you get what you need -

- when you need it.

Sunset at Gloucester - Winslow Homer

Moby-Dick Marathon

Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.



Got to thinking about Moby-Dick earlier today. Which got me thinking about the marathon reading that happens each year at the Museum of the Sea in Mystic Seaport hosts a 24-hour reading of Moby-Dick on board the Charles W. Morgan which is the last remaining wooden whaling ship in the world.



This year it's happening July 31st-August 1st. Love that this event exists. Details here.

whale image by Tom Neely

Why Wooden Boats

Really enjoyed this article on wooden boats as a reflection of nature's beauty. Excerpt:::

The esteemed biologist Edward O. Wilson invented a word that explains our attraction to the forms of nature: biophilia, which he defined as "the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes." Even as babies, we humans tend to be drawn toward living creatures (or their representations) more than to inanimate objects. We're more likely to develop a relationship with a stuffed bear than a ball. This tendency is embedded deep in the human-instinct circuitry as a matter of survival and reproduction.

So the wooden-boat revival was no anomaly. We willingly pour the considerable labor and love into building, maintaining and restoring wooden boats because they lead us to participating in something greater than ourselves. I have nothing against fiberglass, but a boat made of synthetic material simply reflects human culture back at us. It is purely a product of technology. A wooden boat is a partnership. It's not literally a living thing, not quite, but it evinces respect for the life that exists outside the clubby circle of human intelligence.

I love it when people explain things I feel and don't explain well. Thank you, Lawrence W. Check.

Photo by Benjamin Benschneider.

Hopper Pilgrimage

I think I'd like to get up to DC sometime in June to see one of my favorite paintings at the Corcoran::



Ground Swell by Edward Hopper. I basically attribute my having lived on Martha's Vineyard for as long as I did, and having lived on boats to falling really hard for this painting at around age 15.

Other things I'm looking forward to seeing:::



Destiny's Bracelet by Jim Goldberg. --- which I realize is a little more sexy than things I usually post on this here blog -- but it's stunning. So there it is.

And the Eadward Muybridge exhibition::



Plate 640. Jumping a hurdle; saddle; bay horse Daisy

-- but really it's mostly about seeing the Hopper painting.

When & If

If you're in the market for a boat, I'd go ahead and start your looking here::



:: or better yet - steer your friend who is looking for a boat in this direction.





When & If is a 63 ft Alden Schooner that was orginally built for Gen. Patton to sail around the world "when and if" he survived WWII.

I'll be available as crew for you. Don't worry.

The Herring Net - Winslow Homer

The life I have chosen gives me my full hours of enjoyment for the balance of my life. The Sun will not rise, or set, without my notice, and thanks.
- Winslow Homer
A letter to his brother Charles

Bluenose II Rebuild

Word on the wooden boat circuit is that Bluenose II is being rebuilt this winter, and, well - it's true.

You can watch the rebuild from webcams that have three different angles on the project here, here, and here.

The province of Nova Scotia is funding a 14.4 million (Canadian?) dollar construction project with 3 shipyards collaborating to get the job done.



I know that 14.4 million dollars is a lot of dollars. And there are a lot of ways to spend that money, but I'm proud of Nova Scotia for providing the funding and jobs and keeping the boat alive.





Bluenose II's homeport is Lunenberg, and she is a replica of the original Bluenose which was built in 1921 as a fishing and racing vessel. Bluenose was built after Esperanto out of Gloucester defeated the Nova Scotian schooner Delawana for the International Fisherman's Trophy. Bluenose held the trophy for the next 17 years.

Way to spend some cash money, Nova Scotia.

Plastiki

Plastiki, a 60 ft sailboat comprised partially of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles, recently set sail from San Francisco to Austrailia.


photo by Luca Babini.

The (rather attractive) crew is led by David de Rothschild - the organizer of the whole shabang, Jo Royle - skipper, David Thomson - co-skipper, and you can read about the rest of crew here.







The plastic bottles made up for about 68% of the boat's buoyancy, the sail is hand-made from recycled PET cloth, and the secondary bonding is a glue made of cashew nuts and sugar cane - which sounds delicious.

The goal of the project is to "educate, entertain and raise awareness of environmental and social issues whilst driving innovative real world solutions."

I'm for it. And I also hope they have a really great time.

