The Structure of the Nazaré Project.

January 2019, Dawn over Horseshoe Bay, Ger Kavanagh.

Back to base on Sherkin with Fiona after our Christmas travels, I was busy making a big press cum wardrobe there, which herself has been wanting for years. I had to make up to her for heading off again so soon! Lately I seem to have mislaid the ability to live quietly at home for too long. Perhaps I never had it, but disguised this restlessness in sailing, when I was able to do so. The sea soothes one by bringing chaos down to relatively manageable proportions, with which it is possible to grapple, while at the same time it does undermine the walls with which we habitually try to erect to contain that chaos. With the Anna M laid up, I found my mind more exposed to the mounting crisis of our world.

Stephen Grosz, in the book I mentioned in my last blog, talks about how some people in the South Tower of the World Trade Centre saved their lives by getting out when the North Tower was hit and the fire alarms went off – they had a quarter of an hour to do so – while more, for one reason or another, did not. Apparently some just went on queuing for food! If you have any grasp of what is happening - of, as Allan Savary puts it, ‘the tsunami bearing down on us’ - you have little choice but to see if you can do something about it! 

One would think it was a fairly simple decision, to get out of that sky-scraper, but apparently not. We have a huge resistance to leaving our track! Considering all the pressures on us, I suppose this has to be – yet it is fatal to be so committed to the little compartment we have hacked out for ourselves that we close our eyes to what is happening around us. The integration of all the various aspects of our lives is, on the contrary, the name of the game that leads to salvation, especially from a catholic point of view.

This is the very process of achieving integrity, and that family of qualities whose interconnectedness is revealed by language itself – wholeness, health and holiness in English being all from the same root, and then there is saint, sane (eng.) sainteté, sain, santé (fr.), santidad, salud (esp.), saúde (pt.) etc. It always amuses me to see what different languages do with the same basic word, in this case sanctus in latin! All of which does not prevent some people from questioning the very idea of integrity – the very possibility of reconciling all the warring factors of our make-up, both within and without, personal, social, spiritual and the rest.

I suppose the problem is that the idea of integration ends up requiring belief in one loving God – otherwise whatever way we set about achieving it will mean that we irrevocably end up losing our own personal integrity, becoming less than a human person, a mere cog in some great machine. One recalls the famous saying 'Lord, make me holy, but not yet!' What the achievement of integrity most certainly will  require is the sacrifice of our individual ego, hence the inescapable necessity and transcendent significance of the Cross....

I have come rather a long way from what I meant to write about, sitting at a big round table in the spacious office of our new premises in Portugal. Today the sky is blue and the sun is pouring in the big south-facing window, with a charming view across a field of pear trees to a line of wooded hills. Alec and I find ourselves somewhat in a position that I have seen recommended for entrepreneurs - Ready, Fire, Take Aim - not the usual order of things! What - between spells of cleaning the place up - I particularly want to get my head around is:-

Structuring the Relationships Between the Various Participants in The Nazaré Project.

This project arose from conversations between myself, Alec Lammas, John Aston and relations and friends, as to how they could make a contribution to the transition to sustainability that is vital for the world, particularly in the application of electric power, and indeed as the sine qua non of ‘the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ - for it is sadly possible that civilisation will fail before this is accomplished, rather as the Roman civilisation did on the threshold of the First Industrial Revolution that harnessed steam power, so that Europe only eventually industrialised over a millennium later.

Alec has to make a living and to this end has set up a company, David Alexander Lammas Unipessoal Lda, which we are calling DALU for present purposes; with some little help from myself wearing my Nazaré Project cap, he is currently fitting out a large modern workshop with space for multiple projects and also recruiting 3 staff. It is at Fervença, near Valado dos Frades, on the old road between Nazaré and Alcobaça in Portugal. He intends to specialise in electric drives both at sea and on land; he holds a concession to sell Lynch Electric Motors in Portugal, Spain, France and Ireland. He has plans to innovate particularly in the use of a sailing vessel’s propeller to recharge her batteries, and has applied for research and development funding from the EU Portugal 2020 scheme. Whether this application succeeds will be known in March.

