Somewhere in the Grecian Quadrant.

Star Date 2012 09 01 

(Somewhere in the Grecian Quadrant.)

“This is your captain speaking. We have totally run out of fresh fruit, vegetables and white wine. We will therefore be making an unscheduled stop somewhere on the planet to take on supplies. As usual, the conditions of the prime directive apply: Do nothing to alarm the natives. When in the supermarket checkout line-up, if they ask you what your are doing, just tell them you are a “Fresh Air Inspector”. And, be sure to put on some clothes before you go ashore so that they will not be frightened.  That is all.”

As we slip into the 80th day cruising in the Mediterranean, time and distance have lost meaning. We are long past the time when we can remember where we were a week ago.



We are drifting through time on waters clear and warm, the days hot, the nights cool. Every day is a perfect sunny day. Everywhere we go is a perfect place. Everyone is friendly, everyone is on holiday. Like e=mc². Nothing is real. It feels like it will go on forever.

Well, probably not forever. But for a while longer.

Our friends - Tracy and Warren and son Stewart, joined us for a two week sail  through Sardinia and Sicily. 

Then Paul, Darlene, Jordon and Megan Clarke took over keeping us company for the trip to Greece and a sail around the Ionian Group.

Of course, nothing goes on forever. Nothing and nowhere is perfect. 

As we are adrift through a summer cruising season in the Mediterranean, we are adrift as to our futures. 

Work has not found us yet, as much as we (Irena in particular) are sending out smoke signals. 

And we are making a good dent in the cruising kitty. But with nothing much else to do, we continue exploring the planet while our freedom and the weather lasts. And so, there you have it: Perfect cruising, perfect uncertainty.

Somehow, we are coping. 

(It helps that it comes in a nifty box for a Euro or two)

And, my oh my, but there are a lot of places to see here in the Mediterranean!

Some how, I think we are going to be okay....

As long as we don't take a wrong turn and drift off into space forever....

Cress and Irena

Kinda fun, sailing to Seville. Its 50 miles inland!

Seville lies miles up the wide and gentle Rio Quadalaquivir. We navigated the shallow river mouth and enjoyed sailing when we could, and motoring when the wind died. We took our time, moving up river with the flood, which ran, surprisingly, all the way to Seville. We anchored early evening, just before dark, when the flood turned to ebb, and stayed the night in the delicious peace of the Spanish country side. When we reached Seville, we could have locked into the eastern river branch and entered the downtown harbour. We opted instead to anchor in the free river about four miles from the city centre near a small yacht club. We were glad we did - we enjoyed celebrity status for being one of the rare cruisers to come to town. It was lovely to have goats on one river bank and a small town on the other. We did day excursions by bus into the city centre.

We were interested to learn that at the peak of the Spanish empire, Seville was the only centre in Spain where the King allowed new world goods brought in from the off shore colonies to be traded. This preserved the region and protected the main trading centre from attack by other nations, as they were otherwise wont to do. It would have been a sight watching the square rigged Spanish ships, with no engines, working their way patiently up and down 50 miles of river with the tides!

We hung out about a week in the heat before catching the ebb back out to sea. Very hot in Seville, away from the ocean, we discovered. We scooped a huge sunken tree when we weighed anchor which slowed us down a tad. As on the way up river, we anchored about mid way down river to wait for the next day’s ebb. Again, we had another delicious night in the Spanish country side quiet, though we were hiding below decks from the hungry hordes of mosquitos. Next day we ran down to the sea and made our way down the coast to Caciz then Sancti Petri, where we find ourselves again up a lovely river.

Breaking up is hard to do!!

Well, we ended the love affair with Lagos Marina. After arriving back in Portugal June 2 from our Canadian junket, we trolled around the internet for a week and a bit waiting on potential work prospects, and decided enough was enough. If nobody was going to put us to work, we might as well continue cruising until they do. And so we left the fine little port of Lagos and all the friendly people of Portugal behind and set sail eastward toward the Mediterranean.

