Whatever it was that you all said to Neptune yesterday, it must have worked. Conditions today were beautiful once the clouds cleared. Wave height, wind speed, and temperature were all perfect for a comfortable and profitable day’s rowing. It is very rare to get good mileage AND pleasant conditions. In fact, in around 500 days at sea I can probably count such days on the fingers of two hands. So it was VERY much appreciated.
The only problem with today was that I’ve had “Bad” by Michael Jackson going around in my head all day. I blame whoever it was (sorry for not remembering) who pointed out that my boat is acting as a FAD – a Fish Aggregating Device. And it occurred to me that, as well as the multitude of chaps downstairs, Sedna must also be a BAD – a Bird Aggregating Device, because the storm petrels regularly swoop around us as if magnetically drawn to this strange little purple object on a vast empty ocean.
So then I started humming, “I’m FAD, I’m BAD, you know it, come on” etc etc and now the tune won’t get out of my head. I might well be stuck with it all the way to the other side of the ocean. But it’s not all bad (so to speak) – it reminded me of Rico’s brilliant “ITCZ” (sung to the tune of “YMCA”) to commemorate my trials and tribulations in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone – and that made me smile.
I often wonder what the local wildlife makes of me. How does Sedna look to a fish? To a bird? If they wander off, how do they find me again? What is the biological imperative that makes them congregate around me? Do the fish recognize the rhythm of my oars, or are their memories so short that it gives them a surprise every time the oars enter the water?
Other Stuff:
On top of everything else good that happened today, I discovered a bag of “Cosmic Love Cluster” nuts from Samudra. I thought I’d eaten them all, but this bag must have been hiding. I am due to pass a Significant Milestone tomorrow (wish I could tell you which one!) so now I have my celebratory food treat. Hurrah!
Rachel and Ellie - thanks for the ID on the white-tailed tropic bird. Sounds exactly right. He did a low-level fly-over to check me out – luckily no bombs dropped! Doug, your ID of the same was just plain daft! LOL!
Stan – thank you for your wise and intelligent comments on David H’s guest blog. Keep spreading the word, and hopefully one day we will reach that tipping point and see a major outbreak of common sense.
Quote for the day – apropos of nut discovery: “Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” (Alice Walker)
Sponsored Miles: Thanks to Steve Maskell and Diane Freeman, both of whom have sponsored a number of miles.
Today I was listening to “The Happiness Hypothesis“, by Jonathan Haidt. I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it is one of the best books I have found so far on the subject of happiness, combining scientific evidence with spiritual teachings and a good dollop of humour to come up with suggestions for finding happiness that really ring true.
One of the most interesting ideas that he puts forward is that there may be more happiness to be found in moving towards one’s goals than in actually achieving them. The completion of a life’s ambition is, you would think, fantastic. But then what?
There is often a feeling of anticlimax, or “now what?”. And/or a sense that your life was supposed to be transformed by the accomplishment of the goal, but in fact life afterwards is disappointingly similar to life before, but lacking even the eager anticipation of achievement.
I would say that in my experience this is true. My happiest days on the ocean are when I am making good progress towards my goal, counting down the miles to the next significant landmark (seamark?).
Today, though, wasn’t quite like that. I would say that it definitely helps when the progress is perceptible – unlike today. Occasional rain showers killed the wind, leaving me becalmed. I slogged along under sullen grey skies. The miles passed painfully slowly. I kept myself entertained with daydreams about my arrival, my first meal, my first shower, my first night in a proper bed. And reminded myself that I was, in fact, lucky to be going so slowly, giving me longer to savour the prospect of landfall.
I’m just not quite sure that I managed to convince myself.
A thought: If it makes a person happier to move towards a goal than to achieve it, I wonder if it makes sense to set such a ridiculously enormous goal that you’re unlikely ever to achieve it in your lifetime, but include lots of milestones along the way as excuses for interim celebrations?
Other Stuff:
Episode 46 of our Roz Roams podcast is live. Satellite phone coverage in the Indian Ocean is notoriously poor, so dear old Vic has the worst job in the world trying to edit together a podcast from phone calls that are as on-again-off-again as a celebrity romance. Thanks, Vic, for doing such a great job!
Would everybody please put in a good word with Neptune (or your divinity of choice) to ask for some nice helpful winds for me? I’ve done all the boat maintenance and cleaning that needs to be done, so I’m about done with the calm stuff now.
Quote for the day: “The awareness of the ambiguity of one’s highest achievements (as well as one’s deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity.” (Paul Tillich)
Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to John Griffin, Bruce Gervais, Michael Rupp, Bonnie Sterngold, Brian Smith, Tamara Fogg, Julian Gall, Hans Verwey, Karen Morss, Jennifer Bester, Kamas Industries, Steve Maskell and Doug Grandt.
A couple of days ago the wind turned against me, so I was stuck on the sea anchor for about 36 hours. I took this as an opportunity for some major clearing – or at least cleaning – of the decks. I wrote myself a To Do list in the back of my logbook, and then set to work.
You’d be surprised just how much I found to do on such a small boat – rearranging the contents of lockers, removing and stowing defunct electronics, pumping water out of places it shouldn’t be, mopping the bilges, scraping off barnacles, and cleaning rust marks off the decks. Now that I’ve consumed the contents of several lockers, I moved other items into them in order to keep the boat’s centre of gravity as low as possible to prevent capsize.
My To Do list kept me busy for the entire day, and kept my mind off the fact that I was heading in the wrong direction. In fact, by evening, I felt I’d really achieved something – if not miles, then at least a shipshape ship.
It has been about six years since I had somewhere I could call home, so I don’t often get to enjoy the simple pleasures of cleaning. And no, that was not an invitation for all of you to invite me round to clean your houses!
I’m just saying that when all else is beyond your control, you can do a lot worse than set yourself to cleaning out a closet or rearranging the kitchen cupboards. I don’t know enough about feng shui to say whether I believe in it or not, but I do know that to get old and broken things out of my way, and to restore a general state of order and cleanliness gives me a glow of wellbeing and contentment. Even when my living space is only 23 feet by 6.
Now, I’m just off to rearrange my “relationship corner”…!
Other Stuff:
By today the wind had gradually backed to a more favourable direction, and I was off and rowing again. I was listening to “Shutter Island” – quite possibly my second worst choice after “The Wave”. Not that it isn’t a good book – it is – but listening to a book about delusions and alternative versions of reality can really mess with your head when you’re alone in the middle of an ocean!
I spoke with Mum on the phone today, and she told me about the severe weather on the east coast of the US. My thoughts are with my friends in North Carolina, DC, New York, and the other affected areas. I hope that you and your homes remain safe, and that Hurricane Irene soon dissipates. These extreme weather events are expected to become more frequent as the effects of climate change kick in – so we had all better get used to the new “normal”.
Bruce – please don’t be sad. My boat is only a “thing”. I was me without a boat for 37 years of my life before Sedna came along, and I will continue to be me after I have found a suitable long-term home for her to retire to. It’s time for me to move on to the next chapter of my life – and I’m excited about what it might entail!
Karen – let me just check my store cupboard…. ah, I thought so. Clean out of peanut butter and hydrogen peroxide. Will have to nip out to the store… oh. BTW, I continue to find new uses for Meyer lemon marmalade and Santa Rosa plum jam in my weird and wonderful on-board concoctions. I’m not sure many people would enjoy protein powder + chocolate sauce + plum jam + sunflower seeds + TimTams, but I do!
Texino – a “squish” of squid? I like it!
Frank in Belgium – I am completely in agreement with you. I don’t like to think that our brains are entirely preprogrammed. As tentative disproof of that, how come that up to my mid-thirties I was utterly conventional, and then completely turned my life upside down and started rowing across oceans? Or maybe I am just proving Dr Swaab’s comment that we are not ready to hear his “truth”!
Quote for the day: “That’s the trouble with housework – you do it, and then six months later you have to do it all over again.” (Joan Rivers, quoted from memory, so I may not have it quite right)
Photo: This was the last place I called home – a rented 17th century cottage in Emsworth, Hampshire. Usually it was quite tidy, but here Mum is busy packaging my food rations for the Atlantic in 2005.
Sponsored Miles: Patricia Collins, Molly McCallum, Mike Daley, Todd Lowe, Connie Bergmark, Jan Kearce and Wayne Batzer – grateful for your sponsoring.
I’ve been associated with the Blue Frontier Campaign, a nonprofit organization based in Washington DC, since before the start of my Pacific row. I was first introduced to David Helvarg, the Executive Director, by paddler and environmentalist Margo Pellegrino back in 2007. David’s guest blog touches on some issues that have cropped up in my own blogs recently, including the question of finding gainful service for the bored and disenfranchised to prevent the kind of unrest recently witnessed in the UK. Enjoy!
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U.S. Comedian Bill Maher recently pointed out that the most conservative sector of society that denies the science of evolution and climate change (what sea level rise?) now also denies Keynsian economics. According to this basic economic theory when there’s a recession and people are unemployed and in debt there’s little consumer demand to generate private sector sales and new production. At that point cutting back on government spending and laying off public employees will only worsen the crisis. We need to put unemployed people to work doing useful things like fixing our broken infrastructure including coastal ports, bridges, old sewer lines and storm drains that can pollute near shore waters making people sick and spawning algae fed dead zones. We also need to be supporting new technologies like sustainable aquaculture and offshore clean energy as part of a comprehensive approach to the management and protection of our public seas, global commons and, not to overstate the obvious, the crucible of life on our blue marble planet.
Instead the conversations in Washington, London, Athens and too many other capitals are about slashing public spending and embracing austerity, mostly for others. That means zeroing out funding for things like seafood safety inspections, worker safety on our docks and ships, water pollution enforcement and other environmental protections and marine conservation programs.
By contrast I just got to meet Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna. He was in San Francisco to greet 16 Pacific Voyagers from his nation who’d crossed the ocean. They were crewing one of 7 Vakas, double-hulled Polynesian sail/canoes on a trip, not unlike Roz’s, to celebrate explorer culture and raise awareness of ocean conservation. “We are a country very serious about saving our ocean and saving the environment, and that of course will help our people,” Puna explained.
This year, as part of my work with the Blue Frontier Campaign, I’ve been privileged to meet with three heads of state committed to building economies that protect our oceans and lands and provide hope for a better future. They include President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica (winner of a 2011 Peter Benchley Ocean Award) and President Anote Tong of Kiribati as well as Prime Minister Puna. They have established or expanded (or are about to) huge marine parks and also addressed the challenge of climate change (that threatens to overwhelm the nation of Kiribati through sea-level rise by mid-century). The Cook Islands plans to be free of fossil fuels by 2020, becoming the first nation in the world to do so.
I only wish that the leaders of larger, more influential nations like the United States, China and France would make similar commitments to protecting our environment and in the process create millions of new green (and blue) jobs in clean energy, science and sustainable agriculture and transportation. Each of us, as citizens and consumers, members of families, clans and communities of life have a chance to make a difference. Roz is making a difference in a dramatic way, rowing whole ocean basins to raise awareness. She was greeted by President Tong when she landed in Tarawa, on her Pacific voyage. But history is also the things we do everyday to make a difference from not using single use plastic to the food and energy choices we make. Each of us can. Each of us must.
A Favorite quote
When the people lead the leaders will follow
Second Favorite
The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment
David Helvarg is founder and executive director of the Blue Frontier Campaign a U.S. based marine conservation group dedicated to supporting seaweed (marine grassroots) efforts at the local, regional, national and global levels, with an emphasis on bottom up organizing to bring the voice of citizen-activists into decision-making that will impact our living seas. A long time journalist, Helvarg is also author of several books including: Blue Frontier, The War Against the Greens, 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, Rescue Warriors, and Saved by the Sea – A Love Story with Fish.
“Other Stuff”:
I found a decent-sized flying fish on deck this morning. I sized him up for breakfast, but decided that, for the size of him, it was more trouble than it was worth. I was sure he wouldn’t go to waste, and I was right. Less than 3 seconds after I chucked him overboard, a dorado had snapped him up.
I saw a different kind of bird today. I’ve got so used to seeing storm petrels that this one immediately stood out as a different species. He was completely white, apart from dark feet and a dark beak – and maybe a dark face as well, but I couldn’t see. His most distinctive feature was a very narrow tail, looking almost as if it was just a single feather. Any suggestions on ID?
