Travels
after arrival in the Sea of Cortez (May/June 2000):
Ahoy,
It used
to happen a lot - right after telling someone of something we did or were
thinking about, the listener would respond, "Ah, get a life!" After being "trained" by that
response, we ultimately stopped sharing those sorts of thoughts and
experiences. "Ah, get a life"
was an attempt to reconcile the "delta" or difference between that
special experience and what we should be doing, the demands on our time by the
fast-paced work world we competed within.
It was a reminder to refocus on the objectives and stop frittering away
time.
Now
that the crew of Nanjo lives almost totally in the Ah-get-a-life world, we have
been a little reserved about sharing some of the prime examples. In some part it is because many of you need
to remain focused on keeping pace with the demands of your career. Part of our hesitation is due to the fact
that many of you would or could not live this, our isolated, vagabond existence
365 days each year. However, I am going
to use this addition to share some of the humor of the "dark side" of
Ah-get-a-life, the side we have graduated to.
The
topic is flying fish:
As
Nanjo returned to the Sea of Cortez, the flying fish population became
prodigious. As I watched these wonders
skim over the water, singularly and in groups, my interest became
heightened. When a school of flying
fish takes to the air at the same time, does it become a "flock"? Do flying fish "hold their breath"
when they leave the water? Are their
tiny little gills tightly shut, their eyes wide in anticipation? Will they get something like the
"bends" if they stay out of the water too long? Do they have competitions to see who can go
the furthest? Where do they hang their
trophies? Do they have teams? You know what I mean, like in bike racing,
by helping the #1 flyer to get an extra boost by "drafting" off the
others?
Do
flying fish mill around with the school in the shade of a passing boat and tell
stories to wide-eyed youngsters? Tales
of close calls with surface dwellers . . .
".
. . it was unbelievable! I had just
achieved a new personal-best height of 2.2 meters off the crest of a 45-degree
wave face. The wind was 12 degrees off
my nose to port according to my heads-up display." [You have to understand that flying fish
must rely on high-tech instrumentation because they have no arms or other
appendages to hang these gadgets from.
Their wings must be kept free to achieve the most optimal lift
characteristics. Their heads-up
instrumentation include all avionics and are surgically implanted in their eye
lids, an expensive and complicated procedure.
For further understanding of the latest in cutting-edge avionics, refer
to any Dale Brown novel.]
"A
sudden gust lifted me another meter and I was starting to blackout from the
elevation. All of a sudden a dark
object passed under me. Dazed, I
realized water wasn't under me! Then I
passed out."
"What
was it Uncle Gill? Did you run out of
hydrogen?"
"No,
little brother, I must have hit the mast of a sailboat. Because I lay in a pool of water on deck
just below the mast. My nose hurt and
the instruments in my port eyelid were out.
So I must have hit a glancing blow, but now I was without port yaw
controls and the GPS was out. Even if I
got out of this, how was I to find my way home?"
"Were
you able to get away, Uncle Gill? Can I
see your scars? Is that why your eye
looks like it does?"
"Yes,
Johnnie. Yes to all those
questions. But it was a close call, one
I won't want to repeat anytime soon. It
is a good lesson for you to remember - Don't go soaring when the Cruseros are
running!"
[The
saga of Galloping Gill, the champion flyingfish, is a tale heard in the evening
winds on night crossings or wherever they blow. Listen to the wind in your area because the tale is like a
feather, moving on with each breath encountered . . . soon to be coming to the
neighborhood near you.]
Then
there are those fabulous, flying Manta Rays, doing two and three rotations in
the air. These have to be small, young
rays. They leap about 6 feet into the
air and stay airborne long enough to do multiple 360-degree, horizontal spins
before reentering the water, only to do another leap. Did they see an Ester Williams's movie? Or did they see a dinghy spinning on its
painter behind a cruising boat during a 40-knot blow?
Then
there's the phosphorescence in the water in the evenings. There are as many "stars" in the
water as there are in the skies. Can
you find any "constellations"?
When a school of small fish dart by, the Milky Way is recreated. An instant bloom, a solar cloud, dissipating
back to a "star-filled" bay.
Do those little organisms need light to see? Or are they using "light" to fish?
Talking
about schools of small fish . . . don't they ever learn? Every morning and every evening, the birds
dive and feed on schools running and jumping along the surface. One thought is that they are scared to the
surface by larger fish below them. This
may be true in the deeper water, but we aren't so sure about that theory when
we are at anchor. Currently we are
anchored in about 12 feet of water and can see the bottom. These frisky sardines, or whatever, appear
to be locked in monkey-see-monkey-do recreation. With a commotion sounding like several people beating on the
water, the school will do one of three things: a.)They bring just their heads
up to the surface, with their mouths open.
All we see are noses and eyes if they are coming at us, or eyes and
mouth if going past us. Suddenly, the
school changes direction with a thrash of the water. b.)They jump out of the water in groups, generally staying in one
direction for a while. c.)They form a
fish "slinky", one group exiting the water at the same place as the
other group enters. This is most
captivating. The thrashing sound is
heard and there are always fish in the air, as if never entering the water. It looks like they do immediate turns just
as they are half way back in the water.
When
they aren't running, I occasionally find them, as a school, resting in the
shade of Nanjo's hull.
So! Now I ask you - am I the "poster
boy" for Get-a-life, or do I have to keep working at it?
Well
just remember what Kermit says, "It's not easy being me!" [Or was it "green"?]
Crew of
Nanjo