Month: February 2021

Sailing On Akaru-Hime…Part 5

From my new book, currently being written. Hope to have it completed by next summer. It is in rough draft. It has not been edited as yet.

Writing like this gives me a nice and welcome respite from the Covid 19 madness. I can escape to my own world of past adventures and excitement without a care in the world.

Nigel was about 33 years old, to my 22. A professional sailor as he claims to be. Hired by Sadao to help him sail and deliver Akaru-Hime to Japan. He and Sadao met each other in and around the maritime bazaars and marinas of Vancouver Harbour. My sister Pat did not take too well to Nigel and I think the feelings were mutual. Nevertheless Nigel offered to help Sadao fulfill his dream and for a modest sum would help him in his quest. So off they went. Unfortunately, Sadao had to give up on his dream of sailing to Japan but had asked Nigel to carry on.  At least deliver the boat to his homeland. Nigel agreed but with tits gone and the other stoners having departed, Nigel was left in a quandary. No one to accompany him. And that’s where I came in. Crew to Nigel’s skipper. Adventure I guess. Here I come but I didn’t have a clue. No worries as it would be some time before we left. It was only July after all.

After a few hours of idle and uncomfortable shit-chat and a few beers, Nigel excused himself and left. Told me he was going to sup with friends of his. Am I not invited I thought to myself? Guess not and I didn’t feel it was my right to ask. Spontaneity, openness, friendliness were not Brit traits. Rudeness was. Especially to us colonials, as Nigel so righteously referred to me as. So I kept to myself and fell asleep in short order. I must have been exhausted but then I woke up after a few hours. It was still light out, just so, but fell asleep again.

That first night of sleep was a restless one for me. A mixture of excitement, of fear, of trepidation and anxiety. I tossed and turned on the quarter berth settee that was only about two feet wide and about six feet long. My mattress was of a green foam of about four inches depth. As it turned out I had one hard and sore ass in the morning. My sides were aching too. Just not used to the confines of this lower deck cabin berth. I think I fell onto the deck a few times during the night. I would have to have a talk with Nigel about these sleeping arrangements. Yet I never did see Nigel that first night. He had gone off somewhere on his own. To sup he said. With some friends. I wasn’t invited. A stranger in a strange land, paradise or not. Alone. Perhaps to see a girlfriend although I doubt it as he was a slovenly chap as Brits go. Bad teeth, a succinct odour about him that was not pleasant and bad breath to boot. Fagin? Yes Fagin it would be in my mind’s eye as with his long rangily (is that a word?) brown hair that was stoked with bits and flecks of grey, falling down from the sides of his large head to his shoulders from the roots of the longest forehead I had ever seen. A top gallant of a man’s crown to say the least. Coupled with his badly tailored shorts that were held up and cinched by the smallest of a rough hewned hawser, a stained brown, long sleeved shirt with yellow sweat patches on the undersides by his arm pits, he looked the part of that sly street urchin of Dickensian lore. He had beady eyes, was of the colour of minimal or faded blue. Yes Fagin it is. Fagin he would always be to me.

Nigel was very condescending to me that first afternoon and I felt that he thought of himself as one possessed of a superior intellect, at least in his own mind’s perspective of his world. Typical male Brit, as I can say this now, as I look back on those days given my future stink, er stint, on exchange with the Royal Navy in the late 1980s. Yes I did survive those carefree halcyon days of 1973 and 1974 with Nigel in Hawaii, on Oahu, at the Ala Moana Yacht Club, near to and adjacent to Waikiki and Honolulu. I survived as best I could, given the taunts and verbal abuse that I would soon suffer, as you shall soon see, under the tutelage of one Nigel Hawthorne Filtness, Esq, delusional British Citizen of the now defunct British Empire.

As I brushed the sleep out of my eyes on that first morning I took stock of my surroundings. I was asleep on the berth on the left, er port side, of the boat, about the middle, er midships, I would guess. To my rear, aft, toward the rear, er stern of the sailboat, lay another berth. I could tell as that space was adorned with the same lime green cushioned settee as the one I had slept on. Ahead of me, forward, was a wall, erm bulkhead, that formed a separation of sorts from what they refer to as a “V” berth, all the way to the front, erm bow, of the sailboat. Don’t call it, er her, a ship whatever you do. It is a sailboat and while it may have a middle or an amidships area it is best to refer to this as midpoint or just nothing at all. Just “there” or port / starboard “here or there and everywhere the same.”

