Storms around the horizon
a hot wet wind blowing hard from the south
the camera gives up, shuts down
flashes yellow warning signals at me
demands to be cleaned
ejects its cassette
Get a grip, man!
it's a luxury to lose it
the Sony equivalent of a nervous breakdown
is not an option open when you travel2300: Bloody clocks bloody back a bloody hour a bloody gain. GMT-3.
Ship's time 1200 (GMT 1400):
N25 deg 13' W48 deg 22.1'
Course: 229 deg
Speed: 19.4Kt.
Dist Le Havre 2697 NM
Fort de France 970 NM
Air 25C
Sea 27C
Wind SW4, sea state 3
To sail towards the equator
on an Admiralty planning chart
is to sail uphill
the miles are longer
in this projection
it is harder to get the last way
than the slipping down easy miles
as you slide away from home.
OR, HOW I MOURN THE WILDERNESS WITHIN
If I'm mourning
it’s the great emptiness
the yawning desert of meaning
No work together for common objectives
not an idea worthy of the name
as the wilderness of this world gives in to the moneylands
the wilderness within grows
now there are dangerous wide-open spaces
in the crowds and worked-over concrete of every city
in any car might be a mind gone mad with loneliness
So I mourn
the order outside
and the madness within.
The Binnacle Messiah
on the roof of the wheelhouse
arms extended in what?
Benison or supplication
Does it bless us
or implore the help of - something
even mightier than it is
Is it hopeful or despairing?
Surely the ultimate question
Look into its face.
Numbers
I believe they foretell our future.
Before, I have asked myself
How do we write to transcend barriers of language
The answer is obvious
It is the Euro-mix we speak when abroad
any language and gestures
that gets the meaning across
What we speak when we travel
Though you can't write down the gestures
I suppose there could be diagrams.
Flying fish
Come flat from water
To occupy the vacant sky
They fly like birds
For half an inspired minute
Wheeling and flapping, sometimes in flocks
Silver sides to claim the sun
Then back to fly in the denser fluid
Lost in the closed blue sea.
south west wind from the tropics
wet with what awaits us
bearing information
a rugged promise of the future
storms on all horizons except that we entered by
flat grey ceilings and blue intermezzines
we are enclosed
in the theatre
performer and audience
heaving on a sea
nautical miles sludge lumpy
south west wind
from the tropics
wet with what awaits us.
The weather was SW4, a hot tropical wind. It instantly choked the camera up with condensation, causing a time code break on the tape. My first thought was to borrow a hair drier, and Peter had one. This idea comes from Robin Kewell's experiences shooting in the Tropical Dome at the Eden Project, where he discovered that holding the camera under a hand drier for half a minute before entering the biome prevented the problem.
Then I realised that I have a hot air heater in my cabin. That solves the problem, which solves itself anyway if the camera has time to acclimatise before being used.
Useful lesson, comparatively cheaply learned.
Played table tennis.
Watched a not very good film with David Caruso, Nick Cage.
I saw my first sea bird. From the book I think it was a Storm Petrel but I'm not sure what variety, possibly European.
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