Oh my lovelies! I am home once more after two weeks on the rolling main. After countless nights in the rain and the wind. After glorious mornings with the sails set and the dolphins rolling along. After songs and smiles and seemingly endless vistas of paradise. I am here. In two days I will be there. And by there I mean Europe once more. Some days it seems utterly exhausting to just be me, but I have a feeling it's worth it in the long run.
My time on the Lady Washington was eventful, adventurous, at times frustrating (Trying to make headway against 50 knot winds and 35 foot swell with the engine going full blast and still going backwards...), and always beyond words in terms of description. However, I will try.
Imagine, if you will, fighting the above currents and elements for 5 days, making imperceptible amounts of progress, already behind schedule from having hole up in backwater Columbia River ports to avoid horrendous gales. Then imagine every element turning in your favor, emerging from an endless night to see the sun rising red from the horizon and feel the wind in your hair finally blowing from the North. Our last three days were the closest I've come to Paradise. We set almost every stitch of canvas and flew down the coast towards San Fransisco under warm sun by day and a glittering waxing moon by night. Whales swam idly beside us, sunfish waved their absurd fins in greeting, and pods of dolphins gamboled about the bowsprit as we, delighted souls, hung off the headrails trying to make contact.
When the wind began gusting up to 50 and 60 knots (Knots to miles per hour is roughly 1.15, for perspective) we furled everything aside from the forecourse (Our largest sail) and were still easily making 9 knots. (For more perspective, the Lady's fasted recorded speed under sail was 12.8 knots) This speed fluctuated between 8 and 12 (!) as we surfed gracefully down massive swells that turned the rudder well into a leviathan's blow hole and caused everyone on deck to giggle and shriek with delight like schoolgirls. This continued until we glided under the Golden Gate Bridge at 1am on Friday morning. I found myself aloft on the forecourse retrieving the splat'ln as we passed under the Bay Bridge, something I will never forget, and then we were pulling into Pier 40 to the waiting arms of our Hawaiian Chieftain compatriots. Happy reunions, horror stories, healthy doses of showering -- things were good in the world.
And as much as I would love to go into specifics (For there are many) time is short and even as I write the hours are counting down until I drive back to LA and brave the airport rush for an 11:30pm flight that will put me back in London. My passport arrived in the nick of time yesterday and I haven't let go of it since. At last I have achieved dual citizenship and all that it entails. I can live and work in the European Union. I can travel freely. And best of all, I no longer have to wait in that damnable non-EU Passport line at the immigration desk.
So next stop: London, but only for a night. My final destination is the City of Lights! Paris! France! Romance! Adventure! Baguettes! I have an apartment in the city center for a whole week, will be attending language classes in the mornings and exploring the city in the afternoons, then taking a train to Provence for two more weeks of beautiful French countryside. And although I miss the brig terribly and would love to stay here in the California sunshine, adventure calls and I must answer.
My invitation for postcards still stands, do leave an address if you'd like to receive some. And if you get really motivated -- write me back! I LOVE getting mail. Anything that goes to my normal address will somehow get forwarded to me in the near future.
I think that's really it for now, so enjoy yourselves marvelously and succulently while I'm gone and thank you for sticking with me so far. There will be many more adventures in the near future, I'm sure.
Huge hugs for everyone!
Lucy
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
In Case of Emergency Smash Glass
I realize my blogastination may have left some of you with the impression that I may be slowly decomposing in a ditch somewhere in the English countryside, I rush to assure you that this is not the case. I am, in fact, alive and well and once again in front of my own keyboard in my lovely home in Ojai.
"But what can this mean?" Some of you may exclaim in shock and horror. Certainly not that I have given up the chase. This is merely a brief interlude in my global crusade, a pit stop in the name of bureaucracy for the sake of the greater good. For reasons I don't understand, I must apply for my English citizenship not in England, but in America. Wonders never cease. Luckily, since my parents feel responsible for not discovering this fact sooner, they have given me a round trip ticket back to America so we can clear this mess up and I can travel freely through my countries of choice and work to fund my existence through the Christmas season.
