The last eleven posts were stories from my sailing trip from Florida to Maryland on the Intercoastal Waterway. All journeys seem to transition; they are like a pomegranate, wonderful kernels of the bitter and the sweet. I am back in Michigan on the hard. I still have my sea legs...the ground is not rocking as some people experience when they first get off the boat. I was sharing that observation with my cousin and I commented that maybe, because I was such a "boat baby", meaning that I had grown up on boats, I did not notice much difference on the water or on the hard (anyplace not on the water). He replied that we are all boat babies from our days in the womb.
I mentioned I had learned how to properly anchor a boat in my post about the thirty one plus things I learned on my trip. Someday I plan to live on a boat so this information will come in handy. Each day as we found a welcoming harbor to spend the night in I would go up on the bow with my Dad and he would ask me how many feet of anchor chain we needed to put out to be secure for the night based on the depth of the water. We also planned ahead and pulled forward of the boats nearby so that when we dropped back on our anchors there would still be enough room to swing on the anchor line as the winds and tides changed without hitting the boats next to us or behind us.
The day before I left the boat I signed the guest book kept on Majestic Dream. I wanted to say something special to my Dad and to thank him for the wonderful time with him. As I was writing some special sentiments to him I also thanked him for teaching me how to anchor the boat. As I was writing I realized that planning for anchoring a boat was a good analogy for planning for life, I feel that from now on not only will I be anchored safely when I am in charge on a boat, but I feel that after this trip, I will be anchored in life better than I was before the journey. Thanks Dad!
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
31 Things I Learned This Trip | How Stuff Works
I have been boating since I was about three and I have been sail boating since I was twelve. This trip has been like the old adage, “you learn something new everyday.” Or one of my mottos: you should learn something new everyday. I started making a list of what I have learned about how to do things while living aboard the sailing yacht, Majestic Dream. It also includes some of my observations about how stuff works on the water, in the water and on the boat. I came up with thirty-one things, I am sure there were more. That is why I took lots of photographs on this trip….
Shrimp snap, yes there are snapping shrimp. At first we thought they were just tiny shrimp that swam around eating from the bottom of the boat at night. The noise was very loud and it sounded like there were thousands of them. And, you can hide a submarine from enemy radar with the help of these snapping shrimp! I looked it up on the Internet. The shrimp are a special kind that come out of the mud at night to eat. This part is true. The snapping noise is because they have one large claw that catches a bubble of air in it and when they open the claw to grab their food the bubble pops, and there you have it snapping shrimp.
There are things on a boat that I never knew you had to clean like lifelines. For the land lubbers, life lines are wire cables coated with heavy white plastic, sort of like thick clothesline. Tannic water, sunscreen, sweat and other dirt discolor them. A scotchbrite pad and some simple green combined with a lot of scrubbing makes them bright and white again.
It’s more fun to clean the bathroom (head) on a boat because you never know what you might see outside the portal (window). Today I saw a Navy Destroyer on the horizon. How often does that happen at home? My Father, the Captain of the sailing vessel we are on, informed me that only “you and John Stuart would care about something like that.“ I am not sure I know who John Stuart is but I have been told he is on night time TV. I plan to look him up on the Internet next. But back to cleaning, when there are no entertaining sea gulls, pelicans, ducks or destroyer ships to look at, the water itself is ever changing. Some days it smooth as glass, others four to five foot waves rolling by and on others days the wash of the water running past the sides of the boat can be quite relaxing. I also learned that when the boat is heeling, tipping way up on one side, it is easier to work on the low side. As far as the actually scrubbing goes it’s easy to rinse since the head is sometimes the shower on a boat, so the showerhead sprayer can reach everywhere and there is always a drain!
Adults over seventy seem to find great enjoyment in asking “Are we there yet?” This from the same man who, when I was child, would have been upset with me for asking, again. I thought it was funny too but for different reasons. The average day of sailing covers about seventy miles. This leads to periodic choruses of, “Are we there yet?”.
You need five feet of anchor chain for every one foot of depth to the bottom. I also learned how to set the anchor by feeding out the first fifty feet and then letting the weight of the boat tug on it before feeding out the rest.
A gypsy is the machinery that winds and unwinds the anchor chain.
Snubbers are the two lines, one to port (left side of boat) and one to starboard (right side of boat) that tie from the front chocks (sort of a handle with two points that you wrap a line around in figure eight fashion) and connect to the anchor chain with a special metal type of hook that slips over a chain link and then locks into it. The tension of the anchor will then pull on those two lines evenly instead of on the bow of the boat, with less wear and tear on the gypsy and the bow sprit.
Canned chicken can replace sausage or meatballs, in the spaghetti, when you run out of fresh meat.
Not all markers and buoys have lights on the them.
Even a fake pirate ship can be a little intimidating on a dark moonless night.
The dolphins you see in the coves, rivers and sounds of the Intercoastal Waterway do not play on top of the water as much as the ones you see at Sea World.
A telephoto lens on a camera might look like something else to a Navy gun boat patrolling their ships. It’s not advisable to point it at them.
All dial up internet is not the same. You can use certain cell phones as a modem and connect to the Internet at approximately 115,000 bps. That is twice as fast as regular dial up at home. What’s up with that? I will be researching that as well
You can catch catfish with crabs.
Seagulls will catch fish that are too heavy for them to pick up.
There is a VERY LOUD boom when the bumpers slip out between the pilings and the boat when you are at a marina at night.
The security announcement by the U. S. Coast guard are announced by repeating “Securitay, Securitay” with a long “A” instead of an long “E” as if we were in France. This one I did look up and Securite is an International Marine word. According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securite , "When a marine radio transmission begins with "Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité" pronounced 'Say-cur-i-tay', after the French word), it means that what follows is important safety information. The most common use of this is by coast radio stations before the broadcast of navigational warnings and meteorological information.It is normal practice to broadcast the Sécurité call itself on a distress and listening frequency such as VHF Channel 16 or MF 2182 kHz, and then change frequency to a working channel for the body of the messages."
If you engine fails at a draw bridge you have to call the Bridge and advise them you will be coming through under sail. This is normally not allowed. If the nearest marina is still seventy miles a way you better have enough crew on board to help maneuver the boat. A sailboat can only sail at certain angles to the wind, called tacking, and the waterway is only ninety feet wide, not always all of it deep enough to use. You will be taking a lot. Hundreds of times. Though exhausting this is much cheaper than calling Sea Tow!
Not everyone traveling by boat knows how to handle their boat.
Some power boaters are like the car that tail gates you only to make a turn in front of you. On the waterway some of them pass you fast, creating lots of wake to rock your boat, and then they will be sitting at idle at the next draw bridge which may not be opening for another half of an hour. We all wait together.
Traveling up the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) every spring and down it to return to Florida every fall takes about two weeks by sail boat without much site seeing in the ports along the way. A vessel can trim two or three days off the trip by going out into the Ocean, weather, meaning wind and waves, permitting. There are lots of sites to see all along the ICW however. Small towns, large cities, fishing villages, Naval Bases, and for architecture you have multi-million dollar homes or palaces, ranch homes, New England style homes, New Mexico style homes, some on stilts some not, boat houses, docks of every style, with gazebos , decks with roofs and with out.
Most boaters, like most motorcyclists, wave as they pass each other. On a boat, if they do not wave they are usually mad at how you passed them.
The auto pilot is a wonderful invention. When you are on a long trip everyone can have lunch together and the boat can steer itself. When It’s really cold out you can sit to the side instead of behind the wheel and adjust your course by pushing buttons on the control panel, you never have to touch the wheel or sit out in the rain. If you are right in the middle of a good book you can let the boat steer and just look up every few minutes to check on what lays out before you, keep in mind this is only advisable when you are sailing out where there are few boats and you can see them coming from far off.
After about a week and a half on a boat an exercise plan becomes more important. You can start to feel pretty lazy when you cannot get ashore for a nightly walk and it’s too cold or muddy to swim. I guess you could walk around and around the boat or use your body for weight lifting off the seats.
