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Save the date - 9/27/09 - Day 888 Party |
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Monday, 07 September 2009 |
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SAVE THE DATE - Mark your calendars! TSS Yukonaughtica and 1000 Days at Sea light up Pier66 Maritime
SUNDAY September 27, 7:00PM to 9:00PM
Free Summer Party on the Hudson featuring exciting 9 Piece Band, Dancers and Singers with celebration of Reid Stowe, his 1000 Days Non-Stop at Sea expedition and the Day 888 milestone. Come get the latest updates on Reid Stowe and 1000 Days Nonstop at Sea odyssey!
TSS YUKONAUGHTICA is a wonderful & eclectic musical experience incorporating jazz, funk, and surf sounds - horns, percussion, belly dancers, aerialist, special guest vocalists and generally a good time for all. Bring the family, bring your friends, bring your smiles and definitely bring your dancing shoes! TSS is Todd Colburn's group, THIS SPY SURFS. YUKONAUGHTICA is Yuko Oz's group. TSS YUKONAUGHTICA is the name of the combined ensemble adding percussion, horn section and dancers. Get a preview of TSS Yukonaughtica's Black Cat Tango performed Aug 9th 2009 on Pier 66 Maritime.
Pier 66 Maritime, floating on the Hudson, is one of the best summer spots in NYC! From a converted (though still gritty) railroad barge, you can enjoy both great water views and the lights of Manhattan while enjoying an ice-cold beer (or other beverage!) and some tasty casual fare. Pier 66 is located in the Hudson River Park on the West Side Highway at 26th Street. THIS IS A FREE EVENT
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Saturday, 05 September 2009 |
Day 866 - September 5, 2009
Wind SW 18 knots, Course WNW, Speed 5.2 knots, Position 9*29n by 17*57w
The Biggest Mahi
The last fish I caught was a tuna a few months ago. I only catch what I need. I eat fish every day. After I salt and dry a big fish it lasts a long time. When I decided it was time for more food I threw my line in again and on the first try I caught a mahi. I pulled him up to the schooner and into the air and he got away! After a few more throws I pulled a big tuna into the air and he got away. After that they would not bite the lure. I tried the next morning and they still would not go for it. After a few days I gave up, but I knew a fresh pack would show up.
We had two days in a row of stormy, rainy, shifty, windy weather. We took it as it came and the current and the wind moved us all around. The next day broke sunny and it looked like a different world. I saw the neon blue and yellow mahi surfing to the schooner in a transparent wavetop and figured that a new school had arrived. I put on my light cotton gloves with the thin red rubber on the palms. They are the best for gripping any kind of line. I went into my position on the downwind side of the schooner and lowered the highest lifeline and put it out of the way. Then I laid the lure out on deck ahead of me and paid out 50 feet of line making sure I was not standing on it. Just in front of the main shrouds is the best and only position I throw from and land fish.
Wherever they are around the schooner they see and hear the lure. I don't have to throw it off the bow if they are swimming ahead of us. The mahi swim so fast, I have seen them swim faster than a flying fish flies, then jump up and catch the flying fish in the air. While I am pulling in my lure, I have seen them swim up to it, eye it and reject it. So when I throw the lure out I concentrate only on the line and pull it in as fast as I can.
This I did and on my first throw I knew I had a big one on the line. When I tried to pull him over the lifeline he was too big and heavy and fighting too hard, so I shifted my grip and pulled him over the much lower rail of the boat. I was huffing and puffing out of breath, but I still thanked him American Indian style. This was the biggest fish I caught yet and I sure hope I don't hook a bigger one. |
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Day 864 Solitary Opportunity |
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Thursday, 03 September 2009 |
Day 864 - September 3, 2009
Wind SW, 20 to 30, Course NNW, Speed 2 to 3 knots, Position 8*15n by 17*30w
Solitary Opportunity
Sailing in the S. Pacific in 1971 as a teenager, I met 24 year old Dutch sailor Ivo Van Laake. On my first sight of him, he was standing on the very back of his 19-foot plywood sloop, his weight pushing the stern down and the bow up. His curly blond hair and sarong were blowing in the breeze as he played his silver flute.