I was in the cabin writing up my logbook when there was a major yellowfin frenzy outside. Big outbreaks of splashing, first on one side of the boat, then on the other. I could feel the boat shaking with the impacts, and they splashed water so high that a few drops came into the cabin. Quite a furore!
Erica – good for you, spreading the good green word in Italy! I am so sorry to hear that some people are abusing the organic system. That really is not helpful. I hope (!) that in the future organic standards will have to conform to a global standard, and will be better enforced so we consumers know what we are getting.
Bruce – you made me laugh with your comparison between my loyal readers and the chaps downstairs – especially the belly flopper!
Quote for the day, sent to me by Jay….: “Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.” (Martin Luther King)
Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to Leland Palmer and Patricia Collins.
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I’m not sure what the collective noun for a group of squid is, but today “squadron” seemed appropriate.
There were several major outbreaks of wildlife during the day. A couple of times this morning I could hardly get my oars in the water because there were so many yellowfins in the way. I didn’t mean to hit them, but couldn’t see them under the ruffled surface of the water, and only found out that they were there when my oars struck something solid instead of liquid.
Then, this afternoon, attack of the low-flying squid. At first there was the lone harbinger. Just before I came into the cabin to record my podcast with Vic, a large-ish squid landed right in front of me, on the canvas cover of my liferaft. Well, okay, he wasn’t large as in Kraken-large, but a good 8 inches long. He sat there, waving his tentacles at me as if begging for help, and pumping out a spreading ink stain onto the pale beige canvas. This was rather annoying. I have very few soft furnishings on the deck of my boat, so it was irksome to have him land inkily right on top of one of them.
I quickly lobbed him back in the water, hoping he might survive the experience, and tried to mop the ink off the liferaft cover, but it has left a large, dark brown stain. If anybody has any top tips for removing squid ink from fabric, do please let me know. Surely it’s in every good “household tips” manual!
Flying Squid: (Photo: Sandra Vaughn.)
A couple of hours later, I had no sooner ducked into the cabin to grab a Larabar than a squadron of low-flying objects zoomed overhead, about ten feet above the water. There were about a dozen of them. As they neared the end of their trajectory fish leaped from the waves to catch them. For a few moments all was chaotic activity, with bodies and water flying everywhere.
At first I thought the UFOs were flying fish, but when I re-emerged from the cabin, I saw ink spattered liberally across all the upper surfaces of my boat – deck, rowing seat, solar panels. More squid. It was really lucky I hadn’t been on deck at the time, or I would have been inked as well. Yuckety-yuck!
Other Stuff:
Laurey – great to hear from you. I’ve been thinking about you, and wondering how your cancer treatment is going. I’m really, really pleased to hear it’s going well. I hope to see you – and Asheville – again soon. Oh, in answer to your question, I have quotes all over the place. I’ve got some on laminated sheets that have been on board since the Atlantic, more on my laptop, a great quotes app on my iPhone (called Notable Quotes), and Jay has sent me about another zillion. So I now have enough quotes to see me through several laps of the planet!
Stan – thank you for your very informative and thoughtful comment about conquering – or not conquering – the Earth.
Daniel – it is now unlikely that I will be attempting the North Atlantic next year. It looks like my boat has reached the end of her useful life, and I won’t have time to raise the money and get a new boat in time.
Brian Hill – great quote. Thank you.
Terry – I heard about the east coast earthquake. Quite a surprise! But yes, I’m sure the San Franciscans were a bit short on sympathy!
Mark and Julian – I quite like rugby, actually. Or maybe I mean I like rugby players…. but as they say, rugby is a game played by men with funny shaped balls. ;o)
Quote for the day: “The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry.” (Danish soccer star John Jensen)
Sponsored Miles: Slow progress for Roz. No sponsors for today’s miles.
Eric – you make a very good point that the way that we exercise our free will is affected by the many other factors that have conditioned our worldview – he lists sex, race, religion, the stars born under, mother, father, nationality, wealth or poverty, education, thousands of other environmental influences, and dumb luck.
I agree that these are all factors in how we exercise our free will. However….
[And for a moment here I wish that we could have this discussion, as Rico previously described, in a slightly over-caffeinated state in a comfortable coffee shop. A blog is a far from perfect forum for lively exchange of ideas. I just hope that my next comment comes across in the spirit in which it is intended - of philosophical debate, rather than contradiction.]
I would suggest that free will is still free will, even if we poor limited humans are not capable of exercising it freely. Let’s imagine that free will is like a camera. It is a fine camera, brand new, in perfect working order. If we take a bad photograph, it is because of poor eyesight, or a shaking hand, or because we aimed the camera too high or too low. It is the human that is at fault, not the camera. These faults can all be corrected – better eyeglasses, improved breathing control, reframing our picture – through the means that Eric suggests – a conscious attention to day to day life with Buddhist like mindfulness. And then free will can be exercised accurately and effectively. The image in our camera viewfinder will be clear and pleasing.
A few other comments brought up the question of limiting circumstances, and here it is important to make a distinction: we may have free will, yet not have freedom of action, nor freedom of choice. I might decide that I want to be a basketball player, but at five-foot-four I am unlikely to succeed. To continue the camera metaphor, I am restricted to aiming it at things that are within my line of sight, so I do not have free choice of what will appear in my photograph. It is a camera, not a gun, so I can only shoot photographs, not bullets, so I do not have full freedom of action. But, according to my worldview, I still have free will in the sense that I choose what to aim my camera at, and when to fire the shutter. There is no omnipotent micro-manager raising my hand, taking aim, and pressing the shutter for me.
UncaDoug put this well: “We have free will in how we navigate and negotiate the obstacles that arise. Our ability to respond creatively and to initiate are how we rise above destiny. Destiny might be the unpredictable events over which we have no control. But our inventiveness reflects our personal choice.” To refer to my hero Viktor Frankl again, it is almost impossible to imagine more restrictive circumstances than being a prisoner in a concentration camp, yet he still exercised his free will when he resolved to always act with dignity and integrity, no matter what was being done around him and to him.
As to whether free will and the existence of God are mutually exclusive – far from it. To draw a parallel: as my mother sometimes says, with a sigh, she brought me and my sister up to think for ourselves. There is no disputing that she gave birth to us, but that does not mean that she controls every aspect of our lives. She brought us into this world, equipped us as best she could, and then sent us on our way. I agree with Daniel and Thomas’s comments on this one.
So, what is the upshot of all this? Is it just an intellectual debate, or does it have practical ramifications? I think it has very real, and very immediate relevance, and you won’t be surprised to hear that I see it in relation to the environment.
There is a school of thought that we would not be allowed to exploit the Earth’s resources as we do if this was not part of the divine plan. According to this logic, the very fact that we are doing it proves that it must be not only our right, but in fact our destiny. If it was not our destiny, God would intervene and stop it from happening.
I prefer to take the view that we have free will to choose how we treat our one and only planet. We have evolved (or been blessed, depending on your belief system) with intelligence, the ability to consider long-term consequences, and the capability to make wise decisions based on scientific evidence and common sense.
Believing in free will necessarily means taking responsibility for our future. We get to choose, because nobody else is going to make that choice for us. Believing in destiny means that it is all pre-ordained and no matter what we do now, we are either destined to survive or doomed to extinction.
Which belief do you prefer?
Other Stuff:
The sea anchor is out. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had to use it, but the wind is against me. Over the next 48 hours it is due to move around anticlockwise through all the points of the compass, before getting back to normal. Neptune only knows where I’ll be by then. And everything had been going so well, too….
Problems with incoming email again. As podcast listeners will know, I’ve been having poor satphone connections recently, which affects my data service as well as my weekly calls with Vic. And in any case, this blog is plenty long enough already. Hopefully normal service, including responses to comments, will be resumed tomorrow.
Quote for the day: “Life is like a game of cards. That hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will.” (Jawaharlal Nehru)
Sponsored Miles: Grateful to Erica Vaccan and Allison Urban for sponsoring some of today’s miles.
Some people have asked me whether, having rowed on the world’s three major oceans, would I be able to tell one ocean from another if I was plonked blindfold in the middle of one of them. I’ve been thinking about this, and I think I could make an educated guess, with a better than 33% chance of getting it right.
It’s not so much the ocean itself that would give me a clue. Maybe the Indian Ocean is a bit saltier, the Pacific a bit calmer, the Atlantic a bit colder. Nor would it really be the weather – this varies so much according to season and latitude.
It would be the wildlife that would be the biggest clue. I remember the Atlantic mostly for flying fish, which regularly landed on my deck. I’ve seen them on the other oceans, too, but not in such numbers. The Pacific was, of course, memorable for the booby birds, which made such a right royal mess on the fore cabin roof when they moved on board for several weeks.
The Indian Ocean I will remember for the beautiful storm petrels that have been my constant companions, and the “chaps downstairs” – the dorados that perform backflips and bellyflops for me all day long. I watched them for a while at dusk tonight, as they swam laps underneath my boat. One, in particular, would turn on his side as he emerged from beneath the hull, to show a bright flash of silver before he returned to his normal swimming position and reverted to blue. They really are magnificent.
What concerns me more than the difference between one ocean and another is the difference between the oceans now and how they were a hundred years ago. I’m willing to bet they had a lot more fish – of all kinds – in them back then. Whales, sharks, and cod are only the most conspicuous examples of the general depletion of the oceans. When I was at TED Mission Blue in 2010 there was much talk about the need to expand marine protected areas to protect fish and other oceanic life – before it is too late. When I get back to dry land I’ll be checking in with the Blue TEDsters to see what I can do to help.
Other Stuff:
The wind has died right down today. I wish I could say that this has made conditions more comfortable, but in these conditions the boat tends to “wallow”, rocking from side to side, whereas on larger waves she tends to rise and fall but stay relatively level. The rocking is not soothing like a baby’s crib – in fact, it kept me awake quite a lot of last night. Looks like we’re in for another good wallowing tonight.
Daniel – great to hear about you riding your bike to work, and the many benefits it brings you. You find money on the road almost every day? I’m in the wrong job – I’ve been looking for over three months and not found a penny!
Stan – it would be great if we could change human nature so that we would all do the “right” thing, but in the real world, I agree with you that this is unlikely to happen. We do indeed need to change the way that our society looks at waste. In Britain, many years ago, before rubbish trucks came along, there used to be “rag and bone men” who would collect rubbish in their horse-drawn carts. Rags and bones were literally all that was left – and no doubt the bones would have been well boiled for soup before they were tossed out. Very different now.
Claire in LA – thanks for your kind words. Let’s hope the letter helps. A copy will go to Boris Johnson along with other letters coordinated by Greener Upon Thames
Quote for the day: Doing something is a damned sight better than being someone. (Roy Hattersley, British politician)
Photo: the chaps downstairs
Sponsored Miles: Thank you Hans Verwey and Colin Rowland.
I have dared to write up on my whiteboard a list of the degrees of longitude that remain to be rowed, so I can cross them off as I complete them. This is quite a symbolic act, a momentous landmark, a fundamental shift in my attitude.
I’ve found that, for the first half-and-a-bit of a voyage, I have to take a very present-moment attitude to my work. I take each day as it comes. Each day I do my best. Some days that results in good progress. Other days not so good. And on bad days, I go backwards.
But whatever happens, I just accept it. If I start thinking about the voyage as a whole I begin to get impatient, and obsessed with how many miles I have covered – and that way lies madness. So I just keep showing up, day after day, and sticking my oars in the water.
It is only when I am well into the voyage that I begin to dare to think about finishing. And even then I have to be cautious not to get ahead of myself. Small pieces are what I have to focus on. The next 100 miles, or one degree, or the next 10 miles.
Right now I am at a dangerous moment – because things are going well. Since I passed halfway, I have been covering one degree of longitude roughly every two days. The assorted variables – current, wind, and swells – have averaged out to keep progress surprisingly consistent, lulling me into a false sense of security. I’ve started running the sums, and guesstimating an ETA based on a rolling average. I’ve even, occasionally, started to get excited.
But there could still be surprises, and at sea the surprises are rarely pleasant ones. I still have a very long way to go. I have to keep myself healthy, injury-free, and connected to my boat. I’m telling myself more than I’m telling you that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings (or should that be until the whale sings) and still anything could happen – and knowing oceans, it probably will.
Other Stuff:
The other day I saw a plastic drink bottle floating by, looking pristine and new, as if it had just been dropped hours ago. But I haven’t seen another vessel in over 3 months, so it must have been out here a while. Yuck.
