Realities of Yacht Delivery, Part 1

Click here for Part 2, which I just got around to publishing.

I wanted to write this a while ago, when the situation I'm about to describe actually was happening, but I thought it might somehow jinx it. So I saved it for now. Spoiler alert: the end of this story happened yesterday, and the boat is safe and sound in Portland, ME, but it got there without me on it. Here it is.

Matt Rutherford is Finished

You’d think that in a voyage of now 310 days – the time Matt Rutherford has been at sea since departing the Chesapeake almost a year ago – that the hardest part would have long since been behind him.


In fact, it’s happening right now.

What happens when life happens? Or, the article that did not appear in Spinsheet's May issue.

Note: I submitted this article for publication in Spinsheet's May 2012 issue. Re-reading it, it's no surprise that they couldn't use it. I've been too disconnected from the Chesapeake lately, and simply ran out of ideas. Frankly, what's going on at home with my mom has overtaken everything else at the moment, and that's where this article came from. Read my sister Kate's blog for her updates on Kevin, and some of her own insights on our family. I'll be back in Spinsheet in June with a big story on Matt Rutherford, and again in the fall, so look for that.

Kevin Walls, aka 'Tower', on the Appalachian Trail

Kevin Walls got his trail name today. This is apparently something everyone does when through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. You can't give it to yourself, it must be earned. And only after a little while on the trail. For the next one thousand-nine hundred miles or so, he'll be known to his compatriots as 'Tower.' He's something like 6-foot-5, so it's appropriate. Apparently he also has an affinity for a hilltop fire tower that he came across as well, so I guess that makes sense.

Ninety-three hours in Istanbul with my two best friends in the world.

3.

Carsi Hamam.

At the coffee place. The name translated
to 'a water buffalo won't sink in it.'
Turkish coffee is thick.

We would never have found that hamam in the end had it not been for the guy that walked us there. We’d spent over an hour wandering the streets and the markets around Kardikoy, on the Asian side now because we heard the baths were cheaper (they are), and ended up going around in circles. Nobody spoke English, but I had the place written on a piece of paper and kept asking people anyway. Even the guy hawking brochures for the British-English language academy didn’t speak English.

People kept pointing us in different directions. We almost gave up – Ryan was getting ansty and I wanted another coffee – but we persisted and finally somebody from one of the cafes just walked us to the entrance.

Ninety-three hours in Istanbul with my two best friends in the world.

2. 

We didn’t really get very far on Thursday. We walked really far. The bus dropped us off at Taksim Square, and Nate assured us that the hotel was only 500 meters away, and ‘probably in that direction.’ So we started walking. I bought a simit, a circular-shaped bread covered in sesame seeds, which I soon discovered was ubiquitous all over the city. We had not checked any baggage, so Nate and I carried our stuff over our shoulders and Ryan wheeled his suitcase behind him down the sidewalk.

Ninety-three hours in Istanbul with my two best friends in the world.

1.

Istanbul.

The flight over was supposed to have been something like nine hours. Instead, we ended up on the plane for sixteen (someone got sick en route over Labrador. The flight attendants attended to him (her?), but apparently the situation was unstable. I had just taken a sleeping pill that Nate had given me, and not five minutes later the pilot announced we’d be stopping in St. John’s, Newfoundland – one and half hours in the wrong direction, as the plane was somewhere closer to Greenland by then – and as much as I wanted to, I could not un-take that sleeping pill.

June 26, 2010 - Midnight on 'Truant'

Saturday, June 26, 2010: One forty-nine AM.

It’s one forty-nine in the morning. I write from the nav table of Truant, the 47’ Cabo Rico cutter that Mia and I are currently in the process of delivering from the Delaware Bay to Newport, Rhode Island. Between the full moon shining through the pilothouse window and the glow of my computer screen, there is enough light to write by.

Friday Column: All at Sea Southeast Launch

Greetings and happy Friday! I'm taking this week to formally introduce the new magazine I am editing now, All at Sea Southeast. It's somewhat of a sister magazine to All at Sea Caribbean, published by the same people and using the same style. It's a conglomeration of all things waterfront, covering the region from the mouth of the Chesapeake to east Texas, from sail, power, fishing, surfing and everything in between.

Oslo, Thor Heyerdahl, and Kon-Tiki

Back in Scandinavia (and hence the column actually being on time today).

I surprised Mia on Monday morning, arriving in Stockholm immediately following her green card meeting at the US Embassy. It's one of the few modern-looking buildings in the city, and completely surrounding by fence. Mia waited in the cold for half an hour before they let her in for her 8:30am appointment. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the Oslo airport waiting for my connecting flight and wondering if she'd been let in yet. And eating a bar of chocolate I bought at the news stand.

Friday Column: Matt Rutherford's Resupply

Note: Okay, at the bottom of this post is some audio I recorded with Matt, I think back in April last year. It would have been a few months before his departure. His Pearson 323 was docked one block away from Arcturus in Annapolis, at the little marina at the end of Burnside Street. I had been friends with him since the summer before when he returned from his double-Transatlantic. We sat down in the clubhouse and talked for a couple hours on a bunch of different topics. The audio is completely unedited and slightly embarrassing for me to listen to, but it's pretty cool nonetheless and gives some interesting insight into Matt and his trip. He doesn't start talking about the NW passage until about the 45-minute mark, but touches on his motivations and why he's involved CRAB. Very enlightening stuff. I left the entire 1:52:00 intact because I enjoy listening to uncut stuff like this, and so will you! On that note, look for some more interviews I've done with some other interesting people to pop up here in the future. I've always wanted to start a podcast, so maybe this is the first episode....

Two days ago (on February 29), I received this email from Simon Edwards, Matt's longtime delivery skipper friend and biggest shoreside support in Matt's Around the America's expedition:

"It's done. He picked the gear up this morning. Fantastic response from people, $30,000 [for CRAB] and still coming. Will write more, trying to anchor up in Sandy Hook in freezing rain. Still, hard to complain being as Rutherford set the bar too high!!!"

Can't argue with that. Matt is in the middle of setting the bar arguably higher than it's ever been set before. He's been compared to some of the sailing pioneers like Chichester and one of his heros Knox-Johnston. And the cool part is, those comparisons came from Herb McCormick, who recently completed his own Around the Americas expedition, albeit one with stops and aboard a boat with heat. The comments below came from an interview that the Washington Post conducted with McCormick for a recent article.

“What Matt is trying to do, I’m absolutely blown away by it,” McCormick said. “He’s doing this in a boat that, frankly, I’d be scared to sail from Newport to Bermuda. I’m in awe of the guy. This is such a mammoth undertaking, and to do it without stopping — alone — is mind-boggling."

But everyone who has been following Matt's adventure in the slightest already knows that. At this point it's almost beyond description.