Ivo explained his life and his time with Bernard Moitessier, who had just sailed around the world and a-half alone. Ivo and Bernard were poetic mystical solo sailors: I held them in the highest awe and honor and knew I would have an initiation alone, with no support, only the majestic sea around me. Ivo and I became good friends and a little over a year later he arrived in North Carolina, where I had finished building the catamaran Tantra and we decided to sail to Europe.
In Portugal, Ivo went to visit his family, and I made my first solo sail of 12 days from Lisbon to Mogador in South Morocco. I was the only sailor in an ancient fortress harbor and I had grown, my old thoughts of the world were gone. I was searching my soul in solitude to find myself. I entered the solitary state with decision. It was a deepening of spiritual sailing and an invitation to sacred sea pilgrimage.
Ivo rejoined me to sail back across the Atlantic and eventually up the Amazon River. We were like two hermits meditating, doing yoga together, lead into solitude by the spirit, not the flesh. Together we searched for God with the most absolute fervor and singleness of heart.
Then some years went by, and I sailed the Carib islands alone: and after building the schooner never imagined I would sail solo again. In the extremeness of my longing I realized I had to be prepared and it came to me much to my surprise and dismay, but I made the most of it to the best of my ability. It is my fate for a time to be alone kneeling before the alter at the very edge. I have grown accustomed to the empty vistas of the sea and lived with the omnipresence of God.
I have become one with the daunting abyss, and it is the foundation of my love and sympathy to all. |
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Tuesday, 01 September 2009 |
Day 862 - September 1, 2009
Wind WSW 10 knots, Course N, Speed 1 knot, Position 748n by 17825w
Fool of Hearts
I have been part fool ever since as a teenager. I heard the Beatles song, "Fool on the Hill - day after day, alone on a hill, the fool sees the sun going down, and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round, well on the way, the man of 1000 days, head in a cloud..."
Never sure I had an answer; I pursued my fascinations, often at great risk. Luck was on my side and it wasn't exaggerated pride. It was self confidence that gave me courage and crazy energy to think I could pursue my wildest dreams. It wasn't ego that got me very far - ego is for scairdy cats who puff up in safety. I left ego far behind as I merged with infinity. Ego is not ample enough for soulful goals. I had high ideals and didn't let foolishness or fear of failure stop me from trying.
In the midst of this chaos great possibilities came into my life. The path of great expectations is not for pragmatists or conservatives. It is for fools with heart who can let their imaginations move to deeper insights, out of the box and sometimes out of bounds. If we are going to be free to be curious about alternatives in life, sometimes we wind up deviated from the normal and often special revelations arrive. Life is twisted too and has a tendency to screw up our expectations and fools with heart can sometimes make the best of these situations.
God and love make themselves apparent in the unusual expressions of devious manifestations. Who doesn't have a bit of fool in them and make mistakes? We should be open-minded and forgive peoples faults, otherwise how can we expect God to forgive us our trespasses? If we are struck by a crazy urge and act ridiculous, as long as we have heart and are not hurting anyone, it should be OK on occasion. Do we always have to be totally proper and conformist?
Sometimes foolishness shows us a way to greater wisdom. I bank on God having a special place in his heart for fools with heart. |
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Sunday, 30 August 2009 |
Day 860 - August 30, 2009
Wind SSW, 10 knots, Course NNW, Speed 1 knot, Position 7*06n by 17*20w
Part Pragmatic
I grew up with a father in the military and he taught me to run a tight ship, toys in the toy box when we are through playing and beds made, room orderly. One could say I am part military pragmatic and my motto is "Always Ready". When he was home Dad gave us lots of attention and while he built the first boat, he took the time to teach us as he went. I liked the way he kept his pencil over his ear and sharpened it with a pocket knife.
Though we were very young, he taught us how to use knives ("Always cut away from yourself. Pay attention.") and how to sharpen them. Since that time I have had a thing about keeping my knives sharp. I don't like cutting or carving with dull tools. I feel people's knives and try to sharpen them.
I am a pragmatist because I have a practical approach to problems and if I think about work or even concepts I look for the practical meaning. For me a certain truth of the matter is to be tested and I look for the practical consequences of my beliefs. That is why I built a schooner and became a schooner sailor even though there is a lot of romance in it.