When the Navy is doing “live” testing in one of their, not always restricted, target areas it is important to be monitoring you radio. They will be calling any vessel that is heading into their hazard pattern. Any encroachment within five hundred yards of their markers will may be considered a breach of security.
Pelicans dive bomb like a kamikaze pilot to catch tack heir dinner. They just crash right into the water. Sometimes they get a fish, sometimes they don’t, but they keep on trying, time after time. We could learn from their tenacity.
We saw some boats that were still “up on the hard” after the last hurricaine. Up on the hard can refer to the land, the shore, the boat yard, the parking lot, anything not in the water. Does that mean that, instead of being land lubbers, people who do not pursue boating are hardlanders?
On the other hand, people who make their living on the water are called “Watermen”.
Where does that leave those who make their living on the land?
Sailboats sporting a black sail have their sails made from some kind of carbon fiber. The heavy duty sails that I was familiar with, until now were made of Kevlar much like some firefighting and police equipment.
Sea Legs. I have not had to truly develop sea legs in many years. Brief sails on calm waters do not require much in the way of sea legs. Heading below decks takes on a different tack when you are traveling ten to fifteen hours a day and still need to make lunch, use the head and other normal daily activities. Walking on a boat in rough water is hard to explain. Sea legs refers to the ability to walk on a boat even in rough water when the boat is rocking, bouncing and sometimes heeled well over to one side. Walking when the boat is tipping back and forth and up and down takes planning. I had forgotten what it was like. It’s as if you need to know when to take whole steps and half step. I am not referring to the length of your stride so much as I am how high you pick up your legs and when you place them back down. Walking in that kind of sea is a lot like a dance. Sometimes you have to lean forward as if you were walking up hill to plan for the next foot placement properly, if you do not you do not have enough forward motion to complete the step. This leads to landing to hard or falling backwards. Ether of these can lead hitting your head. The walls and ceilings are not where they were when you were on flat ground. It also becomes very clear why all of the cupboard doors have exterior latches. This is not childproofing, as it might appear, this is so everything does not all out onto the floor in total chaos. Getting hit with a can of beans on bare toes is not pleasant; neither is getting hit in the head with the sharp corner of the cupboard. One door left unlatched will remind of this in a hurry.
A Ham operating station referred to as St. Jude keeps track of all the boats on the Eastern United States Waterways and out to the Bahamas. I think that their efforts, on a daily basis, are very selfless and an amazing contribution to the welfare of all the boating folks. There are specific times for each area to call and check in everyday, advising St. Jude of their boat name and location. Some days boats that could not talk to each other, due to distance, had messages relayed through St. Jude.
Shrimp snap, yes there are snapping shrimp. At first we thought they were just tiny shrimp that swam around eating from the bottom of the boat at night. The noise was very loud and it sounded like there were thousands of them. And, you can hide a submarine from enemy radar with the help of these snapping shrimp! I looked it up on the Internet. The shrimp are a special kind that come out of the mud at night to eat. This part is true. The snapping noise is because they have one large claw that catches a bubble of air in it and when they open the claw to grab their food the bubble pops, and there you have it snapping shrimp.
There are things on a boat that I never knew you had to clean like lifelines. For the land lubbers, life lines are wire cables coated with heavy white plastic, sort of like thick clothesline. Tannic water, sunscreen, sweat and other dirt discolor them. A scotchbrite pad and some simple green combined with a lot of scrubbing makes them bright and white again.
It’s more fun to clean the bathroom (head) on a boat because you never know what you might see outside the portal (window). Today I saw a Navy Destroyer on the horizon. How often does that happen at home? My Father, the Captain of the sailing vessel we are on, informed me that only “you and John Stuart would care about something like that.“ I am not sure I know who John Stuart is but I have been told he is on night time TV. I plan to look him up on the Internet next. But back to cleaning, when there are no entertaining sea gulls, pelicans, ducks or destroyer ships to look at, the water itself is ever changing. Some days it smooth as glass, others four to five foot waves rolling by and on others days the wash of the water running past the sides of the boat can be quite relaxing. I also learned that when the boat is heeling, tipping way up on one side, it is easier to work on the low side. As far as the actually scrubbing goes it’s easy to rinse since the head is sometimes the shower on a boat, so the showerhead sprayer can reach everywhere and there is always a drain!
Adults over seventy seem to find great enjoyment in asking “Are we there yet?” This from the same man who, when I was child, would have been upset with me for asking, again. I thought it was funny too but for different reasons. The average day of sailing covers about seventy miles. This leads to periodic choruses of, “Are we there yet?”.
You need five feet of anchor chain for every one foot of depth to the bottom. I also learned how to set the anchor by feeding out the first fifty feet and then letting the weight of the boat tug on it before feeding out the rest.
A gypsy is the machinery that winds and unwinds the anchor chain.
Snubbers are the two lines, one to port (left side of boat) and one to starboard (right side of boat) that tie from the front chocks (sort of a handle with two points that you wrap a line around in figure eight fashion) and connect to the anchor chain with a special metal type of hook that slips over a chain link and then locks into it. The tension of the anchor will then pull on those two lines evenly instead of on the bow of the boat, with less wear and tear on the gypsy and the bow sprit.
Canned chicken can replace sausage or meatballs, in the spaghetti, when you run out of fresh meat.
Not all markers and buoys have lights on the them.
Even a fake pirate ship can be a little intimidating on a dark moonless night.
The dolphins you see in the coves, rivers and sounds of the Intercoastal Waterway do not play on top of the water as much as the ones you see at Sea World.
A telephoto lens on a camera might look like something else to a Navy gun boat patrolling their ships. It’s not advisable to point it at them.
All dial up internet is not the same. You can use certain cell phones as a modem and connect to the Internet at approximately 115,000 bps. That is twice as fast as regular dial up at home. What’s up with that? I will be researching that as well
You can catch catfish with crabs.
Seagulls will catch fish that are too heavy for them to pick up.
There is a VERY LOUD boom when the bumpers slip out between the pilings and the boat when you are at a marina at night.
The security announcement by the U. S. Coast guard are announced by repeating “Securitay, Securitay” with a long “A” instead of an long “E” as if we were in France. This one I did look up and Securite is an International Marine word. According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securite , "When a marine radio transmission begins with "Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité" pronounced 'Say-cur-i-tay', after the French word), it means that what follows is important safety information. The most common use of this is by coast radio stations before the broadcast of navigational warnings and meteorological information.It is normal practice to broadcast the Sécurité call itself on a distress and listening frequency such as VHF Channel 16 or MF 2182 kHz, and then change frequency to a working channel for the body of the messages."
If you engine fails at a draw bridge you have to call the Bridge and advise them you will be coming through under sail. This is normally not allowed. If the nearest marina is still seventy miles a way you better have enough crew on board to help maneuver the boat. A sailboat can only sail at certain angles to the wind, called tacking, and the waterway is only ninety feet wide, not always all of it deep enough to use. You will be taking a lot. Hundreds of times. Though exhausting this is much cheaper than calling Sea Tow!
Not everyone traveling by boat knows how to handle their boat.
Some power boaters are like the car that tail gates you only to make a turn in front of you. On the waterway some of them pass you fast, creating lots of wake to rock your boat, and then they will be sitting at idle at the next draw bridge which may not be opening for another half of an hour. We all wait together.
Traveling up the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) every spring and down it to return to Florida every fall takes about two weeks by sail boat without much site seeing in the ports along the way. A vessel can trim two or three days off the trip by going out into the Ocean, weather, meaning wind and waves, permitting. There are lots of sites to see all along the ICW however. Small towns, large cities, fishing villages, Naval Bases, and for architecture you have multi-million dollar homes or palaces, ranch homes, New England style homes, New Mexico style homes, some on stilts some not, boat houses, docks of every style, with gazebos , decks with roofs and with out.
Most boaters, like most motorcyclists, wave as they pass each other. On a boat, if they do not wave they are usually mad at how you passed them.
The auto pilot is a wonderful invention. When you are on a long trip everyone can have lunch together and the boat can steer itself. When It’s really cold out you can sit to the side instead of behind the wheel and adjust your course by pushing buttons on the control panel, you never have to touch the wheel or sit out in the rain. If you are right in the middle of a good book you can let the boat steer and just look up every few minutes to check on what lays out before you, keep in mind this is only advisable when you are sailing out where there are few boats and you can see them coming from far off.
