⛵ VOYAGE #13 — The privilege of adventure

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⛵ VOYAGE #13 — by Nick Jaffe — June, 7, 2021



V O Y A G E
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The privilege of adventure #13

         Welcome to edition #13 of VOYAGE: It's winter now and it's summer somewhere else. We are well underway aboard Euphoria, currently holed up in Georges Bay awaiting a favourable weather window for crossing Bass Strait — such windows are few and far between in winter. Sailing is the art of patiently living alongside the earths most essential rhythms: the tides, the wind and the waves.

Thank you to those who bought me a coffee from my last edition, I really appreciate it!

The last 3 months has been dominated by planning, packing, work and project management. For the un-initiated, the romance of sailing off into the sunset involves more to-do lists, difficult repairs and endless trips to chandleries and industrial hose suppliers than it does cucumber sandwiches and gin. At the zenith of our preparations; at the very moment before departure; I woke up with a terrible cold which still plagues me several weeks later. My body told me all my hard work in preparations, would be duly rewarded with a week in bed. The first delay.

Sailing is in effect a long series of delays, with bursts of progress. In fact, it's best to simply throw time, schedules and calendars out the nearest porthole — they are of no use. There is nothing more frustrating than someone asking when you will be somewhere on a sailing boat — it's like asking a writer when their book will be finished: just don't do it.

Choosing to live against the grain is for the most part like spending your days walking into a sandstorm. All the little grains and externalities of modern life ceaselessly berate you; blind you; wear you. It is a great privilege to be able to live a life of ones own choosing — to be granted the opportunity to walk fiercely into the maelstrom.

At the helm of Euphoria in a blustery south westerly mixed with a miserable cross-sea, I caught myself feeling a sense of misery. I caught the emotion as it crossed my synapses and laughed: for what was the alternative? To be free and place oneself in a moment of sometimes miserable adventure is to be celebrated, for it is impossible to feel great joy without the polar opposite — modern society is constructed in such a way so as to smooth those extremes out — mediocrity is the order of the day — not out of intended maliciousness, but simply out of a kind of self-organised mass-comfort seeking. The further we abstract ourselves away from nature, the safer and more comfortable we feel (for a moment, anyway) — this of course comes at a great cost to the soul and the spirit.

As we retreated from that miserable sea into the lee of the land, I could have kissed the cliffs for protecting us from those elemental rhythms — we were happily retreating from the same rhythms we needed to progress — it's a battle of balance.

Life on a small ship not only epitomises a life in motion with the elements, but a life centred squarely on self-responsibility and a required love of planning and problem solving. There are many things to weigh up, in terms of living on the fringe (finances, relationships, etc), as well as the management and maintenance of a vessels many complex systems which are under constant attack from the sea. Rust never sleeps.

Euphoria is the most complex boat I've ever owned. She's complex because she comes with certain luxuries. The other day I ran the engine and heated up some water to have a shower onboard. Who would have thought! But with luxury comes a large footprint of systems to maintain: Hot water exchangers, pumps, Diesel engines, fuel, etcetera. You can have luxury or simplicity, but not both. A zen master would likely exclaim that you should enjoy a bucket of cold water with the same enthusiasm as a hot shower. Intellectually I agree; practically I'll maintain the pumps.

The privilege to create art is the same kind of privilege involved in adventure, I suppose. To be able to find the time to create amongst the chaos of life, is the same genesis of luck when it comes to finding the time to hurl oneself into an angry sea, for no real practical purpose.

The bar entrance into St. Helens is renowned for causing trouble. The shallows shift and move with those pesky elemental rhythms, meaning that navigation is more the art of spotting dark sections of water in the channel than following any navigational aids. The perilous entrance protects a calm bay full of oyster beds, mud flats and shallows. We can take our little dinghy (named Gary) to the public jetty and walk to the shops. Many of the other yachts bound for warmer climes have escaped these latitudes already, but this is the nature of such a life.

You go when you can, make progress as nature allows and live in a place beyond time.

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Recent outputs

Recent inputs

  • "... analysis found hundreds of foreign fishing vessels, primarily Chinese, pillaging the waters off Argentina and disappearing from public tracking systems. These distant-water fleets mainly fish for shortfin squid, which are vital to Argentina’s economy and the diet of numerous commercial and recreational species, such as tuna and swordfish. " -Oceana
  • Fly-over of the above illegal fishing fleet in a private 787-8 jet, piloted by Enrique Piñeyro)

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Nick J