Catching up on 2010

Beloved --

Travel in 2010 included a February Baja kayaking adventure and an autumn 45 day, 1156 bicycle mile Tour of America (with Amtrak support).

After much planning I finally got it together with my folding Bike Friday and left Edmonds, WA for Glacier NP on Monday September 20th 2010.

Bike's in the black suitcase and weighed in at just under 50 pounds (the Amtrak limit).

"Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good."

Beloved --

The "celtic knot" above shows the bronze port light frames after some elbow grease and buffing. The weather cleared enough this afternoon to allow my helper Mark and me to get the new port lights installed--the old port light plexiglass was horribly craze from 20+ years of UV exposure. For the first time in way too many years it is now possible to look out from the cabin of the "Game Fish" and actually see something. Note the view through the cabin to the adjacent boat.

Launch date is scheduled for July 2nd and for the first time today I felt like I was making progress on putting things together rather than dismantling the boat. Following a technical discussion with my diesel mechanic--and given his report on the status of the engine--I think the "splash" date is a good one. He wants the boat to "settle in to her lines" for a few days before doing the final engine alignment--which is fine with me. Gives me a few days over the 4th of July weekend to get ready for a shake down sail. I'll keep you posted.

The next several days will be re-rigging the mast, re-routing the exhaust hose, and getting the yard smutch off the boat.

I'll be real happy when I can sleep aboard in the marina as opposed to the boatyard. For the past few weeks I've felt like I've been living out of my car.

I miss you and love you all,

Jim

Wabi sabi or skata tees eonees

Beloved --

Bringing a circa 1965 sloop back from neglect is a worthy effort. But then, what effort isn't "worthy?"

Today I got started on the port lights. They have been finished and refinished many times in the last thirty years; but now seems like the time to take them down to the original bronze and replace the crazed plexiglass. What the heck?!? We all could use a cleared view of the world and managed "eyebrows" for accents.

Wabi sabi is Japanese for "used lovingly and long over many years" (sort of like me!). The "Game Fish" can and will bounce back--once again to enjoy beam reaches and sandy beaches.

Regarding the "skata tees eonees." In the late '60s and early '70s, Peter Throckmorton and his infamous camp followers (of which I was one) maintained a VW van in Greece. The old van did yeoman's duty ferrying stuff back and forth to s/v "Stormie Seas" in support of our various expeditions on behalf of patrons like "National Geographic." The van ran visa renewal trips to Yugoslavia as required (for those among us without Greek "green cards").

We had a mechanic in Pireaus who somehow kept the old van alive. One time, Joan (Peter's wife) asked Giorgo how the van kept going and especially what held it together. He responded in Greek (roughly transliterated) that it was "ta skata tees eonees." Let me translate that for you--"the shit of the ages."

My balancing act with the "Game Fish" is to focus on the 'wabi sabi' and thank the 'skata tees eonees' for giving me another chance.

I love you and miss you all,

Jim

Kind of a "Stay Vacation"

Beloved --

As personally enlightening as my adventure to S/SE Asia was earlier this year, there are are other realities to be considered (says Peter Pan). I'm working to get the "Game Fish" launched on July 2nd. She has spent too many years alone at the dock. . . .time to change all that.

I've been asked where her name comes from. It's from an e.e.cummings poem titled "Poem or"

Besides being a condensate of my "philosophy of life," the poem contains the line that "Only the game fish swims upstream." Aside from the difference in capitalization, I swiped the name unabashedly with the intent of living my life according to cummings' manifesto.

Wish me luck.

I love you and miss you all.

ps. Remember: "unbeing dead, isn't being alive"

Re-entry reflexions

Beloved --

Now that I've been back in the States for a month (and paid my taxes on time, for once), I'm having a little time to reflect. Several friends have asked me "What was your favorite part of the trip?" I am flummoxed. It feels like being asked "What is your favorite Christmas tree ornament?" or "What is your favorite star?"
It's a "launching" question. I hope I can give satisfactory answers. But, in truth, right now I don't know.
There was all the cross-cultural art and religious symbolism that I didn't expect. . . .take the Shiva/Buddha above dressed in seasonal garb at Angkor Wat. Or the Churning Sea mythology and work done by the Indian Archeological Society to recover the Khmer temple. Or the ubiquitous signage that confused me when I reflected on how it got translated the way it did. Or the fact that I went nose to nose with a millennium old Khmer king's stone image in an effort to grasp the meaning of it all!
I'm trying to put together such puzzles as the Hindu idea that heaven is a temporary state which is the place of punishment for good deeds! And the Buddhist credo that only two things are needed to find enlightenment--concentration and compassion!

