Mermaid?

One foggy day, 28 days out from Hawaii, becalmed for two days between Catalina and Santa Barbara Islands about 20 miles from Marina Del Rey, ghosting through several major shipping lanes with no food, no engine, no running lights but did have a flashlight, I heard an unusual noise! Was it fatigue?

I'd been worried and up for three days and had already watched, knowing I was hallucinating, a giant squid slither aboard at the bow moving towards me at the wheel. It looked so real and being bored and alone I enjoyed the company and the movie on a moonless but starry dog watch. That was three days ago The giant squid never reached the cockpit because a smaller but still huge Shibe ( ahi-yellow finned tuna) took him off the bowsprit like eating a squid kabob leaving ink and his propulsion system ( tentacles ) writhing on the deck falling harmlessly back from whence they came! My imagination. I really didn't see that coming. I've seen Mahi take flying fish out of the air but I've only seen tuna eat squid on television. I've kicked still live squid out of dying tuna I've caught on the deck of a fishing boat before but was a little depressed the giant squid got food chained before his tentacles reached me. I was so hungry I had been trying to figure out if I had anything big enough aboard to smash this giant squid into chewable calamari. I knew we still had some flour. Now, I would never know and I also would never find out if my nerves would have held when the tentacles were reaching for me hiding behind the wheel.

An hour later Shang-Gri-La, a 55 foot, Choi Lee sailed into soup so thick it felt like we had entered The Sargasso Sea. You know, boats sail into it, get tangled up and never sail out of it? The fog was so thick it was like being inside a raincloud of solid water. It was like drinking air! We sheeted in the sails but left them up in the hope that someone would have a better chance of seeing us. It was very quiet and visibility fluctuated between 5 and 20 feet. Mostly 5 to 10'.

Why this situation is so nerve wrecking is it isn't a hallucination! We are doing circles blindly, with no control what-so-ever in a major shipping lane. The California Coast itself is frightening enough but throw in the international ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach! Forget about the traffic from Panama to Alaska and points in between! Can't see but we can hear-everything! Horns, whistles, bells all sounding as if they are coming right at us and are right next to us for two days! It reminded me of " Tell-Tale Heart " by Edgar Allen Poe! You could hear the tugboat engines pulling their barges on a long tow just knowing that any minute the submerged cable which was directly under us, was going to pull a fully loaded garbage barge into our fiberglass vessel crushing us into instant flotsam and no one even knowing it had happened! See what I mean about Poe? The others could stomach no more and went below to ride out a fog that was worse than any storm I had weathered in the past!. My heart at times was pounding as hard and louder than the man heard in Poe's story who had buried a person under the floorboards and was in anguish listening to a dead man's beating heart. That's when I heard a new sound!

For some reason it was slightly musical and sent a refreshing wave of peace that washed over me and quelled my throbbing heart allowing it to resettle itself back in it's moorings, still rebellious but softening the roaring that had been in my ears and allowing me to focus and try to visualize what this new sound meant. It now sounded like a swimmer having a casual swim around the boat. Spitting out water with an exhale here and then over there. Kind of like this might sound! " pssheeu ". I'd never heard the like before and couldn't wrap my mind around what it could be. As I was looking overboard, towards the most recent sound ( they were becoming more regular and closer ) I saw gracefully, fluid lines of movement, underwater, accented streaky lines like sparklers being moved rapidly by children on the fourth of July. Because of the fog I could only see the underwater patterns of it's movement when it was close to the hull on both sides of the boat but it was leaving definitive trails and definitely flirting with me and in a playful way raising my curiosity. That's when the unbelievable fact of what it had to be hit me and I knew if I called below for a witness to come topside it would disappear. I couldn't do this. Somehow, telepathically, it communicated to me that this visitation was for me and no one else. I knew I was about to become the first sailor in quite some time to spend a few moments with a mermaid. I could not believe my good fortune. I had totally forgotten my throbbing heart, my fatigue, my hunger, my fears, my past hallucinations, my crew, and reality! I was about to see a nautical mystery, a mythology realized, that maybe no sailor of the past had ever seen ! Before I could ask," why me, Lord"? It surfaced behind me at the transom and exhaled what sounded like an attempt at " Hello"!! I knew the beautiful trails it was leaving underwater, outlining it's shape and gracefulness, was agitated plankton (seaweed to the uninitiated) but my imagination had conceived by it's own volition a shining, voluptuous, long haired, magically empowered, Aphrodite or a Venus of such beauty that to be in it's presence heightened ones awareness to celestial elevations that man has only dreamed were possible to be a part of and stand amongst!

