.. then off on a good spree of writing for the healing journey essay... Then, I found myself longing, for the first time in many years, though it seems impossible, to putter and play my guitar. I have had a guitar in my arms since I was 16, my refuge of solace through so many of life's challenging times... I had recently relinquished it to moments of playing the ukelele...seeming just easier. I guess part of my hesitation to picking up the guitar is that it is harder to play when I am out of practice...it just doesn't sound good when I am buzzing bar chords and not able to create nice clean music.

The day before, I had wanted to play 'Mary Did You Know', rummaging to get my guitar out of the v-berth...I found it with the strings rusted completely through, and after an hour of trying to find where I had put the spare set of strings I had brought which I knew were somewhere, I gave up, grabbing the Uke...I would improvise.

But today, I wanted to play my guitar. I took one more tour through my memory banks as to where I could have put the strings and I checked one box, one more time...and sure enough I had not looked carefully enough the day before..there they were. I made quick work of putting on the new strings after I gave the whole guitar a good once over with oil and a good rag. As I was tightening the high E string.....boing...it snapped... how could that be? It wasn't even close to being at its correct tension.

I was about to give up when I looked at the old strings I had taken off...green with rust, the outer windings rough with oxidization... But I figured that the smallest guage wire still intact would do...I would tune it an octave lower than the normal high E... and sure enough...it worked very well, in fact I may have discovered an unusual but very pleasant sounding alternative guitar tuning... I may just write some songs like this.

I don't know how I could have lost my love of playing my guitar as I have. To play has always been a way to wind down and sooth me, a way to enjoy passing time ... but I am quite pleased to regain it as a present friend. My shoulders and hands are going to take a while to regain their 'love ' for playing, but it will come. The sweetness was in the desire to play and 'hang out' with my old guitar...this guitar I brought is the third guitar I bought.

The first was a classical Guild. It got broken and I found a twelve string Takamine to play...but it was really hard to play it all the time. When my maternal grandmother died, she left each of us grand kids a bit of money... I used that to buy my first sound system and this gorgeous used Yamaha ... the sweetest sounding guitar... Most of the couple hundred songs I have written were born on this guitar...it went with me on board around the Atlantic and the World. It is a true awakening in my spirit to feel reconnected to her and to my music again today.

It was interesting to see what songs came to mind to try to play. I am longing now for my old songbook as the words are fleeting in memory with time. I used to have all of the lyrics in documents on my computer but they were all lost in a hard drive crash a few years ago... maybe I will sit with my albums and retype them though it would be easier from the old hard copies I still have... I have been wanting to write a book based on the lyrics to the songs as they tell a story in a unique way so I will need them typed again at some point. The spiritual homecoming I am feeling is surfacing in many ways. I had an amazing nights sleep last night, peaceful, sleeping through alarms, no dreams, even in my early morning light sleep states...instead I drew near to my inner body and God's presence... guarding it from any thoughts...I just stayed there.

Finallly getting going, I download emails from anyone in EST time who emailed me during the day as it is in the late afternoon for them when I am getting up. I had an email from my Bob, amidst making the last leg of the delivery of Calypso home to Florida, one more time...with less than favorable winds, he is in the ICW (intercoastal waterway) making headway as he can... with a new moon, it is unusually low water and it is commonly 'too low' water normally, not as it is marked. The water levels change too often with the currents and shoaling for the markers to stay accurate... Calypso found a knoll in the late afternoon, and was stuck... I found an update.

They had to anchor, just so they couldn't float away with a new tide. At the time he wrote, they were already floating and reanchored in deeper water awaiting the dawn to get going again. Hopefully, the delay will allow the wind to clock a bit on the ocean and he will be able to get out the next inlet for an ocean ride home... the ICW is an amazing provision for safe travel on the coast and fun when you have time and can enjoy the coastal towns as you go along, but when you want to get home...the ocean takes less than half the time. Weather Speculating was next as it has been a past time today. I had all the recent Buoy weather information from Joan I requested in emails plus lots more she sends on for different positions I will be at over the next days and espeically in reference to this 970hPa Gale coming my way. I also got a new grib file and wave charts.

From what I had gotten earlier in the day before I went to sleep, and still in the early renditions, it was all looking manageable. The center of the storm was going more south... I would scoot to the top and ride it southeast. I responded to Joan...

