FELIZ NAVIDAD:

Winter is upon us sutherly inhabitants. In most of South America that doesn´t mean much more than an additional long sleeve t-shirt. La Paz is a city where all four seasons happen in one 24-hour period. In winter, these extreme and rapid changes in climate intensify notably.

For example, the occasionally trendy layered-look trascends the capriches of the fashion industry and becomes a consistent practicality and necessity. Hot-water becomes a possibility for most only in the afternoon after water pipes have had enough time to bake in the sun. Domesticated dogs begin to parade around in striped wool sweaters and street dogs begin to permanantley recline on the sidewalk, frozen to death. Not too common, but not uncommon enough to ignore. What I love most about the winter here is the crisp sensation akin to that of touching a piece of an arid ice cube. It burns until you adjust and then it´s invigorating. The sky is almost always blue. The sun becomes so bright that looking at a white-washed wall or the white of the cast I have to temporarily wear, strangles the eyeballs in it´s pure brilliant intensity.

This winter I plan to keep doing work at the NGO I have been involved with, Proyecto Por Un Mundo Mejor. The proyecto is a shelter for high-risk youth. The actual pamphlet they produce uses the term ¨at-risk¨ youth. But I thought about it, and aren´t all youth at-risk? It´s a tumultuous era in anyones life, hormones make a person liable to take any kind of nose-dive, or any kind of miraculous upswing for that matter.

In this case I think ¨high-risk¨ serves best because of the location of the proyecto. The surrounding environment is one with heavy alcohol use, easy access to cocaine and huffing substances, some gang activity, and harsh poverty. There is simply just a greater per square foot opportunity to be offered risky opportunities and develop non-constructive habits. But the proyecto also is looking to move out of the location which is positive. More of the youth are looking to go to school too which is possibly even more positive. This week I will begin teaching basic English there two days a week and Eli teaching basic capoeira there two days a week. Will write more about what we do there later. Deserves it´s own post.

Other than that I´ve started to do yoga at a studio here. I can best describe it as jazzersizesque yoga. I get a damn good workout but sometimes think we´re doing exercises that haven´t been used in the states since back in the day when physical trainers thought drinking water during a workout was a bad idea. We take a cold shower in the middle of the 2 hour class too so we can open our pores, wash out toxins, etc. Found it bizarre at first but am gettting to like the custom. Offers a good opportunity for socialization with mainly 40 and 50 year old women who have begun to exercise for the first time in their lives.

That´s it for now. Dinner awaits. Roasted Veggies made famous amongst my world my mom´s cooking.

ANECDOTE NO. FIVE: ON MOLECULES AND ELEMENTS:

Since humans cannot survive without water, water is a foundational element of life. The biological recipe that produces a human consits mainly of water. Author Tom Robbins once suggested humans exist solely because water wanted to find a way to get up and walk around. Clever, spritely little bits of atoms those water molecules are. . . if that´s the reason we are indeed walking bags of water.

The movement of the ocean is how I imagine the side of a mountain would appear if it took a muscle relaxer. A bit of jagged capricious jiggling and rolling with a possible hypnotic-hallucionogenic effect. When white caps form on the water, the swell rises like the first “I love you” forming in your throat but that evaporates is the dry nervous choke in your mouth. After looking at the shoreline long enough, you can begin to wonder, why is it I always thought the ocean moving over the land was what defined the shoreline? The shape of the land is moving just as much, so isn’t it the interplay between the two that defines the shoreline?

Living by the dictates of the elements isn’t always a pleasure. For example, sometimes high tide comes up when you are onshore grocery shopping. Then when you come back to the dock to get in your dinghy, half the dock is covered in water and Eli has to strip down to his skivvies and cross. Not even that made Eli lose his eternal smile. Of course, what is fun for one is not necessarily fun for another. For many people, sailing sounds like as much fun as paying a parking ticket. But I can claim to have had one hell of a good time.

Two and a half years ago on beach in Havana, Cuba I remember rolling in the sand until I was covered just so afterwards I could maximize the novelty of warm, calm ocean water. So different from Oregon. While sailing we had water-proof overalls and jackets that made me pine for splashes (but not for falling overboard). One day with relatively decent swell Rolph even suggested I harness myself into the bow spritz just to enjoy the sensation of crashing up and down and splashing. My foul weather gear and the safety harnes sufficiently emboldened me to do so. The laws of physics zapped in quick jolts throughout my nervous system each time we escalated a swell. The pull of the wind sucked us up onto the apex of the swell where Northern Light would momentarily stall before crashing down into the trough between the last and the next swell, leaving my tummy somewhere above. My giddiness was so overpowering I couldn’t stop laughing even when the wind made my teeth burn my lips like dry ice when I tried to close them.

ANECDOTE NO. FOUR: WHALES ARE KILLER

The human propensity for establishing rank often results in an unabashed placement of homo sapiens at the top of the species pyramid. We humans rationalize our elevation of the species “man” through making value judgments on the variety of organic traits and abilities of each species. Our ability to make value judgments is the most common reason cited as support for our biological superiority. The diffusion of Enlightenment thought imprinted the “modern” mind with a prejudice against non-rational thinking that overtime has developed in it’s descendents an unquestioned assumption of human superiority. Nietschze in Beyond Good and Evil wrote, “that which his ancestors most liked to do and most constantly did cannot be erased from a man’s soul,”. But in all seriousness, of course humans are the preferred species, why else would God almighty could have made his son a human and not a gopher?

