How long have you gone without seeing another human being on the water?

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Deep Blue Blues

I don't mind peoples noise so much but the noise they make I'm sort of tired of. I'm looking out over my property right now and there is a parked train huffing and puffing.. A moving train hauling Ass. And a parkway with 18,000+ vehicles passing by in a normal work day. Less than 400ft from my bed.

I recently tried moving to Pensacola Florida, a few hundred miles south of here, to the coast and to escape the noise. It was a huge mistake.

The navy is on crack down there and they fly jets at moch 1 all damn day at super low(read the wing) altitudes.

I love fighter jets but not every day. All day. Less than a mile away from my rental, you could hear them doing morning exercises at the base.

The noise was too much, I'd rather have the rhythm of the passing trains than the sneak attacks of the blue angels.

At this point, I'm thinking sleep tank, or sailboat.


Edit: wow lepke. Are you still solo? And did you interact at all? Like email? Message in a bottle? Nothing?

It's the Blue Angels. (The Navy's Flight Demonstration Team driving their F/A 18 Hornets)

They are there for the whole season Early Spring til maybe mid November. They are usually at Tree top level going over the Bayou Grande Bridge around 0800-0830........sometimes inverted on Tuesday or Wednesdays

On the NE side of Pensacola though, you cannot even hear them and would never know they were there. It's many just the southern and south western part of town and the beach.

This one is doing a flyby near Pensacola Beach a bit lower than treetop level

https://www.google.com/search?q=blue...TVMLgbwzgrM%3A

[Deep Blue Blues]

Originally Posted by thomm225

It's the Blue Angels. (The Navy's Flight Demonstration Team driving their F/A 18 Hornets)

They are there for the whole season Early Spring til maybe mid November. They are usually at Tree top level going over the Bayou Grande Bridge around 0800-0830........sometimes inverted on Tuesday or Wednesdays

On the NE side of Pensacola though, you cannot even hear them and would never know they were there. It's many just the southern and south western part of town and the beach.

This one is doing a flyby near Pensacola Beach a bit lower than treetop level

https://www.google.com/search?q=blue...TVMLgbwzgrM%3A

I was at the end of Fairfield. One house off the Bayou Grande. Why can't they just do their training over the ocean on the other side of the base? We couldn't even catch fish because the jets screamed by every five minutes. What's the point?

[JPA Cate]

I hope I'm not offending by adding my two cents' worth....

I am not a loner, and have never actually been alone. The closest I came was backpacking with my dog along. That's not alone, that's with "someone" to look after and interact with, imo.

At sea, maybe 3 weeks, maybe a little longer with no sight of another boat, and always with Jim. That's not "alone," either, but back in the days when we were using celestial, and without a fix for 2 weeks due to overcast, no sights nor sounds but those of the ocean and wind, our approach to Calif. was made safe by a star fix. That was good. Then, maybe about 20 miles out, I could feel the press of civilization, and it felt like being around someone who carries a lot of rage. A very strange sensation, which persisted all the way in. I learned to tune it out. But even I can relate to much of what's being written here.

Maybe, feeling alone and being alone are two very different things.

Incidentally, we all of us become invisible as we age. Don't ask.

Ann

[Deep Blue Blues]

There is certainly a difference between being alone and feeling alone. I feel alone here in my home town with all my friends and family around. I wish to be alone with no one around.

I once spent 21 days in the back seat of a Honda in a forest in Alabama. I had my dog though. So like you said Ann, not really alone, but I didn't see another human being and for a minute there, I really liked that part.

I see karma so clearly nowadays I've learned to separate myself from those pushing out bad karma a bit too often. Perhaps that's the same feeling you felt when approaching shore..being weary of the problems people put themselves in..

[JPA Cate]

DBB,

Yes, it could be. Everything that takes away from meaningful introspection distracts us from what matters in the physical world. The physical world gives us a reference point. And beyond that, I think that being on the ocean is particularly healing, but so is real wilderness; and they're subtly different forms of healing, but each reminds one of one's true importance in the universe.

Ann

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Deep Blue Blues

I was at the end of Fairfield. One house off the Bayou Grande. Why can't they just do their training over the ocean on the other side of the base? We couldn't even catch fish because the jets screamed by every five minutes. What's the point?

Not sure.

They must have had their pattern there and also want to get used to flying very close to city structures, trees etc for the upcoming season

I was on Bayou Grande with my beachcats. (in the mid 90's) Just East of the bridge.