But we before we close the Lagos chapter, I want to share some sadness about the place. Lagos, like all of the southern coast of Portugal – you may know it as the Algarve Region – has become another great big-condo-barren. Don’t get me wrong, the dozen or so historical, and I mean HISTORICAL Portuguese towns like Lagos in the region are cobble street, piazza quaint and charming, but they seem from our experience all to be surrounded by 10s of thousands of mostly empty condos. The historical city centres have been very nicely tarted up and ‘touristized’, but the rings of suburban condos surrounding them are, well, disappointing. Irena and walk frequently in these areas, in our losing fight to keep fit, and I can tell you, “we are in no danger of being run over!” We walk down street after street of condos frozen in various stages of completion. From holes in the ground, through hulks of moss covered multi-floor shells to empty finished and landscaped buildings, these neighbourhoods tell the sorry tale of a little bit of real estate folly. The building cranes are long gone. Judging by the age of the overgrown vegetation on the unfinished building sites, I would guess the workers put down their hammers probably sometime 2008, when the subprime recession kicked in. In the buildings that were finished, most of the units have been sold -- and some for a pretty penny in the early days --- but most of them are pretty much empty nevertheless. Purchased by speculators in the boom years, they have been left now ‘unloved’ apparently in a declining market. And like the deserted streets, the never occupied shops on the ground floor and the moulding pools behind rusting fences, these barren neighbourhoods are haunted by their emptiness. The ex-Planner in me sees the car oriented suburban neighbourhoods of condos soulless in the best of circumstance, but to see them all but deserted is a bit unnerving, especially given, that with a little more thought and a little less greed, it could have been better.

And what does this means for the people who live in this part Portugal? They will need to find a new way to make a living. Historically, the people of Lagos, and in neighbouring villages, made their living by fishing and by trade. The slave trade did a roaring business in Lagos for nearly a hundred years. We stood in the main town square in Lagos by the town docks and read about how families of slaves were separated -- husband from wife, children from parents -- and auctioned like animals. Now there is a statue and a fountain at the foot of the steps of the catholic church which otherwise oversees the square. A darker time. Then there was a period of industry in the Algarve, but this moved overseas with globalization. Today, in Lagos we see the remains of industry -- half a dozen stunning brick chimneys -- preserved by some romantic Portuguese, now jealously occupied by the ubiquitous heron. They make great nesting sites! And now that the high end recreational real estate market is in retreat, and tourism begins to wither in the European recession, these people must again find another means of getting on. But knowing what we know now after some time with the resilient Portuguese, I think they will find a way. I spoke with a boater on the docks one day close to where Conversations was moored in Lagos Marina. This fine fellow came to Portugal from Brazil to fund his retirement with real estate investments. Ten years ago, he bought a whole building. Now the unit he and his family occupy is the only unit occupied in a building of 10 units. At least, he says, “It’s a quiet building!”

Reflection:

The wheel of change rumbles ever on. As Europe struggles to heal the Euro, Portugal struggles to find a new basis for an economy, and Lagos seeks to hold its real estate market together. We see transition is everywhere.

You would think transition would be easier when we volunteer for it? To misquote William Shakespeare on greatness: Some are born in transition, some achieve transition, and others have transition thrust upon them. (Twelfth Night). Maybe. Maybe not. I think transition is always hard.

While we wait for work, Irena and I have been girding ourselves by remembering, by virtue of our lifestyle, we have chosen transition. The pressure of transition is one of the costs of the lifestyle we live.

Like the Portuguese, we too will all find a way. 

Can’t wait to tell you about Seville in our next Blog!

Irena and I are just back aboard yesterday from a jet powered tour home. In a month, we whistled through Ontario, Manitoba and BC, stopping in Toronto, Orillia, Milton, Simcoe, Winnipeg, Brandon, Vancouver, Whistler, and Nanaimo and back to the boat in Lagos via Lisbon. We spent time with Jenn, Matt, Anglin and Juna, Don/Dad and Nancy/Mom, Cresswell Adam, John, Pat & family, Kristina, Colin, Kaylee and Chloe, Mrs. C/Mom, Wanda, Scott and Pauline, Erin, Larry and Linda, Bob and Jan, Al and Leona, Breanna and Jahn, Dennis and Rita, Mahen, Maureen, Harlene and Ross, David and Sandey, Sue and Aubrey, Bob, Paul and Darlene, Jordon and Megan and Doug. And still others, too numerous to mention and many others we did not get a chance to see. Perhaps this is why at 2am I am up at the nav station here with you, unable to sleep, while Conversations tugs at her moorings in the warm breeze blowing through the marina tonight. My heart is over flowing from connecting with so much friendship and love. To all of you, thank you for being our friends even though it may seem we desert you for our selfish journeys. We love you and you never really are very far away!

