News Archive
25 May 2006
Lamplight soothes the fear
As requested, Louise included two hurricane lamps in the consignment sent out to Honolulu. Hurricane lamps were on my final departure list but somehow got overlooked. I bought two gallons of lamp oil. It had been my habit to light a candle each evening, but moltern wax always seemed to find an escape onto the saloon table and the floor. The candles and now the lamps cast a soft, buttery glow as night falls over the ocean. The light flickers over the cabin - warm, cozy, homely. Every moment I am out here danger is my neighbour and fear is my shadow. I worry constantly of the threats around me - will I collide with a submerged container and hole the hull; will I stray into a whale breeding ground and excite an attack; will a storm bring breaking waves and knock the boat down as happened twice while I made my rounding of Cape Horn; or worse, will the boat roll. Any mariner who does not fear the sea invites disaster. Now there is the additional worry over the rig - can it hold, can it take the sustained pressure of another 12,000 miles. To live with fear is a grinding, exhausting business. I listen constantly to Barrabas, even as I sleep. She speaks and I listen for any new and unfamiliar sound. I heard the tearing of steel when the mast was damaged but I could not find it until it's widening extent revealed itself. I feel the movement of the boat - I can sense impending change from myriad signals - the altered rush of water against her sides, her changed attitude, variation in her roll.
What I am listening for is danger - has my neighbour come to call. Should the worst happen, could I launch the liferafts in time, grab the panic bag, retrieve the emergency beacon and activate it properly? In Honolulu, I bought three sheathed hunting knives, items also overlooked on my final list. One, the bigger of the three is on a belt I wear constantly. One is lashed to the outside of the cockpit cuddy, the third to the forward stantion of the Granny bars that surround the base of the mast. These blades have a single purpose - to cut the bindings of the inflatable liftraft stowed on deck amidships and the hard dinghy lashed on the foredeck. The knives give me comfort - they will save me seconds. But mostly it's the gentle glow of lamplight that soothes the fear.