The doldrums

[bill_schubert]

My grandfather was a sailor on one of the last German merchant sailing ships in the early 20th century.  So I actually am the son of a son of a sailor (he was also an illegal alien.. interesting life he had).  And I spent a Navy career much of which was in the deep blue water I miss every day.  

In my grandfather's time and earlier, before the ships were motorized, being caught in the doldrums was miserable at best and dangerous if it lasted too long.

The white line of clouds is in the doldrums or the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone.

The doldrums was a hundreds of miles wide patch where there was no air movement.  Sailing ships just sat there hoping that the current eventually pushed them into the horse latitudes where there was enough wind to move onward again.  The wait could be for weeks.  I've been through them many times and always very glad to be on a powered vessel.

I feel like we're all in the doldrums now.   There is a lot of noise but nothing of significance is going to change and my prescribed course is to sit and wait. There is a certain amount of mental hazard here to see the insanity and not engage.  

There is a runoff for the Dems here but I already voted by mail (benefits of being over 65) so nothing exciting there.  The summer days have taken hold and it is now 80 degrees when I wake up in the morning and near a hundred by 2PM so my afternoon bike ride is questionable.

The best thing I can do is nothing.  I end up looking forward to vacuuming.  

Maybe I need to start writing a book.  "The Corona murders." "The Covid conspiracy" (that one might be a news article one day.. maybe not).  

Something to consider.  Apparently I have time.

Comments

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

So interesting! It certainly seems as if you've taken lots of opportunities to exercise your love of sailing - I'm envious! A 39 footer is a great size for a couple and I bet you enjoyed the size upgrade when you traded up. Great that reasonably-priced marinas were available where you needed them, too. Auckland being on two harbours is known as the City of Sails and has more boats per capita than anywhere else in the world - as a result, it's very difficult to find marina berths to rent and buying them is very expensive, around $250,000,with $6,000-ish annual costs on top of that. I regularly consider buying a boat, but I'm always wary of the old saw that the two best days of your life are when you buy a boat and when you sell it, and it seems your experience bore that out too. But still, there's nothing like it, so I try and get boat trips in whenever I travel. My absolute favourite was a trip to Antarctica on a 75' motor yacht (seven passengers, three crew). That was the most expensive travel I've ever done and it was worth every cent.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Wonderful trip to Antarctica. Very nice. I've owned two sailboats and an RV and was so very happy to get rid of them and missed them so much when they were gone. There is just no middle ground.

I did decide that if one is to own a sailboat, living aboard is by far the best way. Keeping it up with occasional visits is just too hard.

I think we paid maybe $150-$200/month slip fee. It would be about $700 or so now in Chula Vista but that includes a lot of amenities. We've got more coastline.

A few years ago we took a few day trip on an 1840's schooner, Stephen Taber, (https://www.stephentaber.com) up in Maine. It was wonderful and we're likely to do it again. No radio, no phone, no TV, no electrical or mechanical... all sail and excellent food and just travel from anchorage to anchorage for four days. It was really nice after some adjustment. We're getting kind of old for it but may do it again.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

Antarctica was definitely the biz. We had to go all the way to Chile to go there, which seems silly since we're right next to it. I'd like to do a trip from here: one company does trips using a Russian icebreaker. You get to see a different part of Antarctica (Shackleton's hut etc) and I would love to do that crossing and also see the subantarctic islands. If there's one thing we're not short of in this part of the world, it's water:). I feel your Texas pain as it's always weird for me visiting somewhere that's not close to the sea. It always feels as if there's something missing.

Living aboard does seem ideal. Wistful sigh.

Thank you for the Stephen Taber link! That sounds fantastic and something I would love to do, so I'm putting it on my list. I was going to be doing something similar this year in Croatia, followed by a week on a private charter cruising the Greek islands. Sigh again.