About Me

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Sacramento, California, United States
so salty pieces of coral from surfing Hawaii in the 60's and 70's getting reef pounded living in my body fall through my skin from time to time!

sailing to Oahu

Jimi Hendrix was playing on Oahu. I had never sailed. Surfed Mexico, California, Hawaii! Aw, how hard could it be to sail 90-110 miles from Kauai to Oahu? Piece of cake, right? Remember it was the 60's! This is so bad. We thought we were looking at Kaiena Point,Ohau, knowing we weren't going to make the concert! But at least we were in site of Oahu-wrong! Coy, who had never sailed before, me,who had never sailed before, jeff and Abbott etc. We were looking at the sleeping giant on Kauai! We had done three-sixty's in the night! We sailed on the only tri-marran I've ever sailed on ( except later ) in my life, missed the concert! It was at the Waikiki Shell Ampitheater ( Moon eclipsed . We finally made Nawilwili Harbor! The Skipper tried to give us his boat saying, " It's trying to kill me"! We watched him go stark raving mad not even realising that had we got caught in the channel current we were on our way to Japan! Remember it was the 60's and we were going to see Hendrix. I left out some of the good stuff but I will make up for it later!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Watch, Whose Watch

     Whose watch does a navigator love?  Yours!  On your watch I can make no mistakes!  If I give
you a heading and you can't or don't keep it, it's the captains fault.  I can wonder why till the day that
I die?  Is a given heading a hard course?  What?  You saw lights, maybe a lighthouse warning you of
the danger of driving at night with no lights?  Oh, you had an original idea that you know more than the
one who reads the sextant!  Wake the navigator up!  Don't bother the Captain!  What does he know?
      The Captain trusts his navigator.  Shouldn't you?  If not, Why knot?  A watch watches.  A skipper
skips and a navigator navigates!  When a watch skips a navigator, what happens?
      That depends.  Did someone feel or hear a change brought about by watch?  Before any cataclismic
damage was done to vessel and/or crew?  Yes?  Once onboard a sailor is in tune to every nuance his
exoskeleton ( his vessel ) can make.  It is a finely tuned instrument that sings as the ocean and wind place
it where it will.  But safety and direction are the navigators.  He has time on his accurate chronometer
(watch) distance measured by speed over water and Earth with stars, Moon and Sun announcing, " Here is where I am"!
     How can a watcher, tell The Watcher, what to watch for?  Be Leary but not Timithy!  Before changing
course, always ask someone wiser than you, "What is the best course"?  Then go your own way and be
prepared for the price you must pay.  This is how we learn..  There has got to be a more affordable way!
Sometimes learning is a life and death experience.  So is sailing with a good navigator and a crew with a mind of their own!  Arrgh, aground are we on a lee shore?  Die dogs!!!!!! 

LEONARD COHEN LYRICS

This is important.  More important than my meaningless meandering
through hollow portals of past experiences I may or may not remember.
As they were or weren't doesn't hold a candle to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHI9BTpGkp8





LEONARD COHEN LYRICS









"Democracy"



It's coming through a hole in the air,

from those nights in Tiananmen Square.

It's coming from the feel

that this ain't exactly real,

or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

From the wars against disorder,

from the sirens night and day,

from the fires of the homeless,

from the ashes of the gay:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;

on a visionary flood of alcohol;

from the staggering account

of the Sermon on the Mount

which I don't pretend to understand at all.

It's coming from the silence

on the dock of the bay,

from the brave, the bold, the battered

heart of Chevrolet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



It's coming from the sorrow in the street,

the holy places where the races meet;

from the homicidal bitchin'

that goes down in every kitchen

to determine who will serve and who will eat.

From the wells of disappointment

where the women kneel to pray

for the grace of God in the desert here

and the desert far away:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State!

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.



It's coming to America first,

the cradle of the best and of the worst.

It's here they got the range

and the machinery for change

and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.

It's here the family's broken

and it's here the lonely say

that the heart has got to open

in a fundamental way:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



It's coming from the women and the men.

O baby, we'll be making love again.

We'll be going down so deep

the river's going to weep,

and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

It's coming like the tidal flood

beneath the lunar sway,

imperial, mysterious,

in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



Sail on, sail on ...



I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene.

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight,

getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

that Time cannot decay,

I'm junk but I'm still holding up

this little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

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