I’m having problems with email, so haven’t been able to pick up incoming messages since last night – so I don’t have the latest batch of comments. Sorry about that. I’ll catch up on the backlog once I manage to get the satphone data connection to work.
Quote for the day – on having the discipline to keep going when the going gets boring: “We’re doing the work because we’re doing the work.” (Margaret Wheatley, author of “Perseverance”)
Photo: my mile counter from the Atlantic
Sponsored Miles: 28 miles rowed. More sponsors’ names soon.
Today I finished reading “The River of Doubt” about Theodore Roosevelt’s nightmare expedition in the Amazon. It reminded me of one of the things I really don’t miss about dry land - mosquitoes. I am sure they must serve some useful purpose in the overall scheme of things, but blowed if I know what it is. I spent a couple of weeks in the Amazon during my travels around Peru in 2003 and was relieved to get out. Mosquitoes love me. The feeling is not mutual.
Anyway, this got me thinking of what else I don’t miss about being on dry land.
1. Traffic jams: when are we going to realize that it would be faster to travel around city centres by public transport or bicycle? Many of the world’s great cities are now absolutely blighted by traffic congestion, with exhaust fumes corroding historic buildings and asphyxiating pedestrians.
2. Advertising: especially advertisements that show fast foods in gruesome closeup – gloopy cheese stretching from slices of pizza, meatballs that look like body parts, and slices of tomato bouncing into salads as if dropped from a great height. Are tomatoes meant to bounce? Really?
3. Airport security: laptop, coat, belt, shoes. Can I keep the rest on, please? Oh no, I forgot the toothpaste was in there. It’s not lethal, honestly. Please don’t throw it….. oh, sigh.
4. Spending money. Spending so much of this year at sea has saved me a fortune – well, apart from the fortune it cost me to get out here in the first place, and the other fortune I’m paying to the satellite phone company for the pleasure of posting my blog. But it seems a loooong time since I handled cash.
5. Worrying about what to wear, and whether I have it in this suitcase, and whether I can still fit into it.
As to what I do miss about land – well, it would be a long list, a very long list. But best not to think about it. I’ll be back on terra firma soon enough, and will appreciate all its pleasures anew. At least until I have to get on a plane….
Other Stuff:
Wet and wild today. The wind has been roaring in my ears all day, not to mention all night. It gets a bit crazy-making after a while. I’d like to turn it off, just for an hour or so, to appreciate the quiet. According to the forecast, another lull is in sight….
Thanks for the great comments on last Philosophy Friday’s blog. Really, really good stuff. I’ll pick up on as many of those as I can this coming Friday.
Texino – sorry to hear you’re not well. But it sounds not bad at all, being tucked up snug in bed with your Mac while a storm rages outside. Almost as I am now, except that my bed is probably not as comfy as yours! Hope you’re doing better soon.
John H – euuuwww! Bad joke!
Roger Finch – I see loads of birds, actually. Every day the storm petrels entertain me with their aerobatics. Today they have been whizzing around at breakneck speeds on the high winds. But no finches (haha!).
Quote for the day (thanks to Jay for sending this one): “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” (Martin Luther King)
Sponsored Miles: Gail Brownell, Mary Kadzielski – thank you.
56 miles since yesterday morning – WOW.
Roosevelt’s adventure took place during what came to be known as the Golden Age of Exploration. I don’t have access to the internet or Google here, so I’m writing from memory, but as I recall, the twenty years from 1895 to 1915 saw Peary lead the first expedition to successfully reach the North Pole, while Amundsen claimed the South Pole for Norway. The Brits established their reputation for spectacular failures, with Captain Scott and his unfortunate cohorts reaching the South Pole one month after Amundsen and perishing on the return journey, Shackleton’s famous but unsuccessful expeditions to Antarctica, and Franklin’s mysterious disappearance while attempting to penetrate the Northwest Passage.
Incidentally, and less famously, the first recorded ocean crossing by rowboat also took place in that era. In 1896 two Norwegian immigrants, Harbo and Samuelsen, rowed across the North Atlantic in their boat, The Fox. Their voyage was tremendously brave, but utterly miserable-sounding. The Fox had no watertight cabin, so they slept in the bottom of the hull. As now, the North Atlantic was rough, cold and wet. But unlike now, they had no GPS, no watermaker, and no technical clothing. These guys must have been hard as nails.
“Fatigue clouds judgment and frays tempers. It leads to immobility and deep depression. George and Frank had far more than an indifferent North Atlantic to conquer. They began to realise they had to face the weakness within themselves. Ashore, one’s self can hide in the frenetic pace of daily life, and weakness can be ignored – an impossibility at sea.”
And this brings me to my point. The usual terminology in relation to mountain peaks, oceans and poles is that we have “conquered” them all. This term makes me wince. If anybody refers to my having “conquered” an ocean, I point out that it is by the ocean’s good grace and my own good luck that I made it across. It seems just plain daft to say that a 5-foot-4 woman can “conquer” a body of water that covers half the planet.
But it is true that, with the notable exception of the ocean depths, we have now explored, charted, and measured just about every part of our planet. So where does that leave the aspiring explorers of the 21st century?
I’d like to suggest that, having “conquered” the Earth, it is time we came full circle, and attempted to conquer ourselves. The evidence would seem to suggest that humankind’s basic instinct is to exploit the natural resources around us to the point of exhaustion. I’d like to see us overcome that instinct, and to find a more symbiotic way of inhabiting the planet. This is the challenge for the new pioneers – to chart a course and lead the way to a cleaner, greener, more sustainable future.
Other Stuff:
After a couple of frustrating days being sent way off course, I’m now back on track. Conditions are windy and wild, and we had a bit of a knockdown while I was out on deck yesterday evening. It wasn’t much fun at the time, but I was tethered to the boat and so no harm was done. Today the waves have been big, but mostly Sedna has ridden them well, rising and falling with the swells rather than tipping from side to side.
More frenetic activity from the school of yellowfin tuna below my boat again today. They are great entertainment value.
Gooseneck barnacles had started to grow on the grablines that loop around the outside of the hull of my boat. Today I noticed that they have frond-like appendages that they wave around outside their shells. I assume that these are food-gathering appendages, rather than the, ahem, masculine appendage that caused so much ribald comment before. Whatever, I needed to evict these unwanted hitchhikers, so removed them with a pair of pliers. Gross.
Bruce – thank you for the Ten Commandments of the good doctor. Wise words indeed.
UncaDoug – I am also plotting my likely arrival date, using a rolling average starting from the halfway point. But I’m not telling!
Rico – thanks for the intercession with Neptune. Appreciated.
Marie – very true! And lucky you, living in Carmel Valley. Beautiful part of the world. I’m daydreaming about a road trip through California next year….
Quote, in honour of Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt (26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919)
Sponsored Miles: John Miller, Nicola Faith, Andrew Lueken, Doug Grandt, Bonnie Sterngold, Nick Perdiew, Alexandra Stevens, Jeffrey Green – Thank you! 34 miles since yesterday morning.
I commend you for your commitment to making London a more
sustainable city for the 21st century. I was most impressed by the
“Boris’s Bikes” initiative, and am now writing to you about your
pledge to ban the plastic bag from London stores.
I am an ocean rower, and have been campaigning for bans on plastic
bags since encountering the North Pacific Garbage Patch while rowing
from San Francisco to Hawaii in 2008, on my way to becoming the
first woman to row solo across the Pacific. I am writing to you now
from my rowboat, roughly halfway across the Indian Ocean.
I am co-patron (with Zac Goldsmith, MP) of Greener Upon Thames, the
organization that has been campaigning for a plastic-bag-free
Olympics. I am sure I speak for them when I say that we would be
delighted to see a permanent and London-wide ban on plastic bags as
a welcome overshoot of that original goal, and would be more than
happy to support, advise and inform any such initiative.
I would urge you to impose a ban, rather than a charge, for the
following reasons:
1. As a former office worker myself, I would guess that a small
charge for a plastic bag to carry a GBP 5.00 sandwich back to their
desks might not be enough to persuade the majority to bring their
own bags. Some may even regard the charge as a convenient way to
make their charitable donations.
2. Plastic bags are inherently unsustainable and antisocial.
Imposing a charge rather than a ban sends a mixed message, as if the
penance will earn environmental absolution. An outright ban sends a
much clearer message.
3. Retailers will continue to produce plastic bags until the effect
of a charge can be evaluated. Once the raw materials have been made
into plastic, those bags cannot be un-made. Better to have a clear
cut-off date beyond which plastic bags must not be distributed by
London stores.
I believe that there has been resistance from the retailers to a
ban. I hope it may prove persuasive to advocate the advantages of
selling tasteful, environmentally responsible bags made from
sustainable materials such as hemp, jute or organic cotton, bearing
the retailers’ logos. These will be longer-lasting and demonstrate
the retailer’s commitment to quality much better than cheap plastic
bags.
Again, thank you for the significant steps you have taken so far
towards a more sustainable London. As a dedicated environmental
campaigner, I am enormously encouraged to see real progress being
made, and hope you will keep up the great work. Please don’t
hesitate to ask if there is anything I can do to help further the cause.
Sponsored Miles: 32 miles in rough conditions. Today’s thanks: Steven Field, Wolfgang Stehr, Brent Pearlman, Hamish Bassett, Robert Davis, Dawn Hawk, Jeffery Cobb, and Nicola Tsang.
Today was an amazing day for wildlife. Not only did I see my first Great Petrel (like the Storm Petrels, but considerably bigger) but the chaps downstairs put on quite a spectacular show for me.
When I say “the chaps downstairs”, you might be picturing the three or four dorados and a couple of stripy pilot fish that I’ve mentioned before. But no – today my fishy friends were present in their hundreds. It started at breakfast time. I was sitting on deck, eating my breakfast, when there was a huge kerfuffle. The water suddenly erupted, right next to the port beam. And then calmed again, leaving a large patch of unnaturally calm water where it had been frothing and seething just a moment before. I couldn’t tell, at the time, whether it had been one very large Something or lots of small Somethings.
But the later appearance of the fishy hordes would seem to suggest it was a multitude of smaller Somethings. Coming out of my cabin after recording my NASA cloud observations, I glanced down into the water, and it was like there was a whole fish convention going on right underneath my boat. Throngs of fish were schooling backwards and forwards. I was quite mesmerised by the sight, and simply stared in awe and wonderment for several minutes before it occurred to me that I ought to get my camera.
Actually, maybe it was less of a convention, more of a pitched battle. There was a huge school of yellowfin tuna, and a whole bunch of dorados. And they didn’t seem to be getting on too well together. While the school of yellowfins were swishing backwards and forwards under my boat, I could see that one of them had an open wound on its back, just next to its dorsal fin, about the size of a bitemark.
Eventually the fracas ended and the crowds dispersed. But it was all very exciting. Better than TV!
Other Stuff:
I changed some of the wheel bearings on my rowing seat today, which were rusting and disintegrating. Not really surprising after the tough life they’ve had. A very messy job. Oily and gunky. Amazing how the gunk manages to spread itself around. Much mopping with detergent required before order was restored.
Juliet – I did get to enjoy a hot drink today. I decided to try out the Nescafe instant caramel latte sachets that Lesley gave me in Geraldton. Funnily enough, I’m actually not much of a coffee drinker, despite my frequent mentions of caramel lattes. It is more the coffee shop experience that I cherish, rather than the coffee itself. I was distinctly dubious beforehand. As I poured the sachets into my mug, and took a sniff, I was still unconvinced, but actually it wasn’t too bad at all. It lasted me all morning – thank heavens for thermos mugs. But drinking coffee for the first time in 3 months can have consequences. My advice would be: don’t try it unless you’re close to a bathroom, or at least a bedpan.
Tom – Crescent City, wow, that brings back memories! That was 2007. Good to hear from you. Hope you are still enjoying scuba!
Kurt, Chris, Jay, Cece, Doug, thanks for the words of encouragement and support. Much appreciated.
Chris Martin – you said “I’m here all week”. Where?!
Maureen – actually I don’t “stink rotten”. So am safe to hug, even figuratively. I do bathe every day, you know, even if it is only with a bucket and sponge. And after a good airing yesterday, my cabin is drier and fresher now too, with a distinct aroma of tea tree oil.
John H – good jokes!