Landings of Pensacola

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Deep Blue Blues

Love of the sea.

It's funny how perspective can twist stories. The French took him for a coward while the world took him as a romantic.

His wife must have been hell.

Maybe. Maybe he was. If his wife had been hell, he would have been just another male moron - he had 3 kids with her before he found he did not really like her? So much for zen yoga budhism baptism inspired stretching and pilates thing. ;-)

He may have been a very selfish person indeed. Things you read about him seem to suggest he was very self centered. Hard to say if one can do any major extreme out and out sport without being (at least moderately) selfish and self centered. Hard to get somewhere if all you do is pleasing others.

Then again apart from his social and human traits, he was a hell of a sailor, which he prove not only in the Race but also earlier when he sailed with his first wife and they sailed non stop from (was it?) French Polynesia to Europe round the Cape. One hundred and something days, I think. Just what our OP wants. ;-)

BTW I have not seen the movie. Have you?

Cheers,
b.

[Deep Blue Blues]

I have been telling myself two things for the past two years. I can get paid to do what I love. And it's OK to be selfish after having given your all for so long.

I've been very active in my community. We started a women's shelter 8 years ago and we never take government funding. We've had to claw and scratch for everything.

I was a poll manager during elections and helped co-found the republican party here.

I built a bar when I was in my twenties because none of ours had live music or good prices. When I had kids I built a party place for kids to have summer camp and birthdays. When they got older I built a teen club for concerts and weddings/reunions. I've always given my all to making this little town better.

I slept outside in January to raise awareness for the hungry and homeless. Our town acts like we don't have homelessness but we have thousands.

I invented modular housing that can be assembled without power tools in less than a day. I designed a self sufficient rehabilitation and reintegration facility that incorporated gardening, recycling and farming to teach self sufficiency and living simple.

All of which has been ignored by local government.

They recently shut down our warming center, housing 40 families during the freeze, for having one crock pot plugged in.

Now they want to open a million dollar water park and privatise our prison...while California dries up and crime rates rise.


I keep telling myself, to let it all go. People put themselves in the situations they find themselves in..

As far as the movie, I've seen a documentary on the race but not the individual. I just admired him doing it for him and not the race and fame.

I'm sorta glad I'm not married now that I've decided I didn't want to play society guy anymore.

[daletournier]

You know your in the right spot when you find yourself walking quietly as not to disturb the peace!

Sent from my vivo Y35 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[barnakiel]

I think it is as human to be a giver as it is to be a taker. Otherwise givers would have no reason to be and takers would have nothing to lean on.

I think, as offshore sailors, we are mostly in the taker position, often in turn after having spent many years providing, building and sharing.

To me, it is an absolutely awesome experience to find myself at the outcast side of the social spectrum now, still surrounded by so many people in boats who do not really know what they want. Most of us find that an adventure is fine for a while and the rest will find, often not by searching but by life binding them to it, that there is also life after death ;-) One guy long ago said one must die first to live. There is plenty of sense in it if you look at lives of some outcasts, vagabonds and, sure, sailors.

Not seeing another human for an extended period of time (sailing couples do not apply, neither does the schizofrenic singlehander) is a liberating and mind opening experience to some while it is a torture to others. I cannot tell you in advance which kind each person you are. I guess no one can. There seems null relationship to how very social or extravert a person is prior to their departure into the (wild/space/ocean/younameyournemesis).

But be sure the split is there, your old end or your new beginning is there. Do not assume lightly that YOU can pass 100 days offshore without experiencing it. This is what happened to some guys on that race. The French and the English went nuts, each in their own way. Clearly being born in a place with plenty of sun improves your chances of survival.

I, for myself, found that being alone seems to hardly affect me, it helped me find what I really do not want to do, but it is not the same as finding what one really is cut out for. Now finding the last thing that would be really something, huh?

...

I think I may be cut out for writing too long, oddly vague and slightly offensive but otherwise unimportant and innocuous posts here. ;-)

PS Sailing is the other option.

b.

[Classicsailboat]

Do any of us really know deep down what we want ? Does spending long periods of time alone help us in some abstract way ? My personal experience is that sailing has a spiritual aspect, it connects you to nature, and I can feel immensely satisfied, but I have absolutely no idea why. Joseph Campbell said the meaning of life is what you ascribe it to be. So maybe we should all be a bit more accepting of others who peruse their lives in quiet desperation.

[barnakiel]

I think some do. Some do not. Most do not care.

