Improbable Journeys

Here we go into another winter without the Anna M setting sail from Nazaré. I have been working there for the past six weeks of beautiful weather and I have to admit it's a very pleasant place to be, particularly with neighbours like Ian, Maria and Kevin. (see photo) That's the Anna M's bow in the top left corner. Ian's boat is on the right, which he built himself. He has a fund of knowledge of things that are of great interest to me, such as electric drives and Dyneema rigging.

    Ian hails from South Africa and calls himself an African. I see what he means and I love it! There is an open atmosphere about him of journeying, grazing and camping as he goes, at home everywhere and nowhere. As Progress overtakes the likes of Portugal, the places where you can live like this are getting scarce in Europe, but some of us will always seek them out. Even if we do manage to keep a footing in the property-owning, settled side of life, it does us such a lot of good to meet the folk who are out journeying. Migraturus Habita, 'live as one about to migrate', as my dear friend Ken carved on our fireplace back in Somerset a long time ago. We have after all no lasting home on Earth. I put the sentiment to Fiona these days by saying, ''Home is a good base camp, but not a great destination'.

    Sometimes though we do have to stand our ground. Life is full of such contradictions, and they can be creative. A lady from Estonia, with the somewhat incongruous name of Victoria (the Queen of that name certainly stood for standing one's ground, as well as on many other people's), showed up to go sailing with Kevin, who is on the right in the photo above. I asked her what it was like living so close to Russia. She said it's like living with a drunken big brother who is always annoying you. Sounds about right to me. Then we have dear Anatole from Siberia, who simply says of Russia that it is a mafia state. Yes, it's high time that we in the West got our act together and firmly laid it out that their behaviour is not acceptable.

   Kevin, who has sailed over from Massachusetts, says that the military in America are gearing up for war with Russia and China. Fighting them is of course to be avoided. The trouble is that autocracies thrive on war. It really should be possible to bring them to order without resorting to that,- especially if we got our own house in order! I say we should beware of running into war as an escape from our own problems. If the West were united and at peace with itself, we could handle the big international problems much better. Meanwhile, there's hope so long as we can keep doing things like sailing.

    Anyway Kevin and Victoria are now, against all sense of ease and comfort, heading north, and aiming to get to Kilrush for the winter. Some of his great-grandparents came from County Clare. I've told him we could still get a lovely Indian summer here, and I do hope it turns out to be true, and that he gets a good passage across Biscay.

    No sign of it as Ger and I came home on Brittany Ferries' Salamanca, although she was not particularly bothered by the westerly gale. Still I think they are a tad over-confident in their stabilisers, in not putting any little lips on any tables. I suppose they save a fair sum, but do they factor in the cost of broken dishes and the cost of clearing up the mess when trays go flying? Even the Salamanca gave the odd bad lurch, but anyway she was only half an hour late in arriving at Rosslare. Now, a week later, the weather in Ireland is looking up.

    Once I gave up the idea of getting Anna M afloat this autumn, the idea of an electric drive got a reprieve for now. When it came to the point, I hated the idea of putting the old diesel engine back in, and I decided to see if by some miracle our bright ideas can be revived in the course of the winter. Though there are still plenty of outstanding jobs, the Anna M is now a liveable-in boat again. At five minutes to midnight, maybe it will be possible to salvage our Gannetswaysailing project. Alec, for one, is a severe case of last-minuteitis!

    As I was leaving the Basque country, our Cristíona was arriving to tramp the Camino de Santiago. It is in the very same spirit that I hope to sail the Gannetsway again, celebrating hundreds of years of following Jesus in this part of the world, who calls us to abandon all notions of improbability,- as did those Celtic saints of old, who frequently come to my mind, as they plied the Gannetsway in their little leather boats!

On the Camino by Cristíona.