After about a week and a half on a boat an exercise plan becomes more important. You can start to feel pretty lazy when you cannot get ashore for a nightly walk and it’s too cold or muddy to swim. I guess you could walk around and around the boat or use your body for weight lifting off the seats.
When the Navy is doing “live” testing in one of their, not always restricted, target areas it is important to be monitoring you radio. They will be calling any vessel that is heading into their hazard pattern. Any encroachment within five hundred yards of their markers will may be considered a breach of security.
Pelicans dive bomb like a kamikaze pilot to catch tack heir dinner. They just crash right into the water. Sometimes they get a fish, sometimes they don’t, but they keep on trying, time after time. We could learn from their tenacity.
We saw some boats that were still “up on the hard” after the last hurricaine. Up on the hard can refer to the land, the shore, the boat yard, the parking lot, anything not in the water. Does that mean that, instead of being land lubbers, people who do not pursue boating are hardlanders?
On the other hand, people who make their living on the water are called “Watermen”.
Where does that leave those who make their living on the land?
Sailboats sporting a black sail have their sails made from some kind of carbon fiber. The heavy duty sails that I was familiar with, until now were made of Kevlar much like some firefighting and police equipment.
Sea Legs. I have not had to truly develop sea legs in many years. Brief sails on calm waters do not require much in the way of sea legs. Heading below decks takes on a different tack when you are traveling ten to fifteen hours a day and still need to make lunch, use the head and other normal daily activities. Walking on a boat in rough water is hard to explain. Sea legs refers to the ability to walk on a boat even in rough water when the boat is rocking, bouncing and sometimes heeled well over to one side. Walking when the boat is tipping back and forth and up and down takes planning. I had forgotten what it was like. It’s as if you need to know when to take whole steps and half step. I am not referring to the length of your stride so much as I am how high you pick up your legs and when you place them back down. Walking in that kind of sea is a lot like a dance. Sometimes you have to lean forward as if you were walking up hill to plan for the next foot placement properly, if you do not you do not have enough forward motion to complete the step. This leads to landing to hard or falling backwards. Ether of these can lead hitting your head. The walls and ceilings are not where they were when you were on flat ground. It also becomes very clear why all of the cupboard doors have exterior latches. This is not childproofing, as it might appear, this is so everything does not all out onto the floor in total chaos. Getting hit with a can of beans on bare toes is not pleasant; neither is getting hit in the head with the sharp corner of the cupboard. One door left unlatched will remind of this in a hurry.
A Ham operating station referred to as St. Jude keeps track of all the boats on the Eastern United States Waterways and out to the Bahamas. I think that their efforts, on a daily basis, are very selfless and an amazing contribution to the welfare of all the boating folks. There are specific times for each area to call and check in everyday, advising St. Jude of their boat name and location. Some days boats that could not talk to each other, due to distance, had messages relayed through St. Jude.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Swimming Elephants | Dining Dolphins
Last night we anchored in a little cove, among some grassy islands, on the Pungo River. It had rained most of the day. We were cold from being out in the wind and drizzle all day , protected only by a dodger, which is like a canvas awning, with some shape to it, that covers part of the sitting area in the cockpit of the boat. It does a fine job of keeping the water directly off of you along with shading you from the hot sun on better days.
It was my night to check in by cell phone with my kids and husband back at home. On this particular night, inside the boat, we had no phone signal at all. About 9:00PM, when free minutes on my cell phone start, I put my marine fowl weather jacket back on and went up on deck to get a better signal. It had actually stopped raining but was still cold, the water was calm and the only noise I detected was from another sailboard nearby running his engine to recharge its batteries or run power for an appliance he needed to use.
As I became accustomed to the drone of his engine I heard another noise. It sounded like the noise an elephant makes when it blows through it’s trunk to clear it after a drink of water. Not a trumpet but more like the air rushing through it but with some sound form the moisture remaining in it’s breath as well. Okay, so yes, I am on the water in North Carolina not Africa. There are not elephants here… and you are probably asking yourselves why would my mind even think of that?
Some of you may know that in another post I mentioned that I lived on a farm where there were elephants, for eleven years. Until the moment I stood on the bow last night, trying to identify the noise I heard, I do not think, that even I, realized how much my time with the elephants has effected how I view the world.
I laughed at myself when I figured out that the boat was surrounded by at least three dolphins dining on fish. As my eyes adjusted to the near total darkness I struggled to see them. I could hear them on both sides of the boat, as close as twenty feet at times. Once or twice I could almost see the misty air they were expelling from the blow holes on top of their bodies as they breathed before going down under the water to feed again. It helped that I had seen one, do just this, right next to our boat, in the daylight a few days before.. Most of the noise that I heard was the water moving out of their way as they surfaced and then rushing back around them as they dove down again.
I decided I would talk to them, I felt silly but no one could hear me anyway. Wild dolphins, at least these, do not come when you whistle. I stopped trying to see them and spent a few moments just listening to them. I said aloud, God this is wonderful, thank you! A few moments later as I lay quietly in my berth, trying to get warmed up under the blankets, I thought I heard a dolphins voice. I drifted off to sleep poignantly remembering the days when I use to get to swim with the elephant.
I am so thankful for all these gifts.
If you have stories about the gifts you have enjoyed please feel free to post them in the comments area of my blog. Share your journey. We are all wave walkers….
It was my night to check in by cell phone with my kids and husband back at home. On this particular night, inside the boat, we had no phone signal at all. About 9:00PM, when free minutes on my cell phone start, I put my marine fowl weather jacket back on and went up on deck to get a better signal. It had actually stopped raining but was still cold, the water was calm and the only noise I detected was from another sailboard nearby running his engine to recharge its batteries or run power for an appliance he needed to use.
As I became accustomed to the drone of his engine I heard another noise. It sounded like the noise an elephant makes when it blows through it’s trunk to clear it after a drink of water. Not a trumpet but more like the air rushing through it but with some sound form the moisture remaining in it’s breath as well. Okay, so yes, I am on the water in North Carolina not Africa. There are not elephants here… and you are probably asking yourselves why would my mind even think of that?
Some of you may know that in another post I mentioned that I lived on a farm where there were elephants, for eleven years. Until the moment I stood on the bow last night, trying to identify the noise I heard, I do not think, that even I, realized how much my time with the elephants has effected how I view the world.I laughed at myself when I figured out that the boat was surrounded by at least three dolphins dining on fish. As my eyes adjusted to the near total darkness I struggled to see them. I could hear them on both sides of the boat, as close as twenty feet at times. Once or twice I could almost see the misty air they were expelling from the blow holes on top of their bodies as they breathed before going down under the water to feed again. It helped that I had seen one, do just this, right next to our boat, in the daylight a few days before.. Most of the noise that I heard was the water moving out of their way as they surfaced and then rushing back around them as they dove down again.
I decided I would talk to them, I felt silly but no one could hear me anyway. Wild dolphins, at least these, do not come when you whistle. I stopped trying to see them and spent a few moments just listening to them. I said aloud, God this is wonderful, thank you! A few moments later as I lay quietly in my berth, trying to get warmed up under the blankets, I thought I heard a dolphins voice. I drifted off to sleep poignantly remembering the days when I use to get to swim with the elephant.
I am so thankful for all these gifts.
If you have stories about the gifts you have enjoyed please feel free to post them in the comments area of my blog. Share your journey. We are all wave walkers….
Geese Under Our Bow | Lost in Our Wake
We were traveling along the Pungo River and had just entered the Fairfield Canal. The sunrise this morning gave the canal an exotic look. The white light created by the sunrise, at the Eastern most horizon, was cutoff by cloud cover. It appeared as if we were traveling towards a tunnel of light. The water was quiet and peaceful.
We are far enough into North Carolina now for the Canadian Geese to be seen. For the last several hundred miles there have not been birds that travel slowly across our path. Most are quick, active birds like the Comorants I talked about in an earlier post. Angilas, Terns, sea gulls pelicans or osprey with an occasional hawk, or eagle are also sited. It is my understanding that at other times of the year one might see more eagles and hawks.