"Fabulous Joan...God is greasing the way for me...going to be a fast water slide ride down and around Tasmania... The storm is going south of Tasmania. I am good with the forecast, in fact, it is going to be the 'STORM" once again that is the savior and source of the good wind to get me where I need to go...interesting... I am in a very light wind zone...not sure where all the wind went..sucked up into this storm coming."... I wrote back...cc'ing my Bob and Mike...

I have gone on my merry way through the day, just gorgeous outside. We are sailing a respectabe 5kt average in 15kts of wind... I am eating my way through my daily alotments ... sometimes it seems that is my focus...I can't get going on a project so it is time for a cup of tea or my PB2 and jam...

Eventually, my lolly gagging brought me to do a new download...I had an update from Bob McD regarding the weather and my itinerary. He was playing a different tune suggesting I go a bit farther north, just one degree, but he mentioned strong NE and E winds that would procede the storm... That was new! ... So I ordered up a new Grib file this afternoon, my time...and Voila! the reason for the strong headwinds... the 'storm' path is quite different today. This whole scenerio is definitely taking on the drama on the weather channel per each tropical depression... The storm has now reverted to the original projection of it going farther north, plus there is a Huge high building up in my path ahead of me... so I write this email on to my weather compadres...

"Well so much for the fast slide... The Grib has flopped back to the earlier projection of the storm coming north...topping out at 35*S at 125*..then careening south over Tasmania... Oh well...But the swells to the north are still suppose to stay in the 6 meter range so...Worst part is that the whole forecast is different... a huge high on the 16th... and light light then east winds... then the front starts with the tail end first... NE winds at 25kts...a no wind frontal boundary and then it gales from the N to NW... It disappears south leaving another high behind it... yada yada yada... Well we will see what tomorrow brings...so far this is the least appealing of the forecasts so far... but...it is what it is..."

I became curious what was happening to the storm before it got to the section I have been seeing. The Grib files use a large amount of download time as they are large files, so I minimize the size by only downloading the sections near me... 1200nm. So I decided to download the section to my west... it shed some light on this storm and the next one as well. This storm coming is actually the most intense around 115*E early on the 18th..far west of me...it is in the phase of diminishing as it is beat up by the high that procedes it by the time it reaches me at 140*E. That high is the one bringing me the windlessness I will experience for several days beginning tomorrow. At the storm's height, there are the huge flags of 50kt winds.. which I saw on yesterday's Grib, occuring much farther east and just south of me...so it was still raging at its peak just south of me... So talk about a change in forecast... By the time the storm gets to me according to the new projections, its ta il end has wrapped up in front of it, giving me the NE winds at the start. It is still putting out huge seas and winds in my zone, but nothing to compare to the storm center.

The next storm is also maturing farther west of me according to this farther west Grib, and will be nearly totally diminised by the time it reaches my neck of the woods...providing a good stretch of good sailing winds for my next leg to NZ...the High systems are really the powerful determiner of the paths of the storms and their development. Actually, there are many factors in the upper atmospheric layers and such...the information used to develop forecasting. But in simplistic terms, it is the highs that seem to make or break a storm.

So, the outcome of all of this is that I am going to have a rough couple of days, big seas and more high winds than I have seen for a longer period of time. The preceding days are going to be a bit frustrating with lots of low winds, becalmed time, and headwinds... but then hopefully I will get positioned to take advantage of good winds to keep on sailin on...toward home.

And so much for forecasting...what a yoyo... A huge shift backward... Oh well... Luckily I am sailing in summer bliss here... the first front even diminished and I still have 15kts of wind... so... no complaints...going to write..play guitar... if I ever stop lolly gagging...

One time when I called my mother, she suggested that I sing "You are my sunshine' to the birds... so I have been having fun, belting out 'You are my sunshine' in all kinds of styles...to the birds as I pop my head up in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening... so I am going to write a new set of lyrics to it and do a retro version then go to the sea version... Fun... Passing the time.

Once I send this off, I will see if I can spend the afternoon focusing on my 'healing journey essay'...

The Healing Journey essay is going to be an appendix per sae. of my book..it will take the conclusions, that I will draw from my experiences as logged in my blogs and other writing I am doing regarding my spiritual healing process, to conduct a type of experiment during the length of my journey. A very dear friend and editor, once suggested that there are different ways to tackle writing articles or essays... one is the western world style...where you "state what you are going to say, say it, and then restate what you have said, the accumulated information to validate your premise is in the body where you 'say it'..."