I have documented my activities in recent years in the Gannetswaysailing blog, as I sailed up and down the Gannetsway between Scotland and the south of Spain in the 50 year-old wooden schooner Anna M. This again is our ‘home territory’, comprising Ireland where I am based, France, Spain and Portugal, and such components of the UK that may so desire. Both Alec and myself are originally from England, but I am an Irish citizen and Alec is becoming a Portuguese one. We would of course be supportive of Brits who are likewise committed Europeans, which in this part of the world seems an indispensable starting point from which to address the challenges we face!

What is to be the financial relationship between them all going forward? As things stand, Alec is the main investor in DALU, while small investments have also been made by myself and by Gerard Kavanagh, on the basis of helping the startup under The Nazaré Project banner. Also under this banner, the somewhat quixotic undertaking of restoring the Anna M has made a substantial contribution to Alec’s ability to get DALU off the ground. It is hoped that, with European research funds, DALU will in turn enable the Anna M to achieve a new lease of life as a research and sales platform for its marine electric drives.

Meanwhile the Gannetswaysailing blog will continue to give an account of our progress, and the Nazaré Project will continue to provide a context, to seek investors and provide support for DALU and perhaps other business enterprises, as well as more cultural and aesthetic projects such as the restoration of Anna M, which nonetheless may turn out to have important practical contributions to make. We are actively seeking to extend that synchronicity which has undoubtedly attended our efforts so far!

On Oysters and Paranoia.

Staying with our Bella on Guernsey, and having both friends and neighbours on Sherkin and a brother-in-law in County Clare who farm oysters, Fiona and I were delighted to meet Bella’s friends Penny and Mark Dravers of Guernsey Sea Farms, and to be given a

Mark Dravers

fascinating guided tour of their oyster hatchery. A piquancy is added by the fact that the Murphys on Sherkin used to get their spat from here, and the story of why they no longer do so is curious.

Algal soup for oyster spat.

Fortunately there seems to be no lack of alternative markets, but the Guernsey Sea Farm is suffering from the odd fact that their spat has not been exposed to the disease which has ravaged the French stocks and also much of the Irish stock. The result is that they have no immunity, and whereas French spat are liable to losses of 80% due to the disease, the Guernsey spat is liable to be wiped out if exposed to it.

Millions of baby oysters.

Mark complains, quite rightly, that it was very irresponsible to allow French spat into Ireland, and indeed of the EU committee responsible not to have certified the disease and closed down all movement of infected oysters, as would be the case with foot and mouth disease, for example. He says they were leaned on by the massive French oyster industry to put their interests ahead of the scientific fact of this disease.

It is rather a classic case of the old English beef that the Continentals only face facts when it suits them, and when they are forced to acknowledge facts, only take the necessary regulations seriously when this suits them. Meanwhile the poor old English, not to mention Irish, are compelled to respect the regulations, and being in the main law-abiding folk are indeed inclined to do so, unlike those anarchistic and arrogant French!

While allowing a degree of truth in all this, let's examine the difference between the Germanic and Latin approaches. As someone who has pretensions to help reconcile these, I have to say that there may be just something to be said for the French approach, along the following lines: - Everyone acknowledges that the transmission of the disease is not the automatic result of exposure to it. After all, we know that it is exacerbated by factors such as stress from over-stocking. We have already also observed that stocks can build up a measure of immunity. What’s more, it is highly questionable whether it is in fact possible to eradicate such a disease by the usual preventive measures. Perhaps, while not neglecting measures to prevent the spread of the disease, we should also be trying to find ways of building up immunity?

I shall pass up the opportunity to expound the principles of homeopathy, and before the scientific fundamentalists of this world start jumping up and down, let me add that whatever way one finds to get through such problems, they must be based on rigorous respect for scientific facts - an infectious

Oyster eggs dividing under the electronic mycrosope.

disease for example is just that - as well as for other facts that don’t suit our current state of scientific knowledge, and above all on maximising our respect for other people who see things differently, a difficult undertaking at the best of times!

