Gannetsway Research Group Ltd

photo by Mary O

Back in West Clare, we are inching towards giving the Gannetsway Research Group a formal identity, which we hope to do at a meeting here next month (January 2023). Meanwhile, this is how our John and I have described it on the website loopheadprojects.ie  -

Project Description

Climate change and the need to replace fossil fuels with alternative and renewable forms of energy has moved to the frontline of government policies and movements for social change around the world. This change is affecting everybody and not least the marine industry which runs mostly on diesel, a fuel that is not only adding to the CO2 problem but has recently experienced considerable price increases which puts many businesses and communities under pressure.

The resulting challenges on Loop Head are shared by many similar coastal communities. Gannetsway Research Group Ltd. (Gannetsway Ltd.) is envisaged as a social enterprise to mobilise Citizen Science to empower those in our communities who want to work together to develop and deliver alternatives to fossil fuels, primarily for boats and other applications in the marine sector. ‘Gannetsway’ refers to the coasts of the North Atlantic Ocean.

It is proposed that Gannetsway Ltd. would be initiated through a paid membership model where membership would be open to everybody interested in marine endeavours and renewable energies. Gannetsway Ltd. would aim to support its members’ activities with research, training, procurement, funding, publicity, legal and business support.

To throw in some extra fun, Gannetsway Ltd. would also provide opportunities for people to interact with the marine environment; in a CO2-neutral manner.

Project Justification & Objectives

The Loop Head Peninsula and the Shannon Estuary are perfectly situated to develop and harvest wind and other renewable energies. The power station at Moneypoint is currently transitioning to facilitate this, not only locally, but also nationally and internationally, particularly through the production of hydrogen. The estuary features a fine marina and related facilities at Kilrush, stop-off points before the Atlantic at Carrigaholt and Kilbaha, a deep-water port at Foynes and has the potential to become a major hydrogen and renewable energy innovation hub. In addition, the wider area has a long and proud maritime heritage with a wealth of accumulated knowledge and innovation already present.

It makes sense to have a group like Gannetsway Ltd based in the area where new technology can be developed and be robustly tested at sea and on the farms. Having a base here would also strengthen the bonds between the communities on the Loop Head Peninsula and along the Shannon Estuary, and onwards along the Gannetsway, and so add to local community resilience as we all face the challenges of Climate Change. Initial objectives are:

• Assess the usefulness of hydrogen electrolysers in improving the efficiency and emissions of internal combustion engines, and so reduce fuel consumption (underway).

• Replace a diesel engine of a 13.6m sailing boat, formerly used for dolphin-watching out of Carrigaholt, with an electric motor where the battery would be charged by the propellor rotating when under sail - in collaboration with Nazaré Nautica in Portugal (underway).

• Examine and agree the appropriate governance foundation on which Gannetsway Ltd. should be built, including a development panel and/or steering group, and fine tuning the business model, decision making process and membership options

We would also hope to especially collaborate with other players around the Shannon Estuary, such as the proposed Maritime Training Centre in Kilrush, with the producers of ‘green hydrogen’ promised for Moneypoint, with the Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation, and not forgetting other potential players in the shipping and aviation industries present around the Shannon Estuary and beyond.

The Shannon Estuary now as I write.

The journey home from Bilbao went well, once we eventually got on the ferry, but somewhere along the road I got the impression that the hydrolyser was not working. When I lifted the bonnet, I found a burnt out wire on the negative connection, and the water looked dirty; I took it out and cleaned it up, and under Alec's supervision over Whatsapp, had it bubbling away on the workbench and then put it back in,- not an easy task for me, it has to be said, the crucial nut that holds it having to be got on its bolt by reaching down with the three fingers of my left hand. 

The electrolyser had been kicking around since we first tested on Alec's workbench a couple of years ago; I brought it back home and tried to find some mechanic here in Ireland interested in fitting it. 'Oh you'll land me in prison' or 'what if you get blown up?' were the kind of daft responses that I eventually elicited, so I had to take it back down for Alec to fit. Anyway when I took it apart again, I found the plates covered in slime. Cleaned up, and with a weaker admixture of potassium hydroxide (caustic potash), it seemed to be fine.

