Beige couple

There's an elderly couple in front of us. They're talking about her going to the hospital. Everything is going to be alright, he says.

She's silent for a while. Then she asks: why do I have the feeling that you are talking about the car? 

Puppies for Peace

A homeless is watching as a peace demonstration starts to pick up momentum. It's not much of a momentum, though. 40 persons, at the most, has gathered downtown San Francisco to protest USA's wars in dirt poor countries. So the homeless watch for awhile, then drift off. He probably couldn't care less.

What's interesting about this demonstration is that it demonstrates how little people care. It also demonstrates that there ain't no bite in the message given. In fact, it's hard to imagine a more pathetic protest against American imperialism.

Then it suddenly strikes me that the American diversity may be a bit superficial. The core values are dished out on an even scale. The American war machine has made people believe in an eternal war. An eternal war for peace, that is. So it's easy to sit back and shrug it off. Unless you're in the country where the bombs drop.

"It's hard to see the truth when it's the lie that feeds you." Ooops, who said that?

Scary sailing

We're off at dawn. The weather forecast predicts a light breeze offshore. They also mention a 12-14 feet swell from a distant storm. We don't pay attention to it.

It's slow going under the Golden Gate, but at least we got the tide right. We start our three hour watches, and I'm stretching out on my bunk. I fall asleep. There's no swell yet.

The wind dies. I'm half asleep. Nina is getting frustrated; I can hear it by the way she pulls the sheets. Bika is rolling more and more. After a while it's not even possible to stay in the bunk.

The predicted swell is coming in fast. We're still close enough to see buildings on land. We can see huge white breakers that slam up at Ocean Beach, but what's more serious is the towering swell at the San Francisco Bar. It breaks here too. It's unbelievable; we're ghosting along in a light breeze, with the gennaker, and the sea is breaking.

We have done a terrible mistake. This kind of swell will break in shallow water, and the scary part is that we have no idea how bad it will be. Try measuring the wave height in a small boat. It's impossible. There's only one thing to do: get out into deeper water. So we ghost along, straight out against the towering seas. My mouth is dry. This is some of the scariest sailing we've ever encountered. In the bottom of every wave we're wondering if we ever get to climb the next hill. But Bika do. And eventually we reach safety in deeper sea.

Goodbye, hello, goodbye

We're about to leave San Francisco. Walking the streets, waiting for wind. It seems strange to wait for wind in a windy place like San Francisco Bay, but offshore there's none.

Then one morning we're off from the anchorage in Aquatic Park. It's 6 am and it takes forever to tack the short distance to the bridge. And when getting closer we're getting more and more to a stand- still.

We realize that one of us has read the tide table wrong. Bika starts to move backwards. We turn around to Aquatic Park and there isn't much more to say about it. Nina is giving me the look. But I'm not so sure. Besides, I'm bad with numbers.

Golden Gate

I'm back at the bridge again. It's early morning, no wind. I can hear fog horns blasting mean and hoarse from several directions.

We're about to leave San Francisco. The weather forecast isn't promising. It will blow in the Bay for sure, at least during the day, but it doesn't seem to be much wind offshore.

So we get restless, although we're pretending not to be. It's the waiting game. Some cruisers wait for calm weather, other cruisers wait for wind.

We could easily have settled down in San Francisco. I think we actually said something like that the day before. But it's time to move on. Once the decision is made the Golden Gate becomes a prison gate.

Stillness

Most people send out signals of stress, tiredness and even aggression; their whole being says "leave me alone." But some people radiate stillness. They tap into something bigger than them- selves. Their faces are introvert but at the same time open to everyone and everything.

Stillness is a quality that's pretty easy to spot in a crowd. People with stillness will stand out right away. There's something holy about them.

Chinatown

The Chinatown in San Francisco is the largest Chinese community outside Asia, according to Wikipedia. This city-within-a-city was established in the 1840s. Chinatown is now a major tourist attraction, but somehow it doesn't seem to rub off on the locals. Or maybe it does.

Chinatown is like a cultural labyrinth-within-a-labyrinth, and it's downright impossible to understand anything as a tourist. However, life among the numerous shop attendants seems a bit harder than San Francisco at large.

Of course, Chinatown has a history of gang violence and shoot-outs. It also has the meat on display (which never fails to surprise me in poor countries, as if we Westerners were all vegetarians).




I've been intimidated by shop attendants for years. It's their passive-aggressive undertow of not getting a sale that somehow gets me, since I never really buy anything.

But I'm fascinated by the vacant look in some shop attendant's eyes, when they're unaware of customers watching.

I started this project of taking pictures of bored shop attendants in Chinatown, but soon had to abort the idea. I felt bad about it, for several reasons. Mainly because they were so service-minded that just a hint of a customer was enough to wake them up from the trance. I'll have to pursue this theme somewhere else.

Red wine drowning

Feeling blue and alone I opened a bottle of red. Nina was in Boston. I read for a while, but lost my concentration somewhat and started to listen in on the radio.

