Waka Whereabouts

It was taught to us at school as a quaint native myth, but I’ve never doubted that the great Polynesian navigator, Kupe, sailed to Aotearoa / New Zealand many times and committed tracts of her convoluted coastline to memory.

Just because something isn’t written down, that doesn’t mean to say it isn’t true. People from oral cultures, without the luxury of pen and paper to record their data, develop very long memories. A Polynesian navigator might be 40 years old before he got to guide an ocean going waka on a voyage across the vast Pacific and he would have spent 35 years – or about five doctorates for a modern scholar – of intensive education to earn that ultimate responsibility.

On my own trips round the coast of Aotearoa, I often imagine great waka looming out of the dawn, their inverted triangles of woven sail catching the wind as they gingerly approached this foreign shore, crews agog at an amazing land of white headed mountains soaring skyward like wise old gods, towering forest and flightless birds as big as palm trees, all soundtracked by a clamour of birdcall.

Ancient Polynesian navigators knew that the North Island (Te Ika a Maui) was shaped like a fish and explained its piscine profile with the legendary demigod angler, Maui, who hauled it from the depths.

Naming these islands Aotearoa – the Land of the Long White Cloud – makes sense. Navigating through the Pacific Islands using a sextant and stars, modern sailors become accustomed to looking for the small puffs of white cloud which form over most islands.

Land heats more quickly in the tropical sun than the deep water around it. Warm air rising off the miniscule land (or coral) masses in this vast ocean, condenses as it cools with altitude and forms small puffy white clouds which serve as distant markers for  navigators to confirm their whereabouts.

Aotearoa is about 2200 km from the nearest landfall and the first indication that the land hungry eyes of an ocean navigator might perceive of its existence, is the long white band of cloud hovering over its bush clad hills.

Polynesian navigators carried their own sextant, nautical almanac and an intimate knowledge of a range of natural phenomena, wave shapes and bird migrations in their heads and used them time and again to locate their vessels in the mighty ocean that covers about 40% of the planet.

Captain James Cook reported that the double hulled ocean going ships, built by the Polynesians without the benefit of iron, were only marginally smaller than his own tubby colliers and sailed about two to three knots (3.7 – 5.6 km/h)) faster on all points of sail. That’s about 112 km/h every 24 hours.

Crewed by whole seagoing villages they sailed, settled, traded and fought on a regular basis all over the entire Pacific Ocean at a time when Europeans considered the eastern edge of the Atlantic to be the “known world.”

To a sailor, the design of their waka makes sense. The towering figureheads at the stern of the waka, similar to those used in Norse Viking ships, acted as a wind vane to keep the bows into the wind whilst riding out wild weather. The low wooded waka must have shipped a lot of water but they had plenty of hands to bail them out and the ornate handiwork on some of the remaining bailers are, perhaps, a testimony to their vital role in keeping the whole operation afloat.

I once sat on the bridge of a ship in the Marshall Islands port of Majuro and watched three young men, reaching backwards and forth at speed in a 6m long traditional outrigger sailing canoe. They got something wrong and, with a spectacular splash, crew, mast, sail, boat and outrigger all parted company and were left floating about in the lagoon, a kilometer or so from the nearest land.

I leapt into the ships big, inflatable rescue boat, started the 90 horsepower outboard motor and roared across to the scene of the calamity, intent on rescuing the hapless sailors.

The three crewmen were all lying back in the water laughing their heads off in exhiliration. They politely waved me away, swam around and reassembled their vessel and were back up to speed before I’d tied the rescue boat back to the ship.

They and their boat belonged.

Returning from a 10 year sailing trip to the European country which my colonial forebears called “home” in my own yacht, with a wife who’d never been to New Zealand, we approached Cook Strait on a black night with a plummeting barometer and a north westerly gale slashing the sea surface into ribands of foam.

We raised the low lighthouse on a rock off Cape Jackson and picked our way into Queen Charlotte Sound while I explained the historical importance of our destination; Ships Cove, where Captain Cook had based himself for both his expeditions to New Zealand.

Marlborough Sounds williwaws sent horizontal rain slashing out of the dark as we motored into Cook’s cove to anchor but, even in the wee hours, a galaxy of red and green navigation lights and white anchor lights stood out against the black bush backdrop.

We anchored in a quiet corner of the cove, had a cuppa and retired.

Daylight came early and I was woken by a rhythmic thumping. Crawling from the 

cabin, I slid the hatch back and noted that the wind had dropped and a thick, grey mist had closed round the cove.

Suddenly the high prow of a Polynesian waka pierced the fog, paddled by a team of warriors who thumped the gunwale with their paddles between each stroke. I yelled excitedly to Sarah who squeezed into the hatch aperture beside me as the waka was swallowed back by the mist.

Each of the waka crew wore a bright yellow rain coat and we learned later from the radio that the Picton waka had been turned back from a Cook Strait crossing by bad weather, but that didn’t matter.

For a minute, I was back in Kupe’s country.

  

Razor Gang

Most mornings, about half the population takes a thin blade of sharpened steel and scrapes it across their throat, over the Adam’s apple and down to where the neck adjoins the torso.

These people are a captive market – paying through the nose to shave all round it.

Less frequently, women also take a razor to their body parts – but either way, we all pay a premium for the privilege.

The two companies which dominate razor sales in New Zealand supermarkets, unabashedly target blokes and, it seems, stereoptypical blokes, obsessed by automobiles and things mechanical.

For their morning shave, men may grip the handle of a Fusion from Gillette or, if that fails to cut your crop there’s always the Proglide from the same manufacturer….or the Mach 3, which they claim was the first three bladed razor when it was introduced in 1998.

Gillette’s major competition, Schick, hits the chin line with the Quattro, a tag also used by a European car manufacturer and, can  provide a Quattro Power and, for advanced users only, a Quattro Titanium Power razor. The Quattro Midnight and Quattro Chrome are models with redesigned handles and different color schemes from the original Quattro.

I’m just disappointed they couldn’t squeeze “turbo” in there somewhere. I loved L’Oreal’s Turbo Booster Hydra Electric Men Export model….which sounds like it would be found in the crankcase of a Formula One racing car but is, in fact, a post shave moisturizer.

And what about the blokes who aren’t moved to reach for their wallets at the mention of  automotive parts? Does either manufacturer do a Tui 2….or Kauri 4 range? No – but then the tree hugger market share must be way down there anyway, so what’s the point?  I presume that there’s no Mohammad 3 razor range being marketed in muslim countries for the same reason.

Razor blade marques come with their own handle which doesn’t fit other blades – including those from the same manufacturer. After a few months using one blade it seems, that blade will be discontinued and a new one introduced, normally suffixed by the digit 3, 4 or 5 to denote the number of blades, and a new handle, which doesn’t fit the discontinued blade range. The sharp end of corporate consumerism.

Womens’ razors, made by the same people, use similar marketing modus operandi. Pink handles predominate. Small wonder that a recent survey of supermarket shoplifting, identified them as the item most stolen….the consumer fighting back maybe? Shavers of the world unite?