My friend, suggested to me that there is another prevalent style which begins by stating a thesis, with a hypothesis that is derived from it... then you present the antithesis, a body of information regarding the topic that can either prove or disprove the original statements, but they are an attempt at making a true unique discovery by the end of the essay. Then there is synthesis of the information where the outcome of the hypothetical viewpoint is merged with the actual information gathered and there is a conclusion in the synthesis that brings a newly discovered outcome. This essay is a living process .

As I begin the Essay, I start with my thesis, the foundation of my spiritual learning during my previous solo sails and ventures, my gained values, and idiums already developed. Then I set out my hypothesis coming into this journey with a dilemma, a life long challenge to find a spiritual way that I can wholly embrace as personal truth and follow toward healing and wholeness. Once stated, then I present my hopeful resolution of my dilemma, given the nine months on the sea, the challenges I will encounter, the study and authors I have brought along with me, and the potential of seeking this kind of spiritual awakening amidst nature, the vast open ocean of energy, the celestial bodies... immersed in universal energy. From there I present the information I am gathering which will reveal many approaches I have taken during my time at sea...the initial embarking, each author I revisited, the experiences that unfolded, the challenges that confronted me and the outcomes, new epipha nies and life changes that occured. From there, the synthesis will reveal the newly discovered resolutions found during the journey, as they were anticipated and as they were a surprise.

So, I am working on both ends, still writing the original premise for the healing journey, while I am also writing to capture the outcomes day by day, their relevance to my growth to become part of the synthesis that developes...

Over the course of the journey, you have all been spectators of my challenges, frustrations, SeaMadness...my epiphanies, honest delving into dark corners of my shadows, and on into new pathways of learning to overcome the past learning, and embark on a new spiritual awakening in a new path.... the story is still unfolding day by day.

Writing my blog is a wonderful experience for me as I share my world out here, a very important part of my day, a part that I enjoy, yet moreso, I am sharing the whole journey...you are the folks that I am trusting with my process, as I 'wear my heart on my sleeve'... Your energy is a part of the process as you are putting energy into the overall field of energy that is reaching me, way out here, and energizing my process. We are in this together...

I am so very grateful and humbled, so pleased to have come on this journey...it was a huge step of faith, but much less a risk than not coming...the potential of finding answers remaining amidst the clutter of energy in the world system on land was so very limited. The answers to my dilemmas were not to be found amidst a human interaction in the world system ... and here I have had the time and space... the two things I hope to transcend coming to a new way of living in spiritual eternity.

I thank all of you who have helped me come, and help me to be here with out the burden of home financial issues. Please feel free to contribute as you feel lead as I will be starting from scratch when I return and so appreciate your support.

Keepin On Sailin On a Dream... I think I am going to change that... I am not sailing on a dream...dreams are things hoped for...but I am hoping for more than a dream.

Keepin On Sailing On Caring... I started these little end salutations the last trip like this before..I liked the word caring as it denotes emotion, passion, as well as action. I think that is where I am finding my vision will be.

Keepin On Sailing on Caring... Another storm to draw me nigh to the sea... truly, when it is bliss, she becomes a heavenly backdrop but when she is raging, she demands all of my being to engage in the release of massive energies that propel me forward, but also inward...deeper... to where my true identity is embracing all that I am, holding on...

"The words 'Sea' and 'Ocean' are too small to image such wild divinity. The oceans is beyond language. The flow of the ocean presents a most beautiful dance. She is eternally restless and delights the eye most with the structured rhythm of waves... The grandeur of ocean movement is consistently enthralling yet there is consolation and consistency in the faithfulness of the ocean. Water stirs something very deep and ancient in the human heart..." John O'Donohue

Fairest of Winds and the Love of the Ocean Only Gratitude Donna

�"Sent from my RedPort Aurora Satellite Terminal http://www.globalmarinenet.com/product/redport-aurora/ www.globalmarinenet.com www.ushuaialogistics.com www.xaxero.com www.transmarinepro.co.nz http://www.mwxc.com Chris Parker weather services www.jamestowndistributors.com www.bellplantation.om (PB2) www.caphorn.com www.marinemotion.com http://sayitright.com www.yoloadventure.com www.islandplanetsails.com www.baconsails.com