So now, back on board, Irena and I are posed to jump, but we know not where! I feel wound up like a spring, teetering on a precipice, waiting for the universe to say where  to leap next. After a year of sailing, we have eaten up our cruising budget and are now chomping down on our savings with alarming appetites. We are ready to work, indeed, must work, and it seems we must ……….wait.

But hold on Cresswell. Is this journey to work, not just another passage? Have we not set our course for the Middle East? Are we not sailing every day in that direction in our search for work (even though we seem to go no further than the internet café)? Are we not provisioned with savings for this passage, sailing a prepared ship? And even though nothing shows yet on the horizon, are we not never-the-less making progress toward our destination even though progress on this sea is invisible? Do we not yet know in our hearts, that like all our ocean passages so far, we will almost certainly make landfall!!? Some where!

We make it hard when we quake. So we have pulled out all our tools. We meditate, we exercise, we tap (EFT), meditate some more, between the hours on the internet. We remember all those we love and we hold the vision!  

Do the work.

Get the job done.

The Middle East? Ha! 

Here we come.

A bit late, but better late than never...

We composed this and thought we sent a few days ago - but now are posting it from Lagos in the south of Portugal having arrived here safely late Monday night April 23rd. All is well here.....

Irena and Cress

Amazing. The Straits of Gibraltar and the continent of Europe lay less than a day away. Since leaving Cape Town February 24th, we have been continuously at sea, except for four days in Saint Helena and six days in the Azores.  Over two months, we have sailed over 6000 Nautical Miles (10,000 kilometers)in 48 days at sea, to bring us to what we think of as our final passage in this phase of our trip around the world.  This last passage of only 1000 miles from the Azores to Portugal, will end in about 24 hours at a smallish town, Lagos, on the south coast of Portugal.  I get to fly back to South Africa to facilitate a coaching workshop in Johannesburg, then Irena and I will leave the boat and fly home to Canada in May for a much overdue visit with our loved ones. When we return to the boat on June 1st, if the facilities check out in Lagos, we will lay the boat up on land for at least a year and go to work. We don't have work yet, don't know exactly where we will find work, but we do know for a bunch of reasons, we need and indeed want to work for the next 'while'.

Reflection:
"...is it possible that the one thing we are looking for - STABILITY - is the thing that could lead to unhappiness??"
This is such a great question to arrive as we arrive in Europe.  It came by email from one of our family members, who, like us, are in transition! And is not transition the opposite of stability?

But who is not in transition? Most of our family is in transition. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see a good argument that all of us are in transition, one way or another, most of the time.

Sometimes transitions are thrust upon us(good and bad), and sometimes we seek out transitions in the course of seeking out our heart's desire.  I realize so many of our transitions have been from seeking out our heart's desire. We are arriving in Portugal 7 years to the week since leaving Vancouver in our first boat on May 1st, 2005. We left Vancouver to pursuit our hearts desire of sailing to Australia. We bought the boat, transitioned out of jobs and our then 'life' and set sail. In Australia, when work prospects did not work out the way we hoped there, we pursued a desire to work in Asia. And so we did, in Singapore for 5 years. Our heart's desire there was to save money, buy a faster boat with room for family and friends, a boat to continue, we decided then, to sail around the world. And so we went to work; the boat we are arriving in Portugal with is the boat we bought in California and restored in Thailand. Next it was sailing to South Africa. Our heart's desire was then to settle for a while in South Africa as we did in Singapore and work, but when we arrived there, we decided against it, as much as we loved South Africa. So we set off in pursuit of an alternative; to sail the boat to Europe and the Mediterranean and to work in the Middle East. And so it will go I am sure. We don't get everything we want, but the art of it seems to be trying to get what we want, then doing our best to love what we get.

So if we are lucky, as we have been, we get to transition to seek our hearts desire. And this, it seems to me is a big part of happiness. I think happiness comes when we are 'actively engaged in the process of pursuing' our heart's desire. I don't think it even matters much if we succeed in the object of our desire all the time, but I think our happiness does depend on us being on passage in pursuit of our dreams. We need to be at sea in the adventure, figuratively speaking, not standing on the shore, if we are to be happy. And, if at first we don't know what our dreams are, to be happy we need to on passage - almost any passage --  trying to find out what our dreams are by experimenting, exploring, testing and failing sometimes.  It doesn't matter much what Course we set in pursuit our life's desire, it matters most that we pick one and set sail!