Graham Dickie – thank you so much for writing to the BBC about me. Let’s hope they take notice! I feel very under-appreciated in my home country, so it would be nice to see that change.
David Tangye – if only 18 hours of wind did equate to 50 miles! At 30 knots of wind, it’s worth around half of that, provided there is no adverse current. But you’re right, it is some consolation, during the rough times, to know that the high winds are (usually) helping me in more or less the right direction.
Photo: I am rather proud of today’s photo of the school of yellowfins teeming beneath my boat.
Quote: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” (John Muir)
Quote 2, courtesy of Julian Hapel: “I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea.” Moitessier.
Sponsored Miles: 28 miles since yesterday morning. Today’s thanks go to Carl Jones, Colm Coogan, Diane Freeman, and to Callum, Fraser and Freya Ellis with the message Go, Roz!
Free will. Or destiny? Are we in control of our own lives, or are we just playing out a script already written – by God, life, the universe, or whatever/whoever.
I can’t think of a way that we could prove an answer to this one way or the other. If we try to assert our free will by deliberately doing something unexpected or contrary to character, it could be argued that we were destined to make that self-asserting decision.
Conversely, if we try to prove that our lives are governed by destiny by always going with the flow of events, it could be argued that we have made a conscious choice to go with the flow, thereby asserting our free will.
So I would come at this question from a different angle. Which option makes me feel better? Do I prefer the notion that I am in charge of my own life? Or do I prefer to feel that somebody or something else is running the show? My personal preference is to believe that I am in charge.
Of course, I fully acknowledge that I am never entirely in control – my life will be affected by the era that I live in, the family I was born into, the actions of other people, random chance, and so on. A better way of putting it, then, rather than saying that I am in charge of my life, is to say that I take responsibility for my life. No matter what happens to me, or around me, I am still free to choose how I will respond to it. Even Viktor Frankl* in the concentration camp, with no personal liberty at all, was still able to choose how he would conduct himself.
But other people may find it more comfortable to believe that they have a destiny – that they were destined to play a particular role, do a particular job, marry a particular person. I’ll say it again, different people look at the same world and draw different conclusions, depending on their own unique blend of personality traits.
There was a moment in my life when I thought I heard destiny calling. It was when the urge came upon me to start rowing across oceans to promote environmental and personal awareness. Those of you who have read my book (Rowing the Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean
But over the years I’ve come to see that moment in a different light (different lightbulb!). Before that pivotal moment I had already defined the criteria for whatever my new life direction would be. And I was completely open to receiving an answer. I knew that ocean rowing existed, and had even met a couple of people who had rowed oceans – although it was not something that had appealed at the time.
So I now see it this way: I had tucked all these ideas away in my subconscious, where they had quietly got on with the job of synthesising themselves into a fully-formed answer which, in an unguarded moment, suddenly popped out of the subconscious realm and into my conscious mind. And instantly I knew it to be perfect – because, after all, it was the product of my own desires.
And this, I think, is why some things feel like destiny. It seems as if everything in our lives has been preparing us for this course of action. We can’t quite believe how perfectly it fits us. But the fit is perfect precisely because, subconsciously, we have created it ourselves.
Other Stuff:
I think there is more that needs to be said on the subject of free will and destiny, in relation to our immediate future on this Earth. Tom raised a question that I would like to address in a future blog: What good is free will if we have an aversion to all our choices? But a) this blog was long enough already, and b) I’d be interested to hear from you with comments on the above and how it relates to present challenges. Bring ‘em on!
At last the rough conditions have subsided. I am celebrating, and apparently so are the fish. The dorados have been going nuts, leaping and backflipping as if trying out for the Olympics. Maybe they are.
To add to my store of happiness, I got the electrical system working again. The Sunsaver Duo unit was, not to put too fine a point on it, completely buggered. So I have now bypassed it. It wasn’t straightforward – initially my solution did not work. In desperation I started flipping switches, and found that, bizarrely, the batteries will only charge when both fore and aft batteries are turned on. But who cares? It works! Hurrah!
I called Glen, the Australian electrician who came out to the Abrolhos when I had a problem with the system before. I just wanted to ask him a couple of questions about running the system without the Sunsaver unit, but we ended up having quite a nice chat. He told me I was on Australian TV a few nights ago, for having passed halfway and having eaten a TimTam. He didn’t say which of these was the headline of the news item.
Now that the waves have subsided, I decided it was time to pump out the water from the lockers. For a while it was quite useful having it there as extra ballast, but now that the wind has subsided it makes the boat very heavy. My boat is now sitting several inches higher in the water – but mostly on the port side. We are listing. I have redistributed various items but may have to resort to pumping some water back in again. Sigh.
Sara Gordon – thank you for your kind message. I see that The Climate Project is being rebranded as Climate Reality. I hope this reflects a new sense of urgency – we need it!
Pamela Green – you are too kind. I don’t yet feel worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Rosa Parks, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King… but I’m working on it!
Aimee – your Solidarity Sunset spent with an Abba tribute band sounds just perfect. I grew up on Abba, and still abbasolutely love their music. Nothing like Dancing Queen to lift the spirits!
Thank you, Mat, Grace, Callum, Fraser & Freya Ellis for the sponsored miles. Mat, how our lives have changed since UBS all those years ago….
Henrik – great to hear from you! I was invited to do the Arctic voyage next year, but at that time I was planning to be on the North Atlantic. That plan has now changed… but now they have filled their speaker slots. But hopefully I will get there in 2013, if not before. Hope to see you then!
Photo: I’m trying to get a photo of a jumping dorado, but it’s not easy. Almost got this one – just a split second after he splashed back into the water. Doh!
Quote: “Sow a habit, reap a destiny”
Quote 2: “We must believe in free will. We have no choice.” (Isaac Bashevis Singer) Haha.
Latest podcast is now available: Episode 44: It’s a Jungle Out There.
Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks today go to Bonnie Sterngold, Amanda Reader, Julian Hamm, Emma John, Daniel Collins, Sally Phillips, Rolando Cuadrado, Terence Liu, Chris Ferreira, Wayne Batzer, Bruce Gervais, Nancy Bowman, Amanda Atkins and Courtney Elwood who between them have sponsored 22 of the 35 miles Roz has rowed since yesterday morning. A word of thanks, too, to a number of people who have been making monthly payments to Roz for a long time – one of whom is also mentioned today for sponsoring miles.
While we can all recognize and appreciate Roz for her heroic efforts, her remarkable courage and leadership, I believe what’s most appealing about her story (like any superhero, really) is how we identify on some level, perhaps even see a bit of ourselves in her. We sense (if not know) that we might — just might — have that same capacity to overcome the insurmountable, whatever that may be, whether it’s rowing across the ocean, running a marathon or embedding a sustainability mindset around the planet.
On a conscious level that is certainly an intriguing prospect; however, on a subconscious level, I’m fairly certain that scares the hell out of most of us. We wonder, Could I really do that? Is that capacity within me? Could I somehow lead and inspire others? Could I really motivate others? Could I — little old me — inspire thousands or even millions of people to go for their dreams? To modify their behaviors for a better community and world? Me?!
And, what ripple effect would that have? Who might they then inspire?
Of course, the simple answer is yes. Yes, you could. Yes, you can! In fact, throughout time this is the only way our true heroes have come to be. And it’s the only way any change has ever taken root. The first step always takes the most courage, since it’s a challenge of self, belief and self-belief.
The Habit Factor®starts with this fairly simple truth, “Nobody improves the world without first improving themselves.” And, whether hero or saint, it’s important to know that great achievers first went to work on themselves. While their dreams and visions were big, it was their smallest actions (deeds) that they revisited and reconstructed — their habitual thoughts. They identified what must be refined first in their own character.
So whether it’s Mother Teresa, MLK or JFK, rest assured they had the same doubts, the same internal dialogue, the same mortal flaws, yet they took action, they got to work on themselves. Small deeds — indeed!
Got Questions?
So, before you, I or anyone inspires even a single person, guess what? We must, must inspire ourselves. We have to breathe life into (inspirare: latin root) our own life. How does that happen? I believe it happens the very same way Roz or any great soul begins. It begins with a few powerful, reflective questions. What’s your passion? What would excite you to get out of bed every morning — fired up about the day, week and year ahead? As you may already know, Roz asked some difficult questions and performed the ultimate “begin with the end in mind” exercise (to borrow a phrase from Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People). If “beginning with the end in mind” (habit #2) is great for goals and projects, you can be certain it’s helpful for your life! Powerful questions like, “What would I want to be remembered for?”“What legacy could I leave?” “If I died tomorrow, how would my obituary read?” “How would I want it to read?” These questions challenge your vision, imagination and, yes, your courage.
Freedom Inspires Be a lamp unto yourself. Work out your liberation with diligence. ~Buddha
Here’s the real gem: Once you get real — get personal and identify the answers to those very personal questions — once you shine the light on yourself diligently, you will be FREE – fully liberated. And nothing leads better than liberty, hence Roz’s incredible appeal: a liberated soul on a mission to transform our cultural and global environmental legacy. She can do it – we can do it.
What’s your legacy? What’s your BIG vision? What’s your next small deed?
Go Roz, Go!!
Martin Grunburg is the author of the Amazon bestseller The Habit Factor®. He’s an executive and Master Coach, speaker and trainer who has designed/developed the world’s #1 Goals & Habits app (iPhone/Android), also titled, The Habit Factor®. The app has touched the lives of tens of thousands around the world and features Habit Alignment Technology™, a methodology proven to be the fastest and surest way to achieve your biggest goals.
Sponsored Miles: Thank you Ian Hamby. An anonymous donor sponsored quite a few miles. Also a special thank you to Donald German who had actually sponsored numbers beyond where Roz is likely to go so was allocated earlier numbers.
This is now the longest voyage I have ever undertaken. In decreasing order, it took me 104 days to row from Hawaii to Tarawa (in the Republic of Kiribati), 103 days to row the Atlantic, and 99 days from San Francisco to Hawaii. Last year’s jaunt from Tarawa to Madang (in Papua New Guinea) was barely a day trip – a mere 46 days, thanks to some big strong friendly currents.
Does it get easier as time goes on? No, not especially. It would be like saying to somebody at the end of a marathon, “Look, you’ve run 26.2 miles already. What’s a couple more?” You would probably get a very rude response consisting of two words, the second of which might well be “off”.
Having said that, physically and mentally I’m feeling fine, buoyed by healthy mileages in the right direction for the last few days. Looking forward to a good hot shower and a decent square meal, and the company of somebody besides Woody the Pirate (and I’m sure he’d say the same about me), but generally just getting on with it. It’s the equipment that is beginning to fall off the pace.
An ocean rowboat is a uniquely challenging environment for kit. Everything is closer to the water than sailing yachts, more in the water than on it. And because I am out here for so many months at a time, rust and mould have a golden opportunity to flourish. And flourish they do.
What I am leading up to, needless to say, is that the electrical system has crapped out again. The red LED of death has probably been triggered by the temperature sensor, which is looking decidedly the worse for wear. But it could also be because the cabin was like a sauna after I’d been confined to quarters for a couple of days, pumping out body heat. I’m airing it out as much as I can, given the rough conditions – trying to let in fresh air while not letting in water. And hoping that by tomorrow the electrical system will have rallied once again. The sooner we come up with some miracle power source that doesn’t require wires to transport it, the happier I would be!
The high winds and waves were due to abate today. They have done so, marginally. By the 18th it should be much quieter, and I can hang out my sleeping bag for a much-needed airing. I am doing my best to maintain cleanliness and dryness in extreme adversity.
Cynthia – thanks for the book recommendation. Noted.
Jay – erm, I still have a mistrust of the microwave oven and cellular phone. I usually use a hands-free headset, and never knowingly eat something that has been microwaved if I can possibly avoid it. It’s not just the zapping, it’s that I can’t imagine wanting to eat anything that could be prepared in a microwave. I don’t like any of the values that a microwave represents. But that’s just me. And proves exactly your point, that we all have different belief systems. I would also have to dispute your comment: “Roz, time will tell whether you are amazing or not.” To take this away from me, and apply it generally – time will tell whether a person achieves results or not. But their results have nothing to do with their amazing-ness. A person can be amazing right here, right now in the present moment – simply by deciding to be. No time required!
Tom and Rick – thank you both for your thought-provoking comments last Philosophy Friday. Tom, great question. I wish I had a great answer. And Rick, I shall certainly keep my mind open to the possibility that the far side of the moon could be made from green cheese!
