In my last blog post I talked about spending too much time looking at your wake or your past. Something else is causing me to look over the back of the boat. It’s 11 pm here and I was looking at the huge moon coming up behind us. I’m being followed by a moon shadow. From my perspective it was just behind on the left the side of the boat. A swell coming up underneath us made the boat swing wide and the moon went from the left side of the boat, all the way to the right side of the boat. It’s like the moon is dancing behind me. That happens a lot. It’s currently sitting behind some clouds, but it’s so bright it’s lighting up the clouds as if it’s actually sitting in them rather than however-many thousands of miles away it really is. It’s truly a beautiful thing to see the moon come up in the middle of the ocean on passage. In the past 3 years, I’ve seen it come up in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Indian, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic on passage. It never gets old. Tonight I can actually make out the dark spots, which if I remember correctly, are craters on the surface. And between the boat and the horizon, the light of the moon creates a moon trough. That’s what I call it anyway. A trough of light from here to there, contoured by the swells and waves behind me, complete with crossing waves and swell shadows and contours. It looks like a river in the middle of the ocean that leads you back to the moon. And the clouds in the sky, which were simply dark shapes before, are now taking part in the stage set by the light of the moon, as if they have some part to play in tonight’s performance. But I know they are all subtext or supporting characters for the moon has once again, stolen the show.
Cabadelo is around 850 miles away now and our current position is 09°51’23” South 20°52’5″ West
We changed our clocks forward an hour today. We will be passing through 3 time zones on this 1850 mile trip from St Helena to Cabadelo, Brazil. Rather than doing it all at once when we get there, we’ll do it gradually.
Yesterday I started reading a book by a Pulitzer Prize nominated author, Eowyn Ivey. The book is called To the Bridge Edge of the World: A Novel. It’s all about Alaska and the men and women who were tasked with exploring and surveying the territory not long after the US bought it from Russia. I wasn’t sure if it was from actual journals or not, but I think it’s actually just Eowen Ivey being creative and writing this book as if she found the actual journals of these people. It’s interesting to say the least.
A couple days ago I finished Origin by Dan Brown. I love Dan Brown books. I always learn something about art, architecture, and history when I read his books. I always find myself saying, “Hmm, after reading this book, I need to go back to Barcelona or Valencia or wherever the books take place, and revisit them with the information that Dan Brown has taught me.” Although, I am a little tired of the similar story lines in all of the books I’ve read. They all seem to follow the same pattern.
Part 1: Have some important even occur where someone gets killed and they leave a mystery behind and the only person who can figure it out is art and history symbologist, Robert Langden.
Part 2: Always have a beautiful woman who is also there at the event and is critical for helping Robert solve this problem. Sexual tension or at least attraction is crucial for this part of the story to work, and for some reason, women always dig Robert Langden, regardless of age or marital status. In Origin, the beautiful woman was engaged to the Prince of Spain (in other words, the future Queen of Spain), but you could still tell that they developed feelings for each other.
Part 3: The solution always has to be found by solving some sort of art/history/symbology puzzle that only Robert Langden can solve, cause he’s a freaking genius.
Part 4: They are always chased by good guys and bad guys, often accusing Robert of kidnapping the beautiful woman or at the least convincing them or coercing them against their will or their own good sense to go on this merry goose chase with him. And it’s usually impossible to tell which of the guys chasing them are good guys and which of them are bad guys. Trust no one!
Part 5: Robert and the beautiful sidekick always solve the problem at the very last minute, which is usually something that actually is important to the entire world and not just a smaller subset.
If you don’t believe me go back and read DaVinci Code, Inferno, and Origin and tell me if you disagree with me or not. I’d love to hear your comments about this.
Day 3 of our battery problems being solved and they are still solved! Never overlook the obvious things that could be wrong with something on your boat or your house or your car. Every system has it’s pieces. When you understand how the pieces work together you can typically start trying to eliminate which pieces of the system might be causing a problem. Instead of us assuming there was an actual problem with the battery, we should have immediately looked at the system and started checking all the pieces. We would have then discovered the loose battery cables much earlier and caused us so much less grief.
Thanks again for following along. Be sure to subscribe below by email to get new updates, especially when I’m at sea and can’t post to my personal Facebook page. Or you can follow my posts on Facebook by liking my blog page, Living Large by Living Little. You can also find me and follow me on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media by searching for the same name and following me there.
—-
Delivered by Iridium satellite
Living Large by Living Little! 