Secrecy may be cast to the winds now that I am here, and the news goes public that on Monday I fly to Washington for some seriously awesome Lady Washington brig time journeying from Aberdeen all the way down to San Fransisco. We have eight days, come rain and rough weather, to make it there. I'm terrified beyond all reason, but at the same time I can't wait to see my seagoing family again and meet all the new folks who have come aboard for the journey south. Then I'm home for a week to collect my thoughts and belongings before I dunk back into the adventure in Paris, France.
This whole business couldn't have come at a better time. Sun deprivation and travel fatigue were getting me down and I found the charms of the UK lost on my senses as I thought of sunny days in Ventura County and the various comforts of home. Since my adventures in Ireland, I met up with my mother in London and spent two weeks caring for my grandmother who is, to put it gently, mad as a loon, but lovely despite her lack of memory and other cognitive reasoning drives. I took up knitting like a fiend, but can only produce scarves...because they're very very easy. I started stretching daily again, saw my lovely godmother and got to spend a far too brief night in her amazing farmhouse, had some lovely steak pie, saw my mother's childhood fiance, and finally flew back to my father's waiting arms at LAX.
Perhaps all that leaving, if just for this long, has taught me is that I do truly belong here in Southern California. The sunny coast on the drive home, the smell of my house, the comfort foods of home (O, thank you Trader Joe's!) arrayed in the fridge, everything as it should be. My belongings, far more extensive than I remember them having lived in such a minimalist style for the last two months, strewn across my orange room. Lying on the doormat in the sun. Sleeping in. Not worrying that someone else is waiting to use the computer. Not obsessing about how much my meals are costing or where I'm going to spend the night. This is truly bliss.
A part of me never wants to leave again, but there are still things to see and places to explore out there in the big wide world, so the trip will continue. But for now, some well-earned rest, the love of friends and family, and some good old fashioned sailing on the rolling main.
Oh bliss.
"But what can this mean?" Some of you may exclaim in shock and horror. Certainly not that I have given up the chase. This is merely a brief interlude in my global crusade, a pit stop in the name of bureaucracy for the sake of the greater good. For reasons I don't understand, I must apply for my English citizenship not in England, but in America. Wonders never cease. Luckily, since my parents feel responsible for not discovering this fact sooner, they have given me a round trip ticket back to America so we can clear this mess up and I can travel freely through my countries of choice and work to fund my existence through the Christmas season.
Secrecy may be cast to the winds now that I am here, and the news goes public that on Monday I fly to Washington for some seriously awesome Lady Washington brig time journeying from Aberdeen all the way down to San Fransisco. We have eight days, come rain and rough weather, to make it there. I'm terrified beyond all reason, but at the same time I can't wait to see my seagoing family again and meet all the new folks who have come aboard for the journey south. Then I'm home for a week to collect my thoughts and belongings before I dunk back into the adventure in Paris, France.
This whole business couldn't have come at a better time. Sun deprivation and travel fatigue were getting me down and I found the charms of the UK lost on my senses as I thought of sunny days in Ventura County and the various comforts of home. Since my adventures in Ireland, I met up with my mother in London and spent two weeks caring for my grandmother who is, to put it gently, mad as a loon, but lovely despite her lack of memory and other cognitive reasoning drives. I took up knitting like a fiend, but can only produce scarves...because they're very very easy. I started stretching daily again, saw my lovely godmother and got to spend a far too brief night in her amazing farmhouse, had some lovely steak pie, saw my mother's childhood fiance, and finally flew back to my father's waiting arms at LAX.
Perhaps all that leaving, if just for this long, has taught me is that I do truly belong here in Southern California. The sunny coast on the drive home, the smell of my house, the comfort foods of home (O, thank you Trader Joe's!) arrayed in the fridge, everything as it should be. My belongings, far more extensive than I remember them having lived in such a minimalist style for the last two months, strewn across my orange room. Lying on the doormat in the sun. Sleeping in. Not worrying that someone else is waiting to use the computer. Not obsessing about how much my meals are costing or where I'm going to spend the night. This is truly bliss.
A part of me never wants to leave again, but there are still things to see and places to explore out there in the big wide world, so the trip will continue. But for now, some well-earned rest, the love of friends and family, and some good old fashioned sailing on the rolling main.
Oh bliss.
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