Kristian – sing a long a Grease sounds brilliant fun! Hope you had a fabby evening.
Thank you all for letting me know how you variously celebrated the solidarity sunset on Saturday. All very much appreciated. And Rico – your homage to Neptune seems to have worked – I have been enjoying good mileages and good direction for the last few days. As you seem to have some influence with the great god of the sea, please ask him for more of the same!
Quotation for today: “Even the longest journey must begin where you stand.” [note by Michael Moncur, September 01, 2004]
Sponsored Miles: Doug Grandt, Colin McWilliam – thanks for miles sponsored.
A super-quick blog as this is the roughest day yet and I don’t want to keep the laptop out of its case for a moment longer than necessary. I’m temporarily quite grateful for the flooded lockers, as the extra ballast has, I’m sure, saved me from several knockdowns today. There have been too many close calls for comfort. There seems to be a temporary lull (relatively speaking – only 30 knots instead of 35) so I’ll make the most of it.
I rowed for a little while this morning, but as well as high winds it has been raining much of the day, and having raindrops flying at you at 35 mph is no joke. So I have spent most of the day confined to the cabin, doing just about everything one can do while strapped to a bunk on a small rowboat.
I spent some time planning the next chapter of my life. But there is a limit to how much of that you can do before you have to stop and just let it gestate for a while before taking it to the next level of detail.
So I have read my one hardcopy book – “Perseverance” by Margaret Wheatley, from cover to cover. I have played Bejewelled 2 on my iPhone until I couldn’t stand any more. I have explored every app on my iPhone that will work without an internet connection or mobile phone signal.
And I have listened to the wind roar around my boat, and the waves slam into the side of the hull, and the rain rattle on the roof. Each time there is a near-knockdown my stomach clenches and I get that goosebumpy feeling that you get if you trip and nearly fall, or have a near miss in your car. The cabin is damp and stuffy, and I feel grimy and sticky. I can’t say it’s the most fun-filled 24 hours I’ve had in my life.
According to the forecast, only about another 18 hours of this before the conditions start to abate slightly, and by the 18th I should be able to open up the cabin for airing, pump out the lockers, and get some fresh air into my lungs. Until then, I am counting the hours….
Other Stuff:
The wind is picking up again now, so I’ll quit while I’m ahead.
Quote for the day:For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously. Martin Buxbaum.
Sponsored Miles: Rough conditions but moving in the right direction, 34 miles since yesterday morning, and thanks go to Nick Perdiew, Simon and Eve Ringsmuth, John Griffin and Brian Yates for sponsoring.
Conditions continue rough and windy. Still gusting 35 knots. But at least we managed to stay sunny side up last night (or should that be “moonlit side up”?). The lockers are all still leaking like mad, but I’ve decided not to pump out the ones that are now empty. Having that extra weight down low is helping Sedna stay upright.
I finally fixed the problem of how to attach a lanyard to the replacement bedpan after the old one got smashed to smithereens. My hand drill has seized up with rust so I couldn’t use that to drill a hole, so instead I used duct tape. I wrapped it several times around the bedpan base, and on one of the circuits I fashioned a loop out of the tape before continuing with the wrapping. Duct tape to the rescue once again! Marvelous stuff.
According to the forecast, I’ve got another night, day, and night of these conditions. Then it starts to calm down a bit. Phewee. The cabin is getting very damp and unpleasant. All my rowing clothes are wet. Water drips onto the foot of my sleeping bag. I haven’t had a hot meal for a couple of days because it’s simply unfeasible to juggle mugs and stove. And the constant roar of the wind is driving me a bit crazy. I can’t wait for some calmer weather so I can relax and dry out.
Other Stuff:
Susie – thanks for the mention on the Mutt Comics site. Appreciated!
Stephen Stewart – I met Dr Curtis Ebbesmeyer in Seattle a few years ago. Great guy. His work in tracking plastic bath toys and Nike sneakers taught us a lot about ocean currents – but unfortunately not how to make them flow the way I want them to!
Art Schiff – great to hear from you, gym buddy! Hope to see you in London in 2012 for the Olympics, if not before!
Quote for the day: “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” (Martin Luther King)
Sponsored Miles: Thank you Dan Peschio and Gillian Colledge – as Roz continues to move forwards, about thirty miles since yesterday morning.
–
I’d hoped to show you a photo of me toasting you all with a TimTam in front of a glorious ocean sunset. However, the weather has other ideas. Last night Sedna was knocked onto her beam ends by a large wave, and conditions have continued monstrous today. Mostly around 30 knots, gusting 35.
I didn’t suffer any injuries in the knockdown, but the metal covers were ripped off two of the six scupper flaps (the boat’s self-draining system) and my bedpan was smashed to smithereens. Various objects relocated themselves and we were generally in a bit of disarray.
I rowed for a while today, more for the fresh air and exercise than because it made any difference, but mostly I’ve been confined to the safety of the Purple Palace. The 30 knot bits of the day were okay, but the “gusting 35″ bits are not much fun at all. And I usually can’t see them coming. The first giveaway sign is an enormous wave looming over the side of the boat, cresting, starting to fall…. followed by much splashing and much swearing.
But a promise is a promise, so this sunset I cracked open the packet of TimTams and paid tribute to my trusty Rozlings around the world – only from the relative safety of the Purple Palace, rather than from the wind-lashed deck.
I also took a moment to remember absent friends, including Timothy Ray, Larry Grandt who for so long was my oldest fan, and my father, who would have celebrated his 82nd birthday this coming Monday.
I pictured the blue and green marble of our Earth, and pictured little dots of light in each place where there are members of our community – the US, UK, Australia, India, Philippines, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica, Brazil, South Africa, France, New Zealand, and, ummm, all the other ones too. Oh, and of course another little dot of light in the middle of the Indian Ocean. That’s me.
I wish you all health, happiness, and a bright, green future. Thank you for always being there for me, and for your love, support and encouragement – come rain or shine, hell or high water. At this moment, especially, I feel very close to you all. Hope you enjoyed the full moon tonight. I was looking at it too.
Other Stuff:
I haven’t yet managed to fix the scupper flaps, so they are dangling and clanking like a couple of castanets with no sense of rhythm. Fixing them involves hanging headfirst over the side of the boat so I’m going to wait until things calm down a little, and will just have to put up with the sound effects until then.
These conditions are forecast to last for at least another 3 days. Oh joy.
According to the news my mother is sending through, it seems that one cause of the rioting in the UK is boredom. Boredom! Wouldn’t it be great if we could take all those bored people and give them something useful to do, like cleaning up rivers and streams before the trash reaches the ocean?
And is it just me, or is it crazy that people are being laid off from their jobs all over the civilized world, but the same sum total of work has to get done to meet the needs of the 7 billion of us – so those who still have jobs are rushed off their feet and stressed to the eyeballs, while the ones without jobs get bored and frustrated?
Quote for the day: A friend is one before whom I may think aloud. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Sponsored Miles: Roz did 23 miles but none of those had been specifically sponsored. Thanks to Bonnie Sterngold who did make a payment a few weeks ago to fill in some unsponsored gaps.
One of my favourite authors on this round of audiobooks has been Jacqueline Winspear with her Maisie Dobbs series. The heroine has become almost a fictional role model for me.
Maisie Dobbs is a private investigator living in London between the first and second world wars. Many of the techniques she uses in her work are precursors of modern forensic and psychological skillsets, but many are also useful and relevant as general life skills.
She uses psychological profiling techniques to identify likely culprits. To interpret how a person might be feeling, she imitates their posture or gait and analyses what emotions it produces in herself, in a kind of precursor of NLP.
She uses mindmaps to chart all the information relevant to an investigation, adding information and arrows and linkages as they emerge. I am a big fan of mindmaps and goalscapes, using them for everything from planning a presentation to planning my life. The back of my ship’s logbook now contains quite a number of mindmaps of ideas for the future.
Maisie uses an intuitive, almost spiritual, approach to her work, deliberately clearing her mind and tuning into the vibration of a place or a person in order to perceive them more clearly, without prejudice, before proceeding. This would be a very good practice for me to adopt. Too often I rush into a situation, judging it or starting to speak before truly figuring out what is already going on.
And finally, at the end of a case, she does what she terms a “final accounting”. She revisits the people and places that have played a part, and ties off all the loose ends. This brings closure not only for her, but for the other characters touched by the investigation. To an extent I already do something like this. At the end of a chapter of my life, I like to take time out with my journal to analyse what has happened and to draw out the lessons learned. Along with the mindmaps in my logbook, I’ve already started making notes on lessons from the Indian Ocean (don’t ask!).
Sometimes I even actually remember the lessons learned and manage not to make the same mistakes again – but, erm, not always. Maybe Maisie is better at this than I am. But there again, she’s fictional. And I, of course, am only human.
Other Stuff:
By the time you read this blog it will be Saturday, and time for our Solidarity Sunset. I will raise a mug of miso soup to you all, and imagine myself with you in spirit. Feel free to toast me back with something more interesting! I’d love to hear where and how and with whom you celebrate the full moon. And I will tell you about my own celebration in my next blog.
A modest day’s mileage today, which is okay because the strong wind was blowing me off course, so if I’d done lots of miles I’d only have gone even further off course. The wind is building now, and due to reach 30 kts tonight. Hmm. There’s something to look forward to. Let’s hope it has calmed down enough tomorrow for me to enjoy my Saturday celebrations without just having to hang onto the boat for dear life.
Jay – the ALEX bottle sounds awesome. I can’t wait to try it out! I couldn’t follow any of the links you posted, of course, as I only have email out here, not internet. So maybe you can tell me what my colour pattern options are?
Good to hear about further support for plastic bag bans. Keep up the good work!
Sean – have a fantastic time in Shenzhen. You have presented me with a dilemma. I don’t know whether to wish you luck, or to support the Poms. So I shall just say, “may the best crew win”!
Quote for the day: Experience teaches only the teachable.
(Aldous Huxley)
Sponsored Miles: Diane Freeman, Alexandra Stevens and Jeffrey Green – grateful for your sponsoring of today’s miles.
Today I was listening to a book by Douglas Adams, part of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” series. This book was called Mostly Harmless
But this is all beside the point. What jumped out at me today was a blink-and-you’d-miss-it little gem in a dialogue between Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, who are bickering with each other in their usual manner. It concluded something like this:
Arthur: “I think we have different value systems.”
Ford: “Mine’s better.”
Arthur: “That’s because…. oh, never mind.”
And in that throwaway line, I thought, lies the root of all human conflict since time immemorial. We each, by definition, believe that our own value system is the best. And the real danger comes when we confuse belief with truth, and try to impose it on somebody else.
Some “truths”, of course, can be proved by science. But even here we have to be careful. 500 years ago, we knew for sure that the Sun moved around the Earth. 1000 years ago, we knew the Earth was flat. It’s easy to laugh at such notions now, but at the time these were generally accepted “facts”. Truth may be more subjective than we like to think.
Personally, I’m quite happy for someone to believe the moon is made of blue cheese if they want to, provided that they don’t try to convince me of the same, and that there are no dire consequences of their belief. And herein lies the rub. The Norwegian gunman must have believed, on some level, that what he was doing was right, or at least justifiable. Religion, abortion, racism – the scope for ideological clashes is infinite. And I get the feeling that we are going to encounter these clashes more and more as the Earth becomes a more stressed and stressful place.
We are all living in the same world, seeing similar things, yet drawing different conclusions from the same evidence. I doubt if there are two people reading this blog who share precisely the same worldview, but we can still get along together. We can agree to amicably disagree where necessary. Tolerance doesn’t seem to be very fashionable at the moment, but my word, we are going to need it if there is to be any hope of a, umm, tolerable future.
Other Stuff:
A bit less bouncy today, thank heavens. Still the occasional boatfiller of a wave, but fewer than the last few days. And I ended the day nearly forty nauties (aka nautical miles) to the good. Even a momentary panic with the electrical system turned out to be a loose connection rather than anything more serious. Hurrah!
Another thought-provoker in “Mostly Harmless” – it refers to there being 5.5 billion people on the planet. I think it was written in the 1980s. We have just hit 7 billion, of whom the last 1 billion have appeared in the last 10 years. Clearly not sustainable…
Pippa – I’ve been having a problem with mouldy sprouts too. I have two different mixes. The mix of smaller pulses is fine, but the one with peanuts and chickpeas is a problem. But it is quite edible provided it is well soaked (12 hours), even if they haven’t actually sprouted. And yes, I do keep my grotty old gloves. I’ve already got through about 6 pairs this voyage. We took some of my Pacific ones and got them nicely made up in box frames with a signed photo. Might do the same again this time around.