Actually the settee that I slept on was part of the “main salon” or living lounge area of the boat. My sleeping area was to be the port quarter-berth that ran under the port after deck topsides and the topside cockpit area. I do not know why they call this the cockpit. This quarter berth duplicates itself on the right, erm starboard side, of the boat as well. But just forward of that is the galley; forward of that is the dining table; and forward of that but separated by a bulkhead is that of a shower / shitter combination. Another bulkhead separates the shitter / shower with the forward “V” berth. And at the forward end of the “V” berth is another compartment separated by bulkheads holding rope and lines, erm cordage, spare sails, the anchor, anchor chain or rode and various bits and pieces. Don’t ask me why they call this a “rode” which is in reality the leading edge back from the anchor to the boat: a combination of chain and line? Bits and pieces are those things that really don’t have a nautical name or purpose. Boat junk really but if the boat was to sink this floating debris or junk would be called “flotsam.”

Just aft of this compartment, on the ceiling, erm deckhead, is a opening, erm hatch, that can be opened or closed such that sails or cordage can be passed safely to and from the topside, bow area, forward part of the sailboat or foc’sle, especially in bad and inclement weather.

Now the passageway from the ladder going topside from the cabin up to the “V” berth is called the companionway. To the rear or aft of the ladder, still below deck, which can be removed, is a door, erm hatch opening it of which exposes the diesel engine. A simple two stroke reciprocating engine, or an “up and downer” as sailors so affectionately like to call it. There are more modern variations and models of marine engines of course but this one is of a simpler antiquated, inexpensive (cheap) nature. I say simple but try to work on this mechanical plumber’s nightmare in a confined space such as this sailboat. Madness. Each and every sailor in any marina or yacht club on earth will know those boats with such a contraption: knowing this by the characteristic foul and blue nature of the language that is emitted from the confines of the engineering spaces of such a boat. A space that only a midget could love.

Across from the starboard side shower / shitter combination, on the port side aft of the “V” berth forward are a few lockers for the storage of foul weather gear, jackets, sea boots, shirts, pants…clothes. Likewise there are lockers under all of the settees for clothes or non perishable foodstuffs. The galley is well equipped although very small and cramped. Above it are more lockers for galley wares, cleaning material and the like. To the right and just aft of the galley are the electrical fuses and switches for the night navigational lights and the VHF radio. Of course in the open ocean the radio is useless. Used only for entering or leaving harbour, international distress or ship to ship, sailboat to sailboat communications if within a line of sight distance from one another. No GPS, satellite navigation or communications for us. No, no, no. In those days we were still tied to the old traditional sextant, Admiralty Tables, the Nautical Almanac, Bowditch perhaps, Norrie’s Tables, the formidable HSO volumes, Sailing Directions, Tide Tables, a good and reliable time piece and of course charts of a Mercator projection. Onerous? Yes. Complicated? Yes. Time consuming? You bet, but at the same time a fairly accurate and dependable art this navigation by the stars. And whatever methodology used: Admiralty, Bowditch or oral tradition and song, this is an art as old as the Polynesian culture and knowledge and their verbal historical account and way-finding techniques. Amazing.

 

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SJ….Out

More next week. That is if ya find this interesting. Let me know by leaving a comment or two.

Sailing On Akaru-Hime…Part 4

From my new book, currently being written. Hope to have it completed by next summer. It is in rough draft. It has not been edited as yet.

Writing like this gives me a nice and welcome respite from the Covid 19 madness. I can escape to my own world of past adventures and excitement without a care in the world.

Waikiki Beach is not the beach one would expect. Yes it beckons one to the lush, tropical and welcoming warmth of the island of Oahu but its texture is rough; its colour a dull greyish taupe and its lustre anything but that expected in the tropics. This very narrow strip of sand was not blindingly white or soft or smooth to the touch but a rough textured morass like field. Shipped in I was told. From Norway? No way. Australia? No way. Manhattan Beach California? Yes way. And on further inspection, as I didn’t want to explore too much or wander too far from “Akaru-Hime,” I noticed that the line of hotels didn’t quite make their way all the way to Diamond Head but were buttressed by a beautiful beach park where many of the locals, mainly older men, played chess or checkers under the watchful eye of a statue of Duke Pana Kahanamoku, Mr Aloha, who had just recently passed, himself a great surfer, Olympic gold medal swimmer, and well respected international Ambassador of these Hawaiian Islands.  All of this would have to wait for another time as I was anxious to get settled in “Akaru-Hime.” Besides the hot and high afternoon sun was beginning to make its mark on my, as yet, acclimatized skin.

