It goes with inspiration I could say. I’ve been wanting to write as consistently as possible, sort of create a habit out of it but sometimes there’s just not much to say. I’m non-stop wondering about everything, all the time. And when it clicks, ideas come together and feel the need to sit and write things down. It’s pretty cool to feel that way about writing, I hope I could do it more often.
When I was in Australia I worked about 8 months in this construction site as a labourer building these massive and quite ungraceful Greek guy’s house. It was very tiring, physically demanding and mentally numbing, in a way though. It used to pay the bills, but what I loved the most about that job was, apart from riding to and back from work everyday in my very old bicycle, that it allowed all the time in the world to think. I went to Australia because I wanted to have time, period. I didn’t want to look back and say I didn’t do this or that because I didn’t have time. Instead I looked for it (time I mean), and so having time to surf, party, wander, and even time to think, was fully accomplishing the purpose of my Aussie experience.
One day while shovelling some sand into the cement mixer to lay some bricks, I realized I was having a recurrent thought, and worried that I was actually wasting my thinking time, thinking different things more than once. And that’s when I first thought I had to start writing things down or keeping some sort of record.
The first try came in New Zealand over 2 years after that day, and it didn’t last long. I bought a pretty book I still carry around with me all the time and excited wrote daily notes before going to bed every night. I can still remember writing my first note sitting in the airport leaving NZ after 10 months.
Daily notes became ever more infrequent and I gave up knowing that a diary was not for me.
Then I got a few Moleskines with the intention of making notes every now and then and at some point sit down and put articles together about my different trips. It started last year when I was in the States between Florida, Colorado and the Intracoastal Water Way between Houston and New Orleans. I have to say that didn’t go that bad and writing made me good company in the lonely nights of the Bayou in Louisiana, but when I found myself in the boredom of the jobless (and money less) life in Miami, inspiration didn’t showed up for a while and my second attempt of a travel log was soon abandoned as well.
And then is this blog I’ve been keeping for almost a year now and I have to say I’m quite proud of it so far. Consistency hasn’t been its most remarkable characteristic but I’m happy with what I’ve been posting most of the time. I guess it’s not a case of me being a better or a more committed writer, but actually my life being somehow more dynamic than in recent years.
Sailing has been the priority these past two months. It’s been good fun to actually been in a boat that we have to dedicate most of our efforts into making of it a better, faster and safer sailing boat. From Tunisia we left to Palma and apart from good weather and a few hours of fun sailing, fishing was the highlight of this delivery. In the one day we decided to throw fishing lines out, we quickly got ourselves a good catch, a 12 kg Tuna. Happy we were with the prospect of some raw fish for lunch when we got called by another strike. This time a beast which actually was too kind to let ourselves catch him. The most beautiful fish I’ve caught, 30 kg it weighted and as I write this today, almost a month since that day, “the cook” is actually preparing one more piece of it to feed the grateful crew for that one fine day of fishing.
Arriving to Palma was exciting, as I had a full bunch of friends I was looking forward to see again and our time there didn’t disappoint. Nana was a superstar as always, and catching up with her along with epic Pitiou was Palma highlight. These are the guys that I sailed from Fiji to New Zealand with. 4 full days of howling winds and BIG crossed seas and one a half day of total calm, this delivery is one that I don’t talk much about, too difficult to explain or just really not worth it. This is something I can only share with these two people, and hearing sea gipsy Pitiou saying that was the most horrible seas he’s ever encounter, made me... actually, I just realized it does make me feel happy that most probably, I won’t find those conditions that too often.
A beautiful 5 and half days at sea brought us to Tenerife, and apart from passing Gibraltar with a PBO-furled Genaker in the water, it all when smooth as. We also got a nice mahi mahi to comply with cook’s request to get something other than tuna, and the day before arriving we heard through the VHF of this big depression forming in the north Atlantic next to Greenland which would create mayhem all along Europe coast... and mayhem up there, can only mean waves down here. So excited with the prospect of a few waves, I felt at peace of being back in the ocean. I got ready and by Wednesday evening I was surfing some fine waves feeling a bit out of rhythm. Wednesday morning I found a fun left with a friendly few in the water and on Monday morning, I fell back in love with surfing.
I have to finish this now... is getting too long, don't even know where I'm going with all this. Will keep posting more this week hopefully....
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