I have picked up an excellent book here at Bella’s - ‘The Examined Life’, by Stephen Grosz, a psychoanalyst. In a discussion of paranoia, he refers to another book, ‘The Great War and Modern Memory’, in which Paul Fussell 'documents soldiers’ widespread conviction that the farmers were directing the German guns to British emplacements.' He quotes Fussell ‘In both wars it was widely believed but never, so far as I know, proved that French, Belgian or Alsatians living just behind the line signaled the distant German artillery by fantastically elaborate, shrewd, and accurate means.’

Grosz comments that ‘It is less painful, it turns out, to feel betrayed than to feel forgotten.’  He depicts paranoia as an at times necessary defence against the more catastrophic sense of being isolated, alone, powerless and forgotten. The feeling of being hated shielded his patient from ‘the catastrophe of indifference’.

It all resonates with the current state of mind of some Brexiteers that I have encountered. They somehow manage to blame the chaos and mess of the current state of the British body politic on the EU in general and often President Juncker in particular. That gentleman’s name even vaguely recalls, without of course their acknowledging it, a type of German Second World War bomber. First step to undoing the knot - call out the paranoia, get rid of it!

We have come rather a long way from oysters.

Breeding stock - same lot, different environment.

It is amazing how one thing can lead to another! I shall come back to Guernsey, and a letter I just wrote to the Editor of The Guernsey Post. I am agreeably surprised that they have printed it. In a hotel bar here I found, besides the Post, the following Daily papers:- Telegraph, Express and Mail. Some kinds of paranoia run very deep, - but there may be a big change coming to Guernsey - part of a bigger breakthrough that may come out of all the Brexit grief! Here is my letter:-

Britain’s ongoing saga of ‘taking back control’, threatening turmoil and chaos on all sides as exemplified in your lead story today (8th January), is of intense concern to all its neighbours, and to none more so than the Channel Islands, perched just off the Continental coast. Like my own Irish countrymen, you had no opportunity to participate in the much-vaunted democratic process that brought it about. At this crucial juncture, you should consider what is truly in your interest and make your voice heard.

I have been coming here for sixty years, and have a daughter and three teenage grandchildren here. They like all their generation are facing a world with huge possibilities and also massive challenges, indeed as all widely respected authorities have stated, existential threats to the very future of civilisation. If these are to be overcome, and if Europeans are to be able to assert themselves and thrive in a world dominated by the likes of China and Mr Trump’s USA and their massive corporations, it is essential that we work together.

On page three of your paper today, we find the statement from Deputy Peter Roffey that UK immigration plans ‘could spell disaster for our economy’. Guernsey is by no means alone, and in the process very many people of all kinds are threatened with having their life options grossly curtailed. I have an English grandnephew who is threatened with a £21,000 bill for a year’s tuition in Spain that was going to cost £1500 within the EU.

Whence comes this monstrous desire to deprive those who consider themselves European of their rights and the many opportunities on this great Continent? Their essentially thuggish nature has just been demonstrated outside the Westminster Parliament. The lie is given to their commitment to democracy by their opposition to another referendum, in today’s much more informed circumstances - not that it was ever a good way of proceeding, being in Clement Atlee’s words ‘alien to all our traditions and beloved of fascist dictators’.

The value of the EU has been demonstrated in Ireland by the successful peace process under its auspices. Those who want to be Irish and those who would rather consider themselves British can cooperate and get on with life as best they may. Likewise, there need be no opposition between those who want to be British and those who consider themselves European. In fact the various identities complement and enrich each other.

However, confronted with a choice between facing the future and digging oneself into a bunker, there comes a point when this choice cannot be evaded. Such a time is now. I suggest that the Channel Islands would do well to announce their intention of getting together and applying to join the EU as an independent entity, and a great future would open up for you thereby.

Such a statement would also send a powerful message across the Channel!

Photos by Fiona.

At the Still Point of a Turning World.