But what if transition is thrust upon us? What if someone gets sick, dies, we lose our jobs, whatever. Well, because such transitions are thrust upon us, they are perhaps even more uncomfortable, but what is there to do but make the best of it? After some pain and adjustment, we shift our expectations - our hearts desire -- to what is doable, and head off again in search of a new heart's desire.

But after 48 days at sea in the last two months I can say with confidence the process of being on passage is inherently UN-STABLE. And instability is uncomfortable.  And as human beings we don't like being uncomfortable, because its, well.... uncomfortable! Yet if we sought the stability to avoid our discomfort, --stood on shore  -- would we be happy? I think not for long. I think our society over rates stability. Advertisers pander to it, we are easily seduced by its false promises of happiness. While some moments of stability are necessary - we need to step ashore from time to time to catch our breath, re-cover, and re-provision -- happiness is elsewhere!

This means, I think, regardless of whether transitions are chosen or thrust upon us, we might as well go willingly -- be willing to suffer instability and it's discomfort, in order to have a chance at being happily engaged in seeking our heart's desire. Happiness, it seems, happens along the way - on passage.

It is perverse and cruel: Most of the time it seems, to be happy, we must be willing to leave stability and comfort behind. At least that is how it seems to go in our experience.

Cress and Irena

It is perhaps too perfect a morning.

Horta, Island of Faial, Azores

Behind, to the west, sets a jolly fat moon, in her great orange jacket, shouting to us "Good day, good day" after her brilliant company all the night long. Before us, the days sun rays streak yellow from behind the earth's rim, promising a new glorious day by setting the clouds ringing the horizon red with fire. And overhead, the main, staysail and genoa, pull in silent earnest to Horta, now only 20miles away below the horizon to the N.
Irena steps to the companion way, hands me a Café latte, heated to just the right temperature, and gives me a kiss, " I am off to sleep for a few hours, have a great watch babe". She steps back down the companionway and into the cabin's shadows, leaving me alone to wake with my coffee and contemplate our passage. I am very groggy this morning and more than happy to luxuriate in the freedom to simply sit and await my coffee's to bring sensibility and excitement to the day. I see the setting moon and rising sun and wonder is "Is this perhaps too perfect a morning?" But what could that mean? How could any morning at sea be too perfect?
Mornings can certainly be less than perfect! Stuck in traffic. And yes at sea too. We have had less than perfect mornings, like the last few mornings, after a night of howling winds, hissing seas and a boat bouncing wildly underfoot like a bucking horse, trying to pitch us across the cabin or out of our berths. "It's the sound of the wind in the rigging that is the most draining" I once read, about a storm at sea in a small boat, and found it to be true.
But not this morning. Harbour is just a few hours away and it's a perfect day coming on after a pretty tough upwind sail of the last 18 days. Sailing the whole span of the NE trades from just north of the equator to 32 degrees north latitude was a lot of work, but nowhere near the work of the last four days, trying to sail the last 300 miles to the Azores against a stubborn Low holding a wall of N winds in our face at 25 to 35 knots. We spent about a ¼ of our time hove to, waiting for the wind to ease just enough to allow us to resume sail and bash away, chiselling out the windward distance, one bumpy mile at a time. But that is behind us for now, for this morning, it's a perfect morning. Think I'll go make myself another cup of coffee and watch for the Azores to show up in the dawn light.
Post Note;
We did arrive in the Azores after a pretty good 28 day passage all the way from Saint Helena. We see that none of blogs from at sea have made it online for reasons we cannot determine. Rats!
We have spent the last 6 days drying out and sleeping the sleep of the weary traveller. After a day of touring the island yesterday in a rental car, we are provisioned and watered and ready for sea again tomorrow morning. We are headed for Lagos, Portugal, a mere 1000 miles away.

How things change, how they stay the same…..

A change  – again!

Irena and I are sad to say that, after 6 weeks of digging – emails, phone calls, lunch and coffee meetings -- even a try out work project with some prospective associate partners – we are going to pass on getting established here in Cape Town. It’s a lot like Vancouver here, just as beautiful and everybody wants to live here, but work is thin on the ground. (What work there is in South Africa is in Johannesburg, and who wants to live there!) But the killer is the wage rate. If we persevered, say 6 months to a year, we are sure we would find traction here, but the market rate for our services is way below international standard, making it tough to put money aside. So next week, we will sail on.

We have had fun here. We have made a lot of friends and are very sad to be leaving them. Sunday, we are having a going away pot-luck party on board, young and old, SA and expats alike. And we are selling BensonL.