In H. Chappel's History of American Sailing, he cites the schooner as the most important sailboat. Clipper ships were great, but there were not that many of them in comparison to schooners. The planning, testing and results of my pragmatic thinking paid off and the American schooner proved to be the boat to sail the high seas without resupply longer than any boat in history. The next months at sea I will have to be even more strict, aware, industrious and present.
The odds were always against me and they continue to grow, so I will have to carry my since of pragmatism to the extreme. I am not only part pragmatist. The other definitions of a pragmatist like being officious, opinionated, critical, pedantic, puritanical and stiff lead people to become closeminded. They have a place in society, but at sea, I need to be flexible to survive as well as search for divine love and oneness with humankind.
I am part pragmatic, but definitely the sacred seeker, artist fool also lives in me. |
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Sunday, 30 August 2009 |
Day 858 - August 28, 2009
Wind WSW, 15 to 25 knots, Course ENE, Speed 1 to 2 knots, Position 6*52n by17*36w
Red Sea Healing
I first began bathing in colored light in the Pacific in 1986 on the way to Antarctica. I painted plastic vinyls in acrylic colors and put them up as sunblocks. Being an artist and painting large canvases with lots of color, I became aware of how the colors charged and excited me. Since I was a teenager I experienced ecstatic experiences in rainbows.
I described earlier in this voyage the seven colors of the rainbow spectrum finding correspondence in each of my seven chakras. For those not familiar with the chakras there are many books, but a quick look on the internet will show you that awareness of these energy centers existed in many cultures before written history. Now there are quite a few well established healing schools with many people using the chakras in their healing systems.
What I know comes mostly from personal experience and years of faith and meditation. This is a very important part of my being able to survive out here at sea and keep myself healthy. You must imagine that I live in a blue, grey and dark environment. I am not in color like people on the land who are often bombarded by colors around them and with so many hours in front of the computer and especially the TV.
The original concept with the rich wooden interior of the schooner full of carvings was to create a nourishing environment that would sustain the crew in this beautiful but bleak, harsh, monotonous setting. Having my paintings around is a healing experience. I have written about that earlier and will be doing it in the future.
The red transparent painting is over the pilothouse now and it bathes the room in a soft red light. I like to rotate my colors for different levels of vibrating healing light. You know how it is nice to sit by a Christmas tree. The sacred colors and symbolism relaxes us and connects us to warm feelings, memories, our childhood and our ancient past. Feeling holy colors is a healing experience. |
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Day 857 What About Scurvy? |
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Sunday, 30 August 2009 |
Day 857 - August 27, 2009
Wind SW 20 knots, Course NNW, Speed, 1.5 knots, Position 6*27n by 17*34w
What About Scurvy?
My sailing friend asked me about scurvy and do I take vitamins. I have vitamins and red and green fruit and vegetable capsule supplements, but I have not taken them yet. I have been saving them to do the most good when I think I need them. The key to my diet has been eating an abundance of sprouts that are full of vitamins, fresh living nutrients and roughage. Recently my percentage of sprouts has dropped way down. I don't know if it is the heat or their age (they are about three years old).
I have given some thought as to what in my diet is keeping me safe from scurvy. Thanks to Danny at Kadouri foods in Brooklyn, I still have plenty of the right kinds of foods. I use lemon juice concentrate on my fresh flying fish and salads everyday. I eat a very big handfuls of dried fruit in my morning excellent McCann's Irish Oats. Normal oats are not comparable. I still have a lot of dried pineapple, cranberries, prunes, raisins, apricots and dates. I have quite a variety of fruit juices that I have mostly been saving and now I am starting to drink.
Every afternoon on my coffee break, I eat fresh and crisp whole wheat Dr. Kracker crackers smothered with organic Peanut Butter and Company crunchy peanut butter. On top of this I pile to overflowing many different kinds of jams. I can't leave out the quality nuts I eat that come in big bags raw. We triple wrapped them in plastic and when I need them, I roast them over a low heat and put them in jars. They are so much better than any kind of pre-roasted nut.