Mark – it does take a while to reacquire my land legs, but a rocking bed sensation is not a problem. Oooh, I can’t wait to sleep in a proper bed with nice clean, crisp, fragrant sheets!
Currin – thanks for the top tips on Tim Tam consumption (nice alliteration there!). Luckily Lesley also gave me some sachets of instant caramel latte mix. Will attempt the technique, although suspect that a rocking boat may prove too much for such a delicate maneouvre.
Richard Kiyak and Green Goddess Organic Chocolate – I wish I’d known about you before I set out. Can you arrange an airdrop?! (joking – that would of course be very environmentally unfriendly). Most impressed that you use no plastic in your packaging. Keep up the great work!
Inky – hope to see you in London for the Olympics. Make sure you give me a shout nearer the time, and we’ll have to get together. Maybe we can go for a ride on Boris’s Bikes!
Sylvia!!! Lovely to hear from you, and thanks for the jokes. They made me smile. Do you and Becky still tell each other jokes to pass the time during the dreaded “plank”?! Love to all in Salcombe (ah, happy memories of mega-yummy savoury muffins and caramel lattes in Salcombe Coffee Shop!)
Quote for the day: It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live by them. (Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler)
Sponsored Miles: Megan Lutz, Doug Grandt and an anonymous donor sponsored some of today’s miles – grateful thanks.
Day 100 of the Atlantic Rowing Race, and I had been writing the blogs since Roz’s satellite phone had failed on February 19th, leaving her with no contact. Watching her progress on the Woodvale rowing race website, I could see that she was getting near to the island of Antigua, and had flown out there to await her arrival.
Day 100 The Tide Is Coming In: 9 March 2006
The tide happens to be a flood of messages congratulating Roz on attaining the point where she is recorded as having crossed longitude 59.37, which was actually at 07.09 GMT on Wednesday 8th (her 99th day). Somebody has queried my use of 99 days, but I was taking that figure from the Atlantic Rowing Race website, which differed by one day from Roz’ running total. Grateful thanks for the lovely messages that have been arriving.
Another message had the words “the sound you hear is my clapping” – it wasn’t actually what I was hearing, it was rain on the roof. So when David said that Roz would soon be on DRY land he was a bit mistaken, it is more likely to be a bit muddy!
Here on Antigua we were so hoping that Roz would get her mileage down to less than 100 to go today, but once again the weather is being unkind and the wind is proving less than helpful. She did do 22 today, so has another 110 to go.
Once again I am not sure whether I will be able to add a picture this evening or not. Watch this space.
Another sponsored mile: thanks to Rob and Cindy Owen with 2809 – she has now done 2821.
Waikiki 2008
Regular Updates Beginning: August 31st 2008.
Actually Day 99, I am on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, awaiting Roz’s arrival:
It is now just after 5pm Hawaiian time and Roz has just called with her latest position. From now on she will call every two hours. Likely to arrive tomorrow some time in the middle of the day.
21 15.140N 157 28.608W 5pm Hawaii time
21 14.389N 157 31.692W 7pm Hawaii time
21 14.719N 157 34 625W 9pm Hawaii time.
Roz describes the conditions as interesting – rough, windy and dark. However she can see light on Oahu, and things have improved since she started singing along to her CDs. She is taking a rest, but checking in again at 11pm.
21 14.580N 157 36.907W 11pm Hawaii time.
During Roz’s rest she has drifted well – she says she is a good drifter.
21 12.585N 157 47.227W 4.30am Hawaii time.
Roz has gone too far south for the photo opportunity at Diamond Head, but still on target for her objective and arrival.
0900 Hawaiian time September 1st 2008, Roz has crossed the line that she considers to be her finish line. 21 13.096N, 157 47.570W.
Roz is now awaiting a tow boat to take her nearer to Diamond Head for a photo opportunity for the press. Following that she will row to the Waikiki Yacht Club for the welcomes, the hugs, celebrations and interviews.
Roz is feeling great – happy, cheerful and not too tired.
Aiming for:Waikiki Yacht Club: 21 17 17N 157 50 31W
Other Stuff (from Roz): Conditions have been just stupidly rough today. When I stepped outside the cabin first thing this morning (doing my mouse-emerging-from-mousehole act first) and looked at the waves, I just about started laughing. It really was, “you’ve got to be kidding me!” Big, foam-streaked, curling waves. But what can you do? Got to get there somehow. So I girded my loins (aka donned waterproofs and big hat) and have spent the day in the splash zone.
James White – yup, I can’t believe I’ve been out here all that time either. Perth seems a lifetime ago! Hope to have a chance to return there one day for a victory lap (aka big beers!).
Ellen – good to hear from you! No worries about the lurking – good to know you’ve been checking in. Hope to see you for some celebrations in San Francisco after landfall. Kristian and Jay – see you there too. I am already daydreaming about the HUGE party we’re going to have!
Steve – TimTams are an Australian speciality. I haven’t tried them yet. Will let you know what they are like. I suspect they might be the Australian version of Oreos. I’m sure Tahiti would be great, but right now any dry land would be good. And yes, the clouds and rainbow photo was taken by me a couple of months ago.
Connor – yup, Mum has already suggested a seatbelt for the sitting position. Let’s wait and see if there is a “next time” first…. this one might just about be enough for any mortal.
Arita – if camels are the ships of the desert, then what would be the camel of the ocean? Humpback whales, I suppose!
Quote of the day: “Life’s problems wouldn’t be called “hurdles” if there wasn’t a way to get over them.” (don’t know the source of this one – anybody know?)
Sponsored Miles: Peter Bromley, Michael Daley, Chris Lynch, Aimee Devine and Monica Wilcox, thank you for sponsoring today’s miles.
When she found out what I do for a so-called living, a woman once said to me, with a look of awe in her eyes, “I wish I could see the things you’ve seen”. It made me realize that I have indeed seen some pretty amazing things. Here are my Top Five.
5. The Junk Raft: not wanting to disparage the Hunks on the Junk by placing them fifth, but as mere humans I felt they ought to cede priority to the natural wonders to follow. Nevertheless, by any standards the Junk Raft, made from 10,000 empty water bottles, a grid of yacht masts, and the fuselage of a Cessna aircraft, was an amazing sight, and all the more welcome because it also represented a long-awaited fresh fish supper and a resupply of fresh water. (Pacific Stage 1, between San Francisco and Hawaii)
4. Low-flying squid: I didn’t know squid could fly, until three of them thudded onto the deck of my boat, missing me by inches, leaving a horrible mess of squid ink and gelatinous corpses. People have asked why I didn’t fry them up as calamari for my supper. Take it from me, they did not look appetizing. (Pacific Stage 2, between Hawaii and Kiribati)
3. Electrical storms at night: as I was struggling through the doldrums just north of the Equator, I found great consolation in the almost nightly spectacle of towering cumulonimbus clouds, lit from within by flashes of lightning. Simply stunning. (Pacific Stage 2, between Hawaii and Kiribati)
2. Moonbow: I hadn’t even known that moonbows existed until I saw this one. There was a bright full moon in the east, and on the opposite horizon a raincloud. Voila – a moonbow. Like a rainbow, but in black and white. (Not sure if this was Pacific Stage 2 or 3)
My photo.
1. Whale shark: still the coolest wildlife I have ever seen. It was a Sunday morning, and I’d had the sea anchor out overnight. The wind had changed, so I pulled the sea anchor back in. A baby whale shark, *only* 8 feet long, attracted by the big red and yellow object, followed it right up to my boat. It then spent the next 20 minutes swimming laps around me, occasionally breaking the surface, while I ran from side to side of the boat, all the better to watch it. A very special experience. (Pacific Stage 2)
There have also been the turtles, dolphins, and whales, which are always a welcome and “wow, cool” sight. And on this voyage I’ve really enjoyed watching the aerobatics of the storm petrels. Today the wind has been gusting up to 30 knots, and they have been loving it, swooping and skimming and zipping along at phenomenal speeds. Down at sea level, I have not been reveling in the conditions, nor zipping along, emphasizing the point that no matter how long I spend out here, this is very much their habitat, not mine. I can only watch and wonder and marvel.
Other Stuff:
Less marvellous, I’ve been seeing more debris in the ocean the last couple of days. Yesterday I saw 5 or 6 pieces of rubbish within the space of 15 minutes, and today passed close to a big ball of rope and netting. It wasn’t exactly a “ghost net”, as it was a tight bundle and couldn’t have ensnared wildlife, fortunately. Interesting that I am seeing more at this halfway mark of the voyage, possibly providing evidence for the 5Gyres theory that the debris congregates in the centre of each ocean.
Natalie – Alcatraz had good food? I won’t even ask how you know that… I suspect that these days prisons serve up mostly junk food and preservatives. Even prison isn’t like it used to be….!
Jacob – good to hear from you. Interesting to hear the Africa famine linked to ocean activity. But not surprising. Now that I have rowed around most of this world, I can tell you that although it is a big world, it is nowhere near as big as we think it is – or not big enough for the way we treat it.
Thanks to everybody who has been campaigning for the plastic bag ban. It would make me deliriously happy if London (or even better, England) bans the bag forever. Banning the bag is a seriously good start at saving the environment.
Quote: “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” (Origin disputed.)
Sponsored Miles: Thank you: Julian Gall, Karen Morss, Jennifer Bester, Kamas Industries, Christopher Schmidt and Peter Bromley.
Tremendously good news from London – the mayor, Boris Johnson, is reviving his pledge to introduce a ban on plastic bags.
My mother sent me an article that appeared in the British newspaper The Daily Mail, which has been spearheading the “Banish the Bag” campaign. The article is rather self-contradictory, so it is not at all clear whether it is an all-out ban that is being considered, or a charge. Initially it says: “It is likely the scheme would be modelled on one soon to come into effect in Wales, where the proceeds of a 5p-per-bag charge will go to good causes.”
But then Boris is quoted as saying: “‘Plastics bags are an unnecessary scourge on our environment and I’ve set out my ambition to make London a plastic bag free city. We are planning a renewed campaign to help do so ahead of 2012, when the eyes of the world are on us.” It turns out that currently he doesn’t have the power to introduce either a ban or a charge, but could seek a special dispensation from Parliament.
He first said in January 2010 that he wanted to ban the bag in London, and it sounds as if he is now keen to keep his word – a most unusual course of action for a politician, but one definitely to be encouraged. I haven’t yet met Boris, although I am friends with his father. I was most impressed with the “Boris’s Bikes” initiative, which put racks of pay-as-you-go bicycles at locations all around London. Hurrah for Boris!
If you would like to write to Boris to encourage him to do the right thing, here are the contact details. Hardcopy letters carry more weight than emails, but emails are better than nothing.
Boris Johnson Mayor of London
Greater London Authority
City Hall
The Queen’s Walk
London SE1 2AA
By email: [email protected] (please also provide your postal address in the email)
This is a crucial stage in the great plastic bag debate. There has been an upswing in coverage in the British press of late. Who knows if it might be your letter or email that tips the balance? Every message counts, so please do what you can to help.
And many, many thanks to all those people who have already signed the Greener Upon Thames petition” – and thanks to Doug for the digest of comments posted by friends of this blog. I am tremendously proud of my Rozlings for helping to make the world a better – and less plasticky – place!
Other Stuff:
I’ve decided to hold off on my halfway food treats until this Saturday, when Jay has proposed we have a Roz Solidarity Sunset Celebration. So that way we can all jointly celebrate my reaching halfway, the full moon, and a slightly belated celebration (if that is the right word) of 100 days at sea. It would make me very happy to think of various people around the world sending me good vibes at sunset in your time zone this Saturday, 13th August. Party on!
A big hello to sisters Margaret and Elle Lydecker. Elle – thanks for your lovely message of support. It warmed my heart to think of a gaggle of Lydeckers talking about my progress and wishing me well. Thank you!
Markus Bennett – fantastic to hear from you! So good to know you are still watching out for me. Eleanor must be quite the young lady now. I hope to meet both of you one day soon.
Norm – thank you for spreading the word.