In 2005, the Connecticut Court upheld an injunction by Wilkinson Sword, owners of the Schick brand, who determined that Gillette's claims were both "unsubstantiated and inaccurate" and that the product demonstrations in Gillette's advertising were "greatly exaggerated" and "literally false". US fair trading officials are investigating alleged collusion between manufacturers and retailers in setting prices.

The Daily Mail in the U.K, reported that the Fusion range of blades cost only 10 cents each to manufacture, yet sell for up to $4.70, a mark-up of more than 4.750%. All the commercial razor cartridges cost around $4 - 6 and come with lavish plastic packaging to be discarded after use. Worse assaults on the environment are committed by their disposable supermarket shelf mates.

Some form of shaving has been practiced by different cultures for centuries. Before the advent of razors, facial hair was sometimes removed using two shells as pincers to pull the hair out. Around 3000 BC, when copper tools were developed, copper razors came into play and the idea of an aesthetic approach to personal hygiene may have begun at this time.

Alexander the Great reportedly promoted shaving during his reign in the 4th century BC to avoid "dangerous beard-grabbing in combat", and because he believed it looked tidier….the beard grabbing bit may explain the stubbly chins  favoured by modern rugby players.

From plucking hair with shells, menkind moved to cut-throat razors and, in some parts of the Kiwi male demographic the sinister looking long blades are making a comeback. “A lot of young guys don’t even own shaving gear,” Joanne tells me at my local barber shop,” they just come in once a week for a razor shave.”

I expected her to come out wielding something that looked like a scaled down cutlass but:”no,” she laughed, ”we use disposable cut throat razors these days and change them for every patron – to comply with health and safety rules.”

“Using a cut throat razor is still part of a barber’s apprenticeship – but not everybody keeps the skills up. Dad told me that the best shave he ever had was from a blind barber using a cut throat on the street in Bombay,” she added.

Barbers once doubled as surgeons and the traditional barbers’ pole – red for blood, blue for veins and white for bandages – is the last remnant of that tradition.

The daily razor ritual is almost exclusively a male preserve – one of the few men only traditions left – but doesn’t seem to provoke screams from outraged feminists like other male only pastimes. Whisker envy doesn’t seem to stir the same high emotion as the alleged resentment caused by other male protuberances.

But growing a beard may be the best way consumers have of striking back at global capitalism.

  

 Cruising Kitty

    It was wet season at River Bend Marine, off the New River in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and rain had fallen for days. Not the spirited rain of the sub tropics, with wind and swirling clouds, but a dank grey downpour that felt like it would never end. Trips ashore, to the communal toilet or laundry, meant squelching through an ankle deep quagmire of mud and boating chemicals and it was too damp to glue or paint. Yacht refits slid to a halt and people sat in their hatchways listlessly watching rain drops dapple the limpid water of the marina.

    Boatyard time is precious to cruising sailors on a budget. Yard bills mount on a daily basis, so every waking moment is spent working to reduce the job lists that accrue during the previous years of cruising. The big structural jobs are generally done during daylight and the small, satisfying cosmetic work continues well into the night. Spending time in a boatyard without working on your boat is particularly galling and can quickly scuttle one’s cruising kitty.

    Elkouba was freshly launched; we’d rescued her from among the hulks in the long stay backblocks of the boatyard, with a flurry of sandblasting, grinding, welding, painting and varnishing. We were anxious to finish off her refit and take our new cruising home out to where the waves were, where she belonged and head north for summer in the Arctic.

   But the rain wouldn’t stop - maybe for weeks. Standing on the companionway stairs early one morning, shaking my head ruefully at the grey pall of rainfall, a cup of coffee steaming in my hand and rain thrumming on the canvas dodger over my head, I  noticed a sodden ball of grey fur tightly furled on a pile of rags in the corner.

    River Bend Marine hosted a variety of cruising yachts from all over the world, They chugged up the river, to the heart of suburban Fort Lauderdale, to haul out of the water, re-antifoul and make the myriad repairs or improvements that yachts on the move always require. Some had cats aboard, which mated with local cats and formed a gang of semi feral felines which slunk around the boatyard feeding on handouts, rodents, geckoes and garbage.

    As I gingerly reached towards the kitten which was curled up under our dodger, it opened one big black eye and lifted it’s head slightly and met my eye with an imploring(I thought) stare. The small body shivered uncontrollably as I scooped it into my hands and carried it below. We soon had it slurping warm milk from a saucer on the cabin sole and installed it in a cardboard box where it curled up on an old blanket and went to sleep.   

    Just about the last thing we needed was a cat. After the refit was over we were heading for the Arctic and Europe. To countries where it would be easier to get an atom bomb on an airliner than getting an animal past their border quarantine rules. It was extra hassle, extra food, extra expense, where would it poo? … we just didn’t need it.

    The kitten snuggled deeper into the blanket and it’s flanks heaved with a contented, full belly sigh. It was descended from animals which were hand- fed with delicacies from the fingers of the Pharoahs of Egypt; animals that had been associated with humans for over 9500 years and colonized laps and sofas all over the world. In ancient Egypt, the cat-god Bast was the god of households, daughter of the sun god Ra, and is credited with saving the civilisation from many rodent infestations. The prophet Muhammad had a favourite cat, Muezza, and it’s said he would go out without his cloak rather than disturb the cat sleeping on it.

    But we didn’t have any rodents, our cloaks were PVC wet weather gear and our home was a minimalist ocean cruising yacht on a budget. We needed a cat like we needed a hole in our mainsail.

    And we weren’t alone in our staunch anti feline stance. When the weather had cleared, we hawked our wee kitty round the boatyard, trying to palm it off on other yachts. People politely declined, but their body language said they’d rather dump acid in their bilges. Cats and cruising yachts don’t mix.

    So we ignored the cat…well, almost ignored the cat. We got on with our refit; hammering loudly near where it slept, drilling and grinding. The cat slept through it all then rose at the end of the day; leapt nimbly from the cardboard box and rubbed it’s obsequious little grey head against our ankles and purred until we reluctantly poured some biscuits, or scooped cat food onto a plate.

Well…WE COULDN’T LET IT STARVE COULD WE?

    We door knocked at all the houses that edged onto the boatyard, like Seventh Day Adventists bearing felines, and almost succeeded in palming it off on one old lady resident but she reneged at the last minute. Sarah and I developed a cat riddance sales patter that would soften the staunchest anti-feline stance and could easily have been adapted to sell Greenpeace memberships among the Japanese whaling fleet. But nobody wanted our cat.

    OUR cat?... I think the turning point came when he got a name. The entire boatyard breathed a collective sigh of relief after they’d all, in turn and several times, spurned our attempts to pass it on and they enthusiastically entered into naming the orphan animal. People suggested the standard “Moggy” – and “Tabby”. Someone else put “Stormy” forward, for the prevailing weather when he came aboard, (“Downpour” would have been more appropriate). The German people on the big fibreglass yacht near the marina entrance which boomed out a daily diet of orchestral music, suggested “Jonannes”but we couldn’t quite make the connection between a German classical composer and a scruffy Florida boatyard stray.