I walked back to “G” dock, down to G35 and waited alone contemplating as to my near and future prospects in this marine environment, an environment that was entirely foreign to me. Why on earth did they ask me to do this I thought? I know diddly-squat about sailboats. I don’t know Nigel at all, what he looked like, sounded like or thought like. Nothing in common I would think between the two of us.  And where the hell was he? He knew when I was arriving this day, this hour, this time. Not a great impression on me for sure. Of course my sister and brother in law had already left and were currently in Japan, I would have thought. But no note, no letter just some vague instruction as to where I should go on arriving here.

“You must be John”

A voice, a Brit voice. behind me. I turned, shielded my eyes somewhat and there coming down the dock, about 10 feet away, was this bronze coloured but scruffy looking dude coming toward me.

“Nigel?” I queried.

“Yup, in the flesh.”

He was carrying a small bag, groceries I imagined, but no groceries, some beer, a six pack of Oly’s and a bottle of scotch. We shook hands.

Nigel was scruffily dressed in faded knee length brown, I think, shorts cinched at the waist by a length of hemp.  I can say this because his short sleeved, rust coloured shirt was unbuttoned, open at the front exposing a hairy chest that was pidgeon like, with its tail flapping somewhat in the late afternoon breeze. He was wearing dark blue flip-flops that flip and flopped with every step. He walked right by me, climbed up and onto “Akaru-Hime,” jumped into the cockpit, put his things down then opened the hatch to the gangway and cabin below.

“C’mon onboard.” he said

I complied and shyly looked into the cabin below. I could see Nigel from his backside placing his bag onto the table top on the starboard side of the interior.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck and more fuck, for fuck’s sake.” He yelled at the bulkheads, at the top of his lungs, his arms flailing wildly. A small flock of gulls just across the narrow channel that separated “G” dock from “F” scattered, panicked by this cacophony of profanity coming out of nowhere it would seem. Their frantic cawing faded away.

“I left the god damned hatch closed. It’s a bloody fucking sauna in here.” as only a Brit could say, in understated understatements.

You don’t fuckin say I thought. Sure enough it was hot, and not just from the stale air under the cabin sole. In the next breath, Nigel turned, looked at me sheepishly, apologized for his outburst, grinned, and then giggled somewhat nervously and somewhat like an English school girl revealing a mouthful of yellow stained and ancient eye teeth and molars.

“Got to keep that forward hatch ajar and this hatch vent opened for cross circulation. Or it can get as hot as Hades in here in this heat.”  He paused. “Here, have a beer?”

“Thanks.”

“We’ll have her up there in the cockpit.  Wear this hat. You’ll need it until you get used to this heat.” Never heard of a beer referred to as a her!

“Its really camel piss this liquid shit. American piss. But it’s cold.”  Of course Brit bitter is best.

Oly’s, short for Olympia Beer, a Pacific Northwest favourite, along with Rainier Beer. Hawaii has to import everything.

We sat there in uncomfortable silence as Nigel didn’t know what to make of me and me of him. He took a huge slug from his can, looked at me, sighed, depressingly like, looked around at the surroundings.

“So Sid ‘s fucked off and left me with this pile of shit dung.”

“Akaru-Hime?” Dung? He always anglicized Sadao to Sid.

“Looks fine to me” I said.  “A bit weathered perhaps but it must be in fine shape.”

“She”

“What’s that?”

“She. A sailboat, no, all vessels on the water are she’s, not an it, for fuck sakes. Jesus H Christ. What the fuck have I gotten myself into” he proffered to no one, not to me, to the gulls perhaps, to his gods. They cawed in comical response!

He kind of looked at me with a grinning disdain. This was not going well. I felt intimidated by him to some degree.