When we encountered a pod of seven orcas, I was immediately captivated. The sheer magnitude of whales is enough to fascinate. Eight tons of glorious power per grown orca. When the whales breached the black of their bodies looked the shade of deep fluid black of a clear-glazed velvet painting. There is also so much beauty in the shade the white colorations of the whale take when the whale is barely below surface and belly-up (backs are black, tummies are white). It is a shade of turquoise like that of the oceans on postcards sent by tourists from the Caribbean that say “I wish you were here” just to remind relatives that they’re not. In my dumbstruck enchantment I think would have clapped and cooed even if I had been sprayed by an exhale laced with partially digested fish.

From what I could deduce the reason the we were able to watch the whales for 90 minutes while almost never repositioning the boat was their involvement in a cat and mouse seal hunt. It´s understood that pods of orcas cooperate in directing prey into a confined area to make it easier to hunt the prey. Living in an era and being from a society where most people who eat pork wouldn’t choose to meet the pig, the graphic hunting ritual of the whales commanded in me some serious respect. It was truly exceptional during our whale watching was the moment we watched a whale tail catapult half the carcass of a seal into the air. That seal was only a snack in the average 500 pounds consumed by full-grown Orcas a day. After a while I began to think that the orca pod could devour me as indifferently as they had a seal. I didn´t actually fear it would happen but remembered orcas can swallow a small seal whole, larger seals they tear apart and swallow in chunks. I am not sure if a human my size would qualify as one gulp or a few.


The whales came, there they went, uprooting in me a fleeting sensation of bliss. Rare opportunities often create enthusiasm in the minds of the eager. I don’t wonder, however, if the human pathology of biological supremacy is responsible for my exaggerated fascination. It is humbling to encounter an animal that could do away with me in an instant if I had no weapon but my own hands.

ANECDOTE NO. THREE: ON BIOLOGICAL ADAPTATION AND GEOLOGICAL EXPECTATION

If humans are the most highly adaptable species, why does our species still have to wear oxygen tanks to breath underwater? Preposterous question in many ways. If the claim that humans are the most adaptable species is based primarily on the diversity of environments our species inhabits and has penetrated, I suggest the condition, “only because of technological developments” modify the claim. Of course it can be argued that because humans are able to develop such technologies to facilitate our environmental expansion, this ability qualifies us as the most adaptable. But human maximization of the art of adaptation has been achieved solely because we have tools. We have never, like the gecko, adapted to re-grow severed appendages. But if some day nature’s omnipotent sovereignty outpaces human ability to adapt, how long could our species survive without our technologies? Besides, how can a species that kills each other, itself, and it’s environment be said to be well-adapted for survival?

We never reached our destination “goal” of the glacier San Rafael which I am quite okay with. Making a geological spectacle a goal of an outdoor adventure places a certain emphasis on the end note before it has even been played. Expectation of how a final note will or should sound can ruin enjoyment of the journey by anticipation of the future. Arriving at the Grand Canyon after imagining how amazing it will be can be as dissapointing as throwing a surprise birthday party for yourself: the actual manifestation of the event never coincides with the imagination of the event.

Early on in our sailing journey Deborah and Rolph made it clear making it Rafeal in our three week period was unlikely. So I willfully suspended expectation of seeing the glacier. Now I am thankful for the forecast because putting the glacier out of my mind allowed me to spot whales and dolphins instead of looking straight over them with a future-aimed forward gaze.

ANECDOTE NO. TWO: ON ESCAPING

While sailing I experienced quite a paradoxical sensation. I had chosen to isolate myself on a 40 foot stainless steel floating device in order to gain unlimited mobility. The meaning of sailing felt caught in the grey space between what defines seclusion and what defines liberation. My decision to sail in the first place was long and drawn-out primarily because I couldn´t sort out my feelings about whether sailing would make me feel free or trapped. Feeling hemmed in or tied down causes a difficult time for me more than anything else. I eventually decided the only way to figure it out was to go sailing. Besides, I figured it would at least be productive to confront my issues with feeling tied down if the sensation arose. When the wind at last filled Northern Light´s sails blowing us further and further away from land my only real thought was nothing profound, just a, ¨well hell, here goes nothing,¨. But then all of a sudden there you are, left to sit alone only in the company of your thoughts which can cause quite a deal of claustrophobia. Ultimately I think I felt set free. But it wasn´t the sense of freedom I think is classically associated with sailing; freedom from responsibility, reality, hard work, etc. I instead felt set free from daily distractions that keep me from being alone with my thoughts, myself, and thinking about the world I´ve created around me. At even the thought of being alone with my thoughts made me nervous but with each passing moment the apprehension decreased and my desire to confront my own thoughts grew. That kind of isolation from distraction could eventually cause even masters of ignoring or excusing their own thoughts and feelings, masters of self-deceit, to confront their thoughts and reality.