    As the waif fleshed out on a regular diet and the little bit of begrudging affection we gave it, the dark grey stripes on his fur stood out from their light grey furry backdrop. One evening, over a few beers after work, I decided he looked like a pin striped Italian dandy and dubbed him Luigi  - a name he wore for the rest of his adventurous life.

     There were a few practical considerations: our yacht, Elkouba, had no refrigeration and we had no intention of wasting time, money and space installing it. The cat would have to, like us, eat fresh food when it was available and dried or canned food when it wasn’t.

    The big problem was at the other end of the feline food chain – what to do with the pussy doodoo. We asked around the other yachts who had cats on board and they all advised using a standard plastic cat litter container, kept above decks when that was practical and emptied over the side on a regular basis.

    So, when Elkouba finally bid farewell to the boatyard of her rebirth and motored out of River Bend Marine, she had a new crewmember sitting smugly on the foredeck and taking in the sights and smells as we negotiated the four lift and swing bridges and through the harbour basin that stood between us and the Atlantic Ocean.

    We stopped at Fernandina Beach, in North Florida to finish off the refit and moored at a boatyard up a muddy creek. Almost every morning there would be one or two small, muddy fish left in the cockpit and we suspected that local fishermen had thrown them to Luigi on their way home from fishing until, at low tide one morning, we noticed a set of feline pug marks, like a pygmy lion’s, through the mud on the riverbank towards the water. The return paw prints had  a drag mark beside them which trailed all the way to the muddy fish in Elkouba’s cockpit. Luigi turned fishercat after dark and was dragging his catch home to show off in the light of day.

    By that time Luigi had taken over the boatyard and slept in whatever sunny spot took his fancy during the day. The yard workers came down to see the proof of his fishing prowess. Y’all orta be careful,” they cautioned, ”this here river’s full of alligators – they’s getting dawgs here alla the time.” But cat meat can’t have tickled the alligators’ fancy because Luigi fished there almost every night for the few months we stayed.

    Another favourite pastime was lounging on the mainsail cover then launching himself onto the humps in the canvas dodger made by peoples’ heads as they came and went through Elkouba’s main hatch. This satisfying pastime was guaranteed to raise startled shrieks from some visitors.

    Our little grey cat must have come from a line of seafaring felines. As Elkouba covered ground northwards, he settled in as though he’d been at sea all his life. We were boarded by black clad, gun wielding US Coastguard personnel south of Cape Hatteras who searched the boat for drugs then stayed with us for several hours while they waited for further orders. Luigi, the traitor, took the interlopers in his stride and even managed to soften their hard military demeanour by rubbing his ears on their combat boots. Perhaps they assumed we were communist infiltrators – two aliens in a red boat – but the CIA could neither confirm nor deny and they eventually left us alone to continue our voyage.

    We’d lived at Essex, Connecticut for a couple of years before buying Elkouba and beginning her refit in Florida, and we called in to say goodbye to all our friends there before we left the US. In the event, were offered work and decided to stay for another year to refurbish our cruising kitty. We did several delivery trips down the Intracoastal Waterway, generally accompanied by the little grey cat who paced the deck, sniffing the breeze, or taking the sun as the scenery slid past.

    One job was delivering a 58’ Hatteras Gamefisher from Connecticut to take part in a game fishing tournament from Palm Beach.. We’d crunched a thin layer of surface ice in upper Delaware Bay but the ambient temperature rose with every mile of southing and by the time we got to Coinjock, North Carolina, Luigi’s winter coat was beginning to fall. We tied to the dock, had dinner and turned in but were woken early next morning by the marina manager. “Y’all got a liddle pussy cat on thet thyar boat?” he drawled. “I nodded assent. “I thought so,” he replied; ”he done comed home with me for the night and was waiting in the ol’ pick up truck for a ride back to the boat this morning.”

    We worried about our feline shipmate missing out on the fun and skills his shorebound fellows enjoyed. Once, on a charter trip to the Bahamas, we anchored off Norman Cay, a nature reserve where metre long iguanas warmed their cool blood on the sunny beaches. We wondered what Luigi would make of these giant lizards and coaxed him into the Zodiac inflatable for a trip ashore. The little grey cat became a feline St George with a bevy of dragons to tackle. He hid behind rocks and leapt on the iguanas as they lumbered past, then nimbly skipped out of their path when they charged in retaliation. For over an hour he stalked iguanas, leapt on their backs and batted them about with closed paws until we scooped the exhausted kitten off the sand and took him back to the boat.

    As the Zodiac neared the mother ship Luigi took his usual flying leap for the deck but, being tired, missed the toe rail by 100mm, thudded into the hull and plopped into the sea. While we maneouvred the Zodiac to pick him up, he swam unconcernedly around to the stern and scrambled into the nearest dry refuge, the 150mm diameter exhaust pipe which was mounted a couple of centimetres above the waterline. Once inside, he began to yeowwlll piteously, the noise amplified x 10 and resounding through the metres of exhaust pipe.

    Eventually we lured him out with a selection of his favourite food, rinsed him in warm fresh water and put him on deck to dry out in the sun, exhausted by a days hard adventuring.

    Luigi was a great hit back at Essex, skipping from boat to boat while we bobbed rafted up in the river for a final farewell party before heading north east to Nova Scotia. Local sailors call it “Down East” – because the prevailing winds are almost always from astern and we had a few months of God’s own gunkholing through the little ports of New England; Connecticut, Rhode island, Massachusetts and Maine.

    Luigi was no problem with the affable gentleman who cleared us into Shelburne, Nova Scotia. By then he’d been neutered and had an “Animal Pratique Passport” with his photograph and all his innoculation records, signed off by the veterinarians who had administered them. In the fishing ports of Nova Scotia, he flourished. As dusk crept across the waterfront, Luigi would slink out to the sidedeck nearest the wharf and sit there, feigning disinterest while he scanned the horizon for dogs or other hazards and plotted his nights activities. Then, with a flick of his tail under the lifelines, he would be gone. A sleek grey shape merging into the dusk among the packhouses, fishing gear and piles of net on the wharf.  

    When we rose in the morning he would be sitting in the cockpit, smugly licking his paws and emanating a palpable aura of self satisfaction. Or curled up and dead to the world in his cardboard box near the mast step.

    If the night life at any particular port of call had been especially good, Luigi wouldn’t make it back aboard and, the first few times it happened, this worried us greatly. But we soon found that if we walked around the vicinity and called his name a few times he’d come bounding out from under the nearest warehouse or boat shed, or slither down a neighbouring tree trunk and be on board in time to sail.

   As we sailed further north the tropical cat’s coat thickened up to protect him from the plummeting temperatures. He was welcomed to Lunenburg by the local constabulary who’d seen our New Zealand flag and came down to see if we had any postal stamps he could add to his collection. Luigi had the run of the replica schooner, Bluenose 11, which we rafted up to in Halifax and amazed her crew by running up and down the rigging on the ratlines.

