On Monday, the 19th of October, 1953, we left San Diego, at about 12:15. Before leaving, we went up to a commission house and purchased as many fresh vegetables and fruits as we thought that we could carry. These included a sack of potatoes, a sack of onions, case of lettuce, case of tomatoes, half a case of squash, half a case of cucumbers, lemons and cranberries and a case of cantalope. In commission houses, things look so good that you usually buy more than you can possibly use and yet when you are leaving the United States, you are leaving the most wonderful fresh commodities that can be obtained anywhere. They are not only good in their quality, but are so packaged and graded that they keep well and are a source of delight, when you get to a place where they are not obtainable.
In addition to that we filled up in diesel oil for the main engine, on gasoline for the generator, kerosene for the stove and had a couple of extra tanks and water put aboard, because any water that you put in your tanks should be boiled. This sounds like a simple process and yet if you have ever tried to boil a 15 gallon tank of water you will realize, first of all how difficult it is to get it to the boiling point and how difficult it is to handle once it is in boiling condition. As a matter of fact it takes about ½ a day to get a tank of 15 gallons of water from the shore to the boat to boil it and finally to put it in the tanks.
The extra 15 gallon drums that we brought for this purpose, were kindly donated by Mr. Carig, who is the pacific coast manager for the Republic Steel Corporation.
Another chore on the day of leaving is to obtain the necessary clearance papers for a foreign port. You have a broker for that purpose, who is generally located nearing the custom house. We obtained papers, including a sanitary report of the City of San Diego and a certificate that we had no rats aboard. Just how the United States Inspector could tell that none of our crew were rats, I do not know, but at least they gave us a clear bill of health. I suspect that we have a couple of rats aboard, but at least they are not for official cognizance.
We not only obtained clearance papers for Ensenada, Baja California, but we also obtained them for the canal zone and obtained papers that we can use when we come back into the United States. One would assume that for American Citizens, it would be easy and cheap to get back into the United States, but believe it or not I am still nursing a grudge for the immigration officials for sending us a bill for $19.40, to be certain that they were all American citizens that came from Honolulu to Oakland on our last trip. Why in the world, Mr. McCarran and his act had to send a naturalization and immigration officer to every small boat that comes in from Hawaii is more than I can tell you. I have never heard of such a thing, but the official came aboard and at the present time I am in receipt of the bill from the naturalization and immigration service that was required when we sailed from Honolulu.
In addition to the commission house stores, we finally went to a super market and went up and down the isles picking up things that we thought would be of use. These included about 25 loaves of bread, several pounds of butter, 10 dozen eggs, half a wheel of Tillamook cheese, 1 bologna, 1 salami and numerous other boxes. As a matter of fact, as we put all of this stuff aboard about 11:00 am, the whole cabin was full of boxes, crates and other materials that needed very badly to be put away.
___________________________
After more than a month with my laptop dead (presumed dead that is), and the log entries trapped on the hard drive, it took a little inspiration to get me to start the process of debugging the dead laptop, with an expected result of pulling the hard drive out and securing it in a USB enclosure.
This post is about that inspiration.
I went sailing yesterday with Nature Girl. She lives up by Joaquin Miller Park in the Oakland hills. I am so jealous, (not really), but it's a really cool place, created by a very quirky poet guy with great hair and a cool beard.
She is gaining some valuable experience at the helm, and I'm crewing for her. She'd probably describe it differently, but that is the way I see it.
Before we left the dock however, there were a pair of OCSC members doing a review. One of them I thought I knew, but it took a while for the tumblers to drop into place before I realized where I'd met her. OCSC had sponsored a trip to the Spaulding Boat Works - another really cool place. The Gaff Rigged Sloop Freda is being completely restored there. Echo, the Farallon Clipper I race on was designed by Spaulding but built elsewhere.
During the tour, we'd gotten a chance to go aboard a gaff rigged wooden sloop which was a sister ship to Freda. I belive it was Polaris.
I'd literally 'bumped' into this Boat Works Girl as were exploring the interior of the sloop.
It seemed like they'd finished their review.
Nature Girl and I went and we played in the waves and strong currents, the Angel Island wind shadow, and eventually made our way back in. As we neared the harbor, it looked like the review was still in progress, but now with only one student. As NG and I put the boat away, the other J24 came into the slip, the instructor helped with getting the main taken care of, then left the rest to the the boat works girl I'd met.
The other student was no where to be seen.
After our boat was put away, and everything stowed away in our cars, and NG had gone home, I went back to the dock to see if BWG needed any help. The sun had gone down and it was dark. The tide was as low as it ever gets (-1.9 ft!).
She was there and I reintroduced myself. When we discussed how the review had gone, she mentioned something that got me thinking.
She described herself as someone who really responds to clear direction, that ambiguity is not something she's comfortable with. We talked some more, and I learned she worked in the IT field. Cool, a Brainy Woman who likes old wooden boats.
Today as I rolled things around in my head, it occurred to me that sailing is analog, not digital.
The points of sail are very much a continuum. A boat moves through the water at an angle to both the wind and to the flow of water around the hull.
And the water can be flat, or moving up and down - and everything in between.
Often sailing properly is as much a feeling as anything else.
When you get out of sync with it, you have a bad day.
Sailors talk about a groove, especially going up wind. At that point of sail, it's easier to 'feel' the boat slow down when you get too high, speed up when you head 'down'. When off the wind, with the wind on the beam, if you are in the groove, with the sails set just right, in trim, heading up or falling off slows you. The boat doesn't heel as much.
It is a little harder to feel this, but go too far either way and it becomes a bit more obvious.
On a broad reach, things are very analog, and rather flat at that. Turning up or turning down, being a little out of trim, doesn't feel much different. In light air, it's hard to know when you are in the groove. Harder still to feel that you are in the danger zone, where an uncontrolled gibe is just waiting to separate your head from your shoulders.
To lose all confidence. For you, the student to lose confidence that you know what you are doing. For the instructor to lose confidence in the you being able to not kill him or her. For you to lose confidence in the instructor keeping things safe.
Very suddenly sailing seems digital.
But it's not, it's analog.
It doesn't help that to pass a practical test, you have to perform a MOB, a Man Over Board test. You have to snap into a beam reach when the 'Man' goes over, then do the big tack, and then --- Oh NO! ---- go to a broad reach where it is so hard to feel the groove. Then head up and place your less than responsive vessel next to the 'Man Over Board'. Right next to it, so you can get 'Him' out of the water.
Earlier in the day, my friend and I were working on this. Not on MOB drills, but just sailing through the waves, on a deep broad reach, sometimes dead down wind. With the spinnaker up, and getting the feel of that analog, flat spot. Getting the feel of the middle of the flat spot. Staying inspired, rather than not. Staying not terrified of a uncontrolled gibe
We were blessed with a light breeze, and some wave action that spiced it up a bit. There was lots of time to talk it through, for the helmsperson to get the feel of what the waves were doing to the boat, what very slight corrections were needed in light air to keep it all in the inspirational zone. To keep it in the 'groove'.
Reflecting on the analog nature of sailing, on the inspiration that comes from being in the groove, and the 'not inspired' feeling of being out of the groove and having a bad day led me to troubleshoot my 'dead' laptop, and get this blog back on track.
I wish to thank both Nature Girl, and the Brainy Boat Works Girl frustrated with being 'not inspired' by the her OCSC BC Practical Test, for triggering this post, and getting my Blog back on it's groove.
No comments:
Post a Comment