“Sorry, she. She doesn’t look too bad, I mean, to me”

Nigel grunted, took a couple more long slugs, crushed the can and grabbed another.

“So John. What do you expect here? From me? Why are you here anyway?”

What could I say. “Pat and Sadao asked me to come and help out. Sail to Japan. Help you in doing it.  I jumped at the chance. Great opportunity I thought. Looking forward to it.”

Saying nothing Nigel looked at me with contempt. What is his problem? I thought to myself.

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SJ……Out

Sailing On Akaru-Hime…Part 3

From my new book, currently being written. Hope to have it completed by next summer. It is in rough draft. It has not been edited as yet.

Writing like this gives me a nice and welcome respite from the Covid 19 madness. I can escape to my own world of past adventures and excitement without a care in the world.

Her decks were wide enough to manoeuvre, to work the sails. Painted a sun bleached dull yellow with a non skid of flecked shells, hard on bare soles but stiff and skiff free to provide non slip protection when operating forward and outside the combed protection of the cockpit. Up in the bow, in the confines of the pulpit, were a few sail bags secured to the forestay, ready to go, to hoist as they say with only their hanks showing in a step like fashion. Lines emerged out of those bags leading aft outside of all the standing rigging like sinewy snakes meandering in unison back toward the winches. Of course I can say this now, describe “Akaru-Hime” as I am looking back on this, but at the time I didn’t have a clue, or a withering breadth of knowledge of the nautical world.

No sign of life, The cockpit was very large for a sailboat of this size. Deep and narrow with combed benches port and starboard. The engine controls were abutted up against the stbd side combing in the after section of the cockpit while a manually operated “gusher” pump was situated on its forward bulkhead. Turns out that this gusher pump had an attached steel handle topped with what resembled an eight ball. For leverage I guess. I would become very familiar with this piece of kit in due course.

The cockpit went as far back as it footprint would allow ending at a narrow covered transom. The transom, or stern section, had a protective white railing attached, not robust enough to save one from hurling overboard but more for utility and functionality as cordage, various sized red and black “Scotsmen” floats were attached. Some 5 gallon buckets, whisker poles, fishing poles were also in situ as if this part of Akaru-Hime was a catch-all for the rest of the boat. “Akaru-Hime” was squared off at the rear by a stern that dropped to the vertical for about a foot then angled itself forward at about a forty five degree angle toward the waterline. The stern’s aspect gave “Akaru-Hime” an air of sleekness, fine lines and speed. An illusion as it would turn out. Of course it was impossible to see how the bottom faired as the deep bluish green shades of surface water obscured visibility other than a few inches below the boot topping. The boot topping, that narrow four inch wide black painted strip that followed the waterline of “Akaru-Hime” from bow to stern and separated her from the living and the dead. It provided an aspect that seemed to frame “Akaru-Hime” synergistically.

The hatch to the gangway was locked so I couldn’t go below. This was taboo of course without prior permission, no matter that I was deemed crew. If you want to get off on the wrong foot with any skipper or make a poor first impression just climb aboard without permission to come aboard. This I knew.

I threw my kitbag into the cockpit and left it there. I wasn’t worried about somebody stealing it for there was nothing of value in there except for a 35mm camera, which I had with me, on me. No, if someone wanted my stinky stuff they were welcomed to it. I then proceeded to explore my surroundings. “G” dock, “Akaru-Hime’s” main street was very long with finger floats abutting both sides of the main dock. Probably up to 100 boats on this dock alone. And “G” was followed by “H” and “J”, no “I” apparently, preceded by “A” through “F”. Unbelievable!  An entirely different world than what I had been used to or even imagined: somewhat of a parallel universe to the tourist district and peons of the Waikiki district of Oahu.

The Ala Wai harbour, accompanying marina and Ala Moana Yacht Club were huge. Hundreds of yachts, of various sizes and shapes: Sloops, Cutters, Ketches and Yawls. Double Enders, where the bow and stern have the same pointed aspect, Tahiti Ketches, Catamarans, and Trimarans. They were all here. No power boats. They were all berthed separately across the main channel near the Ala Moana Park. I guess they wanted to keep the stink-potters separated from the true believers.