    At Baddeck, in the Bras d’Or Lakes we tied up to the government wharf and bought cod cheeks or tongue for breakfast. Two each for the humans and one for the cat. Luigi even developed a taste for Solomon Gundy, the delicious pickled herring that’s a local delicacy.

    We motored gingerly into the fogbound harbour at St Pierre, guided partly by Luigi’s nose, which we figured must be pointing at the fishing wharf and radar, sampled some French cuisine and felt our way through the fog to Newfoundland.

    Luigi became a hit with the small boat fishermen of St John’s. At first light the staccato bark of their make or break petrol engines echoed across the harbour and Luigi would be on deck to greet them (and relieve them of a choice cod liver or two). “There’s a swish party at Quidi Vidi – you ought to come on over,” they invited. We motored Elkouba into the perfect, almost land locked harbour with it’s lining of smooth granite boulders and cliffs and were directed to a mooring among the fishing boats.

    Just after dusk we rowed ashore, tied our dinghy to the fish restaurant dock, and followed the directions we’d been given to the party. In the old days, dory schooners would fish the Grand Banks for cod, salt the catch and sail to the West Indies to trade it for rum. The rum was shipped back to Newfoundland in oak barrels and repackaged for smuggling into liquor hungry ports in the USA during prohibition. The rum was called “Screech” and still is, but the empty barrels were filled with water, left to steep a year or two before the contents, called “Swish” were broached by the locals. Almost any party, these days, is a swish party and it was well on the way to midnight before, arms linked, we stumbled through the fog to our dinghy.

    No light penetrated the dense fog; we walked into a few road signs, bounced off some walls and finally found the wharf where our dinghy waited. “Damn….we should have left an anchor light or something on,” Sarah whispered. I rowed gingerly into the dark – there were no landmarks, no visibility, just a thick, dank fog. We rowed into a wall of thick smoke.

    “Sshhh…did you hear that?” Sarah whispered. Somewhere in the fog there was a high pitched yeowll…like fingernails on a blackboard, piercing through the thick fog. “Luig…” she called and the cat yeowled again. “Over there,” she pointed and I rowed towards the noise. We stopped and repeated the process until, a few minutes later the dinghy thunked into the red side of our yacht as it materialized out of the mist. Safe on board, we lit our little pot bellied stove and Luigi curled up beside it; basking smugly in its warmth and our appreciation.

    After a few weeks in Newfoundland we headed Elkouba towards Iceland and nosed Elkouba between Reykjavik’s twin breakwaters about ten days later. Luigi’s ocean going regimen consisted mostly of sleeping, eating and toilet which had worked out pretty much as our advisors in Florida had recommended. We’d long since given up on buying sacks of kitty litter though and, instead, just collected sand from the local beach wherever we happened to be and used that instead.

    Luigi knew what it was like to spend a long trick at the helm on a cold North Atlantic night and would meow at the hatch, leap out after we’d opened it, and squirm his way up under our wet weather gear and cuddle up, purring in our laps. Otherwise he’d be curled cosily beside the pot belly stove. There is surely nothing more guaranteed to restore one’s body core temperature than the sight of a warm, contented cat. He responded to stroking from our white, frozen fingers with the same deep purr he’d given in the tropics.

    As soon as land came within range of Luigi’s keen olfactory senses, he’d be up and running around the deck; his nose winkling like a hyperactive butterfly, keen for the next adventure. Icelandic quarantine authorities weren’t too keen on letting him (or us) ashore for a start and it took a day of negotiations with officials and frequent referrals to combined paperwork for us, Elkouba and the cat before they relented. Luigi quickly made himself at home on the whale chaser we were rafted to.

 Reykjavik is often called the “smokeless city” – all buildings are heated with clean and ultra efficient geothermal steam, so I prowled the wharves, often accompanied by the cat, who had formed a longstanding love affair with the pot bellied stove, collecting every little piece of wood I could find.

    We rafted up to a fleet of whale chasers in the inner harbour and soon had hardened whalemen leaning over their bulwarks miaowing to attract Luigi’s attention as he lolled on deck in the late summer sun.  

    The next port of call was Heimaey, a small island south of Iceland proper, where Luigi once again made friends with the local fisherman; using the combination of leg rubbing sycophancy and self confident savoir faire he had developed to wangle titbits out of the hardest hearted fisher. People in many of the ports we visited will have long forgotten Elkouba, Sarah and I, but I’m sure most remember Luigi. In Heimaey classes of school kids trooped down the dock to observe at first hand the cat who’d sailed the Atlantic. We were just the side act – like we’d flown in to help tie up in port. But he was great PR and we didn’t mind playing second (or third) fiddles in our oceangoing quartet; Luigi, Sarah, myself and Elkouba.

    Weeks later; after a stormy October passage from Heimaey, Luigi caught his first whiff of Scotland and ran excitedly from one end of Elkouba to the other or romped on the canvas dodger, as we spent the night navigating down the western approaches, round the Mull of Kintyre and into Campbelltown. By dawn he had run out of steam and squirreled himself away amongst the sails in the forepeak where he stayed, sound asleep, while the customs and quarantine people were aboard. This was where we expected our first real quarantine problems and was the reason we’d been so scrupulous with Luigi’s innoculations and paperwork.

    Britain’s island status, with continental Europe full of foreign diseases looming, just a few kilometers away across the North Sea, has led to a certain siege mentality among the British. “Are there any animals aboard?” the clearance papers asked. One of my great failings is the inability to tell a lie. It has effectively precluded me from a career in politics or boat broking and I often admire some peoples’ability to lie their way out of tight corners. So I ticked the little box marked “yes.” “If so, give details.” A larger box demanded….and I left it empty….which isn’t really lying.

    It was early Saturday morning and maybe our customs officer was in a hurry to get home to his haggis or weekend football game. It was an oversight that may have cost a case of whisky in more corrupt countries, but the customs officer glanced at the completed forms, shuffled them into a pile, stamped our passports and prepared to leave. “Welcome tae Scootland,” he said cheerily. I quietly closed the foc’sle door so Luigi didn’t come waltzing out in mid farewell.

    So Luigi became a Scottish cat. I reasoned that if anyone wanted him quarantined or deported it was up to them to prove that he hadn’t strolled aboard in Campbelltown. As we motored slowly into Douglas, Isle of Man, a few days later, Luigi sat proudly on the foredeck  and a launch with “Harbourmaster” painted on the side pulled out and said we weren’t allowed in the harbour with a cat aboard. “But – he’s a Scottish cat – from Campbelltown,” I protested. They grudgingly let us stay for a few days but twice I caught them studying Luigi through binoculars from the watchhouse windows. Looking for signs of foreign-ness no doubt.