So, to the original point of this update. Matt’s resupply, and my effort to get him as much publicity as possible in his effort to raise money for CRAB. It’s the third of his voyage so far, if you count the one off St. John’s, Newfoundland in which he received a replacement watermaker when his original exploded on him. At that point, so close to the start of his voyage, it was nearly a fatal blow to his hopes. In Alaska he was interviewed by NPR, given some pizza and beer and restocked with a few essentials. And now Recife.

Matt talks often in his blog about his water generator, and how he tried to fix it with an improvised propeller he cobbled together from an old boathook. It reminded me of Yves Gelinas and his similar repair aboard Jean du Sud, the Alberg 30 that Gelinas sailed around the world via the Great Capes, his only stop in Chatham Island thanks to a capsize and subsequent dismasting. Gelinas is also the inventor of the Cape Horn windvane, which saw Mia and I across the Atlantic on Arcturus last summer. He's a great and humble man, and Matt reminds me of him, particularly in his determination and ability to see something through.

Alas, some things are beyond his control. St. Brendan’s engine is officially dead in Matt’s estimation. 

“I took off all the wires and cleaned the connections with sandpaper,” he wrote in his blog at solotheamericas.org. “I was hoping it was a bad ground wire but unfortunately that wasn’t the problem. I tried to take the starter off but for some crazy reason it is connected to the engine with round bolts with a large Allen key fitting in the center. So I didn’t have the rather odd tool required to remove the bolts. Why they couldn’t have used normal hex head bolts is beyond me. So after three days of getting covered in engine grime I came to the conclusion that it is beyond my abilities to fix the engine.”

Gelinas didn't even have an engine, by design, so Matt will be just fine without it. And Moitessier dove on his Joshua to remove the propeller before long passages to cut down on drag, knowing that far offshore it would be of little use anyway save for using as a generator, which is precisely what Matt needs it for. Without it, it might mean less internet updates and radio contact, but it won't affect his ability to sail the boat. Marcos in Recife gave him a few small solar panels, which should suffice for his minimal power requirements.

Not to get too far ahead of ourselves - Matt still has several thousand miles to sail to reach the Chesapeake and close the circle on his journey - but there is already talk of what's in the works in Annapolis for his return, and it includes some pretty high-profile boats and people. At this point, the mission is to continue getting the word out, both for CRAB, and to give Matt the heros welcome that he deserves, hopefully sometime in April. 

Simon Edwards, in an email to me last week, did a nice job summing up the absurdity of trying to plan for his arrival:

"In a perfect scenario for their plans, Matt will sail round Thomas Point on the 14th April to arrive at the Hall of Fame dock at noon."

Of course he will. Oddly enough, and I wrote this in the current issue of Spinsheet about Matt's Cape Horn rounding, people back home might be thinking about it arrival, but I doubt (and hope, for the sake of his sanity), that Matt is not. He's still in his world. 

Read about the rest of his resupply from the man himself at solotheamericas.org. And donate to CRAB online at crabsailing.org. Check out the audio of my chat [which will be uploaded shortly - check back] with Matt before his adventure, which is posted below. Enjoy.

Friday Column: Don Street & Sailing to the Caribbean

Street speaking at the
2010 Annapolis Show

I have known Street since the 2010 Annapolis Sailboat Show. I’ve told this story several times in a few of the magazines I write for. Street actually approached me, wondering if he could use an article I’d written about him in All at Sea Caribbean. Well, kind of about him. More about his Imray-Iolaire charts that he created years ago, exploring the waters in his engineless yawl for which the charts are named. He was speaking at the show and ended up passing out copies of the article to people in attendance (myself and Mia included). See it here.

Over the past two years, we’ve kept in email contact now and then. Last fall, upon making our landfall in Crookhaven on Arcturus, we more or less invited ourselves to his house in Glandore, a short daysail down the coast. We had run out of propane only a few days after arriving in Ireland, and on the rural south coast, there was nowhere to get any. Clint had already left by then, so Mia and I survived on tuna salad and cold beans, with no hot coffee in the morning. Donald came to our rescue and invited us in before his day out racing the Dragons just outside the gorgeous little harbor.

Mia and Arcturus in Street's
hometown of Glandore, Ireland

In this month’s Cruising World, there is an article that Street wrote about sailing to the Caribbean. It’s a follow-up to a few stories the magazine ran last month about the havoc that was wreaked on the NARC fleet after they left Newport and got beat up by a few gales en route to Bermuda, a story that’s been beaten to death by the sailing media and does not need to be repeated here. I was involved at the time with the Caribbean 1500. We sat in Hampton, VA for five days waiting out the weather, which included a freak subtropical storm the forecasters named Sean, which had to be one of the few times a named storm actually formed above 23 ½º north. I spent hours formatting and re-formatting the GRIB files we used to show the fleet their weather routing info prior to the start of the event. They changed so often that I think we ended up giving three full weather briefings, a few with information drastically different from what it was only twelve hours earlier.

I touched on the chaotic nature of the weather in a recent article I wrote for Yacht Essentials, which will be out in March (look for it in the archives soon). Everyone knows the weather is one of the most unpredictable dynamic systems in our world, and yet everyone seems to try and forecast it anyway.

Street’s article in CW recalls another that he wrote for a different magazine way back in 1964, extolling the virtues of sailing south from Little Creek, VA or Morehead City, NC, bypassing Bermuda altogether in the fall. He made a good point in 1964, and it’s a good point today. My favorite part reads “Sailors heading south to Bermuda in November should stop asking for weather windows, and weather routers should stop providing them: these windows don’t exist except for 90-foot sailing rocketships that can reach Bermuda in three days. US East Coast weather becomes so unstable in November that forecasts are good only up to 48 to 60 hours.” The problem is, and Street alluded to this, that everyone is so accustomed to seeing their seven- and ten-day forecasts on the news everyday that perhaps subconsciously, they take them as fact.

If you’ve ever taken the time to evaluate the accuracy of those long-range forecasts (which the television never does), you'd be shocked. Everyone seems to inherently agree that the weatherman is never really right. They become the butt of a lot of jokes. Yet still people take what they say on faith, particularly sailors, even when they know better (myself included). Try this sometime – download a GRIB forecast and run it out as far as it will go, usually at least seven days. Save that GRIB image. Now, seven days later, download the GRIB again for the same region and see how the picture compares to the forecast from before. Except in areas affected by regular trade winds, the two images will more than likely differ dramatically. Case in point – the GRIBs from that same storm Sean in the fall. One day it’s not there. The next day it is. This is, in a nutshell, what I think Street is trying to say.

November 9, 2011 GRIB file, advanced from a November 2 Download. No sign of 'Sean.'

November 9, 2011 GRIB File - Actual. 'Sean' is easily visible just east of Florida.
Note also the differences in the weather way up by Greenland.

