About Me

My photo
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!

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Not One, But Two

        Oh, how nice it is to be on land!  Two, not one, females calling to their mates!  Keeping me awake
and yet, admiring the lovely shape of my house that has nothing to do with my boat or an ocean!  They
call in a particular way their mates ( or at least the one's they have mated with) from the roof of my  house, I have not seen for these past three years for I have been at sea.
         Their mating call offended my senses to a degree that I realized non-sleep!   I have adjusted to a sleep
deprivation accorded to a master of a vessel on peculiar adventures of trade and negotiations beyond the
measure of a man jack before the mast!  I order!  And my orders are  carried out!  When I demand rest it is given to me as is my right as being a person of respect by ship, crew and King or Queen!
        So what have we here but two  females calling to twelve males?  Regardless of their design! 
It is all the same.  I need sleep and animals need to procreate.  Which is more important?  Animals making more animals or me having a good nights sleep without a bunch of sailors constantantly asking me questions
about things they will never understand?
        Simply said!   Two female turkeys ended up on my roof.  I'm trying to sleep but had no choice but
to satisfy the males that flew nowhere. They hung out! The females made it to my roof and then call out to the males, who
know that I can't miss with my " Blunderbuss"! I like to eat turkey. I give them last night and today.  If any of them disturb the
rest that I so require, tonight, their fate is on them.  I will enjoy having them on my plate even if my eyes are held open by the toothpicks that were necessary to hold them in that position because I required sleep that these local turkeys disallowed me to attain! 
       The turkeys that are infesting my house and place of rest should prepare themselves for tomorrow!
Today they had their way!  I will have my way with them in the future. Sometimes hunger devours beauty
but only because it is necessary!  When I wake up tomorrow I can promise you I will be rested and hungry and they will have found another place to be!  That is the way of it!  Heh!
    

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Answer To A Friend

What's that saying...? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

We had a rat die in the attic and I couldn't get to it, so it rotted and permeated through

the walls. Ugh.... what rancid stench! Summer time and the rat dried up in a week but

I learned... don't put Decon in the attic. Set traps


Don, here is the saying from---


The Mourning Bride. by William Congreve 1697

" Love has no rage like love to hatred turnd'd

Nor Hell a fury like a women scorn'd"



This comes at the end of Act 3, Scene 8.



Had a rat on a boat I sailed. Valhalla. Nailed it with a trap at night.

We all heard the trap when it was sprung! Snap it went!

It almost took the large rat's head completely off. I remember it was black and white in coloring and Marion, dead Larry's wife,

puked. The dead rat couldn't swim but I would lay odds a barracuda got it before a shark!

As a seaman my wish is better cockroach traps. After all these years at least I have learned one thing and maybe a few others. Never bring boxes aboard your vessel. Leave them ashore and bring your goods aboard in other devices, Young cockroaches live in the ribbing of the walls of the box and grow quite quickly. I hate the ones that can fly! When they run into something they sound like flying fish bombarding your deck at night while running from mahi mahi (dorado)! The difference is you can harvest the flying fish and eat them. I've never eaten a cockroach yet but I'd prefer that over human when in a pinch! I think I could eat a rat? I've eaten squirrel and my brother, Randy, calls them," Tree Rats"! I have been fortunate. I have only sailed with four people I would rather eat than sail with!

I recounted. Make that six but that is over 25,000 miles on 21 different vessels on several oceans and seas. Makes me wonder how Captain Bly and his crew survived such a long sail in an open boat? What do you think kept them alive? Dead William and vengeance! B'garrrrr



.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Never Knowing An Always Begining

     When I purchased my first boat I thought I had arrived.  In hindsight I had but didn't understand--what I had until I lost her! Oh, I lost her to ignorance.  I see now what youth can never see because the price has not been paid!  In youth!  Only a man knows what is lost.
      I sailed several vessels when I was young and had not yet arrived into my inheritance.  I knew what was expected of me and yet was reticent to come into a full understanding and so made due with objects of beauty but never was  willing to accept any responsibility for consequences of which I felt that in my youth I would not be held accountable for! So boat, vessel and ships were sailed to various ports; landing, exchanging goods, trading and basically carrying on with business as usual!  Forgetfulness without sorrow...
      People I thought, I thought I cared for started dieing in life around the world.  I was sorry but it did not mean that much to me because they were fat and selfish and only a people that I interacted with. There were many new people in many ports as fat and greedy that I sailed into-to trade with and barter with as in the way of the world.  I enjoyed their wine and camaraderie and when they died I sent flowers to commiserate the people ( my business partners)  that I  would really miss them.  I could not!  For tomorrow was nothing more than another day and another transaction in a business world that to go to sleep for a minute would allow your competitor to move beyond you in the scope of your business!
     What can I say but the truth that haunts me now?  Hear me, please.  What I know now is different than  yesterdays meaning!  If I may give you a small insight into your youth relative to your age now?  Hear me and accept this present!
                 " Much is for sale"? There is much ado about nothing!  Think.  What is wealth?  Be very careful what you wish for.  How much is enough?  Do you remember every man/women you have slept with?
Do you owe anyone anything?  How many mistakes have you made?  Have you ever paid someone Else's
debt for them?  Do you feel better for it? Has anyone paid yours?  Have you ever stolen a boat, a friend or done something so wrong in your own eyes that you can not forgive yourself ? Have you ever realised that
when you wake up tomorrow you do not have a dream?  Can you say that you have taught your children the price of admission into the illusory world of illusion that calls failure success and real pirates laugh at the wars and business that  governments continually create in the name of a "Holy War" called religious business?
        I laugh at dishonesty!  I am old enough to understand I am not for sale. even to the highest bidder!  I have survived storms greater than man can dish out.  What can happen to me?  A government of man will torture and kill me?  For my thoughts?  A group of pirates off Somalia will board me and take my little sailboat and my life away from me?  Heh-heh, heh, I think not.  How does one kill a spirit? Well, ask America.  They are still trying to do this in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Still hiding behind their christian Bible, fighting holy wars in the name of righteousness that I find laughable!
        I had a first sailboat.  I have had many more.  I loved them all as I loved what they all allowed me to sail through. Major storms, heavy swells and good fellowship.  God Bless the world that you'll have decided to live in.  Good business, great trade and friends on waters that  you feel comfortable with!  May the wind always blow somewhere!  Find it!
    