There is no direction when you do not know who you are and what you want to be. Getting from A to B, in navigational and spiritual sense, requires, as a minimum, understanding of 2 out of any 3 variables.

Otherwise we are not living it, we are drifting. Not to say I see drifting as of less value than navigating. They are just different modes of being. Two sides of one coin.

Interestingly, B is not a variable at all. It is certain, like the taxes. So we can only elect to believe that we have some control over who we are and where we are going. Then we all arrive at B. Funny. We can also elect not to believe.

What always gives me a push is knowing that it is ultimately not something we chose to be, it is something we are. There is that huge gap depending on whether you are born in the Catholic or Protestant environment, also for those, like me, who are not believing. Growing up where I did, there was no predestination and so the sense of 'having to find your way' was imprinted into the early years of my life. It took some painful uprooting to see the other visions too, not only the Western ones but also the ones thought up further East.

This is also my attitude to sailing as much as to any other passion: you cannot help it. If you are born to sail away and roam the oceans, in either the physical or spiritual sense, then you WILL; even if you you might try not too. A woolf is born to hunt, a bird is born to fly (sorry Kiwis!) a sailor is born to sail.

The Spanish say 'se hace o se nace'? Well, in my book, all profound and most human action comes from being born with this or that drive. Some of us find what drives them and stop resisting. I chase the rabbit, eat it, then chase his wife. A tree grows where the seed falls. A human can choose to be a tree, but the tree can't.

I sometimes listen to this song and it makes me feel like I almost know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9M8ej8dbM

Cheers,
b.

[Captain Dharma]

Hi - This forum is a wonderful resource in many ways, but I've enjoyed reading this thread more than almost any other. The experience of being alone in nature for long periods of time is hard to describe in mere words, but I think the essence of it is the "connectedness" you feel as you begin to quiet down inside. At a certain point, you just merge with your surroundings and you actually "feel" that you, too, are part of nature.

[Deep Blue Blues]

You guys are somehow narrowing into what I'm exploring mentally so far. But I'm not in it for the mentality. I'm expanding spiritually and I need space to do so.

I have this strange but very pleasant feeling that this is heaven and most of us are just doing it wrong. And not "wrong" in a bad way. Each of us experiences exactly what we need to experience in order to materialize the life we want.

Having lived through many mistakes, I see them as teachers. Having been spoiled with Love and adornment for a time, I know that these things make us soft and dependent on others. I call it barrowed love because it's coming from someone else.

People ask me what I'm running away from and I tell them I'm running to God. I've realised we are in heaven and that heaven is so amazing it can be altered to fit your will in the blink of an eye.

I've seen this world change so many times and I realise it happened because I changed my mind. Changed my perspective. Changed my outlook and the outside changed.

I've seen little old ladies worrying out loud about some impossible threat that could never happen, only to see it materialize right in front of me. I often catch myself saying, "If you knew "that" was going to happen why the hell didn't you try to prevent it?" They always look at me like I'm awful for saying that but I just spent twenty minutes listening to them saying, "It looks so dangerous, I just know something bad is about to happen. I'm afraid they're gonna (insert impossibly bad outcome here).

I've also been on the other side of this phenomenon. As a photographer I traveled to Alaska and rented a helicopter to fly me around Mt. McKinley. The pilot insisted there were better places to site see, it was the wrong time of year, he hadn't seen the peak in six months. It's a waste of fuel. I said o flew 6k miles to take great pictures of this mountain and I'm not leaving without them. Let's go.

We flew through the clouds and around and around. Nothing. After thirty minutes or so, he mumbled told ya so. I said can this thing go any higher? He mumbled sure in a smart tone and I said its gonna be clearer up there...

30 minutes later we are on the way home and he's already begging me for prints. Said he'd never seen it so clearly...I mumbled told ya so.

It's like where our thoughts go, creative or destructive energy follows it.

We are what we think. We have what we expect. We get what we ponder over. If you think you're snout to wreck. Let me out. Cause you probably are.

I'm a panenthiest pantheist. Meaning I believe we and everything else, are all god but there are parts of god wiser and more experienced than other parts of god. Like an acorn isn't a mighty old oak but it's still an oak, it just hasn't realized its place yet...

I've realised my place. It's out in nature. With my people.

[buzzstar]

I think the responses were very informative and beyond the apparent intent of the question. One group seems to have taken the question literally (as I did) and another seems to have substituted other forms of contact for "seeing." It tells us something. Now, if I only knew what....