Joan – so your dream of buying a smallholding is coming true – congratulations!! As to your friend Jeremy, I do know some fun folks in the Oxford area, although someone with an interest in vintage Italian bicycles might be stretching it a bit. Can you email me (Mum will forward) with more info about Jeremy (age, profession, personal) and I will do what I can to hook him up with some interesting people.
Helen Outen – thanks for the update on Sarah’s progress around the world. China sounds interesting, although I think I’ll stick to my beansprouts rather than chicken feet. Sarah and I have been exchanging emails from time to time as well. Always good to hear how her adventures are progressing.
Row to the Pole crew – would love to find out more about your mission. I’ve asked Mum to check out your website and send me some info. Good luck!
Aimee – the “four point tool eater jaguar” made me groan out loud – but very good!
Quote for today: “I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” (Helen Keller)
Sponsored Miles: Beverly Wu, Anke Altermann, Margaret at Green Drinks, Nick Perdiew, Stephanie Batzer, Anna Wildy, Ugo Pistacchio, Darrell and Sylvia Vice, Clarence Jones III, Mark Clifton, Lynn Robb, Brian Smith, Tamara Fogg, Mark Bostleman, Cynthia Kruger and Mandeep Gill. Grateful for a good number of names = good number of miles rowed. Thank you.
Isn’t it funny how when you lose something, and then find it again, you’re so much happier than if you’d never lost it in the first place? There is nothing that cheers me up more than finding something I thought was gone forever – apart from my electrical system starting to work again when I thought it was a goner.
Yesterday the old Sunsaver Duo unit was up to its old tricks again, blinking its ominous red eye of death at me. The usual remedies did not work, so I turned everything off and sent it to bed with no supper, hoping it would have come to its senses today. This may not sound like a very scientific approach to electrical maintenance, but you’d be surprised how often it works.
This morning I woke up ready to go into battle. I put fresh batteries in my head lamp, armed myself with trusty screwdriver, and opened up the control panel. And was greeted by the welcome sight of a little green LED gazing steadily out from the recesses. It had indeed come to its senses.
I am beginning to suspect that the problem might be related to the temperature in the cabin. I will test this theory if it happens again. But it would be really nice if the opportunity didn’t arise. It is not good for my nerves.
I also did a stocktake of my remaining food supplies, and found that I’m in reasonable shape, although I may never want to look a beansprout in the face again once this voyage is over. I even treated myself to a new pair of rowing gloves, and although conditions are still too rough for half-way celebrations, it’s nice to know that I have those treats to look forward to. Even the anticipation is a treat.
So all in all, apart from it being a majorly bouncy and splashy day, stress levels are low and morale is high aboard the good ship Sedna Solo.
Other Stuff:
I wasn’t able to download incoming emails last night, so I’ll pick up on your comments in my next blog. It wasn’t really a technical problem that prevented the download – just that I lost the satellite connection after uploading my blog, before the downloads had completed. I tried a few times to re-establish the connection, but to no avail, and meanwhile was getting very nervous due to the high probability of getting chucked around the cabin.
So I’m not ignoring you. I’ll get caught up eventually.
The forecast is for winds and waves to abate somewhat tonight. Fingers crossed. My TimTams await.
I had a good chat with a journalist from the Daily Mail the other day, on an unusually good satphone connection. The Daily Mail has been vocal in its support for a ban on plastic bags in the UK, so we were discussing how they and the Olympic bag ban campaign” can help each other. All good stuff.
Quote for the day, apropos of my reaching halfway: “From a certain point onward, there is no turning back. That is the point that must be reached.” (Franz Kafka)
Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to the following, some of whom have contributed to several miles: Doug Grandt, Chris Lynch, Robert F Harrison, Jeffrey Blatt, Kenny Runnerduck, Thomas Heavey, Nate Beery and Ward Carpenter.
It’s traditional to have a bit of a party at the halfway mark. But unfortunately the celebrations have had to be postponed until conditions are calmer. I still have the TimTams that Lesley gave me in Geraldton for my halfway ceremony, and I have a couple of other gastronomic treats in store. But today has been hellaciously rough, and life was challenging enough without trying to do anything much beyond rowing.
This is going to be the shortest of all blogs. The ocean showed me what kind of mood she is in just before I retired to the cabin. I had just rinsed off all the saltwater and was hanging wet garments outside to dry when a monstrous wave ambushed me, soaking me to the skin. Well, skin was all I was wearing, actually. But I was mightily annoyed at having to repeat my ablutions.
And as I am writing, waves are crashing noisily into the side of the boat. I’m still a bit gun-shy after my only significant injury of the voyage so far happened in conditions like these, when I was sitting exactly where I am now, inside the cabin, shortly before being propelled headfirst into the opposite wall. So every time one of these juggernauts hits, it sets my heart racing and my adrenaline surging.
So, apologies for brevity. I’m going to upload this and then go get safely horizontal, strapped to my bunk.
Quote for the day: Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
(Franklin P. Jones)
Sponsored Miles: Todd Lowe (2), Doug Grandt, Rien Scheffer, Thomas Johnson, Lance Mamiya, Bill Wallace, Joan Sherwood, Larry Grandt – many thanks to you and many others for helping Roz reach this important stage.
Three months. Phewee. It’s really quite a long time. If someone drew a boat-shaped outline on the floor, 23 feet by 6, and told you that you weren’t allowed outside it, nor was anybody else allowed inside it, for three months, it would sound a bit like – well, like solitary confinement. Then stick a rowing machine in the middle of it, and you’ve got solitary confinement with hard labour.
The food is probably better than in prison (I’m guessing here, never having been in prison myself) but there’s nobody to serve it to me. This is a self-catering cell. The upside is that there is no jailer ordering me around, telling me what to do and when. Only my own conscience.
As to whether this gives me a sense of freedom – I suppose that is up to me. I can look on it as “here I am, confined to this tiny boat for months at a time”, or I can take the positive view: “look at this huge sky, and this vast ocean, and nobody to get in the way of my view – wow!”
I’m sure there’s a message in there, to the effect that no matter how constrained our circumstances, we can still exercise free will to the extent that we choose how we perceive our situation. But as we’ve just had a Philosophy Friday I am going to leave that to you to ponder.
Other Stuff:
Some interesting waves today, described thus by my weatherman, Lee Bruce: “wave forecast shows total height of 6m, occasional 7.5m. But that’s a combination of SSW swell, very long-period SW swell (17-19 seconds), SE-ish swell, and ESE/SE wind waves.” 7.5 metres is about 24 feet, which sounds huge, but actually it hasn’t been too bad. Because it is such a long-period swell, my boat goes up, and then it goes down, rather than the violent rocking that results from shorter, choppier waves. In fact, I quite enjoy the big swells – they mean I get a good view out across the ocean from the top, and I do like a wave with a view!
However, having said that, I am under a big storm cloud as I write this and the ocean is getting rather feisty. So I will keep this short and get safely horizontal as soon as I can. Gusts of 30 knots are forecast for tonight.
Still edging up to that magical halfway mark. It could well be tomorrow. I have my celebratory treats at the ready.
At last I had a dream with Johnny Depp in it. We were both in a film – he was starring, I just had a small role – but I did have a scene with the man himself. Lots of my friends were in it too. And I discovered to my surprise that one of the other stars, Scarlett Johanssen, is only four foot tall. Much shorter than me. Ah yes, it was a very good dream!
Good luck to Diana Nyad, the 61-year-old about to attempt to swim from Cuba to Key West. I am very impressed already, whether she makes it or not – but I hope she does and wish her all the best! (Thanks to Rich Hular for the info.)
Thanks, Eric, for the joke about the gravediggers/septic tank installers. Made me laugh out loud!
Quote: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of reaching out to fix the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.” (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, writer)
Sponsored Miles: Doug Grandt (Larry), Anne and Peter Thomson, David Martin and Todd Lowe, thank you for sponsoring miles rowed.
I am an idealist, and proud to be so. We need as many idealists as we can find in this cynical world. So I thought I would make this the topic of this week’s “Philosophy Friday”.
“Idealism” tends to be coupled with “youthful”, as if it is an unfortunate phase to be grown out of, like acne. But where would we be without a dollop of idealism in the world? It’s okay to aim high, knowing that it is just an opening position for the bargaining process and may well be whittled down to something more realistic. But if the opening position is already “realistic”, then once the whittling has happened very little will be left. If you shoot for the stars, and only get as far as the moon, you’ve still done pretty well.
Our great visionaries were idealists. An idealist is a lot more inspiring than a realist. It is much more motivating to hear “I have a dream” than “I had a dream, but then I thought about it some more, and realistically we’ll be lucky to get….”
Idealism and realism are not mutually exclusive. Even the most inspiring of visionaries has to have a plan, and supporters to help execute that plan, if they are to be regarded by history as anything more than a dreamer. And that is the appropriate time for realism to enter the picture. To get from the present situation to the envisioned future situation, there needs to be a list of steps to bridge the gap. Tenacious idealism is what makes dreams come true.
In these uncertain times, it isn’t possible to plan every step of the way with accuracy. There is a useful maxim, “plan roughly, execute superbly”, that allows plans to get going before they succumb to paralysis by analysis.
So there we go. My blueprint for creating the future. Aim for the ideal, make a big To Do list to get you from here to there, then execute the plan superbly. Not always easy, but it can be done.
Other Stuff:
Today I saw a flying fish get taken down by, err, something bigger. There was a kerfuffle at the surface of the water, I looked over, saw the flying fish take off, and before it got very far the head of something big came up and grabbed it. The whole scene was over in about one second. It’s a jungle out there. Well, no, it isn’t. It’s an ocean. But you know what I mean.
I creep ever closer to halfway. Getting really close now. And then only as much to do again. Sigh!
Tanya – it’s funny, I’ve never had that dream/nightmare of turning up somewhere in totally inappropriate clothing. Only in real life!
Stephen Stewart – nor have I had floating or flying dreams, although I hear they are very common. I do quite a lot of climbing, even scuba-diving, in my dreams, but no flying. Read into that what you will, Dr Freud!
Keith Arnold – seems to be the week for blasts from the past. I had an old Andersen Consulting colleague send me a message a couple of days ago. One of the perks of my job (or should I say “occupational hazard”?) is that my past is catching up with me. How much do I have to pay you to keep quiet about the embarrassing bits?!
Quote for today: “If we like a man’s dream, we call him a reformer; if we don’t like his dream, we call him a crank.” (William Dean Howells)
Photo: random pic of me – am I looking idealistic?!
Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to: John Miller, Anne and Peter Thomson, Wayne Batzer, Harriet Shugarman and Chris Ferreira.
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Regular readers of this blog will know that since last autumn I have been co-patron of a campaign to make the 2012 Olympics plastic bag free. We had a very promising first meeting with the powers-that-be in December, and I was really hopeful that we could take this important and symbolic first step towards banning the bag in the UK.
I was dismayed to learn via email that the initiative seems to have stalled. So far the organizing committee have pledged only to ban single use plastic bags in their own shops. I don’t see how this squares with the claim that the 2012 Olympics would be the “most sustainable games” ever. Plastic bags are unsustainable from start to finish. They are made from oil, and once thrown into landfill or oceans they last for hundreds of years. What on Earth is sustainable about that? Plastic bags are the very epitome of unsustainability.
Plus, if the organizers enforce a bolder ban, it will be an unparalleled opportunity for a big PR and public awareness campaign around the perils of plastic – the toxins, hormone disruptors, effect on wildlife etc etc. Visitors coming to the Games from around the world will take this message back to their home countries to encourage change there.
Apparently mutterings were being made about “lack of storage space” – presumably for paper bags instead of plastic. My view was that the retailers should produce tasteful commemorative bags, made from organic cotton, to be sold for, say, GBP 1. Consumers would have a nice souvenir, retailers would have longer-lived bags bearing their logos, and millions of plastic bags would be kept out of landfill. And I expect the retailers would manage to find storage space if they were making a profit on every bag sold.
I believe a plastic bag free Britain could be a genuine legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games!
With just a year to go I earnestly need your help. We must not give up on our efforts! There is still time to influence matters, even though this is now the 11th hour. Please sign the petition organized by Greener-Upon-Thames (of which I am a patron) and support their grassroots campaign for a full ban – and encourage friends, family and colleagues to sign too.
Every signature counts.
Other Stuff:
As of today I have been at sea exactly 3 months. And am not yet half way. Sigh. But this doesn’t mean it’s going to take me over 6 months to get across. The second half should, according to my weatherman, have more favourable winds. That would be nice.