A pair of geese were making their way , slowly paddling, across the waterway. At this point I was the only one aware this was a family of geese. I had not seen the babies until I went up on the bow. As we approached the spot where the geese were swimming it became apparent to me that we were on a collision course. My view from the bow showed this quite clearly as the boat pushed through the water creating tea colored waves from all of the tannic acid the water contained. I motioned to the man at the helm with hand signals but it was too late.
My moment of enjoyment , watching the happy geese family, was cut short by the powerful bow of the boat as it chopped through the water disturbing the geese. The parents flew up a foot or two out over the water back towards the shore to our right. The babies were unceremoniously sucked into the undertow created by the 50,000 pound sailboat as it reached them. I watched in alarm as the goslings were tipped over, swirled about and became small brown whirlpools in the water!
I felt terrible. My immediate thought was that I should have yelled to the helmsman to turn to the starboard (right ) side. Now I was responsible for the death of these little creatures by poor communication and planning. The parents, who were able to catch the surf of the wave created by the bow, swam too safety. There was no sign of the babies. I imagined them churned up by the prop of the engine.
As the parents headed toward shore, adjusting their feathers, followed by the now quiet, rolling ripples of water created by the parting slice of the boat spreading the width of the channel I figured the babies were forever lost in our wake. Just then, I saw first one little head pop up as the baby goose bobbed up out of the water. This one was followed by two more, they appeared like corks just behind their parents. They turned in unison and resumed there once again quiet journey across the waterway behind us as if nothing had happened. My human thoughts were that they must have been traumatized quickly followed by the thought that it was a lesson that would help them to not panic next time it happened., followed by my realization that this probably was not the first time they had had such an experience.
I have spent a lot of this trip thinking about listening to that inner voice, the one that tells us don’t do that, take care of that, avoid that, stop NOW! It’s the same voice we answer in our heads, and sometimes out loud even, telling ourselves we worry too much, that it will be okay, that we are overreacting, a million responses other than listening to what the inner voice says and acting upon it. I once ran over my pregnant cat because ignored the little voice that told me I had not moved her far way enough from the car. That still haunts me though I know I have been forgiven. I currently endure a severe case of whiplash that acts up when ever I use my neck to work over my head or when I slump over my computer and compress my spine. The day of the whiplash incident I was riding a young horse, who was easily startled. I had just finished ignoring the inner voice that had told me not to button only one button on the Wrangler jeans jacket I was wearing. Lots of falls from horses happen when the horn of the saddle gets hooked up inside short, improperly closed, jackets; the rider cannot sit up to regain their balance. Need I say more?
I will add that it was a very colorful fall. I can vividly remember the dirt being pushed along the grown in front of my eyeglasses in, what seemed like, slow motion. I can also remember the numb, blue fingers that followed and the amusing comments of a man who later told me he was just showing his wife all the holes in the dirt that my body had made. He said it was unbelievable since there was all that dirt moved and no blood! This was long after I had gotten back on my horse like a good cowgirl.
These little messages are often based on common sense, previous happenings, and warnings from our mothers. Many times they are that mysterious yet natural thing we call intuition. We all have but have often have rifted so far from tapping into it. It tries to surface; it struggles, like the geese had to struggle to reach the surface and get our attention. Depending on how loud or clear the voice is it may be our Angels, spiritual guides or God. Depending on the day it may be one of these or all of these. Depending on well we listen for the voice or not, it may be ignored.
In the last few years (yes you guessed it, since the fall off the horse) I have tried very hard to listen to each inner message and act upon it. Sometimes I feel like I am overdoing it, being too cautious, especially with little things like putting a dish away too close to the edge. Well, those dishes have crashed and broken often enough for me to realize there is something too this. I figure if I test my theory with the little things like dishes falling, I will be really listening when the big items come along.
Today, I almost cost three baby geese their lives because I did not act quickly or at least clearly enough. If I take steps in my life to listen harder , speak more clearly and take action when I hear that inner voice the waves created by my wake will be the softer, gentler ones that only ripple on the shoreline and caress God’s creatures, me included, instead of causing them to get lost in my wake.
I would love to hear your stories, what has have you “heard” lately? Please leave a note in the comments area if you wish. I know there are many of you noticing these kinds of things along with me.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
It's Small World | Or God Winked Again
Today we arrived at Wrightsville, North Carolina. A charming town that old postcards call the Atlantic City of the South. The town revolves around boating and the ocean. It has a very busy harbor surrounded by houses and "cottages". There are many boats anchored and it takes some planning to find he right spot to drop anchor. If you do not plan ahead your boat could ride up on someone else’s boat when the tide changes or the wind. Majestic Dream is 50 feet long. You have to plan for her length, plus 15 feet of anchor chain for every foot of depth in the harbor. It was 20 feet where we squeezed in between a trawler and a sailboat, who was just dropping his own anchor and a large powerboat behind us. We would need to put our anchor down, off our bow, 200 feet in front of the powerboat behind us. I am certainly glad my father, or Captain Don as he sometimes known on the boat, was here to teach me all of that because I had no idea how to plan for the anchor. We stood on the bow ready to drop "Bruce". Bruce is the name brand of a special anchor made to hold large ships at sea, our Bruce is a scaled down for smaller boats.
As we readied to drop the The Bruce, our First Mate, John, was at the helm, following the Captain's directives by hand signal. A friendly looking man stood on the bow of the nearby trawler, watching our movements as our decisions could potentially effect him if we did not plan well. Captain Don glanced over at the trawler a few times to judge distance. Than name on the bow was Delphi. Captain Don suddenly remarked, " I know that guy, I know who that guy is! Why, that is Ben's brother!".
Ben is one of friends, who was currently traveling aboard his own sailboat in Key West, Florida. Ben had suggested Don keep his eye out for his brother who was traveling on a Trawler named Delphi. The last time Captain Don knew the Delphi was Stuart, Florida. He did not expect to see him on this stretch of the trip up the Intercoastal Waterway; much less anchored right next to us!
Don called over to the man on the Delphi and said "I know your brother, Ben! He told me to watch for your boat and say hello if I saw you!" He smiled back at us as with all of the engine noise he probably only heard half of what was said.
After we were safely at anchor with the sun setting, the other boats shining silhouettes against the brightly lit sky, Don called Ben on the phone and told him he had just anchored next to his brother! Just then we heard the Delphi calling us on the radio. Ben was even able to hear him over the phone.. Acquaintances and hellos were exchanged all around.
Two days before, Don had remarked how strange it was that almost every time he thought of his friend Ben, Ben would, soon after, call on the cell phone to check in. I suggested that when that happens to me I tell the person who called me how good they are. I will say "Boy, you are good!" Of course they will always ask me why and I respond that I was just thinking about them or wishing they would call. It's a small, small world, a person could say, as they day at Disney or....you could think of it as one of the ripples that builds the waves of life....God winked at us again today!
Unfortunately we did not get to visit with Ben's brother. Usually an evening at anchor might be spent taking the dinghy over to visit a neighboring boat. Alas, our alternator had gone out on the boat as we motored past Cape Fear. Yes, just like on a car, stuff breaks! The day before it was the pumping arm for the head. The entire toilet had needed to be removed and re-plumbed. Our night in Wrightsville Harbor was spent, flash light in hand, down on our knees in the engine compartment, putting in a new alternator. Years of living on a boat will teach your to be prepared. It can be a long trip to get a new alternator. This time we were actually in a town where they might have been a Marina that carried this type of alternator but just a last week Majestic Dream was making the trip from the Bahamas to West Palm Beach. Losing the ability to run your boat when traversing through the beautiful, yet desolate reef filled waters could be treacherous.
I was reminded as I watched the men on their knees, repairing the boat, that we have many reasons to be on our knees in thankful prayer.
As we readied to drop the The Bruce, our First Mate, John, was at the helm, following the Captain's directives by hand signal. A friendly looking man stood on the bow of the nearby trawler, watching our movements as our decisions could potentially effect him if we did not plan well. Captain Don glanced over at the trawler a few times to judge distance. Than name on the bow was Delphi. Captain Don suddenly remarked, " I know that guy, I know who that guy is! Why, that is Ben's brother!".