Ironically, Street and I had exchanged some emails shortly after the fall season on this very topic, and I’m sure I have on in my inbox somewhere that nearly replicates the CW article. I was wondering then when I read it if he’d get it printed anywhere – Street is old enough now that a few people don’t remember him, and some that do, disregard him as obsolete, especially when he starts quoting himself from fifty years ago. But the fact that he’s been around so long and still gets published has to say something to the effect that he is still relevant.

One of the fascinating things about ocean sailing is that out there, you’re basically sailing the same waters and the same weather patterns as the Vikings, and sometimes it’s wise to heed the ancient advice, even when it comes from Street.

Street’s article (and this essay) could come across as an “I-told-you-so” rant, but I hope that’s not the case. Every year there are examples of the tragedies like those that befell the NARC fleet in 2011, it just so happened that that one was well reported on considering the time of year (the annual migration south). And every year there are different reasons for what went wrong. When it comes to ocean sailing – like any other adventurous pursuit – there doesn’t always have to be someone to blame. Risk is part of the deal, part of what makes it exciting in the first place. I don’t think anyone would admit to be willing to pay the ultimate price to what basically boils down to a form of recreation (despite those of us who see it more as a way of life). It’s not worth the ultimate price to me, which I suppose is why I’m sitting at a desk right now and not out in the North Atlantic. It’s winter – the risk is too high. It’s the same reason we transited the North Atlantic at 50º in August. Historically for that region, the weather is most stable that time of year. Certainly no guarantee - again, 'Sean' is a perfect example of an anomaly that history would not have predicted. The Fastnet Gale is another. But still, less risk. And we weren't not going to go.

What’s the point? I’m happy that CW published Street’s article, and I’m glad people still take him seriously. There are some things in life and in sailing that are constants, no matter the time or the times. The weather is probably the biggest of all, and I hope his article gives a little bit more insight into understanding and handling it.

Friday Column: Extreme Hunting

Heartless Bastards baby! They are rocking my world right now.

Dane had an ‘afternoon with the White Stripes’ in the gym yesterday. He and I were debating the merits of Black Math, a few days prior, a song, which, I might argue, is about as hard as a rock and roll song can get. I listened to it several times out running with the dogs in the forest this week. Gets the juices flowing.

I am sat at the kitchen table in the small cabin that Kevin’s parents rented for the weekend adjacent to Elk Mountain. I just made him turn the fire off (it’s gas, so you can do that), because it’s an oven in here. There is a sauna downstairs, but nobody wants go in it naked with me. Kevin is my sister Kaitie’s boyfriend.

Her and I (Kate) were out early this morning on the mountain (if you can call it that. It is only the second time I have skied since our Tahoe trip in college, so I won’t complain. The skiing was remarkably decent). I left the house at 5:58 this morning, two full minutes before I anticipated, and made fabulous time on the highway, despite several patches of zero-visibility fog. I did not have to stop en route. I was early, so took a few runs before Kevin dropped Kate off (only after waiting in line for ten minutes at the rental shop, mentally swearing at myself because I left my poles at home. Rentals were five dollars), and then met her by the American flag outside the lodge. We skied for five solid hours without stopping, enjoying a beautifully sunny morning and a surprisingly snow-covered hill (there wasn’t a trace of it on the road until about five minutes before I got here, which did not bode well). Upper Tunkhannock was all bumped up (!). Until the sun disappeared and it got icy. Little kids practicing their snowplow technique in the moguls kept cutting me off on my last two runs. Then we quit.

I came home from Sweden about two weeks ago now, on a Sunday, to be with my dad at home to help take care of my mom. Ask me sometime and I’ll tell you about her, but I’m not interested in writing about it. It was sad leaving Mia, but sometimes it is okay to be sad for a while. It’s not about us this time around.

Dad encouraged me to come skiing with Kate and Kevin this weekend. I felt slightly guilty, because somebody has to be home all the time, and with me away, that somebody is now dad, who had gotten back into a more or less normal routine with the family business since I came home, precisely the reason for me doing so (mostly). If there is one thing my mom’s health is teaching us, it is to get out and live as much of life as you possibly can. So I came skiing, partly because of that, but partly because it’s also important to keep family as the number one priority, and Kate fits the bill there. Dad was happy to stand in for two days so I could spend some time with my little sister.

---

I heard a song in the car by Ani DiFranco on XPN called Whose side are you on? Unsurprisingly it was vehemently political, actually calling for some ‘socialism’ in America, which I assume was meant to ruffle some feathers. The chorus asks you to pick a side. Hence the title.

When the dust settles, people need to live with each other. I feel like this sentiment is getting lost in the shuffle, whether in politics now with a looming election, or globally.

During a few of my SFI (‘Swedish for Immigrants’ – or ‘Idiots’, depending on who you asked) courses in January, I was interacting with many folks from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and northern Africa. It’s not difficult to imagine the conversations, which were in Swedish – part of the lesson – and decidedly simplistic, which was the point. I chatted with Makhmoud (from Iraq) and we asked each other the typical introductory questions – where are you from? what do you do for a living? how come you’re in Sweden, etc etc. I touched on this before, but Makhmoud is a refugee, who fled Iraq thanks to the war between America and his own country. We never got into whether or not he fled for fear of his life, for political reasons against the USA, for political reasons against Iraq or whatever. Obviously he fled because of war, but I’m not sure whose side he was on. But I felt oddly uncomfortable in that situation explaining that I had met my Swedish wife on a backpacking trip in New Zealand, and that I was here of my own accord and living more or less in pixieland while my countrymen are killing his ‘brothers’ (and them my countrymen).

That situation was difficult for me to reconcile, and I could not shake my unease. And Makhmoud was one of the most genuine, friendly people I have come across as a stranger, did not seem at all uneasy speaking with an American (a sentiment I have gotten all over the world in fact. Most people I talk to who have a negative opinion of America direct that opinion towards our foreign policy and not our individuals. Kind of the same way American’s who have a negative opinion about America feel. Like there is some greater force at work at home that creates the ‘America’ people disagree with, while the American people abroad generally are well-liked. American’s abroad claiming to be Canadian is just stupid). At the time, it felt inappropriate to even be talking with him (Makhmoud) due to the conflict between our countries. We have to live together when the dust settles. Was I beyond that? Did he think the same thing? Was there resentment? Must we choose a side Ani DiFranco? Or can we freaking work it out on the same side. When a competition creates higher stakes than that of a game or a sport, the consequences of ‘winning’ can be scary. Nobody ever actually wins in real life.

---

For the weekend I am going to enjoy the skiing and the camaraderie. Kevin just broke out his binder of information he’s collected on the Appalachian Trail. In less than a month he’ll set of from Georgia, walking north, and won’t stop until he gets to Maine. He’s tackling the whole thing in one go, packing forty pounds on his back and making a run for it. His last day of work was on Wednesday, and the boss let him leave early.