I left G dock, walked a way over through a parking lot that abutted a park area, then a small landlocked lagoon. Not really a lagoon as it was landlocked but it was known as the Ilikai Lagoon, part and parcel of the Ilikai hotel – a local landmark as it turned out and I do recall its centrally located exterior elevator that took one from the hotel’s lobby to the top of the “I”, all the while allowing one to see the calming beauty and blue turquoise pastels are dark inshore fluid shadows or reefs of the Pacific Ocean, the Ala Wai, harbour the Ala Moana Yacht club and the like. This exterior run was also made famous by the Jack Lord version of Hawaii “book-em-Danel” 5 Oh.

The Ilikai was just many of a long line of Waikiki luxurious beachfront hotels that stretched from the Ala Moana Yacht club, skirting their way as fringes of the beach only stopping its progression by the iconic Diamond Head volcanic caldera. Luckily, not active but extinct, the sides of which was covered from its base about a third of its elevation in tropical green hues of a lush carpet like vegetation blanket, like moss, then abruptly transitions to that easily recognizable dark brown blackish coloured and bare volcanic rock that permeate the many volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The rock sides were not smooth but interspersed it seemed with symmetrical lines or cracks, seams and what appeared to be vertically oriented valleys that all too apparent on many of the mountain ranges and rock formations on these volcanic Hawaiian Islands and those other mountainous gems of the South Pacific. It appeared as if those seams were hardened rivers and streams of lava slides or floes of long ago.  On its crown you could just make out the diamond like cluster of rock cuts at the leading edge of this ancient rock.

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Sailing On Akara-Hime…Part 2

From my new book, currently being written. Hope to have it completed by next summer. It is in rough draft. It has not been edited as yet.

Writing like this gives me a nice and welcome respite from the Covid 19 madness. I can escape to my own world of past adventures and excitement without a care in the world.

“Akaru-Hime” had had a mad capped crew on that trek. My brother-in-law, Sid, the owner;  a Brit, who was professional sailor named Nigel, hired by Sid for his professional nautical acumen; Nigel’s useless tit of a girlfriend, and a couple of other hangers on who knew nothing about sailing but much about the stoner life. Useless! And, to make matters worse, Sid suffered from chronic case of sea sickness. And while he loved sailing dearly and always dreamed of taking “Akaru-Hime” home to Japan, all of his sailing experience to date had been in relatively sheltered waters. The open Pacific was much less welcoming and forgiving for someone like Sid who was prone to the sea malady and was always in a constant state of heaving. Alas for Sid, the dream of sailing to Japan was not to be.  He decided at Honolulu to call it quits. Sad given that the English translation for “Akaru-Hime” (a-ka-roo-hee-ma) being “Bright Princess” the Japanese patroness of sailors, born of a red jewel…sad indeed.

Most sailors do get sea sick. If they say that they don’t they’re bullshitting. But most sailors get over the motions sickness fairly quickly and adjust and adapt to the fluid environment.  They get their sea legs. But some, like Sid, never get over it. So it was that Sid had to abandon this venture. His vision of coming home like some prodigal sailor’s son came crashing down on him like a tsunami drowning his dream. He asked Nigel to carry on with “Akaru-Hime” from Hawaii, and to sail her to her new home in Nagoya Japan.

Tits had left and the other two stoners flew back to CONUS[1] – literally and figuratively.

And that’s where I came in. Nigel and I would take Akaru-Hime to Japan!

“Hello.” What does one say when one comes calling at a sailboat? ”

“Ahoy there?” That sounds too cartoonish, like Popeye to Olive Oil.

“Anyone home? Onboard?” Nigel?? I knew his name.

Nothing. Silence except for a slight clanking sound coming from a loose halyard somewhere on some boat somewhere in the harbour and the relentless caw of the seagulls. Nothing. I was beginning to sweat in the mid afternoon sun. There was no breeze to speak of, no cool northeast trade-wind that I had read and heard so much about.

It was bright, blindingly so. The same acuity sensation one gets when exiting a dark movie theatre on a hot summer’s afternoon. I made a note to myself to get shades as soon as possible.