Ben is one of friends, who was currently traveling aboard his own sailboat in Key West, Florida. Ben had suggested Don keep his eye out for his brother who was traveling on a Trawler named Delphi. The last time Captain Don knew the Delphi was Stuart, Florida. He did not expect to see him on this stretch of the trip up the Intercoastal Waterway; much less anchored right next to us!
Don called over to the man on the Delphi and said "I know your brother, Ben! He told me to watch for your boat and say hello if I saw you!" He smiled back at us as with all of the engine noise he probably only heard half of what was said.
After we were safely at anchor with the sun setting, the other boats shining silhouettes against the brightly lit sky, Don called Ben on the phone and told him he had just anchored next to his brother! Just then we heard the Delphi calling us on the radio. Ben was even able to hear him over the phone.. Acquaintances and hellos were exchanged all around.Two days before, Don had remarked how strange it was that almost every time he thought of his friend Ben, Ben would, soon after, call on the cell phone to check in. I suggested that when that happens to me I tell the person who called me how good they are. I will say "Boy, you are good!" Of course they will always ask me why and I respond that I was just thinking about them or wishing they would call. It's a small, small world, a person could say, as they day at Disney or....you could think of it as one of the ripples that builds the waves of life....God winked at us again today!
Unfortunately we did not get to visit with Ben's brother. Usually an evening at anchor might be spent taking the dinghy over to visit a neighboring boat. Alas, our alternator had gone out on the boat as we motored past Cape Fear. Yes, just like on a car, stuff breaks! The day before it was the pumping arm for the head. The entire toilet had needed to be removed and re-plumbed. Our night in Wrightsville Harbor was spent, flash light in hand, down on our knees in the engine compartment, putting in a new alternator. Years of living on a boat will teach your to be prepared. It can be a long trip to get a new alternator. This time we were actually in a town where they might have been a Marina that carried this type of alternator but just a last week Majestic Dream was making the trip from the Bahamas to West Palm Beach. Losing the ability to run your boat when traversing through the beautiful, yet desolate reef filled waters could be treacherous.
I was reminded as I watched the men on their knees, repairing the boat, that we have many reasons to be on our knees in thankful prayer.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Sunrise | Sunset
Sunrise, Sunset. I have learned on this trip that the sunsets and sunrises look a lot a like. When by boat there are not always familiar markers to help your brain denote east from west. As you watch the rich, yellow, red or orange circle of light on the horizon you know whether it is a sunset or a sunrise. I suppose that depending on the type of day or night a person was having there could be room for confusion but let us hope that does not happen to anyone to often, if ever. The sun on the water tends to take on a wavering effect as you look at it. I imagine that a similar thing happens in the desert; there is so much to reflect on. In photographs, taken in unfamiliar places, here is no way to tell if you are looking at a sunrise or a sunset, unless you remember it specifically. My unsolicited advice is take notes so when you get your film back you know what you are looking at. Maybe it does not really matter, maybe that is why the song from the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, runs through my head, "Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset". Perhaps it only matters, which it is, if you plan to frame the print and label it for display.
I am reading "Fireside" by Mary Summer Rain (Hampton Roads Publishing). She has written more than twenty books, I believe. This one is the sharing of her philosophical views as if she were sharing them from a fireside chat with a very good friend. In one chapter she talks about wisdom, the tools and qualities of wisdom, in particular she names acceptance.
I quote from her book here for a moment, as a way of sharing my review of it with you, "Acceptance is wisdom. Wisdom is power. Therefore, acceptance is power. Some folks view acceptance as being a wimp. It's not. Neither is it lying down and playing dead or letting others walk all over you. It's not being any kind of weakling. It's the strength and power of a thorough understanding of behavioral diversity among humanity."
"With wisdom of acceptance one has the power to easily override negative emotions, reactions, and attitudes. It instills the power to gracefully accept the bad behavior of others without inciting negativity with self. This is not apathy. This is the power of wisdom." Mary Summer Rain continues.
"Acceptance is an absolute. It possesses the quality of nonjudgement. It's world view is not fragmented into nations or races, but rather sees everyone as a human being. This then means that racism, sexism, and prejudice do not exist with the heart and mind of the one who has attained this powerful tool of wisdom."
"Living through each say,, week, and year of one's life is to experience a thrilling, and unending presentation of gifts. Some gifts aren't needed and, truth be told, can actually be unwanted, yet they are 'accepted' with grace just the same. Life's misfortunes are presented along with life's blessings, both received with a great depth of understanding when one has the power of acceptance .....Acceptance is also letting go. It's releasing the compelling lure to understand another's behavior. Acceptance is the impetus that soothingly eases one forward into a gentle state where healing begins to take hold. Acceptance brings a growing measure of inner serenity."
Mary uses analogies a lot in her writing. Two stood out in my mind since they were nautically oriented and I am on a sailing vessel. She said about having acceptance: "For me, it was like a winch that pulled me up out of the mental mire I'd gotten myself into while trying to understand someone's behavior."
I find, when I am ready to move on with new concepts, that something I have observed in nature accents my acceptance. Today my conversation with myself about sunsets and sunrises was accented by this passage in "Fireside". I am willing to accept the sun's rising and setting time as a beautiful gift of serenity and grace in my life whether it is in the morning or the evening no longer matters. I know that I am ready to apply this to other aspects of my life in the future.
Mary Summer Rains goes on to add that "Patience is power. Patience is a quality of wisdom .....Patience holds hands with perseverance. Waiting. The waiting for something to happen can literally destroy one. Impatience causes stress ands tress wears down the immune system quicker than any other life factor. Impatience keeps one focused on a singular element, which, in turn, prevents awareness of the living moment. Impatience breeds negativity. It makes one crabby and short with others. It can steal life away. Impatience and the anxiety is creates can become a cancer that eats away everything in one's life, even the physical self."
I should clarify that the book goes on to explain that short term patience and anticipation are okay, they can add to the experience, she was talking about long term waiting.
More importantly she goes on to sum up wisdom and power in a single-word. "Attitude! Having the right attitude is wisdom. It's power." By power she goes on to say that "Being yourself is power. It's wisdom. Having the power to freely express your beingness brings the wisdom of understanding that all people are diverse in their individuality as the bird of the air, the fish of the sea and, in that understanding, do we celebrate life ....Gentleness, and inner serenity is power." I want more of that ...I have been at sea for seven days. My mind still works overtime, my dreams at night are like visits with angels and the people in my life, working out the ripples. This trip is grace for me. I want to develop more serenity and grace in my life. I want to be able to remain calm when the sea around me is in turmoil. I realize now that by being still I can help calm the turmoil.
One of the concepts that really hit home for me, in her book, was that she said sometimes in her life she gets too caught up in trying too explain too much. Or, if not explain too much, she forgets about the diversity among peoples at times and offers them more than they are ready for. Her analogy for that was that she was "trying to give them a yacht when all they were ready for was a rowboat."
Sometimes I get so excited about concepts that I plunge ahead in the conversation without stopping to listen to the person I am talking to. Well, actually I am usually talking so fast there is no place for them to jump in. I am working on slowing down. I think these type of conversations, among friends, who have been thinking about similar issues, takes on a momentum of it's own, like the wake of a boat bouncing off the shoreline. To some of us it is exciting to ride the pulpit of the boat, following it's motion in a dance, balancing, waves nipping at our feet, the risk of falling; others just get seasick. Yet others find this type of motion disrupting; conversations that bounce around like the bow of the boat, some may consider brainstorming, others may consider rude. Ah, diversity... plan for it. Be patient. Find out if what they really want is a row boat, a speed boat, a tug boat, a trawler, or a sailing yacht. Some may want a tanker others may be content with a paddle boat.