         So this great beginning starts right now with all of us being wrong but re-starting again and again until we get it right!  I believe it is possible for me to steal another heart which is like a vessel that sails to points unknown that can be known with children aboard and pirates that plunder the very thoughts in their minds eye!  Sail on to truer waters, my brothers at sea! Find your personal place in the many Oceans that land is surrounded by!  There is where yourself will be found amongst the stars that exist and are above another horizon.... AArrrrggghhhh!!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

True Colors

       So caught out!  After all these years gone by?  Found, not lost!  But found!  All, who knew me, now
know the real me.  Yes, I am only loyal to myself.  I was hoping all others were of the same ilk.  I was promised it was so by a wiser fool than I have pretense to be.  But yes, a fool was he and I also stand in front of you now and profess to be even a larger one, if this were possible!
        I searched for everything under the sun, knowing I am special, knowing I would find the jewell of my quest!  Hither and yon, I searched, finding pieces of a treasure that only existed in imagination.  Could the purpose of my investigation be meaningful than my very life will have had some bit of meaning and nought to have all been in vain?  In vain?  Maybe.
       There is a jury.  At the end of a voyage, when one is paid and in the leaving, one looks back and remembers.  What?  The entire voyage?  A portion?  The good?  The bad?  The complete?  There is a log and depending on how it is written and by whom it is written by tells the tale! 
       We all have memory.  Unfortunately our combined memories give us a better picture of what might have transpired as opposed to what did!  For instance:  I am forward watching five men change a headsail.  Even though in the dead of night, there was a moon and I saw who stabbed Mr. Standish and in the penetration used his and the vessels motion to cast him into the water. "  Man overboard", was cried!  Yes. It was but by the time the vessel, " Reefer", could come about and make the motions of a late at night sea rescue, Gregory Standish was aboard another vessel belonging to David Jones.
        What brings these stories to mind, now, is that as a man before the mast, I have no value.  I can not sing shanties in a pub for the rum that was so much a part of my life at sea.  The sea is my life and now my fingers are warped of it.  Frozen by the knots I have tied and by the men I have ordered to go aloft in a full gale to save us all from the peril of driving a rigged and driven!  Her under water by the weight of her design and rigging alone! Do you understand?  I do.
        I accept the responsibillity and position of every boat I have sailed.  No log announces me as unseaworthy.  Of this I am proud, but not without regret at this stage of my life.  I have seen much as in the way of living and dying!  Is there a log in a heaven, a record keeper that is better than a master of a vessel?
        What I have witnessed is about character.  I have seen a peculiur people.  An ordinary seaman save the life of a bosun's mate who had him whipped, just the day before, because it came natural to him.  Did anything change after the storm?  No!  But something did..  I did!
         Many of the men I have sailed with are dead.  Where did they die?  Where did the men you sailed with die?  On land?  The ocean does not kill who she loves but gives a dawning sunrise and a freash breeze to a gathering sea.  I have loved those mornings which are like a birthing.  A continuence of an eternal hearthrob!
Yes, I've been hard aground.  Yes, I have seen a mast toppled! Yes, I have seen sea legs take a bit longer than it should have and vomit needed to be picked up as food was neccessary to be prepared! So what?
         The oceans have food in them.  Life itself, even weather.  A sailboat has a better chance of surviving a full gale than a cargo container ship. ( or a bark) Should I count how many containers I have seen adrift in the middle of any ocean?  I always wondered if there were dead humans in them being sumggled  illegally to the US.  The dream as opposed to dreamtime, ( for those who have been down under). Coming down the western coastline I also wondered what happened to that big tree that got away?  Sixty foot trees, floating(just barely) in the Pacific Ocean!
        How about those pirates?  Not Pittsburg!  I'm talking about " The Indian Ocean" or " The South China Sea"!  How many boats just simply disappear?  One or two a year?  Doesn't make our daily news does it?  You know why?  I do .  And so does everyone that has any grey matter between your hearing receptacles.
        A pirate was a freedom fighter.  A pirate only became a pirate because he couldn't quit being a mercenary. With few exceptions (Francis Drake) All pirates fought for country and spoils of war.  It was hell when the war ended and yet, we have documented proof that piracy was still allowed, unless you were caught!  Still exists today!  And a short yesterday!
        Hard to imagine that anyone would want to sail with me.  I know the latitude and longitude where the bodies have been recognized by Neptune.  I, also, am a brewmaster and a baker.  This fact alone, usually gets me on a ship, even if it is just for the captain!  Ha!
      

Blog Archive