    We locked into Swansea Marina on the Welsh coats and nobody seemed to care about Luigi as he strolled the docks, sniffing around whatever boat took his fancy. He soon became a favourite of the liveaboard yachties and their children jostled beside Elkouba to pat the cat as he lay in the paltry patches of sunshine.

    Elkouba, Sarah and I melted into down town Bristol, living on the docks and working in the city. Some passersby expressed concern at seeing an animal, possibly rabid, living on a foreign flagged vessel but backed off when we explained that he’d come aboard in Scotland.

    Luigi had a few adventures; falling into the rancid water of the docks while returning on board at low tide from an overnight rat hunting mission in the neighbouring warehouses and often snoozing in some secluded nook ashore for the day.  We had about 30cms of snow on deck during the winter and Luigi, tropical feline that he was, stayed curled up beside the stove which kept Elkouba snug all day. We had a Honda 175cc motorcycle and he took a few turns around the city on that; peeking from a shoulder bag that was slung around my neck, his eyes narrowed and ears flattened against the slipstream.

    In the spring Luigi sailed north; up the coast of Ireland and through the Hebridean Islands. Someone must have reported the foreign flag vessel with an animal aboard at Fort William and an earnest young bloke in HM Customs uniform pursued Elkouba through all eight locks in Neptune’s Staircase, near Fort William, demanding proof that Luigi was Scottish. He had retrieved our original clearance forms from Campbelltown and pointed out that I’d ticked “yes” to having an animal aboard and refused to believe that it was just an error made by a tired sailor.

    The customs bloke badgered us, on and off, the entire 100km length of the canal and must have passed the word on to the local police forces. Coppers demanded to see our papers in Inverness and a policewoman in Kirkwall, the Orkney Islands capital, insisted that we lock Luigi up in case he contracted rabies from the German yacht tied alongside us. Meanwhile, the source of all the excitement blithely followed his normal regimen of food, sleep, daily promenade round the deck and trot ashore of an evening.

    Rabies really is an issue in the Arctic though, carried by foxes that cross between America and Scandinavia on the winter ice pack, and we didn’t want to take Luigi to Norway. We made friends in Shetland and Luigi moved into their barn while Elkouba sailed north. He quickly earned a reputation as an ardent and lethal mouser and spent a feral summer on the land until we returned to pick him up in late September.

    Bitter gale force winds had started to sweep the north and Elkouba’s cosy confines must have looked pretty attractive to Luigi as he sailed to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. Elkouba, and Luigi, settled in amongst the inshore fishing fleet and it wasn’t long before he had the tough Scottish fisherfolk wound round his little grey paws. “Och here,” they’d say and proffer a gut splattered bucket, “I saved some livers for yer wee poossy.”

      We didn’t bother with Britain a second time round and sailed straight to Bangor, beside the Belfast Lough. We were almost the sole occupants tied to the near new breakwater and Luigi stayed boat bound until we pulled into Dun Laoghaire. We tied alongside a local trawler and Luigi, ever the brash American, bounded aboard and befriended the two brothers who worked her. This bit of trans Atlantic diplomacy (Luigi was back to being American by then) secured us a supply of free flounder for the duration of our stay.      

   

    Elkouba anchored at Crosshaven and we rowed up the Owenabue River with Luigi to pick blackberries, to make into jam. The sight of the little grey cat stretching himself in the sun and strutting around the river bank enchanted an elderly couple who swapped some apples from their tree for blackberries so we could both make blackberry and apple jam.

    Luigi’s next landfall was Muros, in the Galicia area of Northern Spain. After a particularly foul spell of weather, Elkouba lurched into the seaside village for sail repairs. Luigi seemed pleased to be back among yachting folk and soon made himself at home among the few French, German and Spanish yachts tied to the small wharf.

    He accepted praise and admiration in a variety of languages but had a preternatural ability to sense when boats were about to sail and would scarper home to Elkouba  before people took him to be an errant local and added him to their crew.

    Other people who have taken cats to sea say that their feline shipmates have been seasick and suffer from incontinence brought on by the misery of mal de mer, but big seas never seemed to faze Luigi. In the gusty conditions between the Hebridean Islands he took a few memorable tumbles but generally he found a comfortable nook to wedge himself into and rode the worst of weather out as well as we did.

    Luigi befriended a Japanese singlehander in Portugal who sailed off determined to find his own feline shipmate and he basked in the attentions of admirers on the wharves at Leixoes and Lisbon before heading out to Madeira.

    At Funchal in Madeira, the affable American moggy wandered around among the cruising boats but the busy road around the waterfront put him off nocturnal expeditions further afield into the city proper. The humid weather suited his tropical temperament much better and he found several spots around the boat where open hatches funneled the cooling breeze and would move from one to the other as the sun tracked across the sky and left him in the shade.

    Christmas was spent in mid Atlantic with a few feline treats but the sailing tabby was no slouch when it came to fresh food. Often at night, he’d be belowdecks in what looked like a sound sleep, when he’d suddenly leap to his feet, eyes wide and ears erect. He’d streak through the yellowy light of the kerosene lamp, out of the hatch and onto the deck then return seconds later with a flying fish flapping frantically in his mouth.

    Elkouba spent most of her Caribbean time riding to an anchor in Simpson Bay, St Maarten, but we’d often row Luigi ashore for the evening and return to pick him up next day. He would sit, just after sunrise, under a clump of bushes at the end of the beach, completely spent after a sailors night on the town, spent chasing crabs on the beach or rats and geckoes among the palm trees..

    But our indomitable little moggy eventually fell ill, so we sailed across to Anguilla which was reputed to have the best vet clinic in the West Caribbean. Kidney problems were diagnosed and part of his treatment had to be administered at the clinic every day for a week.                                               Each morning I’d put his limp grey form, curled up in a private pain, in a plastic laundry basket, lash a piece of plywood across the top and row him ashore. On the beach, I’d put the basket on my head and, emulating the island ladies’ load carrying style in the African fashion they’d learned from their forebears, I’d walk him across the island to the vet.

    The locals watched me curiously for a few days before one; Belter, a wizened old island boatman, approached me: “Hey Lindsay mon – where you goin’ wit’ de cat? he asked curiously. “I’m taking him to the vet mate – he’s sick,” I replied. “Wha?...wha’?...” Belter stared at me incredulously. ”Put he in a sack wit’ some rocks mon,” he advised scornfully.

    But Luigi, the seacat, deserved a better end than sharing a sack wit’ some rocks on the bottom of Road Bay. He had other oceans to sail.

    Elkouba’s on board dynamics changed a bit with the addition of our son Alisdair, who was born at Road Bay, Anguilla. Luigi took the new addition in his stride and spent hours on patient watch while Ali’s cradle swung backwards and forth from its fastenings in the deckhead. Sometimes at sea, he’d snuggle up beside the baby – the only other warm blooded animal anywhere near his size for miles around.

    Luigi supervised operations from Elkouba’s foredeck all through the Panama Canal and superciliously ignored the gangs of Panamanian line handlers who called out: “pusspusspuss” to try and distract him. The close proximity of a live, rustling tropical rainforest around our anchorage in the Gatun lake, kept him on deck all night, patrolling the deck to ward off jaguars, crocodiles or other unwelcome visitors.