Some of us, at least, and by no means necessarily the well-to-do types, are privileged at the turning of the year to enjoy a relaxation of the  steely grip that the world generally holds on us. There is a pause, a moment's quiet, as one year begins to fade into the Past, and a new one opens before us. Some people of course are merely filled with panic by the merest passing glimpse into the abyss that surrounds our lives, and rush to fill it with even more inebriation than they generally employ, in trying to maintain their tenuous engagement with life; let us hope rather for a blessed occasion to stand back, give a bit of quality time to the relationships that matter to us, and focus anew on what is important to us, even as Mrs May recommends.

What will the New Year bring? The prospects have been stormy, and the same old problems will still be there, but when for a moment we get off our high horses, is there any real chance of joining the shepherds in glimpsing the new hope offered in that stable in Bethlehem? But why does it have to be in a stable? Is there any hope for those of us, such as I have to admit myself on this occasion, who have spent the holidays in a very fine house?

View from our bedroom window, by Fiona..

It was not something that might have been expected, when Fiona and I came to live in a leaking two-roomed cottage and a small caravan in Glencolmcille, back in 1973. Not that it didn't have its blessings, including as Big John had it 'the best water in Ireland', which we called Braide wine as we drank it a simple Christmas feast there. Anyway, the three wise men or kings, or whatever they were, were on their way. One of our daughters married a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, with a famous big house in County Wicklow, which is where we were this Christmas.

Whether one spends it in a big house or a humble cottage does not of course determine  the actual happiness of the occasion, and of course the big house was designed to run with an army of servants, long gone now, so despite the mechanical conveniences of life these days, running it entails a great deal of hard work. Nonetheless it was very pleasurable to sit down in the grand dining room with twenty members of the family.

The fine portrait paintings on the walls of previous generations evoke a sense of family continuity, and the formal rooms lend a certain dignity to life that, hopefully, enhances the human interactions which they sustain. So also do the sculpted views from the windows, and the magnificent tree-scapes backed  by glimpses of Wicklow's gentle mountain peaks

It is all a far cry from the 'self-made' wealth that is more generally approved of these days, but truly, if the genuine fruits of wealth are to be enjoyed, if the persona  of wise men and kings are to be truly reconciled, does it not have to be admitted that it is more likely to happen by way of inheritance than 'merited' by what passes for hard work and talent these days? Isn't wealth likely to be better used in hands into which it simply fell, than in those of people who thrust aside their fellows, used them in fact, in order to grasp it?

It is the very will to power and wealth that makes it so difficult to perceive and understand what lies outside its scope, to get off one's high horse now and again, to maintain honesty, integrity, a true sense of justice, respect for others and for nature. I genuinely have zero nostalgia for the past, but it does seem we may have to take some inspiration from unfashionable aspects of it, if we are to succeed in overhauling our ideas of democracy and make it fit for purpose again.

I spent over an hour looking at the carry-on in the House of Commons before Christmas. My default source of information on British politics is John Crace's Politics Sketch*  in the Guardian. I wanted to see if it really was as bad as he makes out. Actually I thought it was worse. In response to all sorts of real concerns, Mrs May just kept on repeating her line about carrying out the will of the British people.  I didn't see anyone nail that one with the simple fact that, even if one (unlike myself) accepts that there may be any such thing as the will of the people, and that the referendum result delivered it, that result was delivered under the leadership of gentlemen like Messrs Boris Johnson and Nigel Farrage who now repudiate her version of it. Mrs May is either deluded or downright dishonest, I hesitate to say which, in her claim to be delivering 'the decision of the people', and frankly one might say the same of a great deal that passes itself off as democracy these days.

British politics are fascinating at present because they are giving expression to profound cultural problems that our Irish politics are merely skirting over. Frankly contemporary Ireland is somewhat inflated with the capital of a handful of American corporations that exercise a deadening grip on our culture. I look to a long game of counter-balancing that influence through the European project; not being inclined to cultural warfare, I just have to hope it is not mere laziness that leaves me happy to chip away in my own little way, and grateful if I succeed in continuing to do so in 2019! 

*https://www.theguardian.com/politics/series/the-politics-sketch