I topped up the tank and did some driving, 559 km to be precise, then topped up again, which showed that we had consumed 44.1 litres of petrol, so by my calculation we had travelled 12.67 km on average per litre. This was an improvement on 11.27 km/l, which was the average for the last couple of years, but not as good as I had hoped. Under the bonnet again, I found the hydrolyser spewing brown gunk. I am hoping this was on account of having used water from our shed roof in order to weaken the mix, so anyway now there was nothing for it but to take it out and clean it up all over again. Getting it back in was even more challenging now that the weather has turned cold, but now that's done,  it's full of purified water from the chemist, and I am awaiting more excuses to go motoring in the old Citroen Picasso to get another result!

Meanwhile life at Rahona goes on; we are 'leading the good life', according to an old friend from Donegal who visited last weekend. This means among other things eating plenty of kale from the garden, which is delicious when Fiona has prepared it with garlic and butter. She's also very good at rearing puppies, though I am glad the invasion of my workshop is over now! We have kept just one out of the seven pups, who is enjoying having Mummy Nugget all to herself!

meself by Nutan

If you are interested in coming to the meeting in January, 

email gannetsway@gmail.com

From Orcas to Big Pharma and Putin, Out With Malevolence.

It is Halloween, we must chase the evil spirits and welcome all the saints.... I am at home in Ireland after three somewhat frustrating weeks in Nazaré. I had hoped to get the 'Anna M' dressed up in a coat of epoxy glass, but the weather turned against me. It was supposed to be brilliant, and indeed it was a couple of kilometres inland for most of the time, but a fog-bank installed itself on the coast, and didn't shift for days, too chilly and damp for epoxy. Then the weather turned rainy. I had just missed the chance of doing the job before the winter. Still I did get a lot of useful work done, painting and varnishing, inside and out, so hopefully it will not take too long to get her ready for the water in the Spring.

Finally the fog withdrew to seaward.

     While I was there a French couple, Maho and Fanny, sailed in with a fine strong aluminium boat, 'Liguane', with a coating of epoxy glass, whose drop-keel had been broken off by orcas, as well as the rudders being damaged. As can be seen in the photo, the keel was made of several layers of ply-wood coated with glass-fibre, and the power of the attack was amazing, showing extraordinary malevolence. There have been numerous such attacks on sailing boats off the Spanish and Portuguese coast in the last couple

Good job Maho is handy!

of years, with one boat actually being sunk.

The standard response these days is likely to be along the lines 'oh it's their sea, why shouldn't they attack sail-boats if they feel like it?' 'Probably some sail-boat gave them a hard time!' etc. They are much more likely to have had a hard time from fishing boats, which however they have not been attacking. I prefer the attitude of the Spanish firework makers who sell a box of grenades which are said to be very effective at scaring the orcas off.

    I have always disliked orcas because of the grief they give my humpback whale friends, attacking their calves if they can and eating the livers out of them. There are also plenty of reports of orcas killing seals and penguins just for the fun of it, when they don't even want to eat them. Some will say that it is foolish to assign attributes such as malevolence to animals. I disagree, believing as I do that evil or malevolent spirits do exist and are present just about everywhere.

    It is not even unrealistic to imply moral standards to plants, though here again some careful distinctions are called for. My homoeopath wife tells me how this or that 'weed' or 'poison' can be very effective remedies; so the moral quality is not intrinsic to the plant, but nonetheless weeds are bad when they choke ones vegetables. It's a matter of their role in a particular context. Even Putin, let alone Russians, are not evil in themselves, but they have misconstrued their context. The battle between good and evil is real, indeed it is the ultimate human context. If we mess up in our interpretation of it, we are in deep trouble. Fortunately Christ has the victory, for having attracted the ultimate malevolence to Himself, he was able to turn it into the means of our salvation.

    Times have changed lately; the values of tolerance and enlightenment, along with the institutions of liberalism and democracy, are looking more shakey than ever they have done before in my lifetime, which is especially shocking in the countries that have liked to see themselves as their principal bastions. It just happens that these orca attacks have coincided with a certain rediscovery of evil, most dramatically illustrated by both the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The fact of the matter is that the 'your truth and my truth' lark just won't do any more!

    I have been frankly shaken by the realisation of just how right my initial scepticism of the vaccines turned out to be, along with the profoundly troubling corruption of our whole medico/political/information establishment. As for the profound and mendacious malevolence of Mr Putin.... Let me say that I would not hesitate to use a grenade to scare off an attacking orca, and I would not be too bothered if I killed it. I do not believe Christ meant us not to stand up to bullies, and believe that the Catholic teaching about just wars is sound.