I am almost unfathomably envious of him right now – for three years the only thing Mia and I focused on was getting our boat across the Atlantic (and the wedding), and after such a huge summer last year, we’ve sort of reached an anticlimax, a calm period where we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves. There is nothing to plan anymore – it’s suddenly easy to understand why some people never leave the dock.

---

I had intended on ending this post just there, but I had to add a description of the community game room in this little development of cabins we’re in at Elk, the only place where there is wireless internet (and where Kevin and I had to come just so I can post this online).

There is a small gray building, ‘adjacent to that little white one over there,’ the concierge at the small check-in desk told us. Downstairs is a pool and a hottub where little kids are making noise. Upstairs – where we are – is the actual game room, a place that I think can only possible exist in upstate Pennsylvania. A pool table is the dominant feature of the room, with a small gym (a stationary bike, treadmill and weight machine) at the top of the stairs (no kidding, in the midst of everything, which would be odd if you actually wanted to work out. I imagine it does not get much use). Two skylights provide the ambience, and a pair of ceiling fans hang from the slanted roof. An old jukebox is at the far end of a line of 1990’s era arcade games, including a submarine game called ‘Sea Wolf’ and a shooting game called ‘Extreme Hunting 2: Tournament Edition’ (this game has audio, and every 30 seconds or so a dude comes over a speaker and announces the title of the game). Next to that is a classic Pac-Man machine, a ‘Cruisin’ USA’ (remember that?), a Star Trek pinball machine and finally a change machine for quarters.

On the opposite wall is one of those games that gives away prizes, not dissimilar to the ones with the hook that lets you think you can grab something. Then there is another hunting game (‘Deer Hunting USA’), another shooting game, aptly titled ‘Target: Terror’ (the ‘o’ in Terror has a crosshairs on it). And of course a soda machine (RC Cola!) and a snack machine filled with Fritos corn chips. Actually I just noticed there is one of those hook grabber games, right next to the jukebox. Missed that one.

Kevin and I are sat in white wicker chairs around a round outdoor table you might find adjacent to a pool in summertime. An American flag hangs on the wall behind me over a dusty piano. Last but not least, there is a ‘Love Fever’ machine, where ostensibly two people touch their fingers to a sensor and the machine tells you how hot your love fever is.

Friday Column: Retail Shopping

"A discount gives shoppers the incentive to buy today. Without that, there's no sense of urgency for people to purchase things that, frankly, they probably don't need."

Kit Yarrow, author of Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail.

--

This quote came from a TIME Magazine article I read on Wednesday. In context, it was referring to an idea that the new head of J.C. Penney is about to implement, this idea that people are fed-up with retail gimmicks (they are) like sales and mark-downs, and that products should be sold at a more or less fixed price (they should be) all the time. Enough of the games, he says. You should know what you're getting. 

I agree with this. Why is it that I have to have a bonus card when going to the grocery store? Trader Joe's figured it out. Even if you don't have a bonus card at a place like Giant they swipe one for you anyway. I understand they just want you demographic information so they can advertise to you, but come on? The J.C. Penney guy is on to something.

But, Mr. Yarrow above, disagrees. He thinks it will fail, because, as it says, he fundamentally believes people might actually catch on the fact that they are being sold stuff they don't need. 

But they probably won't.

--

Since coming back to the USA on Sunday, I have devoured the past six weeks worth of TIME, trying to catch up on the news I've missed while I've been away. Yes, I am back in the US of A.

I hesitate to write any sort of opinion about the state of the US government, economy, etc etc. Mia is still in Sweden, hopefully only a few weeks behind me once her green card (which I discovered will actually be blue) application gets pushed through. We love the USA and all that rah rah rah stuff, but I feel compelled to comment on a few things if only because of how silly I think they are. We still want to live here.

Item #1: The Contraception Debate!

Is there not something more productive the government can spend time debating? Hasn't anyone figured out yet that every single problem of modern society can be directly or indirectly related to the number of people in it? We don't have to be China, but come on. Mia told me last night that there is an ongoing debate in Enköping about whether or not to spend money upgrading the town's public swimming pool. 'Just do it or don't do it!' she thinks. The endless debate does not get anybody anywhere.

Contraception. Is it so bad for the Catholic Church to allow their people to make choices for themselves? Making contraception available doesn't mean you have to use it. It is two-thousand and twelve. Simmer down everyone. Briggsy sent me this article yesterday with the subject line 'This guy is nuts!'. Which pretty much sums it up.

Item #2: The Economy!

There is a book called The Black Swan which more or less sums up everything I want to say but much more clearly and provocatively, and it has nothing to do with Natalie Portman. 

But to the quote above. Isn't this the entire problem with the modern American economy? Selling people stuff they don't really need? And with our models of economic growth needed to sustain the growth of the country, this will never end. Fundamentally, it relies on more and more people to buy more and more crap that more and more people are realizing is unnecessary for a fulfilling life. To create jobs, as politicians are wont to say these days, requires one simple thing - a business must have a reason to hire new people. There has to be demand for whatever that business is hawking, be it barbecues and mini golf or iPads. You can't tell people on one hand to cut back, to start saving money, when on the other hand you desperately need them to start buying cars from Detroit so they can have jobs.

The way the economy works today, the definition of 'healthy' means growth, and the definition of 'growth' means producing more stuff that nobody needs. We had a perfect opportunity in 2008 to re-set the economy following the collapse, re-set it to something resembling efficiency and constraint. Instead, the Fed created one trillion dollars out of thin air. The same thing is about to happen in Europe. Sweden must be thrilled they never switched to the Euro.

Item #3: Twitter!

Has everyone conceded already that Twitter and the internet generally is another form of media? People accept it as a way of communication, a way of receiving and transmitting news, thoughts, opinions, etc? Then how come television stations insist on showing what's 'trending' on Twitter? Television is another form of media. Leave it alone. Nobody who actually uses Twitter gives a crap that the local news is talking about it, and nobody who watches the local news gives a crap that they care about what is on Twitter. Hasn't anybody figured out that the way to success with old media is not to replicate new media but to distinguish yourself as a totally separate entity offering a completely disparate experience?

I think this is the key to sports stadiums. Why on earth does Dallas have to have a football field-sized television? I'm not going to the game to watch TV. Stadiums should be smaller, closer to the field and decidedly different than the experience I can get at home sitting on my ass on the couch. They should not have music and cheerleaders, they should highlight players and the game. Give me something I can't get at home, not freaking computers at my seat and a television that blocks punts. Forget trying to attract little kids and wives. Give me a 10,000 seat stadium and put speakers on the field so I can hear the players, and sit me close enough to the action that I can see what's going on. This is different from what I get at home. Quit trying to have everything cross over and give me a unique experience.