I also have many cases of canned vegetables left that I have been saving, as well as dried vegetables. If my sprouts stop sprouting I'll take vitamins and supplements just to be safe.
The weather in this area has been very nice. I get a few squalls with gusts of wind, but it is manageable. Surprisingly, for being so close to the equator it has not been hot, but even cool enough to cover with a sheet at night. It is often cloudy, so I don't get burned by the sun, but there is still enough sun coming in to the solar panels to keep the batteries charged up.
All is well on these isolated, sympathetic seas. Throughout the day and night I give thanks. |
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Day 854 Returning to Special Places |
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Monday, 24 August 2009 |
Day 854 - August 24, 2009
Wind S, 10 knots, Course, WNW, Speed .7, Position 5*51n by17*34w
Returning to Special Places
We all love to go back to special places. They say you can never go back, we change, the special places change, but still we have our cherished memories and we want to go back and see if we can capture some of the magic that made those places special.
That is very much what I am doing now, returning to the places where I can wonder, wander and ramble, accepting my helplessness and dislocation on no path. Turning inward, this journey takes time, intuition, deep feeling, skill, knowledge, bravery, abandon, seamanship and some foolhardiness. It is a process of mixing everything up and surviving in spirit soup, on pilgrimage, with no instant success or finality.
I let go and return to the place of the frigate moon, the phosphorescent spectacles, the double sun haloes and the Christmas tree effervescence. I hope to find again the place where I felt the sea begin to pray up through me and where the stars reached down to touch me. All this magnificence has awaited my return. This is a fluid ever developing place, a great sea full of sunken treasures rising up to me. I might discover again an ocean of poignant memories and feel that no one has ever been this way before.
At night I sail naked and alone between such a dark velvet sky and a soft silky sea. There are no limits in this otherworldly search as my soul straddles the pressing little details and the eternal. So I turn back again convoluting the reason of men who live in time and think I should travel in a straight line fast to a place they know.
The commitment to the path of love and light is great and I know that within society I will be confronted and misunderstood for taking this course. Anyone who carries their freedom, odyssey and devotion to divinity to such a degree will be seen by most as a scandalous outcast.
Luckily there are many worldwide who understand and identify, so I am never alone and without love. |
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Day 852 Goosenecks and Triggers |
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Saturday, 22 August 2009 |
Day 852 - August 22, 2009
Wind S 10 knots, Course NW, Speed 1 knot, Position 5*37n by 16*58w
Goosenecks and Triggers
A month ago we started sailing South against the winds, not fast, but fast enough to leave our family of triggerfish behind. The mahi and cobia loped along with us often swimming very close to the hull to get a little lift from the forward motion of the schooner. The tuna schools come and go.
Within a few days I started to see gooseneck barnacles growing on the underwater window and the waterline of the schooner. In the course of a month they grew very thick on the waterline and less so on the underwater window, but they were fullgrown. When I dropped the mainsail and slowed down again, I got my big sharpened scraper and heavy duty pole rigged and spent the morning cleaning everything as far down as I could reach. The triggers can't eat the ones near the waterline because the boat always rolls the goosenecks up out of the water.
Once we slowed down, sure enough, the cute footlong leather-clad triggers swam up and started nibbling away. Often there are lots of them: The goosenecks grow less heavily further down where the underwater window is, so I figure if the underwater window is clean, so is the rest of the hull. I once swam under to verify that is true.
Triggies don't swim like normal fish, they ripple their fins and it is very comical: They swim up to the underwater window with their lips pulled back and their big buck teeth biting away, but they lose site of their target just before they get there and often miss. They end up eating a happy feast with a bit of work.
In the morning I gather my flying fish to eat and throw the extra ones back in and they float on the surface. The big fish are the first there and they reject the dead food, but the triggies swarm on it and kick up the water like piranhas. It is really funny because they appear so awkward and I laugh, Ho, Ho, Ho!, like an old man. Often 100 will converge and try to tear the dead fish out of each others mouths and the water boils and the schooner keeps sailing.
I watch from the stern as we sail away hoping they don't get lost, but soon, it is a race back to the mother ship. They look so funny racing back as fast as they can, that I laugh out loud like a little boy, Hee, hee, hee! |
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