MANY PEOPLE recall the
pleasure of an annual sailing vacation by inviting their friends around to view
their video recordings. But long before video became obtainable, G. K.
Chesterton, the British writer, critic, and author of
verse, essays, novels, and short stories once described how he evoked
the emotions of a vacation by calling a cab, piling it up with luggage, and
driving to the railway station. Then, having experienced his sensation, he
drove home again.
Mr. Chesterton’s little
eccentricity was harmless enough, certainly, but most sailors I know would get
just as much in the way of belated emotional thrills by perusing the old paper
charts of their favorite cruising grounds.
(Incidentally, perhaps I
should be more careful about labeling Mr. Chesterton as eccentric. I have
literally hundreds of paper charts stuffed under my marital bed and a nearby
couch for wont of adequate stowage anywhere else in my home, and I find nothing
eccentric about that. I have never owned a boat big enough to accommodate them
all at one time. I admit that my dear wife has from time to time mentioned her
unease with this arrangement, especially with regard to vacuuming under the bed
and its attendant difficulties, but so far the word eccentric has not come into
the equation.)
The thing is, paper
charts, with their hand-drawn course lines, ancient annotations,
recommendations, coffee stains and warnings, are the magic carpets that whisk
us away from the banalities of this careworn earth and transport us in the
blink of an eyelid to sunny beaches, serene anchorages — and other less
enticing places.
Nothing sends a frisson
down my spine quicker than the word “FOG!!” scrawled on the chart of the San
Juan Channel, where, I now recall in the warmth and safety of my home, a
Washington State ferry on a collision course with us was swallowed up in thick
grey mist. I can laugh about it now, of course, smug in the knowledge that I
took the right decision to keep out of his way. At the time, however, it was
quite another matter and only the deep handprints I crushed into the varnished
tiller bear the true testimony of my feelings then.
And there is my
salt-stained chart of Cape Agulhas, criss-crossed with penciled bearings from
that powerful lighthouse and the shaky words “Rounded at last.” Our joy at
doubling Africa’s southernmost cape against storms and contrary winds comes
flooding back — perhaps with even greater evocation than that which Mr.
Chesterton managed to wrest from his piles of suitcases.
Today’s
Thought
Our
memories are card indexes — consulted, and then put back in disorder by
authorities whom we do not control.
— Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave
Tailpiece
“Doctor, my husband has a
dreadful temperature.”
“What is it, exactly?”
“It’s about 150 degrees.”
“Okay, give him two
aspirins and call the fire brigade.”
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)
1 comment:
G.K. Chesterton's virtual holidays are of the soft kind, a more real one would be to invoke, and practise, the old saying that owning and sailing a yacht is a bit like standing in a cold shower ripping up one hundred dollar bills.
Eric Hiscock in the preamble in one of his many books states that nothing gave him and his wife Susan greater pleasure than to plan their voyages in winter before an open fire with charts spread out on the floor.
He also wrote that when during black stormy nights at sea he wondered what the hell he was actually doing there. He then thought about an alternative life and the suffocating struggle along with the rest of humanity on the 6am train to a job somewhere in London and decided to stick with the periodic cold showers and saturated one hundred pound notes.
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