    Which said, it has to be remarked that the war in Ukraine, extremely regretable in itself, has yet done an immense favour to the environmental movement, ramming home the necessity of emancipating our economies and way of life from dependence on burning fossil fuels. Come to that, we have also been reminded of the dangers of nuclear power stations. People like Alec and I, who have been chuntering on for some years about, for instance, electrolysers, are suddenly getting the feeling that we may be taken more seriously, and something similar is true for those of us who have been saying that the medical establishment, taken over by commercial interests, is going off the rails, and is due for a complete overhaul.

    There must be a reason why the simple technology of hydrolysers has not been employed long since, for a start by radically reducing both fuel consumption and emissions from internal combustion engines,- and not a reason all that different to why alternatives to vaccinations as treatment for covid were systematically suppressed. One might call it 'capitalism', but I don't. There is no reason why capitalists should not be open and rational about what they do, and there is nothing wrong with making a profit on it. The problem is when the profit becomes the guiding principle, and the pursuit of it causes capitalists to distort and indeed hide the truth about what they are doing, especially when it happens to be against the interests of their customers, which they are there to serve. This is not the inevitable truth about capitalism; it is just greedy badness. It is remarkable how powerful, how obstructive of simple things like treating ill-health or getting around affordably, such people can be, as they hide behind the desperate need for real business to find ways of meeting genuine needs. Capitalism is morally neutral, like a plant or a ship, which is as good or bad as its owners and crew; the trouble is that it is made of money, 'that tainted thing', which so easily becomes an end in itself, a false god. Honesty and transparancy promptly disappear when it does so!

    Vast sums of money are being pushed out by governments and banks to 'mitigate the climate crisis', but how little of it has shown up around us in practical ways actually doing it! Those with access to the money remain more interested in wheeling and dealing on the whole, rather than the uncertain and laborious business of innovating, finding solutions and actually producing things. Meanwhile down-to-earth people have such a struggle to survive that they have little time or energy to even think about such things.

    Well, Alec finally fitted the electroliser in my 08 Citroen Picasso, before I drove it home by way of Bilbao. We had plenty of hydrogen bubbling out of it on Alec's work bench a couple of years ago now, but much time was wasted while I looked around, in vain, for someone to fit it in Ireland. Perhaps we may succeed now that it is in the car and working. I am looking for someone who would like to specialise in this kind of business, but first I suppose I must be able to demonstrate its effectiveness. Alec reckons the one he has in his Transit van improves diesel consumption by over 30%, something like the percentage of European energy that came from Russia before the war, and massively cleans up the exhaust. We believe the hydrogen improves the combustion in the engine so that much more of the energy potential of the fuel is released. I have been carefully recording my petrol consumption/distance travelled since I got the car in March 2020. All I can say so far is that it seems to be doing the job. The car floats along like a boat with the wind behind it, with noticeably less need to put one's foot down on the accelerator. I put exactly 40 litres into the tank very soon after the fuel alarm went off in Bilbao, and am still running on it. When it goes off again, we shall have a pretty good idea how far the 40 litres has taken us; see next blog!

    

    Since the ferry was delayed by weather, I was given a chance to explore Bilbao,- a very

interesting city. Of course I had to see the Guggenheim Museum, a fascinating building, even if one might have reservations about much of the art inside it. It intrigues me, how the loss of the Faith entails the loss of faith in even human attempts at realising rational order; so artists end up talking about dodgy 'Pseud's Corner' stuff like 'Transcending the Spiritual', while they try to reach directly for our subconscious sensibilities and to bypass the conscious mind that they have given up on, not believing the two may be reconciled.

    What a relief to come into St James' Cathedral, with its Madonna who has her eyes wide open, while holding a rose! We all need to take a step backwards, maybe here in Ireland just into the old culture of our Western coastlands, to see if we can knit artistic and technical endeavor together again, work with fun, technology with the love of nature, physical with spiritual life.

    Meanwhile the 'Anna M' is ready for her electric drive, but we are out of capital for now. Alec is trying to find business partners in Portugal, as I am here in Ireland. The vision is simple enough, of a company delivering custom-built electric/hydrogen drives especially for boats, but also vehicles and all kinds of down-to-earth applications. Electrolysers and fuel cells are of particular interest. It would be great to be up and running here in West Clare when they start to bring the mooted off-shore wind power ashore. Whatever the application, it starts with cheap, green electricity,- hence a whole new future for wind power, be it from sails or windmills. It is fun to have such an open field before us!

