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Wind: E 11-16 knots
Today we accomplished a whole lot of nothing. There’s not much motivation to get much accomplished when we know we have to sit here for two weeks and wait for our new SSB radio receiver to get here. We were told that regular mail can take us much as three months, so we’re using FedEx, the most reliable service internationally, or so we’ve also been told. Even overnight FedEx is supposed to take 5-8 business days, so that leaves us here almost until the end of June.
Karl’s been in negotiations with the owner of the grocery store to buy a whole bunch of fresh produce in large quantities. He wants 100 pounds of potatoes, 100 pounds of onions, 100 pounds of oranges, and 100 pounds of flour. I’m arguing for slightly more moderation, but I do agree it would be nice to have the boat completely stocked with nonperishable fresh produce. Especially because it costs less than canned goods around here.
So we watched more DVDs today--Pegasus is refusing to take back their book of movies (about which we were so concerned) until we get through them all. That leaves us watching cartoons and movies that we’ve already seen. Or watching movies for which I haven’t read the book yet, my worst pet peeve. Last night we watched Eragon, a fairly good fantasy movie and a book that I’ve been wanting to read forever.
We find ourselves wishing we had a stack of sailing DVDs, like the ones they sell in Latitudes and Attitudes magazine. Master and Commander, The Perfect Storm, Captain Ron, even Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s just fun to see the Hollywood interpretation of what we’re doing. Pirates are especially fascinating subjects of film. We saw a great documentary on the History Channel about pirates before we left, expounding on their iterations, from privateers, to buccaneers, to flat-out pirates.
Even Columbus seems immensely fascinating out here. The whole clichĂ© about Columbus “crossing the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ‘92” really belies how adventurous he was. I like to think about us like Columbus, just crazy adventurers relying on a dream. If he hadn’t made it anywhere, his parents would have felt about him about the way ours do about us. They probably did at the time, in any case. He’s also alleged to have died destitute and alone, with nothing to have consoled him but his adventures. Still, he’s remembered by history as a great man, when all he wanted to do was wander around the world crazily, in a way that no one had done before, just like us.
We can’t hope to achieve the greatness that Columbus did, I suppose. It’s nice to know, though, that we can still follow in the wake of greatness.
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