Tonight we are anchored on the Waccamaw River, south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The osprey are nesting, nearby, at the top of a cypress tree. One of the pair just flew by with a fish for his family. I can hear the babies calling for dinner. This entire river runs through a forest of cypress. Most of them are tall, thin trees, they have grown to close together over the years. There is one ancient cypress on the far side of our anchorage that looks as if it would take more than one person to wrap arms around it. Others grow fat at the base, like pony tail palm trees, as they reach down into the water. As I look at the trees growing out of the water, right up to and beyond its edge, I imagine it must feel a bit like this on the Amazon. The frogs serenade us as we settle down for sleep.
Sunrise, sunset. They appear in the same way, along the horizon, yet they come indifferent shapes, different colors, they go in different directions. We accept their beauty either way. People do the same. Sunrise, sunset.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Making Time | Dolphins and Elephants
Yesterday we arrived at 4:34 for a 4:30 bridge opening at Skidaway Narrows, Georgia. We had been in touch with the bridge operator prior to making the last bend in the Waterway. He knew we were trying to make the bridge opening at 4:30PM. Many of the bridges on the Waterway can only open at certain hours; some are on demand, this bridge, we discovered, had a very exacting operator. We were informed that his job was on the line if he opened the bridge at 4:34 instead of 4:30. This gives new mean to being on time. Most of our appointments in life can have a little flex time. While this is not always polite people do tolerate our tardiness for various reasons. I now realize that the rules of the Skidaway Bridge are like those of most employers. Late is late. Our penalty was that we had to drop anchor, in a narrow waterway, and wait. The up side was that we could drop anchor, otherwise at six miles per gallon for fuel it could have been an expensive wait. I wanted to get on the radio and suggest that if he had opened the bridge for the Ghost Ship in front of us, it would have still been open as few minutes later for us. I was only joking about Ghosts, my point being that if he had started opening it we would have soon been through it. Perhaps the people sitting in their cars for other Ghosts ships complained, loudly to his superiors.
Skidaway had a small beach with a waterside park. There was a boat ramp with one boater, a roofed over area for picnics, a few sunbathers, a fisherman, many seagulls, one sailboat at anchor in observation (us), a pair of Osprey and a dolphin. Our forty five minute wait turned into dolphin watching time.
A young girl of about 4 or 5 was swimming with her father on the little beach. She was making lots of noise, yelling cheerfully, at times screaming, others just chattering away endlessly. I first saw the Dolphin swim in front of a powerboat. He crested the water just in front of the bow. I worried he would be hit. I later saw him repeat this action and realized it must be a game. He seemed to only come up to breath and then vanish below again. I kept my cameras, both digital and 35 Millimeter SLR with zoom at hand. Actually one was around my neck and one had the strap around my wrist. Klutz that I can be, I knew the potential existed to trip and drop one of them overboard especially while dolphin “chasing”.
I tried many times to get pictures of the dolphin when he would surface. You could not really tell where this would be. There seemed to be a bit of a pattern where he would rise two or three times in a row. I sensed that he would eventually work his way over to where the girl was swimming. I have read enough about dolphins to know that he would be curious about all of the commotion she was making. There are stories of dolphins helping people in distress and playing with souls they know to be kind.
I was told that they can also sense when something is different about a person and are often attracted to that person. My daughter swam with dolphins at a facility in Florida a couple of years ago. One particular dolphin paid a lot of attention to her, talking and chattering away at her, coming in closer to her, even before she was in the water. He must have been able to tell she had only one kidney the handlers had said. She was delighted that he was so interested in visiting with her. I often wondered if it there may have been more to it than that even. My daughter, Amber, was raised with elephants and horses. She is a horse trainer ( www.rockinHhorses.com ) and has an affinity for animals that allows her to respect their wild nature and yet work with them in tandem; the result is an athletic portrait worth watching where the two-legged and four-legged creature become one in a dance. We spent eleven years interacting with and watching a young African elephant grow from 5’-4” and six years of age to over 8’ in height at the age of seventeen or so. We lived on a farm and presented educational programs at schools and other events, as well as doing commercials for companies like Amway and Trus Jois MacMillan and even a movie with Jim Carrey, When Nature Calls. I think that the dolphin may have sensed my daughters intimate relationship with animals. Growing up with an elephant for a sibling has quite an effect on your level of communication with animals.
I say sibling because elephants, not unlike dolphins, are very smart. I would describe a young elephant much as I would an eight year old child in their view of, and interaction with, the world around them. Were privileged to know such a creature intimately.
As I waited at Skidaway for the dolphin to surface again I thought about all of this. I was hoping the dolphin would sense something special and come to visit me. He did not, however he did swim within 25 feet of the young girl on the beach. Well I guess he was only 30 feet from me but it seemed special that he went over to check on her. I heard the child yell out “There’s an animal! I saw an animal!” as the dolphin dipped under the water and just as quickly the girl was back at her own swimming game. The only picture I got on my digital camera barely showed a fin. The camera’s picture taking process was too slow to capture the dolphin. I may have something better on my other camera, or I may have a frame filled with the sunlight dancing off the water. I told myself that the next time I saw dolphins I would just enjoy watching them since I could enjoy my time with them more if I was not looking through a lens. Video taping ones children is a lot like that. Life just does not look the same to the film maker as it does to the watcher.
I first noticed the Osprey flying with a fish clutched in his feet. I was not sure at first what type of bird he was. He circled a nest, with his mate sitting on it, that was built on top of a sign on the Waterway that said “Thanks”. A lot of the Waterway is a no-wake zone, they often thank you for slowing down. After feeding his family the bird flew over our boat, gliding peacefully on the air currents. I took some, what I hope to be, wonderful shots of him with my zoom lens. I could see his underbelly and the cream and tan patters formed by his feathers. I believe and Osprey is in the Hawk family but need to do some research on that.
The bridge operator, when called at roughly 5:25PM, informed us that the bridge would open exactly at 5:30. It did. It was a very pretty blue bridge set against the blue sky. The bridge operator did not appear to wave at us as we went by.
We anchored last night near Savannah in Herb’s Cove. This morning I was making a cup of tea and heard a bird close by. He sounded like he was right on deck. Sure enough, as I have heard them say in southern movies, he was on our boat. I climbed up the first four steps to the cockpit and saw him perched on our dinghy at about my eye level. A black bird, dark like a raven but smaller than a Michigan crow was looking at me. He was just a chattering away. Complaining? Tell me what for? Asking for a treat? Telling us to move our boat? Or perhaps, as the Native Americans might tell you, All That Is, The Great One, may have sent him to accent my thoughts and prayers or actions of the moment. What was the Osprey telling me earlier in the day? I wonder…
As for the dolphin, I still think God is helping him to teach me patience and observation, stillness. They seem to appear just as I am distracted by a cell phone or the book I am reading. Psalm 37:7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him ... Be still",
Today as we head north of Savannah our First Mate, John , noticed a dolphin swimming along side our boat. I went over the rail and could look right down on him or her. I could clearly see the air hole she breathes from and her whole body dipping in and out of the water in a game of chase with or boat. I broke my promise to myself to just enjoy watching her and went for the camera, she was so close. I did continue to watch her as the battery warmed up, though, enjoying my time so close to the dolphin. I never did get the photo. I can’t help noticing they disappear just when my camera is ready. Some people would say I need a different camera. Some Wave Walkers would say I still needed to learn the lesson. My time with the dolphins is not over yet, as we continue on our journey, I will have another opportunity. I think the lesson changes day to day, moment to moment. For now we just passed Hilton Head Island. I will go help look for more buoys, markers and shoals. A boat we just passed was aground.
Skidaway had a small beach with a waterside park. There was a boat ramp with one boater, a roofed over area for picnics, a few sunbathers, a fisherman, many seagulls, one sailboat at anchor in observation (us), a pair of Osprey and a dolphin. Our forty five minute wait turned into dolphin watching time. A young girl of about 4 or 5 was swimming with her father on the little beach. She was making lots of noise, yelling cheerfully, at times screaming, others just chattering away endlessly. I first saw the Dolphin swim in front of a powerboat. He crested the water just in front of the bow. I worried he would be hit. I later saw him repeat this action and realized it must be a game. He seemed to only come up to breath and then vanish below again. I kept my cameras, both digital and 35 Millimeter SLR with zoom at hand. Actually one was around my neck and one had the strap around my wrist. Klutz that I can be, I knew the potential existed to trip and drop one of them overboard especially while dolphin “chasing”.