Just Holding On

 

There is something grimly appropriate about the fact that many gannets are dying, apparently of avian 'flu, and being washed up on our Irish shores,- it being hard not to get depressed about the state of things these days. Yet it was all the more heartening to see a few gannets flying strongly past Loop Head on my Sunday walk yesterday. What's more, though the Gannetsway project of restoring the Anna M has sometimes looked shakey lately, we are still forging ahead.

 

Last time I was in Nazare, a couple of weeks ago, I actually moved aboard; the saloon is quite liveable in now. We also made a start at glassing the hull. The weather was turning rainy, I got a drop of resin in my eye, and most seriously money issues had to be addressed, so it was only a start; I just wanted to get an idea of what exactly is involved. It was successful enough, but it was evident I needed more help as well as materials.

So anyway, I hope to be back on the job in a week or two, and a big push will be under way to get the hull finished before the winter comes. Then we shall be trying to have the Anna M back in the water for next year, and hopefully the big experiment with an electric drive. Plenty of trouble ahead, but if we can overcome adversity in our own little ways, perhaps we can hope that all those people suffering so much more than ourselves will somehow do the same!

Looking forward

Looking aft

1st & 2nd skin

Just Holding On

There's Truth In That There Old Boat.

    Three years ago, on the 28th June 2019, I invited readers of this blog 'to take their seats for the Boris Johnson Show, with a drop in hand.' I professed myself to be 'settling in for this morality play in London with both a grim fascination, a frisson of amusement, and a fair degree of trepidation.... The only value that seems to be generally recognised today is that of personal autonomy. Well Mr Johnson just about sums up where that trip ends up. Undoubtedly he will sooner or later self destruct, but how much damage will he do in the process?'

     He is having to be dragged from No.10 kicking and screaming, yet worse trouble is that the main lie on which the house of cards was built will be even harder to get rid of, and there's not much sign of this happening any time soon, despite the obvious fulfillment of our forebodings about Brexit with regard to the British economy, for Ulster and the prospects of young people. Things have turned out even worse than Europeans of British extraction like myself feared, but there is still no prospect of a British Prime Minister or Government who will admit this, let alone do anything serious about it.

     On what basis can anyone hope to unite the Conservative Party anyway, let alone the 'United Kingdom'? Sentimental, nostalgic nationalism certainly won't do it. If they have recourse to another general election and a 'new mandate', they will still be in trouble. Unfortunately, that Sir Starmer looks like something of a wimp, refusing to grasp the nettle of Brexit, so the once Great Britain has even more existential issues to deal with than the lesser island from whence I look on; but the whole world is tumbling on to some cataclysm that only time will reveal!

Ice-cream time at Mary O's.

     Meanwhile some of us are doing what we can for the future; indeed everything we touch has to take into account the effects it will have for our grandchildren. It's still a great world, really worth struggling for. But it's no use thinking, for instance, that since we are fine and cool here while most of Europe is scorching, we don't have to worry about the climate. Anyway one has to get off this island of Ireland now and again, and where would we be without wine and olice oil? The Gannetsway is the geographic zone that I find most congenial!

     The ding-dong between County Clare and Nazaré has become something of a habit which has been working well for myself. There's a very handy Ryanair flight that, along with buses, enables me to do it in a day, both directions. I would much rather sail, but that will have to wait for the time being. Even the Bilbao ferry is problematic in the summer, - besides the time it takes and being only available for a very expensive car journey, it is actually hard to get a booking in the high season. Wouldn't it be great to have a sail-electric schooner reaching back and forth all summer, with both people and a cargo of goodies?

     Like most sailors, I do miss my family, being away so much, and was particularly sad to miss a grandson's confirmation a couple of weeks ago. Still, sometimes such necessary absences can actually deepen relationships; anything is better than falling into a boring, introverted routine! On the principle that lamps should be put on lamp-stands, I shall post a little poem I wrote for him:-

A Smile for Bede, on his Confirmation Day.

Deep in the Sea of Memory,
Beneath the turbulent zone,
In sombre, solemn obscurity
At the limits of our perception,
A glint of treasure lies
At our very foundation.

After the fierce ordeal of birth,
It was a smile of recognition,
Encouragement, peace and mirth.
Thence grew into our waiting world
Faith, Hope and Charity
For us to gather when we’re called.