Sailing isn’t all breeze and booze. Rolph captured that reality (and his feelings on freedom) when he said, ¨if you´re looking for freedom, you won´t find any more freedom in sailing than you would anywhere else in the world,¨. It is easy to fantasize about sailing, or even travel for that matter, as a carefree escape for wanderers and the irresponsible. Several times before I have left to travel many people have said, “I wish I could just go travel too,”. Of course sometimes there are legitimate restrictions that keep one from traveling but when I have pressed to know what keeps people from just going and traveling, it comes down to attachment to work, routine, and predictability. Blame it on the rain. Sailing takes a lot of hard work (especially the further north or south you travel from the equator) and is also quite a regulated affair.

Saving up to buy a sailboat from scratch commands as much diligence as communicating clearly while sailing. Deborah shared that winches (the specially designed columns around which the sheets, or ropes, are secured) often cost up tp $2,000. There were at least a dozen winches on Northern Light. Rolf shared that he paid for most of Northern Light by abstaining from purchasing cigarettes, and paying money for transportation (even public) and extraneous clothing items. In exchange for 30some years of visiting all seven continents on your floating mobile home I am confident Rolf would say the nine years of abstainment were worth it. If any big life lesson were learned or reinforced on our trip I learned from Deborah and Rolf. We are all responsible to diligently and adamantly demand the life that you deserve.

Regulations were as common in sea travel as in land travel. Signatures, passports, a detailed itinerary, and a flag of the nation in whose water’s your sailing are all part of the regulations of sailing. The formalities of beuracracy. Sailors in Chilean waters are required to radio in to the nearest port each day to relay their exact position. It’s a little like being in middle school or high school. Each night you are out you have to call your parent’s to tell them where you are, how many people are there, where you’re headed next, and when you’ll be back home. Home in this case is a port. Of course there are boat traffic rules too, both written and unwritten. I would be curious to find out how much regulations in international waters are as similar to being on parole than regulations in national waters.

Sailing was a new experience for me. Not all experiences within my sailing experience were new, however. Being chased by a pig while ashore running one day was not. If I have ever fantasized about sailing disasters, I am confident my mind was fixated upon capsizing boats or hammerhead attacks. But not fleeing terrified from a pig. My first solution was to clumsily scale a steep dirt hill that was all slip and no gain. I got some grip on a vine and hung out for a few moments until I thought the pig had forgotten me. No sooner did I hop back down to ground did the pig lift it’s rooting snout and boldly blaze towards me. Eventually I turned around to face the pig. I then preceded slowly uphill backwards with my hands in surrender position and verbally informed the pig I meant no harm. Probably 200 yards later I was finally free from the territorily adamant swine.

The most precious opportunity sailing provided was an escape from light pollution. Scientific realizations, innovative philosophies, vibrant literature, and first loves often are a by-product of star-gazing. Most cultures and most known histories include a myth explaining stars, planets, etc. The stars seduce human curiosity by being so visually brilliant yet so physically intangible. It is thus my instinct that the superficial disappearance of stars behind light pollution of cities contributes to a narrow perspective. If the inspiration of thousand-fold philosophies (and religions. think of the names of the Greek and Roman gods.), scientific discoveries, and stories is based in an ability to see the stars, the moon, the sun, won’t thousand-fold sources of human creation be lost with the apparent disappearance of the sky? This is the reason I personally found night sailing to be the most precious opportunity sailing with Northern Light presented. Seeing the stars for me always fascinated not so much because they seem above and far and distant, but because somehow, my existence is related to theirs.

ANECDOTE NO. ONE: ON THE BUS

People often comment that it’s amazing we survive childhood. The one-hundred plus hours Eli and I spent on the bus traveling between La Paz and Puerto Montt inevitably were always shared with children. Our bus excursion thus provided plenty of opportunities to reflect on the unmatched resilience and unwavering vigor of the child. Now, I can’t help but wonder why more people don’t comment on how amazing it is we survive childhood with functioning voiceboxes.

PREFACE: ON GATHERING THOUGHTS

If I could be frank for a moment. Writing is my most fervent passion, writing books to support myself as a self-employed intellectual my most fervent but unknown dream. Consequently, writing is one of my most fiery fears. Enough: I have mixed feelings about writing this blog is all I want to say really.

Trying to write this sailing account from hindsight will be like trying to put back together the pieces of a shattered realist landscape painting. Most likely my reproduction will result in a Picasso. All of the original pieces will be there but the feeling of the painting will be substantially more whimsical and abstract. Perhaps scattered and disconencted. I’ll do my best to still keep it interesting and coherent. But like any recollection of past events, memory will jumble details and chronologies leaving you with a based-on-a-true-story account.

I DONE MY BEST:

I have been trying to complete a satisfactory blog about my sailing experience. It has been hard to find a long chunk of time to sit down and make a coherent recount. But the project is starting to linger in a way I don´t need it to while I am in Bolivia with other focuses. So I am going to begin to psot. I have not gone in chronological order. Instead, I have grouped my entries by theme. Related topics. Soon I hope ot update my La Paz life since I´ve been back.