I tried many times to get pictures of the dolphin when he would surface. You could not really tell where this would be. There seemed to be a bit of a pattern where he would rise two or three times in a row. I sensed that he would eventually work his way over to where the girl was swimming. I have read enough about dolphins to know that he would be curious about all of the commotion she was making. There are stories of dolphins helping people in distress and playing with souls they know to be kind.
I was told that they can also sense when something is different about a person and are often attracted to that person. My daughter swam with dolphins at a facility in Florida a couple of years ago. One particular dolphin paid a lot of attention to her, talking and chattering away at her, coming in closer to her, even before she was in the water. He must have been able to tell she had only one kidney the handlers had said. She was delighted that he was so interested in visiting with her. I often wondered if it there may have been more to it than that even. My daughter, Amber, was raised with elephants and horses. She is a horse trainer ( www.rockinHhorses.com ) and has an affinity for animals that allows her to respect their wild nature and yet work with them in tandem; the result is an athletic portrait worth watching where the two-legged and four-legged creature become one in a dance. We spent eleven years interacting with and watching a young African elephant grow from 5’-4” and six years of age to over 8’ in height at the age of seventeen or so. We lived on a farm and presented educational programs at schools and other events, as well as doing commercials for companies like Amway and Trus Jois MacMillan and even a movie with Jim Carrey, When Nature Calls. I think that the dolphin may have sensed my daughters intimate relationship with animals. Growing up with an elephant for a sibling has quite an effect on your level of communication with animals.
I say sibling because elephants, not unlike dolphins, are very smart. I would describe a young elephant much as I would an eight year old child in their view of, and interaction with, the world around them. Were privileged to know such a creature intimately.
As I waited at Skidaway for the dolphin to surface again I thought about all of this. I was hoping the dolphin would sense something special and come to visit me. He did not, however he did swim within 25 feet of the young girl on the beach. Well I guess he was only 30 feet from me but it seemed special that he went over to check on her. I heard the child yell out “There’s an animal! I saw an animal!” as the dolphin dipped under the water and just as quickly the girl was back at her own swimming game. The only picture I got on my digital camera barely showed a fin. The camera’s picture taking process was too slow to capture the dolphin. I may have something better on my other camera, or I may have a frame filled with the sunlight dancing off the water. I told myself that the next time I saw dolphins I would just enjoy watching them since I could enjoy my time with them more if I was not looking through a lens. Video taping ones children is a lot like that. Life just does not look the same to the film maker as it does to the watcher.
I first noticed the Osprey flying with a fish clutched in his feet. I was not sure at first what type of bird he was. He circled a nest, with his mate sitting on it, that was built on top of a sign on the Waterway that said “Thanks”. A lot of the Waterway is a no-wake zone, they often thank you for slowing down. After feeding his family the bird flew over our boat, gliding peacefully on the air currents. I took some, what I hope to be, wonderful shots of him with my zoom lens. I could see his underbelly and the cream and tan patters formed by his feathers. I believe and Osprey is in the Hawk family but need to do some research on that.
The bridge operator, when called at roughly 5:25PM, informed us that the bridge would open exactly at 5:30. It did. It was a very pretty blue bridge set against the blue sky. The bridge operator did not appear to wave at us as we went by.
We anchored last night near Savannah in Herb’s Cove. This morning I was making a cup of tea and heard a bird close by. He sounded like he was right on deck. Sure enough, as I have heard them say in southern movies, he was on our boat. I climbed up the first four steps to the cockpit and saw him perched on our dinghy at about my eye level. A black bird, dark like a raven but smaller than a Michigan crow was looking at me. He was just a chattering away. Complaining? Tell me what for? Asking for a treat? Telling us to move our boat? Or perhaps, as the Native Americans might tell you, All That Is, The Great One, may have sent him to accent my thoughts and prayers or actions of the moment. What was the Osprey telling me earlier in the day? I wonder…
As for the dolphin, I still think God is helping him to teach me patience and observation, stillness. They seem to appear just as I am distracted by a cell phone or the book I am reading. Psalm 37:7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him ... Be still",
Today as we head north of Savannah our First Mate, John , noticed a dolphin swimming along side our boat. I went over the rail and could look right down on him or her. I could clearly see the air hole she breathes from and her whole body dipping in and out of the water in a game of chase with or boat. I broke my promise to myself to just enjoy watching her and went for the camera, she was so close. I did continue to watch her as the battery warmed up, though, enjoying my time so close to the dolphin. I never did get the photo. I can’t help noticing they disappear just when my camera is ready. Some people would say I need a different camera. Some Wave Walkers would say I still needed to learn the lesson. My time with the dolphins is not over yet, as we continue on our journey, I will have another opportunity. I think the lesson changes day to day, moment to moment. For now we just passed Hilton Head Island. I will go help look for more buoys, markers and shoals. A boat we just passed was aground.
Cormorants, Whales and " A Gift From the Sea"
The cormorants glide effortlessly across the water and land smoothly in the water, no feet flapping and hitting the surface like a swan or goose. No drag, it’s as if they are part otter. I can see both animals in my mind as they touch down. This morning one landed right in front of the boat as we motored along the waterway. I saw him dive, not 6 feet in front of us. Not knowing much about this creature I was alarmed that we might run him over. I was overreacting, in part, because I had been reading about a young whale who was run over by a research vessel in a book called “The Year of The Whale” by Victor B. Scheffer.
The Cormorant dives quite deep and stays under water for quite a while as it dines. He surfaced to the east of us quite safely.
“The Year of The Whale” was written in 1969 and was the author was the winner of the Burroughs Medal for the year’s best book in the field of natural history. It is a delightful story about a year in the life of a baby sperm whale.
On this trip I have also been thinking a lot about “A Gift From The Sea” written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She writes about the patience we can learn from the sea and many other insights about life. You can read more about her, along with some wonderful quotes of inspiration from her book at: http://www.dailycelebrations.com/062203.htm I have always felt an affinity to her writing. Wave Walker is, in many ways, inspired by her writings. Thank you, Anne, for sharing your life and teaching me that our observations and musings can help others as they walk along the waves.
The Cormorant dives quite deep and stays under water for quite a while as it dines. He surfaced to the east of us quite safely.
“The Year of The Whale” was written in 1969 and was the author was the winner of the Burroughs Medal for the year’s best book in the field of natural history. It is a delightful story about a year in the life of a baby sperm whale.
On this trip I have also been thinking a lot about “A Gift From The Sea” written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She writes about the patience we can learn from the sea and many other insights about life. You can read more about her, along with some wonderful quotes of inspiration from her book at: http://www.dailycelebrations.com/062203.htm I have always felt an affinity to her writing. Wave Walker is, in many ways, inspired by her writings. Thank you, Anne, for sharing your life and teaching me that our observations and musings can help others as they walk along the waves.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Losing Your Hat - The Bigger Picture
The inside of the sailboat, Majestic Dream, is about forty feet long and feet wide, useable space that is. My Father, who I am traveling with, reminded me this morning, with a wry smile, of the familiar adage that everything should have a place and everything should be put in its place. This, after I spent ten minutes searching for my hat. Both my Father, Don, and his friend John were sitting in the cockpit, one at the wheel and one with the chart book in his lap for navigation. I looked at them. They both had on their hats. Don had on his favorite and customary Australian style straw Stetson. John had on a ball cap.
My search started in shadowy cabin lit by the natural sunrise light. Then I turned on the overhead lights in each part of the boat, the aft cabin, the head (the bathroom to those unfamiliar with boating), the quarter berth cabin, the main salon( like the living room), all the nooks and crannies. This boat was built in Taiwan. It has many, many beautiful teak cabinets, cubby holes and other various storage compartments. I finally got a flash light.