Ernest Shackleton/ Endurance Beer

I was really happy to hear the story about two cases of Ernest Shackleton's whiskey being retrieved recently from the South Pole [details], and I've been scouting around Charlottesville for some Endurance Beer as my own boozy tribute to the explorer's spirit.





For those of you who don't know the Shackleton's story: get excited. It's insane.

Ernest Shackleton and his crew on the Endurance were making an attempt at crossing Antartica from sea to sea - crossing the South Pole in the process. The Endurance ended up being packed in by ice, and was slowly crushed. The most amazing thing about this story is that with grit, fortitude, and probably some of that whiskey, every single one of Shackleton's men survived.



The second most amazing thing about this story? The importance that Shackleton put on keeping a journal. Through the disaster Shackleton encouraged his crew to keep records of what was unfolding - meaning that there are remarkable accounts of the ordeal.

I'm sure his 7th grade English teacher (or whoever taught him the value of record-keeping) was super proud.

moremoremore on Shackleton - Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Journey

Picton Castle

I'm starting to feel some very serious adventure-envy towards my friend Brad who is taking an around the world trip on this lovely - Picton Castle:



That's right. An AROUND THE WORLD trip. Literally. All the away around it.

Here's an abbreviated version of their itinerary:

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; Panama; Galapagos Islands; Pitcairn Islands; Gambier Islands; Tahiti; Rarotonga, Cook Islands; Fiji; Bali; Cape Town, South Africa; Namibia; St Helena; Fernando de Noronha, Brazil; Lesser Antilles; Brazil; Lunenburg, Nova Scotia



Amazing.

The boat departs in April, and Brad has promised postcards. I have promised not to turn completely green with jealousy when they arrive in my landlocked mailbox.

Kindle? No, Thanks. Kindle Ad Campaign? Yes, Please.

I came across this gorgeous stop motion film by Amanda Kohler and Ithyle Griffiths last week, and was really happy to find squareriggers, birdcages, and moustaches all in the same dreamy video at once:



And now it turns out that they've created some commercials for for Amazon's Kindle::



I still don't want a Kindle. But I'm happy these videos were made because of them.

Current Residence::

And the view from my "dog-house" on deck::





(....swoon.)

Love to you all!
-Paige

Gloucester

We've been travelling around for the past couple of weeks between Provincetown, Newburyport, and Gloucester. We're back in Provincetown, but here are a few pics from the race in Gloucester::







Love to you all!
-Paige

More on Newport

Pete Seeger is also going to be at Newport. Have you seen The Power of Song yet? It's amazing::



In 1969 Pete Seeger also built a Hudson River Sloop to help clean up the Hudson River, mostly just by sailing people up and down it and showing them the state it was in::



From the NYT:

"The scientists, when they heard we were building a sailboat to save the Hudson, said, 'You need a research boat,' " Mr. Seeger recalled. "And other people said, 'There's a war going on. Why are you building a boat?' All I could say was, lamely, 'It's a beautiful boat.' "

Love him.

Love,
Paige

Well done, boat namer

dave. Great boat name.

Love,
Paige

sawdust

Love,
Paige

(dreamy) work in progress

Love,
Paige

Talking Shop

I will probably be posting a lot of photos from the company's boat shop because it's pretty amazing. Here are two::





Love,
Paige

Fish Out of Water

Hellooo loved ones --

So I started living/ working on the Alabama this past week, and right now we're in Fairhaven, Mass waiting out the crummy weather for some sunshine to paint, etc (worth noting -- I don't actually know what the etc is).

Since my old neighborhood in Bangkok was home to Soi Cowboy (one of bkk's three red-light districts..) I found it fantastically appropriate that our neighbor here at the shipyard is also named Cowboy:::



Here's the focsle and the main saloon of the boat below that::





aaaand then here's the deck --



Love to you all!
-Paige

Also...

... I've given my two weeks notice at my job here and am moving back to the US on April 25th.

Bangkok has been wonderful, and I've been really lucky to make great friends and enjoy myself teaching and all of those good things -- but I'm also reallyreally excited to go back to Martha's Vineyard and work for the Black Dog's tall ship Alabama: theblackdogtallships.com



I'm going to be splitting time between working on the boat, and in their office, and I'm SUPER excited about this.

Love,
Paige