So that glint let us remember
When on the restless surface waves
Our fragile boats do founder;
Live in the enduring serenity

Of Light above, below, around us;
Blessed, ever-present Trinity.

    If one struggles to stay sane these days, I do recommend the Catholic ways of praying, - the Psalms, Mass, the Rosary; but I believe anyone of any faith and none can have a go at the wonderful gift of prayer. For a start, it is necessary to find a way to still the clamour in our minds, which constantly distracts us, causing us to spin off in a myriad directions, and to concentrate on actual, positive and beautiful realities that might pierce the armour of our egos, collapse our phantasies, require us to commit to a process that may not be simply put aside, and thus put us in touch with the transcendent truths which it involves. 

     It should not be difficult to understand that making any kind of passage in a sailing boat can come in handy here. I was out last evening in the Sally O'Keefe with some dear old ship-mates. The last time our Mary Emma, Tony Whelan and myself were sailing together was

Old Shipmates.

in 2005 when we crossed the Atlantic together. Here we are with Steve Morris, who built that Sally O'Keefe and has been helping me with the Anna M,- indeed without his help I would be nowhere.  The same is true of course for Alec in Nazaré, and quite a few other people come to that, not to mention Fiona. 

     It's a very ambitious and somewhat haphazard plan, and I still do not know how it will be completed, but already it shows how commitment brings its own graces and gifts. When this happens, one is reassured that the project is not just an ego trip. It is prayer that keeps one right! This gives me the freedom to dream on about sail/electric boats fit to fish and to trade up and down between Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula; so dreams and talk have their place, though with time mere ideas are soon blown away if actual results are not forthcoming. Mr Johnson illustrated brilliantly what happens when dreams are marshalled to the service of egos, but it is a problem for all of us.            

     Endurance through all sorts of difficulties is a good sign. One has to take every opportunity for a sight; signs, affirmations from whatever quarter so long as they come from somewhere outside ourselves and are not mere reflections our our own desires, but rather of some kind of project with enduring values and relationships. It is part of the grace and joy of being elderly that this becomes easier when one really does have to face the fact that our ego is a busted flush, and whoever is going to inherit the fruits of our efforts, on the face of it, it can only be ourselves in a very limited way! 

      I am happy to report that the Anna M should be able to take to the water again early next year. I have just completed the serious work of routing out all the seams between the planks. This goes well with a new bit in the router, but the attrition from which they suffer means one is likely to be struggling again all too soon, considering they seem to be impossible to sharpen and cost at least €30 a pop.  Anyway that's done, Anatole is gluing splines of hardwood into the grooves, and Dario is chiselling and sanding them level, so she will be ready for an epoxy and glassfibre skin in the autumn, when things will have cooled down. Meanwhile they are working inside the hull, installing water tanks, battery storage, quarter berths, and a new floor ready for the furniture.

Port side ready for epoxy and glass skin.

     

Quarter berths

Home  for the Summer, though plenty of work such as making a hen run and painting the house, not to mention serious background work for the Nazaré Project and our Sailelectric drive.

Graft in Nazaré.

     The luscious leaves of June are strugging with a westerly gale back here in County Clare, though the sun is shining brightly. I flew home yesterday for a ten day break from graft on the 'Anna M' in Nazaré. I've been at it for over six weeks, and settled on a good steady routine, living in a little flat over Mario's Waves Restaurant. At the front it looks over the Praça da

Life support team.

Fonte Velha, while at the back the view over all those Atlantic waves is

softened by the cooing of pigeons and the crazy acrobatics of the swifts.

My main job recently has been routing out between the planks, where Anatole has been gluing wooden splines, and Dario has been following along to clean off. The routing would be straightforward with sharp bits,- if it weren't so awkward to work on some parts of the hull, and if the wood were not so hard and laced with the odd bit of rivet or screw. They can be hard to spot, especially with a visor on, without which one would end up with bits of debris in the eyes half the time, even with glasses on. Between this and the hardness of the wood, I've been going through a lot of those router bits, and spending time scouring the country for them,- one not inconsiderable expense that I had not allowed for. I need someone to recycle them!

It will remain to glass over the whole hull with epoxy and glassfibre cloth. At last, with another month's work, the old hull should be sea-worthy again and indeed beautiful and very strong. Hopefully I will even be able to live aboard, and if Alec gets the electric drive installed, we shall move into the next phase of 'The Nazaré Project', testing and demonstrating the said drive.