Our destination is the Azores, 5200 nautical miles away. (The Azores are about 1000 miles due West of the Straights of Gibraltar). This will be our longest passage yet, if we go nonstop and not take a break at Saint Helena. Along the way, we will sail north about 2000 miles in the SE trades, 100 to 300 miles in the doldrums crossing the equator, another 2000 miles up through the NE trades, and finally into the variable winds of the North Atlantic where we will find the Azores. It’s a big run, a drift and a big beat to windward respectively, but in generally warm waters, and in moderate wind and waves. Our guess is we will take less than 45 days, maximum. Our passage planner software says 36 days, but I think we will not be so fortunate with the wind. We will not sail in any tropical storm zones, so no cyclones. At worst we might have to dodge an early spring storm in the North Atlantic as we approach the Azores.

But that is a long way off! For now we are doing the usual preparations – fuel, food, water and hull, rigging and sail checks. We replaced two lower shrouds that had died of old age (broken strands), but otherwise, we are in good shape. Irena has been cooking and freezing meals. The only thing missing is our Ritchie compass. After 6 weeks, the warrantee repair agent still has yet to get the replacement seals……… so I guess we will reinstall the old compass leave without it. 

Many hours I have spent on passage thinking about how to make our Hydrovane self-steering perform as it might. We have had pretty good service from it since installing the stronger shaft, the third mid shaft bearing, and a thicker water rudder. However, light airs downwind, and even moderate airs on the quarter remain a challenge for Natasha, as we know her. In light apparent winds like those we anticipate on this passage, there is not enough control authority in the wind vane to steer fully. So finally, here in Cape Town, I have had some time and materials to design and build a vane with a true air foil. It’s a NACA foil 0018 with a 22% chord depth. It’s about 46 inches tall and 18 inches deep, so it’s big, but light as I built it from model aircraft supplies – Foam, balsa and .6mm a/c ply, on the original frame, covered with a heat shrink film. It’s not nearly resilient enough for the offshore environment, but it should do as a test bed for the concept of using a true foil section for the wind vane instead of the manufacturer’s flat panel vane. John at Hydrovane is as excited as I am by the experiment! I hope it doesn’t blow to smithereens the first time I put it up!

Once we set sail, we will be largely out of email/radio contact for the firsts few weeks at least as the nearest shore based station is in the North Atlantic. (The Pretoria station seems off line). But as soon as we can we will post to the blog on our progress. Stay tuned!

Reflections

The poor in Cape Town, don't live in Cape Town, they live beside it....

Last week, we spent a morning in conversation with a South African whose career is devoted to the cause of bringing the country out of apartheid and creating a society of greater equality and political stability. He is now consulting with NGOs of modernizing economies all over the world seeking to address issues of poverty and creating responsive, effective, government.

Alas, he is not optimistic about South Africa’s future. In the simplest terms, he says South Africa, is prey to the same global economic forces that are a exacerbating the gulf between the rich and the poor. The firmly entrenched ANC government, having co-opted many of the anti- apartheid revolutionaries, is now seen as corrupt and ineffectual. Whether for lack of will or ability, the income inequality, perhaps the greatest in the world, is worsening. Official unemployment is 40% and increasing. The consensus is that the majority blacks and coloured people of the country are worse off now than under apartheid. Many mobile, educated (mostly) white South Africans have left, or are leaving the country. 

As we are doing.

And that’s the point about structural unemployment. As jobs for thinly educated people move around the globe seeking different countries to minimize costs, those left behind have few options. Few are wealthy enough to follow the jobs, if indeed governments at either end will permit them to do so. At home, without work, they languish into social dysfunction, with enormous cost in suffering and wasted humanity. The mobile – those with education and money like us - follow the wealth.

This is deeply unjust, and to my mind, unconscionable in a modern, self-aware society. To argue “a rising tide lifts all boats” is to conceal the truth. The advantaged and wealthy minority do way better with their well-heeled boats of a birth right education and starting wealth. They have fast passages and fair landings in stout boats. The majority, especially the poor, have leaky boats, through no circumstances of their making, and they are sinking in the storm of globalization. No way can the flimsy craft of hand, stand up to the juggernaut of global corporate iron. And where is government? As governments privilege some with super powers of incorporation and banking charters, they must be re- distributing the wealth that otherwise follows the tilting table. Greed and the will to power must not be allowed to runaway with this truth.

Farewell good South Africa, I hope someday to return to join the fight!