Dave Eggars and Bill Simmons have figured this out. They are online. Simmons is perhaps the biggest writer on the internet. And they've teamed up. Eggars prints several different publications in such a way that people actually pay for the content! Imagine that - a magazine with no advertisements that is printed on quality media and contains things that people might actually want to read and then keep. Simmons is doing something similar, printing his Grantland Quarterly with Eggars expertise, and re-packaging all that online content into something people want to put on a bookshelf. This is my favorite trend related to technology, that people are realizing they want something tangible, that these little niches are showing up in various places allowing people who still value that sort of thing to have an outlet. With print-on-demand services, normal people can do this themselves. They might not be able to sell it, but at least they can produce something tangible.

Books will never ever go away, just like film photography won't. They might not be mass-produced like they were before, and (hopefully) the bookstore giants like Barnes & Noble and Borders will disappear, but there is always room for the niche, and that will stick around. 

Back to Twitter. The Facebook guys are geniuses. They have created a system in which people willingly and eagerly allow their online lives to be tracked and displayed for the sake of advertisers. That so many people 'like' products and services astounds me. Do they realize they are providing free advertising for all those companies and products they endorse? Advertising value that Facebook is about to take public for an estimated ten billion - BILLION - dollars this spring? People do realize that right?

Something Completely Unrelated

Dad and I fed Buddy T. Goat this morning. The 'T' stands for 'The.' It's nice to be back home on the farm.

Friday Column: Trans-Atlantic Journal: Canadian Maritimes

11 Juli 2011 – Day 7

Seven knots over the ground! Thanks to a north setting current, we’re now just off the northern limit of Georges Bank, again sailing through heavy fog. This morning after my 0200-0500 watch, my hair was wet enough so it appeared I’d just taken a shower…The boat is really starting to come together now. I put my tools away at noon today (the power tools anyway…). Yesterday was a big work day – at the dock in Newport I went aloft to install the mast tangs John Franta sent me for the runners. Mommom + Pappap stood by on the dock taking photos. Once offshore I spliced up the rest of the runners – dyneema @ the mast spliced to a VPC tail to take to the winch. The rest of the afternoon was spent stowing odds and ends, lashing the dinghy, making preventers, and on and on. This morning I got the AIS going, finally. Turns out it’s the blue wire, not the brown one. Had a fright when the GPS antenna that I cut in half wouldn’t go after splicing it back together. Turned out there was a good reason Dad brought two connections along [there is also a reason that Rodney calls me ‘Ready-Fire-Aim Andy’].

Later in the afternoon I finished work on the drogue bridle, while at dawn Mia and I took two hours to tune and tighten the rigging. By the end of it I had gloves on and could just about sweat the last of the tension before my hands started bleeding. We won’t leave Halifax without turnbuckles on the rig, whatever it costs.

Looks like a good forecast for the week. It was calm enough this evening for Mia to whip up two pizzas in the oven and a nice cabbage salad. Fog has since moved in again, but we’re making 6-7 knots in the right direction and it hardly feels like we’re moving down below.

2300

Just came off watch. We’re roaring along @ upwards of 8 knots at times, thanks again to a favorable current. Still north of Georges Bank but not by much – and ‘Sune the Driver’ keeps wanting to go East. Contemplated having a rum drink, but decided against it.

The moon is out off the starboard quarter, and it glows in the fog. It’s shape is ill-defined, but the diffused light seems to brighten that area of the night more than it really is thanks to the fog. Ironic to be reading Vinland Voyage about their ordeal – 6 days fogbound – as they approached Halifax from the other direction – and only about 3 weeks earlier in the year. Does not bode well for our hopes of clearing. Just hope the other boats have RADAR – and are watching it.

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12 Juli 0900

The rigging is whistling. Big change in the weather from yesterday. I had a fitful sleep in the forepeak last night, waking every time the jib sheet hauled taught thinking we’d hit something. Dreamed that the thru-hull under the sink was leaking, and heard Dad a few times on the radio giving ‘securite’ calls in the fog. Fog does not help one sleep well.

Crawled out of bed and began what is already (and too soon) a long process of dressing. Still in my shorts (of the quick-dry adventure variety, of course), under my foulie pants, which are nearly useless by now – they’re wetter inside than out. Longsleeve tight top, fleece, jacket and Turtlefur hat (though I was a bit warm this morning).

Relieved Dad @ 0500 to a building sea and freshening breeze. Didn’t take long to decide to furl the mizzen – Sune the Driver was having a tough time holding course. Managed okay on my own, but called up for help 30 min. later to take in the genoa. Dad came up in jacket and swim trunks to hand steer while I began the first of what looks to be many acrobatic feats on the foredeck (though I’m counting on Clint to be the foredeck monkey most of the time). Going slowly and methodically, the big sail came down w/out much fuss – though I need to install a downhaul in Lunenburg. Am also contemplating removing the big genny altogether in favor of the 100% heavy jib that Ben gave us – Micah warned me to bring it, which at the moment seems like a great idea.

Since about 0600 now we’ve been trucking along at 6-7 knots under double-reefed main alone (thankfully Mia and I installed the reef lines last night in the calmer weather). Arcturus seems to be coping quite well, and just a moment ago took the first major soaking of the voyage, as a wave tried to climb up the starboard…

1000: Okay, interrupted there by some more action. We’re running under staysail alone now @ 6-7 knots. The sun came out and with it came more wind. The seas have evened out a bit. Mia was on watch when the rudder on the vane popped off a second time today. Good thing for that safety line. Apparently the boat doesn’t like running under mainsail alone.

Mia went fwd. to drop the remainder of the mainsail when she let the halyard get away. The shackle swung right round the spreaders and the forestay and lodged itself in the stb. lower spreaders. I climbed onto a halyard winch and was able to free it w/ a boathook to Mia’s delight.

Dad steered under bare poles while Mia and I lashed the mainsail down, set the runners and hoisted the staysail. She handles infinitely better now. We re-attached the rudder and put the heavy air vane in place, and Sune the Driver is much happier now, on course ENE and enjoying the sunshine. On the next leg, I see Mia and Clint teaming up for most of the work, as I won’t at first trust Clint to hand-steer. Time for some food.

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13 Juli 2011 – Day 9

Calm! I meant to write last night after my 2300-0200 watch, but was too sleepy. I spent several minutes (no idea really how long) staring at the moon from the afterdeck. First time in a few days that it shone clear w/out a shroud of fog blurring it.

