Sailing fix? Someone say sailing?
Currently boatless. Landlocked a thousand miles from the sea. Sobs wretchedly.
To keep the cold-turkey symptoms under control, I tack my bicycle up hills by holding one side of my jacket out in the breeze, and fly the thunderbird burgee on the spare
halyard at all the stinkpotters. There are many, and they have no regard for colregs. Swabs.
When no breeze is available I "row" on
provisioning trips...to enhance the experience I douse myself periodically with salty
water, ride backwards and push myself along with two sticks. At the shops, I lock my bike to as many other bikes as I possibly can, hide nearby and laugh maniacally at the ensuing show. I have a bike at every shop now, so it's no big deal.
The "cruising experience" is rounded out by eating hurriedly out of cold cans with the labels soaked off while crouching under my dining table by candlelight, gripping a baulk of timber between my knees, a
rope clenched under my chin, and trying to communicate in pidgin Esperanto with a HAM operator in Moldavia with the stereo blaring "The Flying Dutchman" in the background. I sleep 10 minutes at a time, three times a day and fully clothed in foulies, in the gap between my
bed and the wall, in my semi-flooded hallway. I ate my last bar of soap two months ago thinking it was cheese, and still think it was actually better; mysteriously, my cloud of flies died of asphyxiation shortly after, so no more crunchy keepawake snacks on watch. At least the mould crop is coming along nicely this year, harvest season soon, looks like a bumper yield.
There is a chance at a sail on a local lake next week. The lake is about as big as the puddle I leave on my bathroom floor after a
shower, but hey, when you gotta go sail, you take what you can get.
I really need a
boat, and water.
As to navigation, I'll use anything I can get but prefer the simpler the better.....trying to get familiar with
OpenCPN but for some reason it's a bit squirrely on the updates at the moment. Still looking for a decent
sextant, there's got to be a wartime relic stashed in an attic or antique shop somewhere in the vicinity. Perhaps a Russian SNO-T would be more realistic and achieveable. I'm wary of becoming reliant on the
electronics... a good navigator should be able to use whatever is on hand, or else when the toys are gone they're stuffed. Ran enough nav-ex's back when I wore the gubbiment-supplied green suit to
work.....
Someone please take me sailing before I crack up.