Our Week 42 podcast, “Dancing Dorados” is now live!
UncaDoug – I’m not taking water temps, but air temps have been between 22 and 34 Celsius. Mostly quite pleasant, really. I saw the crescent moon tonight, and thought of you!
Roger Finch – you being rude about my height?! Come over here and say that!!
Fiona Schneider – hoping to arrive in September. Or October. Can’t be more precise than that, I’m afraid!
Anne – your joke made me snort with laughter. Thank you! For those who missed it the first time around, here it is again: What did the fish say when he ran into a wall?
Dam.
Rico – I’m sure I shouldn’t laugh at your joke. But I did!
Quote – courtesy of Jim Bell’s great-great-great….-grandfather:
For every problem under the sun,
There is a solution, or there’s none.
If there is one, try and find it,
If there isn’t, never mind it.
I first met Martha when we were speaking to different groups in Vail, CO in early 2010. We were treated to a tour and lunch by the hosts and made an instant connection! I later visited Martha at her home in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Aug. 2010.
Guest blog by Martha Kaufeldt.
“For me it happened about five years ago. My eighty year old mother didn’t start until she was 78. And you? When did bringing reusable shopping bags to the store become a habit for you? This simple act of supplying your own sack for groceries can make a HUGE difference on the amount of plastic bags introduced into your local environment. As my friend, solo-ocean-rower, Roz Savage confirms, a single oar stroke doesn’t seem like much at the time, but added together with many others, it can make a big difference. But how does one get into the routine of bringing reusable bags to the market and refusing to accept plastic sacks? So many have heard the message, but haven’t reached the tipping point yet and formed a new habit.
I am devoted to helping teachers learn how to be “brain changers.” From brain research, we can get ideas to help us learn and strengthen our memories, and we can also understand how to unlearn old habits by replacing them with a new pattern.
We know that as you are trying a new behavior, neurons in the brain are prompted to grow and begin to make connections with other neurons. As the learning continues with more activities, tasks, and repetitions, the synaptic connections between the neurons are strengthened and the learning becomes hardwired. If the new neural network isn’t re-stimulated, the brain will begin a natural pruning process to get rid of the little-used branches. “Use it or lose it” is absolutely true. When we repeat a task multiple times, a new track is laid down that eventually becomes more defined and efficient. Much like when one slides down a snowy hill with a toboggan. Each subsequent run etches the route more deeply, making it harder to go “outside” the path. The more we use a new pattern it eventually becomes a habit. Pretty soon we are able to multi-task because the action or procedure is so well learned that it is automatic.
Once a memory or routine is hard-wired in your brain, it may very well stay there your whole life. In order to establish a new habit such as remembering to bring along your reusable shopping bag, you must establish a new pattern and repeat it enough to hardwire it in your brain. It may take between 40-70 times of doing the new pattern before the brain wires it as a permanent pattern. When you finally reach your tipping point the desired routine is established and you are now a devoted reusable shopping bag user – refusing plastic bags fervently.
There are several things you can do to hasten the new habit along it its formation:
1)Create a roadblock to disrupt your old pattern. I placed my wallet inside the reusable bag as I went out of the house. If I started to get out of the car without the bags, I would notice as I reached for my purse.
2) I f you want to make something a new habit more quickly… visualize it! Researchers have determined that mindful practice is nearly as good as actually doing the real thing.
3) Make an emotional connection to the new action. We remember things when our emotions are involved (positive feelings would be best!) Make your reusable bag special! Have your kids decorate it or purchase one as a souvenir on a special trip. (My husband and I gave out 90 bags at our wedding as “favors” and asked our guests to use them and remember us).
4) Determine what happens just before you would do the new routine. Set up a way to trigger your memory to switch patterns. Hanging the reusable bags on the front doorknob, etc.
5) Practice the behavior several times. Hang the bags on the doorknob, place your wallet inside, walk to the car and get in, get out and fetch the bags, and lock up the car. Repeat to remember.
Just keep doing it! Practice makes permanent!”
QUOTE: “We are what we repeatedly do; excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle
Martha Kaufeldt is a veteran educator, author and teacher trainer. She is devoted to helping teachers and students discover how brains learn naturally. If the brain is the organ for learning, then teachers should be brain experts! Her books include: Begin with the Brain: Orchestrating the Learner-Centered Classroom (2009), Teachers, Change Your Bait! Brain-Compatible Differentiated Instruction (2005), and Think Big, Start Small: How to Differentiate in a Brain-Friendly Classroom (Sept 2011) Martha lives in Scotts Valley, CA in the beautiful redwood forest near Santa Cruz. Visit her web site: http://www.beginwiththebrain.com
Or LIKE her Facebook page: Begin with the Brain.
Other Stuff:
I am starting to make slow but steady progress in the right direction. This is good. Conditions today were rough, and I was repeatedly tipped off my rowing seat by boisterous waves. But no harm done.
I saw a Humbug Fish (aka pilot fish) squiggling alongside my boat today. First time in a while I’ve seen one. Nice to re-make the acquaintance of the little stripey chappies.
Ken B – appreciated the comment about “the green thing back then”. It’s true – not long ago we used to be a lot more sensible, a lot less throwaway. Even *I* can remember those times! I wonder how we can return to those values without people getting uppity and whining that we’re taking away their right to create as much trash as they want to?
Marks-the-Spot – you ask: Big corporations, big government, big religion, is there any difference? Interesting that what these three have in common is “big”…. I’m listening to “Jennifer Government” at the moment – a frighteningly plausible logical conclusion to the way we’re heading.
Deb Smith and Chance – thanks for the jokes. Very good!!!
Sponsored Miles: Thanks to Sylvia and Darrell Vice, Bonnie Sterngold.
My social life is very active at the moment. In my dreams. No, I mean, literally – in my dreams, I am out and about and partying most nights, often with famous people. Film stars, former presidents (so far only Democrats), and sportspeople, with Posh and Becks appearing with disconcerting regularity.
Why Posh and Becks? No idea. I’d rather Johnny Depp were a regular nighttime visitor (!), but he’s been keeping a low profile dream-wise. Also people from my dim and distant past – schoolfriends and former colleagues I haven’t thought about in years unexpectedly dropping in at random to say hi.
And, of course, many of these social gatherings involve food. LOTS of food.
I dream a lot when I’m at sea. Waves wake me up many times during the night either by crashing noisily into the side of the cabin or by shaking me into wakefulness. So I’m often in the dream phase of sleep, and can usually remember quite a lot of what I was dreaming just before the ocean interrupted me.
I suppose it must be my subconscious making up for what is so significantly lacking in my life at the moment. It’s quite fun, really. I look forward to my sleep for so many reasons – giving my body a chance to recover, getting away from the oars, a time to be dry and (relatively) comfortable – but the thing I look forward to most is the dreaming. As I fall asleep, I never know quite what might happen or who I might meet over the next few hours. Or what I might get to eat.
And luckily, so far, no nightmares. Like, that I’m stuck on a tiny rowboat going around in circles and doomed forever to wander the oceans alone…
Other Stuff:
Actually, I seem to be breaking out of my circles of doom. In the last 24 hours I’ve made a whole 19 miles, which although rather underwhelming is nonetheless my best mileage since 10 days ago. I’m not getting my hopes up – I’ve learned from hard experience that getting hopeful is a sure invitation to disappointment – but it would be really nice if this heralded a period of better progress. Happy August!
Thanks for all the jokes. Aimee is keeping them coming to me along with the daily digest of blog comments, rationed out so I can appreciate each and every one to the full.
Quote: “Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.” (Sleep expert William Dement – and with a name like “Dement” surely he is well qualified to comment on insanity!)
“I promised you a few guest blogs this year, to give you a break from my musings. Here is the first, courtesy of Dr Marcus Eriksen of the 5 Gyres Institute. Long-time Roz-blog readers might remember Marcus as one of the two “Hunks on the JUNK“, the bizarre craft made of 10,000 empty water bottles that I encountered between San Francisco and Hawaii in 2008. Marcus is still fighting the good fight against plastic pollution.
Over to you, Marcus….”
Marcus writes:
I just flew over Diamondhead, the extinct volcano on Oahu, Hawaii. In three days we will sail to the North Pacific Gyre to study plastic pollution. I was last here three years ago when the JUNK raft drifted here from Los Angeles in 88 long days on a homemade raft floating on 15,000 plastic bottles. I remember Diamondhead coming into view, our slow 2-knot drift to the island, and my reunion with my wife Anna.
As the JUNK arrived I was looking forward to telling the world about our adventure. But I was looking back. Literally looking to the sea for Roz, who was to arrive in just a few days. Three weeks earlier we had the most amazing dinner party in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. By rowing and drifting, we intentionally found each other to trade gifts of life – water for food. Joel and I were out of food, and Roz’s water-makers had malfunctioned. We were each other’s salvation.
Now, 3 years later I’m still studying plastic pollution. Roz is still rowing, this time in the Indian Ocean on her way to be the first woman to do so around the world, and she’s finding plastic. Anna and I founded 5 Gyres and have documented plastic pollution in all 5 subtropical gyres. The problem is global, but so are solutions. Nations are banning plastic bags, companies are making smarter products, and even the Olympics is hoping to go plastic bag-free! I’m as hopeful now as I was three years ago.
About 5 Gyres-
The 5 Gyres Institute is dedicated to sustaining our oceans through research, education and adventure. We have recently completed our first series of expeditions, traveling 25,000 miles through the 5 subtropical gyres and discovered plastic pollution throughout them all. Our adventures are followed by actions: published results, educational programs, consul to business and lawmakers, and more adventure, like the 2012 Japan Tsunami Debris Field Expedition. Visit www.5gyres.org to learn how you can be involved, become crew, become a leader for sustainability in your home, office, school or community.
Photo: Joel Paschal, Roz and Marcus, Hawaii, 2008 (BBC.)
People do ask Marcus:”If there is a garbage pile in the Pacific, why can’t we see it on satellite images?”
He replies: “You’re not going to be able to see it from Google earth, you can’t even see it from an airplane. The plastic very quickly photodegrades. It doesn’t break down – it breaks apart into smaller plastic pieces. So, very quickly a water bottle, within a year becomes 5 or 10,000 small particles of plastic. So, what you are seeing is a blue ocean, but if you look at it closely it’s a plastic soup. There is no island of plastic out there, that is a misconception, what it is is this plastic soup from coast to coast – every ocean around the world.”
Other Stuff”
At last the elements are starting to help rather than hinder. Last night for the first time in about 10 days I woke up marginally closer to my destination than I was when I fell asleep. This was very good news! But progress continues slow, as I crab sideways across strong winds and rough seas. Today “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” has been keeping me entertained, and a smile on my face.
Rico – thanks for the words of encouragement (and from such a great film!). I also think of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and how “stuckness” is often a necessary prelude to progress. This too shall pass…
Bill – actually, one of my current snacks is very similar to chocolate icing. I was given twelve cans of butter, and in an effort to find a way to use it up, I’ve taken to mixing it with my organic hot chocolate powder – a super-yummy snack! And thanks for the beautiful words.
Jay – thanks for the invite to the wine and cheesecake party. I don’t like cheesecake, so maybe I can just have the wine. That’s fine with me! It would be great fun to organize a Bay Area get-together. I will give you due warning.
Jenkuzio – your grandmother was a wise woman. Sometimes on my boat I find myself dithering over something, and usually end up telling myself out loud, “Just do SOMETHING!”
Alan from Newburyport – thanks for the naughty joke – enjoyed that one!
Quote for the day: Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
(Aldous Huxley)
Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to Bonnie Sterngold, Lauren Scott.
Sponsors
Thank you to my supportive and generous sponsors, please click here for a full list.
“, by Jonathan Haidt. I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it is one of the best books I have found so far on the subject of happiness, combining scientific evidence with spiritual teachings and a good dollop of humour to come up with suggestions for finding happiness that really ring true.
” – quite possibly my second worst choice after “The Wave”. Not that it isn’t a good book – it is – but listening to a book about delusions and alternative versions of reality can really mess with your head when you’re alone in the middle of an ocean!
” at the moment – a frighteningly plausible logical conclusion to the way we’re heading.
” has been keeping me entertained, and a smile on my face.
” and how “stuckness” is often a necessary prelude to progress. This too shall pass…