Absolutely beautiful watch last night despite hardly waking for it. I was on another planet when Dad woke me before 2300, and never made it up until 2315 after falling back to sleep. Made two cups of instant coffee and finished reading Vinland Voyage. Perused Jimmy Cornell’s Cruising Routes and feel better than ever about our plan. Seems like we’re timing it right anyway. Also re-read Don Street’s Cruising World article – it’d no coincidence, I’m convinced, that we’ve connected with him independent of that article. He owes us a beer when we land in Glandore.

Today we’re taking advantage of the calm after an incredibly exhausting day yesterday. Good practice on the foredeck though. Mia is baking bread, we have potatoes in the oven for lunch and I finished wiring the instruments so we have a depth sounder for the unfamiliar approach to Lunenburg (now less than 100 miles distant). With luck, we’ll actually beat Clint to the hostel, which is miraculous. I shouldn’t speak too soon, b/c @ the moment we’re only making 1.5 knots. The wind has finally shifted to the WNW and we jibed to the port tack this morning and are making a beeline for Lunenburg.

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16 Juli – Day 12

Funny that last line in the log – ‘making a beeline for Lunenburg.’ I went to bed that night tired and a little sauced from the 3 Mt. Gay and lemon juice drinks my Dad and I enjoyed (no scurvy on this voyage!). We were motoring at the time, Mia on watch, and the engine noise put me right out. Not for long. Mia had a strange (read annoying) feeling and kept waking me up. We set full sail when the fickle NE breeze filled in, only to drop the main, then the genoa w/in five minutes. The breeze built and we set the staysail and mizzen, which was not enough to get us going to windward. Dad and I tuned in the WX on the VHF and did not like what we heard, so turned tail and ran to the nearest downwind harbor, eventually making 5-6 knots under staysail and mizzen once the NE wind really filled in for good.

Shelburne Harbor as it turned out was a great stop. Dad and I were up most of the night – my turn @ the tiller came near the entrance to the large bay – the lights on shore had disappeared just as the dawn arrived. The sunrise was actually quite brilliant – around 0330 the sky to the northeast became a pale yellow, gradually increasing it’s intensity until the horizon was on fire under a greay, low sky. By the time the sun actually came up it was already gone behind the clouds, but the prelude to the dawn was incredible.

The lights ashore, I soon discovered, had gone dim behind an enormous rain squall, which we sailed through for a few hours into Shelburne Harbor. Dad piloted from the companionway while I remained @ the tiller, my fingers frozen around the grip. It was light by then, around 0500, but less vis. than the middle of the night. We anchored off the YC around 0930 after Mia came up to furl the sails and take the helm. She almost fainted when her fingertips got cold (?).

I rang customs, and two official came by the fuel dock after an hour or so. It was the friendliest interaction I’d ever had w/any sort of officialdom. The men spoke highly of the mackerel, and regretted not bringing Mia and I a wedding present.

Shelburne was tiny, and though exhausted, we rallied for bread and hard-boiled eggs for brekky w/ a few pots of coffee and explored town. Mia and I got laundry done and we had an early dinner @ the Sea Dog pub, a stone’s throw from our berth @ the club. Mom, Dad and I slept from 4pm-9am the next morning, Mia and I sharing only one side of the veeberth (we only have 3 bunks set up). Yesterday was mellow, with some boat work (re-rigged the mizzen sheet, ran up the USA flag, removed the genoa + installed the heater), followed by a few drinks @ the bar (while I got a YE article submitted, and on time!). In the evening we met Bob Scott and his crew on Falcon, a NY32 that seemed to have won all the prizes in the Halifax race. We went aboard for bourbon. Bob knew me from an Ocean Nav. article and seemed very interested in my rig. He came by this morning before we set off, and wants to re-do Falcon. I’m more than eager to help.

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It’s nearly 2300 and close to the end of my shift. Lunenburg really seems w/in reach now, only 25 miles or so off to port. We’ve been running all day w/ the big genoa (I strengthened the anchor roller) and mainsail @ b/w 4-6 knots. I think we’ll jibe when Mia comes up as the wind has slowly been veering to the W. There is lots of lightening behind us, though it seems very far distant. A big ugly spider is walking under the cockpit grate. The genoa on the pole is very stable. Time to get Mia up.

Friday Column: Ut på tågresa - A train journey to Sölvesborg and back

Clint said this would happen on the boatride back from Åland. I was espousing how much I was looking forward to being back home in Dunderbo for several weeks. Making fires and drinking coffee and not living out of a suitcase or having to move anywhere. He said it. “Mate, in two weeks you’ll be itching to go somewhere new.”

He was right. Something in my nature does not like sitting still for very long. I cannot explain the joy I get from coming back from a trip, eating proper food that I can cook myself in a real kitchen, sleeping in a real bed and waking up to my own environment. But it definitely does not last. Probably because I have been stuck in the pattern of coming and going now for most of the last five years, since I first met Mia (and Clint, for that matter), down in New Zealand.

After New Year’s, Clint was off to Copenhagen to visit a friend for a while, before going back to England for another (maybe) MMA fight. After training for six weeks he was going to go back to Norway, where he has a small apartment and a job as a tree surgeon. I suppose he did not do the fight – I got a message from him yesterday saying he was off to Turkey, and then headed back to Oslo. Don’t know what for, and apparently he was traveling alone. He might have the itch worse than I do.

So it is then that I’m sitting in the train station in Enköping, waiting to ride to Stockholm, where my journey will begin in earnest. I only bought tickets last night around 8:30pm, at the last minute, and only decided for certain that I was going about an hour beforehand. Earlier that afternoon I had been distracted by taking the dogs out sledding again (six of them this time, which is considerably faster than four).

I do have an actual reason for the trip – I’m off to the south of Sweden to buy a camera. A used Nikon F3, originally released in 1983, and fully manual. That’s right. I found it on Blocket.se, a sort of Swedish Craigslist, and negotiated with a very friendly man named Torbjörn to meet me at the train station this afternoon. More on why I did this in a while. It is loosely related to celestial navigation.

I sit and wait in Enköping. My train should arrive in 14 minutes. What follows will be an account of my journey, as it is happening, a running diary of sorts and one of my favorite ways of recording events.

1010: På snabbt tåg. Till Mälmo och Köpenhamn.

On the fast train. To Malmo and Copenhagen (though I will change at Hässleholm, for the last hour of my ride to Sölvesborg). The beginning of this narrative is going to be regularly interrupted, as I have some real work to do on the train today, a major reason I decided to spend over $100 to come on this trip rather than have the camera mailed to me. I work better on the move, without distraction. I’m in my seat now (which is comfortable and spacious. Like and airplane seat, not quite in first class, but definitely better than economy extra. The armrest dividing my seat from the one next to me is wide enough for two elbows).

I have two articles to write today from scratch – one that will go under my dad’s byline, for the new magazine: another for Spinsheet, again about Matt Rutherford now that he’s round Cape Horn and well on his way back north to civilization. I also must finish editing my first editorial for the new magazine, which has been a work in progress. It’s only 600-some words, but it feels important. I’ve been changing it constantly.

