Remember how much fun field trips were when you were a kid? And if you’re a geologist, like me, you didn’t stop going on field trips when you grew up. My family consists of two- and four-legged rockhounds, so we decided that a fall field trip was in order. We ventured out to the Mesa de Cuba Badlands, near Cuba (New Mexico, that is), the day before Thanksgiving.
The shales of the Paleogene age Nacimiento Formation form beautiful badlands topography, and we wandered through it looking for petrified wood. A return trip will definitely be in order.
Here are some pictures from that lovely autumn day in the Land of Enchantment. Though I don’t see how it could be, I hope your Thanksgiving was this much fun.
There is so much this president is tearing down. So much destruction. So little respect. No caring at all, except for himself. The demolition of the East Wing, the East colonnade, and the East garden, are in some senses, not nearly as harmful as so much of the other wreckage he has inflicted, and indeed celebrated—most notably, the rule of law, which he and his minions are dismantling brick by brick by so many bricks.
But the physical destruction of a part of the house (the American people’s house!) that presidents should feel privileged to inhabit, not entitled to do whatever they please with, much less destroy, hit me in a visceral way. It is symbolic. And it is devastating.
It was part of our house. The part that First Lady Betty Ford described in this way, “If the West Wing is the mind of the nation, then the East Wing is the heart.” He is breaking the heart of our nation.
We, the People, so many people, rose up and declared “No Kings!” He responded with bulldozers days later.
We must rise up, in November and protect voting rights. We must rise up, next November and elect a Congress that will do its job. We must rise up every day and stop the havoc this man delights in wreaking. We must build together, not tear apart. We must raise our voices and build community against destruction, chaos, and hate. It is not about politics (which, though I read and think about (and lose sleep over), I tend not to write about), it is about right or wrong.
It wasn’t his to destroy, but rubble is all this man leaves in his wake. But we—We, the People— can build something from the broken bricks. We must.
Kagán (pronounced ka-gone) means light in the Tlingit language, and this magic carpet that sails me around the Salish Sea has been a source of light in my life for twenty summers. She has made dreams come true, mine, for sure. But first, she was the culmination of a years-long dream for my late partner, Jerry.
After thinking on it long and hard, he decided to sell a house he never thought he’d let go (he’d been there while walking through a dark time of deep grief, and it had helped heal him), but he realized that if he sold that house he could buy the boat of his dreams, and move from darkness to light. Hence Kagán. When I would ask him if he missed the house, he always answered with a resounding “No!” because he was fulfilling his dream on Kagán.
She has been mine since Jerry left her to me, after he died of cancer. Sometimes she drains my savings account, but she always fills my heart with wonder and my life with adventure. I have learned so much and changed in huge and positive ways sailing Kagán. What a privilege it has been, and is (yes, I’m swinging at anchor as I write these words).
And speaking of Privilege, the first cruise-and-learn I did was on a boat named just that.
For so many, buying a boat is the realization of a dream and naming it (no, it doesn’t have to be gendered, but more on that later) is an important statement about that dream. Here are just a few boat names I’ve seen (or heard on the VHF radio) over the years: Sea Sparrow, Osprey, Peregrine, Heaven Can Wait, Wayfinder, Wander, Yonder, Tethys, Trinity, Sirius, Loki, Ta Da, Isobar, Providence, Adventuress, Imagine, Waitabit, Winter Solstice, Gypsy Spirit, Wind Dancer, Rendezvous, Moondance, Glorybe, Gemini, Seeker, and Sundance.
There are hundreds (that I have seen, and probably tens of thousands out there) of boats named for beloved women in mariners’ lives. A little internet research reveals that, yes, boats (particularly sailing vessels) are traditionally given female names and referred to with feminine pronouns due to a combination of historical, linguistic, and cultural factors. The practice stems from ancient maritime traditions in which ships were personified as nurturing, like mothers, or protective and/or powerful, like goddesses. And in some languages, the word for ship is grammatically feminine. This linguistic influence carried over into English, despite the fact that in English most objects are assigned gender-neutral pronouns.
Then there are the play-on-word names, like Important Business (Can’t you just hear them saying, “Sorry, I can’t take that meeting. . .I’m away on Important Business.”), Partnership, Friendship, Finalee, @ Ease, and Going Overboard (Really. . . someone named their boat Going Overboard. The Coast Guard was not amused.) And there are more ‘knotty’ and ‘knot’ name iterations than I could imagine, like Y-Knot, Knot Dreamin’,Knotty Girl, and more (just think of how many names you can could come up with using ‘sea’ or ‘nauti’ or ‘ship’).