    In the Gulf of Panama we hooked a 1.5m shark, hoisted it aboard and Luigi played rodeo rider while it thrashed around the cockpit in its final death throes. With no refrigeration we ate shark, in every possible guise, for the next four days and Luigi gorged himself in cat heaven.

    At the Marquesas Islands, parents paddled their children out in dugout outrigger canoes to meet le chat who lived on the yacht. Luigi would hear them coming and welcome them at the rail, purring loudly and stretching to his full length to rub against their outstretched hands.

    I’d been in touch with the New Zealand embassy in Apia, Samoa about Luigi coming home New Zealand with us but the answer was a draconian “no.” Well, not quite an unequivocal refusal, but we could sail into New Zealand with him but we’d have to sign an undertaking he’d never leave the boat, could only stay for a limited time, fly a special flag and pay for a Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries officer to come and check on him every second day. Or fly him to Australia and/or the UK where he’d be quarantined for six months before flying back to New Zealand for a further quarantine period. This would all cost the equivalent of a years cruising kitty.

    I showed them his passport/inoculation record, pleaded that he’d been in effective quarantine for the last four months at anchor or at sea in Elkouba, offered to sail direct to Wellington and drop him off at Somes (Matiu) Island, the quarantine depot in Wellington Harbour. We’d had the cat for six years and lived in close quarters with him, I explained, any disability or disease would be readily noticeable. Couldn’t he be given a check over in New Zealand and quarantined on board?  But the answer was an adamant and impassive bureaucratic negative.

“Welcome home to New Zealand…” I thought disgruntedly as I rowed out to pass the word to Sarah and wondered what to do with Luigi, our faithful feline mate.

    We set sail with heavy hearts for Penrhyn, the northernmost island in the Cook archipelago and one of the largest atolls in the Pacific. The only vehicles there were a couple of mopeds and the island council had long since banned dogs. Penrhyn’s an enchanting place and we spent some weeks there; readily accepted by the locals, attending church at the coral and cement church /cyclone shelter, walking and fishing in the lagoon.

    When Elkouba sailed out, Luigi watched from the wharf, safe in the arms of a local family. For years afterwards we received photographs and stories in the mail of his tropical lifestyle; chasing crabs and rodents. His new Cook Islands family visited us in New Zealand and reported on the little grey moggy’s happy transformation from sailor to atoll dweller.

    Years later we received notice that Luigi had died peacefully from old age on Penrhyn. The secret life of Luigi was over.

 RIP faithful shipmate, intrepid adventurer.

To read more adventures buy BLUE WATER  by Lindsay Wright.

Battering on the Barrier

    Kay and I are relative newcomers to Great Barrier (Aotea) Island – just two years or so. But still, we've been on this island of 850 people, about 93km east of Auckland, long enough to still feel smug at the morning radio reports of rush hour traffic grinding along on the southern/northern/western motorways.

   Likewise when we hear of stormy weather cutting electricity to 50,000 North Island homes and spokesfolk from various power supply companies are on air assuring people that their live lifelines will be restored in good time.

On our island, there is no national grid – every person here is their own power supply company and that engenders a self reliance and awareness of where their power comes from. Barrier people grumble good naturedly about having to run their generators because cloudy skies have come between their solar panels and the suns supply company. But adverse weather is a boon to others who rely on wind generators or waterwheels for their power supply. “Bit of rain last night?” I remarked to a man on the road. “Yeah – good for the island though, the water table was still well down from summer,” he replied. “I've got hydro power.”.

 Barrier people live closer to the weather, like seafarers with one big island to starboard and a huge ocean to port. So last weeks storm didn't take most of us by surprise though it was a lot worse than  the forecast and wreaked havoc in our hilly landscape. Roads, tramping and mountain bike tracks other infrastructure were oliterated.

  In our Whangaparapara kainga  (village seems too twee and English a description – kainga best describes the smattering of dwellings implanted amongst the kanuka at the head of the harbour)  road access was washed out and a few generator sheds shed sheets of corrugated iron.

   The event was cyclonic; incredibly violent and  foretold by rapid fluctuations in barometric pressure. The mercurial changes in wind direction and 150 km/h (80 knot) wind gusts recorded at Channel Island, not far from our harbour entrance, would have devastated many places.

  But here, people strolled from house to house the next morning to compare damage and offer a hand where it was needed. Driveways were cleared, storm wrack rubbish removed and kettles kept warm all day. 

  Someone headed over the hill to Claris but soon returned  to report that at least two huge slips had blocked the gravel thoroughfare. The best estimates were that it would take a week to clear them – our kainga being well down in the order of priority – but nobody seemed too fussed. Claris is where the cafes (2) are, the post shop, grocer and garage,  airport, library and doctor....nobody needed to go there urgently.

   A boat ride was arranged for guests from the Great Barrier Lodge to connect with their ferry at Tryphena and the communal clear up continued. The barbecue planned as an end of season event at the lodge evolved to a “survivors' party” attended by all.

  There's something comfortingly finite about living on an island like Aotea. Even an island like the one next door called North Island (114,729 km2), is a huge and complicated landmass by comparison. But on the Barrier, people feel connected with their 640km2 homeland and conversations often pivot around the  island; history, weather or wildlife. Bird species like kaka and pateke (brown teal) are endangered elsewhere but commonplace here and locals adopt a kaitiakitanga (guardianship) relationship with them for better or for worse. “Those damn kaka have been at the fruit trees again,” is a common moan but the local mum and dad oystercatchers have dedicated fans who will shoo unwary visitors away from their nesting site and the arrivals and departures of the spoonbill population are discussed by  everyone in the bay.

The storm also took most of the phone lines out in the bay, cell phone coverage is patchy and the only way out of the bay is by boat. Most houses have lost their water supply but everyone has buckets and nobody seems too worried....

Kava Caper

One of the most illuminating aspects of  cruising are the opportunities sailors get to be at one with the locals; eat their food, dance their dances or imbibe their inebriant of choice (not always necessarily in that order). Not to excess, you understand – just enough to foster that warm feeling of mutual admiration that comes from shared experiences.

During the ten years we spent cruising in our 38 ft cutter, Elkouba, we were fortunate enough to sample ouzo in Greece, wine in France, Spain and Portugal, the inexpensive and smooth rums of the Caribbean, beer in Britain, schnapps in Norway, and whiskey in Scotland.

So, a few days after dropping our anchor in Suva Harbour and clearing customs, I set out once more to enhance international relations and understanding by sampling Kava, the national drink of Fiji.

Partaking of this muddy mixture is not just a matter of shouldering your way up to the bar and ordering another round of kava to go. It is a solemn cultural experience and should be undertaken with appropriate respect and decorum.

My first opportunity to partake came at the central produce market in Suva. Downstairs the huge concrete hall is crowded with stalls selling pineapples, coconuts, bananas, papaya, mangoes, vegetables and exotic Indian and Fijian foodstuffs.