Dropping my kit bag into “Akaru-Hime’s” cockpit I decide to have a look at what will be my home for the next few months, my foreseeable future. From the perspective of the G35 finger float, on which “Akaru-Hime” was tied, I took a good look at her from end to end or stem (bow) to stern. She was, in the vernacular, a sloop rig. That is she was equipped with a foresail, or a sail properly positioned when raised ahead of the mast, then a mainsail, the main propulsion, providing the primary source of horsepower for the boat to move through the water. That sail’s foot or bottom portion of the triangular shape was attached to a boom, along a track that went from the mast to an end cleat, of a thingamajig contraption on the end portion of the boom. The boom itself was connected to the mast via a universal joint such that the boom could move from side to side and up and down. A topping lift, or a line attacked to the end of the boom then running up to the top of the mast, parallel to the backstay, or metal line that was connected to the top of the mast and a chain plate at the transom or stern, rear end of the boat, held the boom horizontal, about 6 feet off the deck of “Akaru-Hime’s” cockpit. The forward, or leading edge of the mainsail, the luff, was down as was the trailing edge, of the mainsail, or the leech, stuffed in a seaman-like folds to the boom and protected from the sun with a mainsail cover.

[1] Continental United States

 

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SJ…Out

Sailing On Akura-Hime…Part 1

From my new book, currently being written. Hope to have it completed by next summer. It is in rough draft. It has not been edited as yet.

Writing like this gives me a nice and welcome respite from the Covid 19 madness. I can escape to my own world of past adventures and excitement without a care in the world.

Chapter One

21.30485° N, -157.85776° E

Ala Moana Yacht Club, Ala Moana District, Waikiki

I arrived in Honolulu early afternoon, after a 10 hour flight from Chicago. Clearing immigration and customs I ventured out to the arrival promenade. It was a broad and wide boulevard that was sheltered by a translucent canopy of tropical plants and banyan -like ferns that dropped away from the hot and high noon tropical sun. Immediately I sensed from my surroundings that I was awash in the tropical greens, blues and turquoise hues of this tropical isle. The air smelled of a sweet scented and natural perfume and nectar while a warm tropical breeze seemed to embrace the psyche. You could almost feel the tension of a hard northern winter ease itself out of every pore of your body.

Calling a cab I travelled down the Nimitz Highway. Only in America – an eight lane highway in the middle of paradise, through Honolulu, the waterfront, harbour, Aloha Tower, Ala Moana district with its large seaside park and huge but modern outdoor mall then into the concrete canyons of the Waikiki tourist district with its wide Kalakauwa Boulevard, Sky-scraping hotels, vistas, gaudy bars, tacky shops, pizza joints and squawker’s dens with Diamond Head in the far background maintaining its everlasting watch over Waikiki. It was all too surreal for someone like me who had just arrived from the cold arctic wasteland of the Great White North in a way among the towering palms, lagoon and sand of Waikiki.

Turning suddenly into a parking lot adjacent to the Ilikai hotel we came to a stop. This was it. I paid the fare, got out and surveyed my surroundings. A yacht harbour, the Ala Wai, with its accompanying Ala Moana Yacht Club.

“Akaru-Hime” lay at berth G35 at the Ala Moana Yacht Club, Waikiki, Honolulu Hawaii in the Ala Wai Harbour. She seemed somewhat tired looking from her long and laborious 19 day jaunt from Vancouver to Oaha. Her 35 foot wooden frame and lines of stripped mahogany clinkered planks, painted white, seemed worn and somewhat riddled through with expansion cracks, flaking paint, opened joints and waterlogged seams. She seemed to me to lay there at G35 in a forlorn, abandoned, and unpretentious state, in somewhat of a sad and lonely profile, feeling out of place among the 40, 50, and 60 foot sailing yachts of the Ala Wei Harbour and Yacht Club. Those sleek, modern and expensive yachts seemed to overpower and intimidate “Akaru-Hime” as she lay there unattended in her 35 foot berth.  It was as if that 1900 nautical mile sail from Vancouver had been but a bad dream robbing her and draining her of all of her energy and power. She looked tired, forlorn and beat.

 

Check out my other books by clicking on the links at the top of the page:

 

PS: There is no scientific evidence out there that masks prevent the spread of Covid 19. It is all speculative and anecdotal brought on by our so called experts because they have to be seen as doing something. We have been all wearing masks for some time now yet the incidences are still going up. Why?

https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/18/major-study-finds-masks-dont-reduce-covid-19-infection-rates/

What would happen if we all just stopped wearing a mask? Period.

SJ……….Out