I was also searching for my banana style hair clip. I had packed only one of those thinking how many hair clips could I need? I had packed about ten t-shirts, thinking it would be ninety degrees everyday and I would need lots of clean clothes, but only one hair clip. On day six of my trip I have only worn two or three various t-shirts with many more layers added on some mornings than I had hoped. So here we are searching for the one hat and the one hair clip. Finally, I climbed up the steps from the cabin and announced I could not find my hat. That was when my Father teased me by facetiously agreeing that it was easy to lose things in a forty by eight foot space, one had to be on ones toes at all times or things got lost he basically side as he grinned at me. He also suggested my hat was on the buffet or side cabinet in the main salon. I searched again to no avail. I picked up my cup of tea and when topside to announce my defeat. The sun was just peaking over the sea of reeds and grasses along the Intercoastal Waterway. We were in Georgia heading North. The Herons, Cormorants and other birds were enjoying their morning, low tide, feast of fish. I took up my camera to see what I could catch.
As we sat and enjoyed the quiet morning interrupted only by the hum of our engine and the calls of the seagulls, John announced that he was not wearing “his” hat. He said, “Why, this is not my hat, this feels like a girls hat. This is not a guy hat.” Sure enough, he had on my hat! Now his hat is not navy blue, but it does have a round logo on the front just a bit bigger than my White Cloud Fire Rescue Logo. Under normal circumstances however, they would not be mistaken for the same hat. I know you heard me say “Normal”. So you are probably wondering what circumstances these are, if they are not normal? I cannot answer that other than to note that “normal circumstances” is one of those comments we often make. Normal is actually quite relative and varies between people, locations, even the day.
It should be apparent that normal for me, today, involved tunnel vision. I was not looking at the bigger picture. My focus was too narrow. I Laughed as John handed me my hat. I had not even looked directly at his hat during my search, I had focused on his face which is actually quite normal for me. I had, at one point, picked up his hat out of the wicker basket we put odds and ends in, like cell phones, hair clips, chap stick and cameras, next to the companionway and stairs to go below. This arrangement supposedly keeps them from getting lost. Assuredly it make sit easier to grab one basket and save the whole lot when a power boat comes along and their big wake sends us tipping and rocking.
Tunnel vision is something that happens when we are either looking to hard, our view becomes too narrow. It’s sort of a trick, since we think we are being so faithful and dedicated to our cause, we cannot imagine how we could miss the bigger picture. The Big Picture is easier to grasp if we start with the wide angle view. This morning I tried to photograph the Cormorant’s fishing and diving. These agile, mostly black birds, are very lithe and swim as easily in the water as they fly in the air. They remind me of sea otters as the dive for fish. If I set my camera with the zoom as close as it can go it is easy to lose track of my subject as he moves about in the water. If I am waiting for him to come into range to line up with the sun reflecting on the water I often missed the shot altogether. My Camera technically was seeing a big picture since I was zoomed in very tight. The bird, if found would almost fill the entire frame of the shot. It was easier to get the shot I wanted if I looked at the wider view and then zoomed in on my subject, narrowing my depth of field at that time. I do not claim to be a highly technical photographer so these are not photography tips. This was just my experience this morning. I want to learn how to be more focused and intuitive in my life with out narrowing my view too early.
This trip is a precious gift from God and my family I want to use it to grow, to be humble and to be a better person. I wear a lot of hats in my life, hats being a metaphor for the different “jobs” I do. I am a Mother, a Wife, a Daughter, a Sister, a Realtor, a Firefighter, an Artist and a truck driver. In 2004 I went back to college to advance my technical skills in Web Design and Marketing. I am a very right brained, visual person and Web Design will let me be creative in my job. I will not have to wait to find a spare moment in a busy life to paint. I can paint with design software instead of brushes. You can see my work at www.BrassWindWeb.com . Wearing all of these hats can make my life hectic, and at times confusing. I try to remind myself daily that I am, most importantly, a child of God. I pray that His strength will be my strength. Perhaps I should pray for his focus to be mine. I hope to lose things less and remember where I put them more! I ask Him for guidance and wisdom, I give each day up to Him so that as I walk along the wave of life I will notice the ripples that show me the way. The Big Picture is the goal.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Majestic Dream | Photo
I am still learning how to post on this Blog...especially photos..so some of these are being posted late..Here is the boat we are on, Majestic Dream. I forget how magical she looks from a distance...when I go ashore and look back I am reminded she is a boat from another era. I feel like Tinkerbell should be right around the corner; it's like a magic carpet ride...
Ripples and Gifts
Gifts in waiting, are they part of the ripples? It seems we often save gifts for special occasions. We tuck them away on a shelf somewhere waiting for a special time to use them. One such gift at my house was utilized recently. It may have been on that shelf for over a year. It was a truly useful and wonderful gift in the form of a car wash gizmo that needed no scrubbing or rinsing and dried spot free. It had it's own "magic wand" for the application in the form of a special spray nozzle which held the washing and rinsing solutions. We had been waiting for the right time to use it. In retrospect, anytime a motorcycle or vehicle needed washing would have been the right time.
When I mentioned to the gift giver that we had finally tried the car washing wand, I detected a note of disappointment that it had not been used sooner. He may have even felt that we did not think it was a very important gift because we had not used it yet. We are each given gifts, in the form of talents, by our Creator. Many if us spend our lives waiting for the right time to use our talents. Sometimes the right time has come along but we are too tired, too stressed or too busy to notice or have not the energy to use the gift. Occasionally we even make excuses saying "if this happens" or "if that was a certain way" we would use our gift.
What if our Creator is offended that we put off using our gifts? Is he hurt that we do not use our talents? Or do you suppose God is patient about our gifts, allowing time for their discovery, purpose and utilization? I believe that the hints we receive in our daily lives, in the form of coincidences and highlighted events, are placed in our path to remind us to use our gifts. Author Rushnell calls these God Winks. (When God Winks : How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Life by Squire Rushnell.)I call them divine coincidences or divine awakenings.. Sometimes the light around us seems a little brighter, a tree or scene seems to have more color. Often something we need to help nudge us along shows up in the form of a gift from a friend or an Angel; they can be one in same.
Instant Messenger has emoticons that shake our computer screens to get our attention or help us feel the experience. God gives us the divine nudge more often than we realize. When we walk on the beach we usually see acres of smooth sand. The waves will come up leaving small tokens of favor in the form of sea shells, pebbles and drift wood. When the tide goes out all of the effort of the waves can be seen in the patterns left in the sand. It may seem like we can leave our talents unused but then what form do they take? Are they like the smooth sand on the beach blown by the wind; unnoticed? If we use our gifts or don't use them the ripples we can create spread in patterns we can not always see, touching the lives of others, as the ocean of life moves on. We are always part of the wave that carries others along their path, the result can be like the many natural jewels we find on the beach or it can be like the wave that crushes our sand castle. You choose.
I saw a planned neighborhood yesterday that was filled with beautiful million dollar homes. Each one was an architects dream. We passed other areas where a single wide trailer sat next to a great red tile roofed estate. The Intercoastal Waterway has many different views. Today I saw a town that had the most unseal combination structures I have ever seen. Two gigantic paper plants formed the north and south perimeters. Great amounts of white steam clouds came from the stacks. The wind blew from the north so heavy that the smokestack looked to be in motion like steam engines moving along the tracks. The plant to the south lay nestled by the water. It looked like an industrial sized roller coaster with all of its motorized conveyor belts glinting in the sun. In front of these plants was a beautiful harbor filled with many moored sailboats lazily at anchor. The sailboats had names like Cosmic Rose. In St. Augustine I saw "There Be Dragons" and "Solitaire". The quaint town of Fernandina, with streets of lined with many colored buildings, was situated in the middle. Her docks filled with all variety of recreational boats. A 65 foot powerboat was docked next to a schooner from the 1800's. The power boats along this waterway have names like Blue Chip and Kisses. The harbor was also filled with many commercial shrimping boats heavy with salt and nets sporting names like Georgia Bulldog and Earl's Girls. As I took a few photos, our American Flag proudly displayed on the stern of our sailboat, I thought only in America. I had just started reading a novel today about life in the year of a sperm whale. It reminded me that maybe I should have been thinking only humans would build a town like this. I also could not help thinking that I am probably not the only one who found it contrastingly beautiful in a sort of Matrix or Mad Max (the movies) sort of way.
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