As I starred into the water behind the transom, seeing first, concentric phosphoric rings emanating from the risen creatures chest, hearing it's breathing and then my gaze focusing on her head I realized what a great experience I am having. It was a him. A very large him yet so graceful in the water that in a way it is feminine. In the quiet of the foggy sea this amazing creature had taken the time to come and visit me in the middle of a terrible night. There was no other reason for him to be here looking up at me in the middle of nowhere than to drop by and say, " Hello". We talked for awhile. He was in no particular hurry to leave and I had no way to leave which means I was exactly where I was supposed to be. He listened. I listened. Strangely, with him there I knew we were safe. He wouldn't have lived this long going back and forth from the mainland to the islands through these shipping lanes without knowing how to get out of their way! Before he left for Catalina he told me the fog was lifting and a steady Northeasterly would allow us to sail right into our slip. He warned me about a fat, cigar smoking, scotch drinking, stink boat wanna-be captain that didn't like to give way to sailboats and tried to herd them into untenable situations. He told me the guy was a bully and really a day sailing coward that never left the marina. He'd never even taken his father's stink boat the 26 miles to Catalina.

He told me to stare him down and don't give way even if it looked like we were going to ram. Sure enough, it happened just like he said. I thought the mad skipper was going to swallow his cigar and explode when he frantically put his helm hard over! He yelled he was going to turn us in to the Harbormaster. He didn't but we did. Last I heard they had informed his father what would happen if his son was caught behind the wheel of any boat at the marina. The sea lion also informed me why they knew so much about this guy. Where ever he went they could smell him. He took pleasure in releasing his toilet directly into the ocean rather than offloading it into sanctioned holding for disposal facilities. He told me even in his world, " It takes all kinds"!

That's as close as I've ever been to a mermaid. Now St Elmo's fire is another story! ARRRGGHHHHHH, matey

Trepidation

    He says as he combs the tangles out of his beard!  Santa Cruz.  The Pacific Ocean and my finger in her
after a long, hard ride on a bicycle with 21 speeds?  How could this be hard?  Horseback is hard!  And
painful.  21 speeds!  A good horse has four!  I'll let you know if I get back about speed #16.
    My bicycle is so much faster than my canoe.  My bike has a habit of getting in cars way!  Scares me.  My canoe never gets in boats way because it is a water thing.  Boats are filled with original people that aren't driving cars. 
Boats can drift or sail without an engine.  Sometimes without rowing the WATER underneath you carries you where It is going.  Bicyles can coast ( a water word) which allows me to do the same thing!  Coasting is cool?  
     Exploration should always be done with trepidation.  Not panic but a kindly awareness that in a moment
of inattentiveness things have a dreadful way of going horribly south!  I am three days and two nights away from  friends. You do the math and critique me.  I'm not sure I could get there from here in my canoe but I do prefer boat travel!  The last time I rode my bike (not my motorcycle) to Santa Cruz, a 240 Z turned the front wheel of my bike into a potato chip as I sailed through the air at a five-way intersection in Sausalito!  I took a fairy(heh) for two bucks to the embarcadero and BART to Daly City and then rode over Skyline to spend the night is Pacifica.
    I'm not sure which route I'm going to take this time.  I do know the Tempture at this time of year is more conducive towards a good ride than it was the last time I did this.  110 degrees riding a bike uphill was no fun at all.  This is why I'm a sailor. When it gets hot you go overboard!   When it gets hot riding your bike you go downhill!  Unless there isn't one.  A boat is always on the water.  A bike isn't.  Have you noticed that?  Ha!
     The bummer is I have to return!!!   AARRGBEGARRRR!
 

