Anger in its nature

I'm wondering why people living close to wildlife often develop anger towards certain animals. During our prolonged stay in Canada I've heard people bad-mouthing wolves, coyotes, foxes, snakes, gray jays, crows, ravens, rabbits, mice, pack rats, squirrels, porcupines, skunks, bears and eagles.

Sometimes the anger spills over to nature itself, as some kind of evil that has to be beaten down. It's a constant battle. There's too much of everything.

I know this attitude from Norway - and it's still going on, even though the wilderness is long gone.

We'll be back

We're delayed, and will return to San Francisco March 1.

Nina has almost finished the gennaker. It came in 27 readymade panels (from Sailrite), and the sewing was pretty straight forward. It's a lot of work, though. I'm not looking forward to the day when it gets ripped apart. I have a strong feeling it's going to be my fault.

Life on land

In the beginning, when we moved aboard Bika and sailed to the north of Norway, we both had a lot of nightmares about security offshore. We’d sleep in the forepeak and then suddenly bolt up for a quick look-out through the forehatch. We both did this at least once. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel stupid in a marina.

We had some similar problems with transition when we returned onshore this summer. I got disturbing dreams about ghosts, or black birds; the house felt like an unsafe place to be.

I was also the only one getting obsessively drunk at a family party. “What kind of person are you?” Nina asked. I honestly didn’t know. It didn’t strike me as anything odd.

I dreamt that I had this huge black bird in the house. I would chase it outside, through the open door, but then it would be another one waiting inside.

In July we were back at my sister’s place. I’d already said that I was more of a tea-person, when asked if I wanted coffee, and then, half a minute later, I reported that I was more of a cat-person, when asked if I liked dogs.

She wanted us to take care of their dog for a couple of weeks. It was a nice dog, but it seemed a bit sad. I’d walk into the woods. The dog kept looking down at the ground, towards the grass, at the tiny sticks.

I later dreamt about a dog we saw at Yale University (or in one of the surrounding buildings). I sat next to a stuffed dog in a display case, and because of all the people, neither me nor Nina noticed the dog at first. I felt bad about this in my dream. I bent down on my knees and tried to feed the dog through the glass. It was futile. I wanted to break the glass but was afraid of making a scene, although I felt certain the poor dog would die of hunger.

Enslaved in dreams

We were asked about houses versus boats when we returned to Norway this summer. I guess we all need a confirmation: are we doing the right thing?

There's a risk of sounding self-righteous, like two born-again Christians who never stops talking about their new way of life, but the gist of cruising is pretty simple. Space and comfort are exchanged with freedom and adventure. That's the main thing if you ever plan to do serious cruising in a small boat.

More interesting is the fact that the need for comfort wears off, and when you’re finally back in a hot shower, you’ll realize that you’re not getting any cleaner than from the bucket-bath offshore. When you’re clean you’re clean, it’s nothing more to it. You’ll properly miss the shower more after a long weekend of coastal cruising, than after a year in the tropics. And you’ll do the same adaption in all the comfort issues.

There are other aspects. The grid of modern life is getting more complicated, more abstract, and I’ll guarantee you this: four years of cruising will be enough to really make you wonder.

Living in transition

We borrow a nice house from a girlfriend of Nina, who work in Moscow. Nina got her office work, but I stay home all the time, writing. It's a transition before going back to Bika in San Francisco; we need money to go sailing.

To be a contemporary poet means that you’re hoping for fame while learning the anatomy of silence. After some years the idea of a breakthrough seems ridiculous. The silence gets deepened. That's when you start to find the existence of ghosts more likely, even downright plausible.

It usually takes a long time for a house to disintegrate. A house leaves us slowly, but a sailboat can go down in minutes. Maybe that's why I've never heard about ghosts going boating. A ghost needs reassurance.

I believe ghosts can form during countless movements in the house. The opening and closing of doors; if we walk into the bedroom and stop, not knowing what we seek; if we walk into the bathroom unfocused.

Trust your spouse

In 2004, the year before we started the circumnavigation, we sailed up to Nina's parents in Jøkelfjorden (“jøkel” means glacier). Jøkelfjorden is above the arctic circle, and it was a long journey for a short season.

Nina hadn’t done much sailing before this trip. In fact, we had only sailed a long weekend to the south of Norway, when Nina got really seasick. Maybe a circumnavigation wasn’t for us.

We made it to Jøkelfjorden, but on our way south again, it was my turn to get sick. It was some kind of stomach virus, I even had a night in the Harstad hospital. But we had to hurry south, before the autumn gales would set in.

I was lying down below, feeling miserable, but Nina took charge of Bika and was learning fast.

Maybe it was a good thing, seen in retrospect. Sailing is not difficult; it’s more difficult to build confidence and trust. I remember when Nina called for help, we had dense fog and a force 6 wind, and she asked casually if I could help her with the lookout.

I was sitting in the cockpit, pale and quiet. But I think we both realized that the circumnavigation was for us. The dream got strengthened.

The picture is from Karlsøy, when the wind had died out and the fog almost lifted.