But upstairs they really get down to business; stalls up there are stacked with wispery piles of dried kava which the locals call “grog.”

Kava is made from the ground up roots of the pepper tree mixed with water. In ancient times the dried root was chewed to a pulp by the village virgins then sieved into a large bowl for consumption by the local warriors. With the advent of mechanical grinders (or perhaps because of a shortfall of virgins prepared to masticate pepper roots for hours on end) this practice has diminished. The powdered pepper root can be bought from the market for about $15 Fijian a kilogram and cruising yachts generally carry a stock on board to gift to the chiefs of any villages they visit.

“Whew…she looks like a pretty powerful brew,” I observed aloud to a wizened brown stall keeper, pointing to the equally brown and wizened root stock stacked on his stall.

“Kava from the island of Kadavu,” he replied proudly, “Best kava in all Fiji.” “MMMmmmmmm,” I countered non-commitedly, “but what does it do to you?”

“You never drink kava before?” he asked incredulously, “come…sit,” he patted the wooden bench beside him.

With the air of a magician producing a rabbit from a top hat, he whipped a grubby muslin cloth from beneath the bench and, taking a battered plastic bowl, disappeared downstairs to the communal tap for water.

Shortly he returned, poured some of the gingery powder into the muslin cloth and began to tenderly knead it in the bowl of water. I felt a bead of perspiration trickle slowly down my spine.

“Drink,” he ordered, dipping a coconut shell bowl into the mixture and handing it to me. Advice from my Fiji guide book popped to mind: the drinker claps his hands twice, empties the bowl (bilo) in one swallow, returns it and claps twice again. Feeling faintly foolish I gave the recommended applause, held my breath and gulped the muddy brown mixture, Gritty, and a little peppery, the kava slid down my throat and left me feeling…well, different. I glowed with a sort of confused goodwill towards my host, surrounding stall keepers and the shoppers thronging past.

“My name is Nathanial – call me Nat,” my host beamed, extending a work hardened hand. I replied with my name and where I was from, then Nat and I sat down to talk. Conversation is an integral part of the kava experience and Nat began to talk about Kadavu, his home island. He told me how, during cyclones, sheets of corrugated iron flew from house roofs and sliced coconut palms in half leaving stumps that looked like grated cheese blocks. “Thatch roof is best for Fiji,” he explained.

CLAP..CLAP..and the bilo came around again.

Kadavu, nat told me, is a steep, hilly island and access to his village is by boat only or, if the pass through the reef is impassable, by a long hike over the hills. There is no electricity, TV or radio. Nat and his family live near Suva but return every year to harvest the kava and fruit from the family land.

Nat clapped and the bilo came round again.

By now several other people had gathered round the stall, many of whom were also from Kadavu. “Kadavu people is like one big family,” Nat beamed happily.

CLAP…CLAP…and the bilo came round again. 

Suddenly I remembered the shopping list buried deep in the pocket of my shorts – my reason for going to the market in the first place. The bread, butter, tomatoes and meat would have to wait a bit….this was culture and surpassed material sustenance.

During the next hour or so, I learned that Kadavu is about 60 nm south of Suva, mountainous at one end  and tapering down to Astrolabe Reef in the north. Almost 280 km long, it grows the best kava, biggest fish, sweetest mangoes and prettiest girls  in all Fiji – most probably the world. Kadavu is Fiji’s southernmost island Nat laughed, and Kadavu men who travelled to Suva to find brides would tell them they could take the ferry to New Zealand to go shopping.

CLAP…CLAP…and the bilo came round once again.

I talked a bit about where I came from, the huge conical mountain that spent much of the year wearing a snow cap or hiding amongst the clouds. The men shivered at tales of sleety winter storms and nodded knowingly when I told them about the cows and how they made milk from grass. I talked about my wife Sarah, our children Ali and Tui and our vaka (boat) Elkouba and our life at sea. They wanted to hear about the storms so I invented a couple and CLAP…CLAP…the bilo came round again.

Several bilos later and wearing a smile that threatened to split my face in half, I bid my new friends farewell and ambled off to the bus station. Quite in control but feeling unduly smug. From my seat on the wooden bodied bus I thrust my elbow out of the paneless window and enjoyed the bustle of downtown Suva as we rattled past.

Back at the yacht club, a loosely tide rope blocked access to the dinghy dock and the first indication that something may have been amiss among my brain cells came when I reached out to lift it out of my way and missed it by about four inches. After two or three attempts I outsmarted it by walking around the tree it was tied to.

Anxious to share the afternoons cultural adventure with Sarah, I clambered into our dinghy and began the row out to Elkouba. The 50 metre trip seemed to take ages, like rowing through setting green jelly, but eventually the dinghy nudged Elkouba’s transom and Sarah came on deck.

“G’day love,” she smiled, “what are you rowing all back to front like that for?”

    

Paean to the Pen

Paean to the Pen

Millions of words hurtle round the globe every minute on the world wide web, but some script still travels by aeroplane or trudges its way across oceans on ships. Lindsay Wright ponders the art of communicating by letter.

I started writing to my uncle again recently. Hand writing, that is. Selecting a comfortable pen from the pottle on my desk, sitting before a blank sheet of paper and thoughtfully transcribing my thoughts, ideas and experiences into words.

For the last 25 years almost all my writing has been by computer keyboard, or before that the rattly keys of an old Remington typewriter. My uncle, who recently turned 70, has never used a keyboard. “Computers…” he snorted, “I wouldn’t know how to turn one on…”

There’s no power button to push on a pen. The power comes from within. The gentle flow of ballpoint on paper happens at a pace which matches the stream (or trickle..) of thought between brain and fingers; a natural progression of ideas and memories being transformed to words and communication.

Hand writing is individual; it unfolds with unique style and can be embellished by flourishes, curlescues and digressions from the norm. No pre-programmed set of fonts, devised by European and North American printers, some centuries old, could ever emulate this style but, on the other hand, the Microsoft Corporation’s font library couldn’t be used by a hand writing expert to identify you in a court of law either. Writing, like society at large, is becoming increasingly bland and standardised.

I admire my uncle’s leisurely sloping copperplate, tracing an elegant path across the page like a messenger from an earlier age when time was abundant and people used some of it to develop their own writing styles. “It’s just what they taught us at school,” he shrugged. My own script is a childish higgledy-piggledy print which I was taught as a young reporter so that other reporters could read my copy or notes. Utilitarian -  but ugly.

My uncle’s letters abide by an etiquette that dates back beyond the early days of empire. Dates, addresses and salutations all follow form – none of the “Hi” hail that kicks off most e-mails these days.

Beware though, writers cramp can be crippling if you haven’t spent time with a pen in hand for a few years. It might even pay to do some training before launching into a major work by hand.