Boogers In My EYES

       Maka pia pia doesn't mean much if one doesn't speak Hawaiian.   That is why God created
pidgeons.  What does, " Howzit Bra mean"?  How you stay?  You stay good?  You come stay go?
And your answer, " I stay wenting"!
       Language is like religion!  No matter where you go, there you are.  I come stay go is actually
profound.  It combines time, space, religion, distance, physical place, identity, past, present and future and a relationship !
All this in a very simple expression or explosion out of one's mouth.  This expression is usually accompanied by
a hand gesture where the first and fifth didgital phalange are displayed with an arm shake so that even a deaf mute could receive a '"Howzit Bra"!
      Christians brought their God to Hawaii.  When they topped their wife in the missionary position after leaving  the East Coast and sailing around " The Horn" with a piano aboard, they spread a disease to a people that did not need what they so kindly crammed down people's throats.  Their very own
children ( some, not all ) left the faith.  The missionaries weren't visionaries and wore far to much clothing.
They clothed their mind.  Why do you think their children stold one third of all Hawaii?  Was it just because they were there?  No, it is because the Alii  decided whatever they decided when they decided to decide. Usually after speaking with a Kahuna.   This is all written. People are people, man.  There is no people greater than another people.  Ask an American Indian! Chiefs, medicine men, doctors, lawyers?  What? A particular tribe
of people will tell you to your face that their tribe is ," The People" !
    Aren't you happy that you know this?  You should see my passport.  I get to go to places where they all tell me what I should think.  They are right!  Right now, because some of these people in certain places I have been eat people.  They don't just kill you, they eat long white pig!  Heh!
     I haven't eaten a Christian yet but it is only because I haven't met one!  That's not entirely true.  I have met one but she is my sister and I have her on the back burner! 
    All kidding aside.  I didn't know where this conversation was going because it is driving itself.  Here is what it says though. When you greet a human, mean it.  No cliches or meaningless diatribe.  People want you to look directly into their eyes and that is your way of each saying to each other I see you, I recognize you, I may not agree with you but I am listening and I hope I did not spread an infectious disease to your village that will wipe out one third of your entire population.  I tried that in an elevator in Manhatten NY on the 36th floor of the Hilton on Fifth Ave. back in "81",,,  It didn't work but it could have!
    No- really, no joke!  I really did spread a disease wherever I have visited.  It is called, " Robbiism"!
Symtoms---A strong desire to tell the truth ( even to yourself)  Unexplained laughter( after telling the truth to yourself).  Lose of friends.( amigos).  Money loses importance. ( piquito denaro)( kala in Hawaii)(British Sterling-pound)...vision is restored. ( it's a miricle).  Forgetfulness about yesterday's tomarrows!  ( in the is)!
    Adverse reactions:  Score keeping.  Twelve minus two equals two!  If you are one of the ten then there
is no ink in my pen......That is a ten four and a sheel of steel (written in stone) ( parenthesis enclosed by)
Howzit Bra? 
   

Sir Something

       I forgot what I have been trying to remember!  Relax is one of the few words that I can
use an X on when I am playing scrabble.  It was hard to play at sea until I purchased a letter boxed ( another X)
lazy susan and placed it on a gimboled table.  Words have new meaning when they are allowed to
exist ( another X word) in the main saloon when all about is moving with  mind and body man does not experience anything comparable to it
(another X word) on land anywhere but at a fair.  Not an affair but a fair with rides like a roller coaster. An
affair is a ride but by definition it had better be a good one because it is usually very expensive!  (another X word).  Sex is another X.  Reflex is also.
     Now I remember what I forgot!

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!
    

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



.

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!!