      What a lot has happened since we first mooted the idea; yet everything seemed to have only emphasized how good and timely it is! More than ever, we need to get out of oil-dependence. Perhaps the best thing about it is the fun of it all, and if there is one thing we need these days more than ever, it is fun; but it seems to me there is not much fun in a holiday that has to begin and end with an airport nightmare, nor in driving or even cruising when fuel costs so much.  There is also comfort in feeling one does not have to contribute to the dodgy types who generally supply oil, nor to climate change, and there is the prospect of a more exciting, challenging but pleasant kind of cruising. Imagine, besides no huge fuel costs, no smelly diesel in the boat, nor racket and vibration!  

     Besides all this, there is the huge satisfaction of bringing that lovely old wooden boat back to life, and in the process of 'bringing home' a great deal of the technology involved. Alec has done a great job of the new hydraulic steering gear, inderneath the new cockpit that Anatole is building. The big question now is how successful will he be with the electric drive? The control side seems to be the most challenging bit. Well, once the hull is liveable-in, I hope to be able to sit back and watch the fun rather more!

 

     If only those pesky Putin poodles, and everyone else including covid cowboys, could get out of nihilistic places and find positive things to do, I'm sure there would be a great deal more fun in the world. For all the shocks and disillusion we have suffered lately, the answer to evil remains not primarily with weapons, nor money; and indeed there's not so very much that governments nor anyone else can do about the many crises, when people lose the ability to enjoy life and to show a better way of living. It's just a shame that so often when nihilists see such things, it can make them more madly resentful! But even if we go down fighting evil, as sometimes we must, we shall overcome in the end, and meanwhile, every little victory counts.

May Day!

It's now five years ago, in May 2017, when I set out to sail home to Ireland from the Rio Guadiana, and half way up the Portuguese coast, had to admit that it was not safe to proceed north across Biscay with the 'Anna M' making so much water that the bilge pump started up every ten minutes, taking about five to empty the bilge. When Lent came round again this year, it seemed a good time to take a break from shovelling yet more precious words into the bottomless pit, or maybe I should say the fire, of the internet, like so many dead leaves. Lent is a time for digging deep, to see if the dead looking branches can really burst into life again, or will they be like those dead old branches on the tops of our trees in County Clare, which the winter gales have indeed killed. 

Words that fail to produce action are just like those dead leaves! It has sometimes seemed like that lately, both for my old boat and indeed my own body. I felt dreadful in the early part of this year; on top of covid, my whole lumbar region was in a state of misery, after the radio-therapy I had last year for prostate cancer. Still, as I hoped, things got better the more I got into work again, and along with the usual homoeopathy, a course of thalassotherapy here in the seawater baths on the beach in Nazaré did me a great deal of good. In fact this is my third session here this year and since my last post. 

Thank God Steve Morris spent a fortnight here and finished the new planks, (thank God also he is on the end of Whatsapp to give advice and direction!) and I had my good friends Ger and Canice out here doing sessions too. But would we ever make that old boat seaworthy again?

Canice stripping the old paint.

Would Alec get the electric drive together? Would I be physically able to rise to the challenge? Are our aspirations nothing but fantasies? Can humanity indeed overcome the challenges the world is facing? Well, Alec and I have declared a race, to see who can get their bit done first; will it be the hull or the drive?  Will we get it together this year at last? Will the aspirations that we have been chuntering on about finally 'make it':- to get the lovely old boat seaworthy again, to develop our own sail/electric drive, to set up a company producing custom-buit units for small craft, indeed to foster an approach to cruising suitable for our times? 

(I can't say I'm sorry to see a few of those super-yachts hitting the rocks, but I hope taxpayers are not going to end up with the cost of maintaining the damn things for God knows how long. Take them out and sink them, I say!)

What a five years it has been! It turned out I was most fortunate to have the old boat in a safe berth that was not breaking the bank.  My scribbles took off in all kinds of directions that had little to do with sailing; yet I hope remained - I can hardly say 'rooted' or 'grounded' in the sea - let's say true to the spirit of the sea. A sailor must live with that special, vital and immediate imperative to discern where safety and where danger lie; what is in fact a deception or lie, and what is true. He shares 'the common sacrament of mankind' with all those who succumb to the lure of the sea, for whatever reason. He will recoil in horror at those who would deliberately leave any human being at peril on the sea, and hence if he is true to his calling he believes in the brotherhood of all mankind. 