Hand writing opens up a whole new appreciation for the early authors; Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll et al, whose work was all laboriously drawn out with a quill or later with a metal nib, regularly dipped into an earthenware inkpot. I recall veteran publisher, Christine Cole Catley, scoffing a few years back that “these days everyone who owns a word processor, thinks that they’re a writer..only a few of them are.” A mere machine, does not a writer make, it seems.

For hand writers, there’s no clicking the “send” button to fire your words off through the ether. The paper is carefully folded and slid into an envelope. If there’s any immediacy required, it might involve rounding the dog up for a walk to the nearest mail box where the letter will languish for a few hours until the next collection. Otherwise the envelope will stay on the hall table until the next time I’m passing by the post office.

When you hit the “power” button on a computer and the screen flickers to life, it engenders an immediate urgency. The cursor impatiently flashing in one corner, the bright, expectant screen and the quickfire pace at which letters multiply into words and sentences across it, create a tension in the user. It’s something like the difference between walking and driving; a walker will stride along at their own natural pace, dictated by their level of fitness and the length of their stride. But put them behind the wheel of an automobile and they become a homicidal maniac; determined to make the machine go as fast as it can.

But hand writing is relaxing, recreational even. Thousands of New Zealanders turn up at calligraphy classes throughout the country to learn the art – and art it is. Renowned calligraphers from overseas draw big audiences on lecture tours. Derived from ancient Greek “kallos” for beauty and “graphe” meaning writing, Calligraphy is catching on.

Computer generated communications may be fast and efficient, but fine hand writing is beautiful and a source of pride. The captain of a coastal freighter once showed me proudly round his bridge then, with a flourish, threw the ships logbook open to reveal pages of beautifully symmetrical flowing script which documented every aspect of his vessels navigation. He stood back and beamed while I boggled at it. Everything else on the ship was utilitarian and workmanlike, but the logbook was an artwork.  When that ship was long gone to the breakers’ yard, the logbook would still be an object of awe and admiration.

There’s no “backspace ‘ or  ‘delete” button to wipe out embarrassing mistakes, faux pas or glitches in a hand written letter. “Twink”, “White Out” and other concoctions that are used to paint over errors, allow a bit of literary leeway but, short of laboriously rewriting all their work, people have to take their time and get it right first time. Once upon a time, the first draft was written in pencil so that errors could be erased, or amended, before being committed to ink and passing into posterity. 

Paying 50 cents for a stamp irks anyone old enough to remember when it was a tenth of that price. Postage price rises (and another one is due…) impact particularly on non computer users – older people who haven’t grasped the technology or haven’t the spare money to buy the latest lap or desk top. The charities and community organisations who mail reams of newsletters and meeting minutes out every month, must also be feeling the postage pinch.

Maybe handwriting belongs to a time when a carbon footprint was the smudge left behind by someone who had walked through coal dust. Letter writers use paper and pen which are both manufactured at considerable cost to the planet - and the fossil fuels consumed in getting their letters to their destination can also be added to their overall cost to the environment. But computers also squander a lot of precious resources during their manufacture (and disposal when they become outdated) and they also need gigawatts of electricity to keep them on line.

People laughingly refer to “snail mail,” describing the letters that posties pedal around the country, but in a snail and hare communications race, it may just be the snail mail that wins in the end when environmental impact is added up and accounted for.  

Most of the snail mail these days seems to be bills or blandishments to buy shoes or cosmetics so it’s always a treat to find a hand written envelope in the letter box addressed to me and not just another computer generated address label.

Letters convey news, hope, warmth and comfort from one person to another – and are delivered by people. They are full of words we all understand – unlike the arcane nouns and acronyms of computerdom.

And where else do you get to call everybody “dear?”

Ends…

Blow me down...

Lindsay Wright tops up the cruising kitty by working as a Caribbean charter skipper.

The good ship Gandalf was a familiar sight in the eastern Caribbean. Her proud clipper bow and raised poop evoked the pirate ships which had plied those waters a century or so beforehand.

The 46 tonne staysail schooner sailed six days a week between St Maarten and the neighbouring island of Anguilla. Her tan bark sails bent picturesquely to the warm trade winds and wide, stable teak decks lent themselves to sunbathing, rum sipping and just plain lazing around.

My crew, Bobby (South Africa) and Bobbi (Canada) and I, gently motor sailed out of Simpson Bay and Gandalf began to reek of coconut oil as our guests began to slop suntan lotion on themselves and the ship.

The first rounds of complimentary rum punch disappeared into the rapidly reddening tourists as the white sandy beaches and rocky headlands of the St Maarten coast slid by. Our route took us close by the airport and every so often a jetliner would be warming up its engines, poised for takeoff at the end of the runway. We found that, by carefully trimming the sails beforehand, we could get an exhilarating blast out of the bay propelled by the warm, kerosene smelling 25 knot jet blast as the plane roared off down the runway.

An hour later we’d be clear of the coast and be out of sight of land for half an hour or so before the low lying shore of Anguilla smudged the horizon ahead, growing steadily larger until we  sailed into the calm waters of Sandy Bay.

Our guests snorkelled on the reef, lounged on the beach or the boat and swam in the shallows until lunch was served on board, then relaxed as Gandalf reached sedately homewards.

 For the entire off season, Gandalf plied back and forth with 15 – 20 people on board.

Then the tourist season began in earnest. Every day Gandalf was packed with up to 42 winter wracked Americans. The resorts were thronged with gaily clad and loud voiced vacationers and the roads clogged by their rental jeeps.

Gandalf sailed on schedule, breezing serenely out of Simpsons Bay and across to Anguilla. The Bobbys and I, flat out with the increased workload, remarked that the plane timetables had changed but didn’t put too much thought into it.

One day, as we cruised past the airport, a plane was lining up for take off. It must have been an inkling of impending disaster that made me look over my shoulder at the last minute. The plane did look a little different to the off season people movers and it seemed to have an extra engine mounted on its tailfin too.

Suddenly the aeroplane accelerated away with an ear wrecking roar, and disappeared down the runway. The jet stream smacked Gandalf flat on her beam ends with what felt like about 80 knots of wind. Forty two portly American tourists slid into the lee scuppers in a screaming, bellowing mass of oily humanity, along with cameras, bottles of suntan lotion, snorkeling gear and towels. Straw sunhats cartwheeled away downwind and glasses of rum punch went flying, splashing their sticky contents among the beach gear and bodies thrashing frantically to leeward.  I dangled helplessly from the steering wheel. The lid from the huge chilly bin aft had swung ajar and I sighted little green bottles of Heineken beer plop…plop…plopping into the sea.

Slowly Gandalf swung upright again as her ballast overcame the inertia of about four tonnes of hysterical humanity on the lee deck. Our shattered guests crawled shakily back across the boat while the crew checked that nobody had been hurt.

That evening, when Gandalf was safe back on the mooring, Bobby, Bobbi and I took our snorkel gear back to the beach. We swam out and recovered ten of the beer bottles that had plopped overboard, then sat sipping from them while the sun slowly sank below the horizon. It was just the sort of day when we’d be likely to see the fabled green flash.

 

Ends…