We started moving. I’m going backwards in my seat. This train is so smooth I didn’t even notice the motion, and would have thought we were still in the station if not for the city outside going by the window. Interesting how we say that sometimes – “the city going by the window.” The city isn’t going anywhere. Outside my window it is.

I’m off to the café car shortly to start work in earnest. I’ll wait first for the conductor to come by and collect my ticket. I already got shooed out of the café car once – they’re not open yet. I plan to spend the day in there.

1023: The Bistro

I would pay extra for a plane ticket if they had a bistro. I would.

This one is small. They serve mostly cold fare, plus coffee (of course). I got a citrus Ramlösa and a kaffe, mostly so they let me sit here. Strangely, there are no tables, but little stand-like devices around which I suppose one is supposed to sit with friends, with room enough for coffee and beverages on the stand. The stand is in the middle of a squared-off u-shaped dinette, with fake red leather seat covering and a too-low backrest. I’m facing the bistro bartender, who maintains a small laptop at the end of the long counter where food and drinks are served. I can see the world going by outside the window just behind him. There are seven others in the bistro car with me. One is most certainly an immigrant – a dark woman in a white burka who does not speak Swedish. One is likely an immigrant, and looks vaguely Italian. I, of course, am an immigrant as well. People outside of Sweden think I look Swedish. People inside of Sweden mark me as an American from a mile away. I stick out like a sore thumb. The rest appear Swedish. But what do I know.

1211: Back in a seat, not the one I was assigned.

The train is not full today. Not yet. We have stopped several times along the way, never for more than sixty seconds. You’d better be ready to get off when you’re time comes.

Ironically, I ate my lunch in the cabin, and not the bistro. I do believe they frown upon bringing your own food into the cafe car. I drank my coffee and my bubbly water, wrote the article based on my dad’s story (I recorded our Skype conversation last night and transcribed a lot of it for the story today), and came back again for lunch so as not to be rude.

I took a seat opposite my own. It faces forward and is adjacent to a window, so I can watch the scenery go by.

It’s a black and white day outside, the sky blanketed by a low, thick layer of clouds, the sun never high enough to provide any light. The ground is covered in snow, and the trees in the forest have no leaves. The only color comes from the odd countryside house, always painted bright yellow or red (and now I understand why), with a bit of green mixed in from the pine trees, though a faintly duller green to me thanks to my deficiency. It’s slight less black and white here, a bit further south, with a bit less snow on the ground than back in Dunderbo.

The train leans into the turns, like a speedboat. Or a bicycle.

1219: Film photography. -or- Why I took this trip in the first place.

I am a cocked spring, freaking loaded with creative energy.

For the past three days I have been absolutely obsessing over a camera, and not entirely for the wrong reasons. I bought one, an old Nikon F3, on eBay, with a 50mm f/1.4 prime lens – that was Saturday night, and still I wasn’t satisfied. I needed it now. So I spent most of Sunday morning and Sunday evening back online looking at Rollei 35s, Minolta Hi Matics and older Nikkormats, trying to find one within a day’s train ride so I could make a small adventure of it. Last night was my first reasonable night’s sleep in several days.

My editorial for the first issue of All at Sea SOUTHEAST (the new magazine for which I am acting as editor) touches on the intangibility of modern technology – ”writing digital words and getting paid digital dollars, neither or which actually exist.”  Something along those lines.

Back in Lunenburg last summer Mia and I were gung-ho about buying an iPad, so we could use the insanely cheap chart software in lieu of purchasing a new $20 paper chart for each new place we sailed to. The software, which includes digital reproductions of the actual paper charts, and with the same detail, cost about $40 for the entire collection of Canadian Hydrographic Office charts, from the Arctic Ocean south, to all points west and east. Essentially free when you consider the sheer number of charts, from zoomed out small-scale charts to zoomed in harbor charts, some covering only a few hundred square yards.

The owner of the North Sails loft shared them with me on his own iPad when I went in to buy some spare hanks and some nylon webbing that Mia could make sail ties out of. The program begins by showing all of Canada, with a myriad of red squares that outline the various charts held within. Simply zoom in the clever way Apple does it on their mobile devices, running your fingers over the touch-screen, and each chart automatically appears, resolving right down to the creek level with as much detail as the paper versions.

But they are not paper. In the end, the iPad costs $500.00, about twenty-five charts. To me, the value of that paper, which is real, far exceeds the ones and zeros embedded within that iPad that merely represent the paper they’re based on. I’m very excited that we never bought it.

Similarly, I’m back to writing in pencil, and in fact, this very story began as pencil on plain white computer paper.

Hence the 35mm film camera. It’s real. Light enters the camera and leaves it’s imprint, physically, onto the film. The resulting image is real. It’s not zeros and ones, not tiny square pixels, but a real, tangible image, one that can be real and tangibly archived and resurrected any time in the future. I dig that.

The physical capturing of those images. After agonizing over this camera – having already decided I was getting a 35mm, just needed to choose one – I chose the F3 because it’s fully manual and mostly mechanical. The mechanisms that create the images all operate from the power of one small watch battery. There is no LCD screen, not even the small one most SLR’s have on the top, showing basic shooting information – all the data is in the viewfinder, where it belongs, and settings are changed with tangible, mechanical switches and knobs. The resulting image, once the shutter is pressed, will be a surprise days or weeks later when it returns from the photo lab.

The F3 was the premier professional SLR in the 1980s when it came out, and remained in production through 2000. Ironically, it was the first in the pro ’F’ line to use any electronics at all; people genuinely feared this at the time, and the camera was equipped with a backup mechanical shutter that would still fire at 1/60 with no batteries. I bought it precisely because of its simplicity, even if it was considered ’advanced’ in 1983. Two watch batteries that last over a year, and some film – that’s all you need to carry to get the most of it. No cords, no computers, no plugs, just the basic gear. The body is weather sealed and all-metal, and the lens I bought is fixed – no zoom. The camera will take photos in the freezing cold and in the damp and I will not have to worry too much about it.

I’m taking a fork in the road. Hopping off the fence.

I said it was like celestial, and it is. Technology is concerned mostly with the end, not the means. GPS? Tells you where you are, and you don’t have to know how it works for it to do so. It just does. Digital photography? Makes pictures fast and easy. On automatic settings, the camera just works. It thinks for you.

Poeple say that celestial navigation is a good backup in case your GPS fails. This is not true. This is not why it’s worth knowing. Celestial navigation is not about knowing where you are on a chart, it’s about knowing where you are in the universe, physically and philosophically. It’s about practicing art, for the sake of it. It’s about learning history, learning something for the knowledge because knowledge is enlightening. It’s about using tangible references in a tangible world, about being conscious. Not everything has to be about practicality.