(Forgive me, sisters, but I can see no way to rejecting the old-fashioned idea that the male gender can and should be used inclusively; to do so seems to me to make language impossibly cumbersome and unwieldy, such as sailors do not like.)

The lies that I have been busy lambasting, with regard for instance to Brexit and the covid vaccines, I might even mention gender-bending of one kind or another, now seem in danger of being overwhelmed by the effects of an even more massive lie, that seems to have engulphed a huge swath of this same mankind in a poisonous fog; I refer of course to the crazy notion that bombing, shelling, murdering, raping and generally tyranising a whole nation can possibly be imagined as constituting their 'liberation'.

While I am at it, in a degree of despair as to the state of this human race or at least of our modern civilisation, I am reimagining the 'Anna M' as possibly a kind of survival capsule, which after all is what boats are about,- surviving in that frequently hostile element, the sea, so often a kind of 'no man's land'. Yet paradoxically its waves constitute perhaps the most fundamental and vital physical medium of communication on Earth. Navigare necesse est! I count Fiona and I lucky that our nine children are not hopelessly scattered, and are mainly clumped in two groups on the west and east coasts of Ireland, with the exceptions still being accessible by sea, even the ones who look like heading for Florida. It looks like I might get an excuse for stretching my notion of 'sailing the Gannetsway' once again! Anyway I love the idea of a craft that can sail around between them all without even having to buy and burn any fuel!

So anyway, for the last lap, with a hull massively strengthened with many new laminated ribs, new steel floors (attaching the keel to the hull) and some new planks, we are now down to the little matter of making sure that no water can enter by way of the cracks and holes in it! We have to fill all the holes, rout out the seams between the planks and glue splines into them, sand it all off and apply a skin of epoxy and glass cloth.

It is a great deal of work to be done this month. Now it is the first of May and everywhere the leaves are blooming, another summer is opening up. I am hoping to leave the hull fit to float when I go home in five weeks' time! As it happens I have a Russian and an Ukrainian on the job. Anatole, the Russian, I met on the pontoon when I first arrived, - he lives with his wife in a little sailing boat that he built himself. I have chatted with him now  and again since. Needless to say, he thinks Putin is mad and worse. Anyway he turned up at the 'Anna M' asking would I like him to work for me? Sure, he made a great job of his boat and we know he can work with resin. He it was who introduced the Ukrainian, Valerii, who did that routing, but sadly their relationship is strained, understandably enough, by the present war and God knows what. Valerii has a family still

in Ukraine; he got a nasty wound himself fighting the Russians back in 2016, for which he is still getting treatment here in Portugal. Maybe I am being paranoid myself, but I don't feel inclined to put their photos up on the internet at this stage....

So another dark cloud hangs over us. Putin has clearly revealed himself as a crook of the worst order, whose main preoccupation it would seem is to avoid being held to account for his crimes. Like all such crooks, he defiles every worthwhile thing he touches, trying desperately to use them to cloak his fear and self-loathing. Of course, any liar grabs at any bit of truth he can lay hands on, and thereby demeans it. Personally I dislike the 'liberal agenda' as much as any reasonable person could, and will agree that it goes with a certain cultural colonialism. However there's a lot more to Western culture than that, and anyway surely Russia is big enough to cope with it! 

Putin's notion that we Europeans hate Russia or would want to take it over, while indeed we may regard it as culturally belonging to Europe, is the paranoia of one who can only maintain his position by fear, and has to ruthlessly suppress opposition and dissent. Dostoyevski and Tolstoy, Tchaikovski, Rachmaninov and all the other great Russians who have contributed so much to our European culture must be turning in their graves, that things have come to such a pass. However one good thing Putin has achieved is to mightily push along the agenda for escaping dependence on fossil fuel, and thus contributed to our little effort to develop our own electric drive. 

It takes some effort alright, especially for an ould fella like myself; yet meanwhile it is a great pleasure to be getting to know Portugal better. I have to say I've become very fond of it, and the place suits me very well. They were complaining about the lack of rain last time I was here, but it rained quite a lot while I was enjoying the good weather in Ireland, and then it settled the moment I returned to find Portugal bursting with growth. My favourite path for a Sunday afternoon walk, behind the Praia do Norte, is blooming with wild flowers, and the birds in the pine trees are full of song. How beautifully they go with the everlasting som do mar!