So I respond by writing poetry: Morning Poem
If you listen (carefully)
the first thing you hear each morning
is the song of a single bird--
A song that always starts solo--
sometimes answered by a choir
sometimes by one echoing lover
Seeking with aural torches and
sonorous detonations to
illuminate and identify his once and future mate.
Sleep outside (or with your window open)
to be invited into each new day.
Before you hear the breathing of the one next to you,
Before you hear your own heart beating
if you listen carefully
the first thing you will hear each morning
Is the smile (and wink) of God.

I love you and miss you all,

Jim

Reflections of the lone "Tomb Raider"

Beloved --
Somewhere in the past several months I saw and copied down the following: "Whenever he was en route from one place to another, he was able to look at hs life with a little more objectivity than usual. It was often on trips that he thought most clearly, and made the decisions he could not reach when he was stationary." -- Paul Bowles, "The Shattering Sky"
I've spent the last week, after returning from Ooty, reflecting on this "walkabout." So far I've written down 51 "Lessons Learned" and I expect to come up with a few more on the two 9+ hour legs of flying back to Seattle beginning in about 12 hours. I won't torture you with all of them. Here are a few:
1) I am currently healthy enough to enjoy roughing it.
6) I can travel lightly
7) I enjoy my own company and am never bored
20) I have a good story to tell my fellow travellers (think "Canterbury Tales")
24) I'd rather be a traveller than a tourist
32) I have enjoyed balancing experience with reflection during this trip
45) At any given moment, I'm content to be where I am
49-50) I am saddened by grinding poverty and amazed at how little removed we are from a primitive/animal-like existence.
I will now have the opportunity to do some "post-journalling/post-blogging" and I hope you will tolerate and participate in my reflections I've loved all your comments. Thank you.
Anyone up for a beer?
I love you and miss you all,
Jim

Indian Train to "Snooty Ooty"

Beloved --

After the overnight "sleeper" from Chennai to Mettupalayam, Anna and I arrived in time (in the dark) to queue up to get in line to get on the standby list to be waitlisted, etc., etc., for the steam train gog railway up to the Nilgiri hill station of Oooty. We got on to a very overcrowded coach and spent the next 5 1/2 hours getting a "free massage" as the tired old engine hissed and clawed its way up to almost the 6,000 foot level. In each tunnel we traversed, I had visions of Dante's Hell as the steam, smoke, and noise filled the space inside and outside the coach. It's a trip I'm happy to have done (note the past tense). The monkeys at the half-way station were thievin' rascals. We watched them grab snacks and tea from travellers who mistakenly put them down for a second.

By 1:30 on Sunday the 9th, we got ourselves booked into a nice guest house--called Reflections--with a view out over the lake (actually a reservoir built by the Brits). Starving, we headed for a 'western style" restaurant and downed a pizza and salad each. Then back to the guest house for a rest. Anna zizzed out for a couple of hours, but I managed to squeeze in a little explore, this time around the artificial lake.

The young men who rented paddle boats at the west end of the lake were like young men everywhere. They made sport of ramming each other in the middle of the lake. . . .no sign of life-jackets or a rescue boat. I was hoping that they know how to swim. What a joy it must be to feel so invincible. (I have retained some of that feeling on this trip, although I have learned to recognize an unstable path, a bridge near collapse, an unsafe bicycle, and the beginnings of my own mistakes and mis-steps in the heat of the day when I haven't hydrated well enough. I also recognize how important it is to "rest-up" every few days and not make this walkabout into a marathon!)

In the evening we took an autorickshaw up to the highest point in town for an excellent Chinese meal at Shinkow. We finished at 8:30 or so and it was cold outside. The "auto" ride back to the guest house left us both shivering, despite sweaters and socks. Anna said it was the first time she had worn socks in three months. Our "auto" driver was wisely wearing a heavy sweater, but I still didn't envy him his night's work.

Before heading back to Chennai on this too short side trip--Ooty is a good place to launch into treks into the surrounding hill country--we visited St. Stephen's (Anglican) church. Both of us noted how similar it is to St. Mary's in Swanage (U.K.) where Anna was christened. The gravestones we could read dated back to the early 18th century. We spent some time speculating that some of these members of the Raj probably knew Anna's ancestors who were living in this tea growing area, before moving on to Sri Lanka.

I really liked one of the stained glass windows which dated from 1864. A very non-representational geometric pattern that could have been modern or Muslim.

We also visited the Botanical Garden--along with Indians from all over the country and members of the Indian diaspora from the States. Beautiful collection of smaller gardens.

We bussed back to Mettupalayam and caught the sleeper back to Chennai, disembarking in Perambur at 4:45am and making a dash for Anna's flat, where we slept until 11:00am.

I love you and miss you all,

Jim