Likewise with film photography. I want to pursue it precisely because it is more difficult, more time consuming. It’s real. I keep saying that, I keep thinking that, and I’m finally doing that which I say I believe in. It’s about going out and looking for interesting images to record, and the learning the process by which they are recorded, not simply switching on to automatic and having a go.

There is no logical reason behind learning celestial or how to shoot a manually operated film camera. The logic doesn’t matter. I cannot reasonably defend either pursuit.

I have never made the argument that celestial makes a good backup to GPS. A second GPS makes a good backup to GPS.

1255: Leaving Nässjö station.

Almost 2400 words. Long Friday Column this is going to make. I give myself shoulder problems in my right arm from using the trackpad on my laptop. My whole right side is affected by it, from a crick in the base of my neck, down through a tender spot between my spine and shoulder blade, into a feeling that my right hip is out of its socket and ultimately to a sensation in my foot that I have a stress fracture. It hurts when I twist it a certain way or sleep on my stomach.

The conductor came by just now looking for new travelers. I’ve been aboard now for nearly three hours.

1307: It’s military time in Europe.

The sun just came out, and it’s no longer a black and white day outside. It’s impossible to describe the winter light at 60º north, particularly when there is snow on the ground. The sun never climbs more than it’s circumference above the tree-line, and the shadows are always stretched long. The days are perpetual sunrise/sunset, and it is difficult often to tell the difference. Further south and closer to the equator the sun rises and sets in a near vertical line, the difference in time between sunglasses and a flashlight only minutes.

The air must be cleaner here, or thinner when it’s cold (though that doesn’t make any scientific sense), but something about it makes the daytime light glow. When the sun’s out, one really understands why the houses are colorful, for in the winter on a background of glittering snow, they look like fairytales. The pine-tree green colors lights up in the sunlight as if lit from within, and the moss on the forest floor, the bits that shows through the snow, is nuclear. The browns of bare tree trunks take on a detail impossible to render in broad daylight, visible only in the distorted shadows of sideways sunlight.

It is not often that one gets to enjoy the privilege of a bluebird day in winter – when it happens, it’s always the coldest day of the week, as the clarity brings with it frigid temperatures. But when it arrives, it is foolish to spend the day indoors.

1324: Heartless Bastards, ‘Out at Sea’ is stuck in my head.

1329: Heartless Bastards, ‘Out at Sea’ is now playing on my computer.

…and I am drownin’ in, I’m drowin’ in frustratiiiiiooon

OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH

I’m out at sea and a cannot stop the tide

I’m out in the water I cannot stop the tide

I’m out at sea and I’m floatin’ away

I’m out at sea and I’m floatin’ away

I’m back in my real seat now, about to start going backwards when we leave the station we just stopped at. It is zero degrees Celsius, says the ticker.

1414: På tåget mot Kristianstad

On the train now headed towards Kristianstad, my last switch before arriving in Sölvesborg, which should be in about an hour. The sun has fully emerged now and the clouds have cleared to reveal a deep blue sky, the landscape glowing just like I described it above, and yet still more brilliantly. Note the time – I have been on the move now for five hours since boarding the first train in Enköping. I have six hours more on the journey home tonight.

This train feels more like a commuter train and less like a long-distance train. There is no bistro, and the cars are deserted. I can see the conductor through the glass doors separating the cars, about to come by and check my ticket. I am a new passenger on this train.

1423: At the back of the train.

The conductor checked my ticket. He also informed me that I’d have to move to the back of the train – the front bit wouldn’t be going beyond Kristianstad, and Sölvesborg is beyond Kristianstad. Thank you sir.

1441: Backwards

The back half of the train is now the front half of the train. I’m sat just next to the door that leads to the driver’s seat, and watched as a train employee who looked strangely like Seth Green, opened it with a special key and took his place at the helm. Several minutes elapsed sitting in Kristianstad Centrum, and then we were off again, in the direction from which we’d come, going backwards and towards Sölvesborg.

1713: Tillbacka till Dunderbo

Back on the train! And it hardly felt like I ever got off.

I met Torbjörn (Tobi), about quarter after four, outside the train station (Sölvesborg, by the way, is a very neat little seaside town. It’s on the way for us next summer when we bring the boat up to Stockholm, so I told Tobi to hang on to my phone number. After a short stroll around the square, I had a coffee at the aptly named Coffeehouse, and wrote next month’s Spinsheet article about Matt Rutherford. Started it anyway – it’s about ¾ of the way there. The latte was finally hot enough). Tobi came into the small station with me and we took a spot on the bench next to a picture window overlooking the town.

Tobi could not have been much nicer, and matched my brain’s description of him after first hearing his voice on the phone (which rarely happens – have you ever listened to a radio announcer for a long time without ever seeing them? Inevitably you’re disappointed if you ever actually do, because during that time your brain creates an image of that person based on their voice. Just like reading a book and then seeing the movie – imagination is far better than the real thing). He brought the F3, as promised, but also had along a dozen or so rolls of film, and two lenses. I really only wanted one of them, but he gave me a good deal. In the midst of our meeting, he rushed home to retrieve some extra batteries (the little bitty watch batteries, part of the reason I wanted this camera), and brought back with him two photography books, extra lens caps and even more film. So, done and done. Now I have six more hours on the train to learn how to use the thing.

It’s fully dark outside now. We’re back at Kristianstad Centrum.

1833: Losing motivation.

On the train to Stockholm now, having switched at Hässleholm. I had to run up and over the bridge to track #4, wasn’t quite sure where I was going and thought for a few moments that I’d miss the connection, as I had only a couple of minutes to spare. This was compounded initially because I was not quite sure which side of the train to get off. Usually there is no choice. Now there was. I hopped off one side, remained indecisive, climbed through to the other side, and again decided that was wrong, and raced back across to the side I had originally gotten off of before the doors closed. I made it.

1952: Bistro

Back in the bistro car. A group of twenty-somethings occupy the same fake-red-leather seats to my right, really designed for three, but four are sitting there. Drinking drinks and talking Svenska. Two more sit to my left, a couple – they are sitting closer than friends would. I bought a bottle of water and an apple.

About ten minutes ago I realized I have an hour stopover I Stockholm on the way home – my train arrives at ten pm, and doesn’t depart again until after eleven. Not ideal.

2305: Tåget mot Väasterås

But I am not traveling there. I’ll get off one stop sooner, in Enkoping, a full sixteen and a half hours – if we’re on time – after after I got on earlier this morning, at the same station. It will almost be the next day.

I didn’t realize it until looking at my ticket earlier that I had an hour stopover at Stockholm Central. That was a bit of a bummer. I spent the time looking at photography magazines in Pressbyrån.