Words in different languages, like Kagán, with meanings that are, well, meaningful to the mariner abound. I think I’ve seen ten boats named Andiamo this year alone. And today, I met the owner of Terrwyn, the Celtic word for ‘precocious young child.’ Then there are those names that seem to challenge Poseidon or Aeolus (that would make this superstitious sailor nervous, but others have embraced), like Wave Catcher, Wind Tamer, Tsunami, and Storm Chaser.
I’m sure each name means something important to the boater who chose it. and that’s intriguing, whether I can understand the meaning behind it, or not.
So, please, take a moment and tell me what’s in a name for you. What name would you bestow upon a boat of your own, and why?
“Am I done yet?” is a question any sailor might ask about her boat on any given day. Kagán has undergone hundreds of projects, large and small, during our decades together. From my first summer as first mate when we hardly left the dock while reconfiguring her windlass (for the non-nautical, that is the equipment used to deploy and retrieve the anchor) to replacing her standing rigging to installing new electronics to redesigning her staysail rigging to having new sails made—and that’s just naming a few of the bigger undertakings. And then there’s the ‘around again’ projects that need to be started over as soon as I’ve finished, like scrubbing and polishing. It’s not simply scrubbing; it all fits into what I believe about life on Kagán—if I take care of her, she’ll take care of me. And maybe that’s not just about boats. . . .
But back to projects, the biggest and longest project I’ve taken on is re-powering Kagán (well, really, our exceptional marine diesel mechanic took it on, but you get the idea). Re-powering means that Kagán’s auxiliary engine has been replaced, and believe me, this is big—both in the engineering and the implementation. This project has just been completed, I think. I say “I think” because I thought it was done two months ago, and it wasn’t quite, since one of the brand new pumps on the brand new engine had a bad seal and needed to be replaced.
All of this asking—am I done yet?—has made me consider (after only 20 summers aboard), whether boat projects are ever quite complete. And it has also made me realize that boats (or houses or gardens or careers or relationships, or people) have projects, or are projects, that will never be done. Because it’s more than just scrubbing. It’s more than making things shine (though making things look beautiful can, indeed, be satisfying). It’s about making things work, and how things work can change with time, innovation, and discovery. The realities of ‘living the dream’ are sometimes not so dreamy—it’s not all cocktails (or shrimp cocktails) in the cockpit or sailing into the sunset—but maybe that makes the reality even more rewarding.
So, I’m learning to embrace that my beloved boat will never be “done,” and neither will I—whether I’m polishing her stainless steel to both look brilliant and be protected from the elements (my current ‘around again’ project) or exploring what makes me tick at any given time. And rather than striving to be “done,” I’m working on loving (or at least not grumbling about) the day-to-day process of boat, and life, projects.
“The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears or the sea.”
—Isak Dinesen
I take nourishment, my vitamin sea, on Kagán each summer. Leaving the high desert in spring, means the winds go from an assault of airborne grit to a means of locomotion on my fair little ship. The rhythm of my days slows from 75 mph on an interstate to a few knots upon rippled waters. Though mostly calming, those few knots (not many mph. since a knot is 1.15 mph) can feel quite exciting. Some skippers say “under three turn the key”—as in under three knots of boat speed, turn the engine on. But on those days when the only goal is to go where the wind blows, I’m happy to ease along on a gentle breeze and a planned-for ride on the tide. My late partner, and Kagán’s previous skipper, would call it “sail drifting.”
While taking vitamin sea, for me, it’s all about tides and currents, wind and weather. Nature’s schedule and no one else’s govern mine.
This year especially, as I fight fear, hopelessness, and grief for the direction my beloved country is taking, I am deeply grateful for my dose of vitamin sea. As the Dinesen quote says, saltwater is the cure—my daily dose of sweat (both from exercise and boat work), tears (from that aforementioned fear and grief), and the powerful healing of the sea (in all its states, from those that demand respect to those that elicit profound peace).
“If the ocean can calm itself, so can you. We are both saltwater mixed with air.”
Geologists study the earth and the processes that shape it. Writers study the human heart and the processes that shape it. The GeologistWriter builds a bridge between the two. Come across it with me!
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