I was invited to a dock party, and being at anchor I could keep an eye on people gathering on the dock. I felt uneasy and slightly nervous at the prospect of meeting lots of strangers.

It was getting dark. I could hardly see the figures ashore. If I was ever to join the party then this was the time. Besides, I was out of wine.

San Francisco had a rather cold spring in 2010, and I dressed up in a huge woolly sweater. Then I slid carefully down in our little inflatable dinghy. I rowed across the channel with my eyes on Bika.

What happened was that I rowed towards the dock and grabbed enthusiastically for a mooring that suddenly passed above me. Being slightly drunk I flipped the dinghy. Cold water rushed in. I soon realized that I was too heavy to drag myself up at the dock.

I was treading water behind an enormous motor yacht, with one hand on the slippery dinghy. But I couldn't see anyone. Being unable to get any help was a mixed blessing. At least I was spared the embarressment.

This is how I'll drown, I thought. Trivial and stupid. It even seemed vaguely funny.

But the water was damn cold and I needed to do something. I managed to ease slowly up at the dinghy's bottom, letting water pass from the heavy clothing. Then I could reach the dock. I overturned the dinghy and suddenly felt I could get away with this.

Rowing back to Bika I could see the party in the warm yellow light, moving around in the luxurious motor yacht, drinks in hand.

Nina once mentioned I'm writing a bit too much about alcohol. Unsure of the meaning I fenced it off. Later I've come to the conclusion that writing is exorcism.

A homage to Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag, On Photograpy: "Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture. This gives shape to experience: stop, take a photograph, and move on. The method especially appeals to people handicapped by ruthless work ethic - Germans, Japanese, and Americans."

And Norwegians too, I suppose. But don't let the quotation fool you; she wasn't as negative as she sounds.

Sontag continues: "Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to have fun."

I had no idea

After two shots of rum I grabbed my camera and rowed ashore. It might have seemed like I had no idea how to enjoy myself.

But people in California were irresistibly photogenic. Besides, they had fast-paced lives and had to be freeze-framed to be fully understood.

People

I think it's strange the way we all see 'people'. And the way we change our opinions about 'them'. Of course, it's a question whether we connect or not. But how do we connect, and why aren't we always connected?

I guess it only takes one stranger to turn us around, in one way or another; a stranger that's held responsible for a sea of strangers.

There's a mystical quality in this. Imagine walking in a crowd that fill you with stress and disgust, versus walking among strangers you love and respect.

But then again, it might be that Charles M. Schulz was right on: "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand."

Alcatraz

We never did take a tour to Alcatraz. I guess we've sort of been there already. Through fiction, that is.


We sailed past the prison Sing Sing three years ago, in a nice breeze. And this summer we've passed San Quentin several times. I don't know the full meaning of this, but it somehow feels significant.

Is it fair to say that sailing around the world is a direct opposite to spending years in jail? Maybe, but there's also something in common; in our kind of pocket-cruising we're living most of our time with less space than in a cell.

But the argument is halting. We're moving. We're moving in the extreme. And the whole point of doing time is to stay put; the inmates are only moving through time.


I read Edward Bunkers 'Education of a Felon' some years ago. This is the only biography I've finished. I kept visualizing Alcatraz while reading, although Edward Bunker did most of his time in San Quentin, further down the bay, as the youngest inmate ever. Later he wrote several books, and appeared in numerous movies, such as Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.

What does all this mean? Nothing, I guess. But I kept taking pictures of Alcatraz when we left some days ago. I suddenly felt overwhelmed by this place.

The letting go

Offshore cruising is one of the few situations where the importance of letting go become crucial. If you can't let go - you're getting nowhere.

I was thinking about this when I stood on the bluff close to Golden Gate, and wondered why I kept looking towards the next bluff; the distant trees, the drifting fog.


This is all mental. We've met several cruisers, mostly elderly cruisers, who have stayed too long in a port. I guess they fell in love with a place, but it often goes together with a gathering of horror.

In most situations we can't let go at all; we cling to hopes and memories. We know the world is uncertain and that everything is in flux, but we still build our lives around these mental fixtures.

But the ability to let go is important. We have to let go of rude remarks, lousy drivers, or people we just find irritating, for whatever reason.

We have to let go of the past: ex-lovers, former spouses, or a really unfair treatment at work. We have to let go of fear: fear of getting cancer, a sudden heart attack, the fear of dying in our sleep, of crashing in cars or airplanes.

Offshore cruising take this to the very core: you start by the dock, and let go of the lines. Later on you let go of the coastline. Then you let go of your country.

A shot of Misery

I'm standing on the beach in Aquatic Park. I'm waiting for Nina to see me, to row over. I keep looking towards our boat at anchor. My mood is on an ebb. I've been on a long walk with the camera, I'm cold and tired.

I'm stirring at the boat, the grim breakwater. I'm stirring out at the wet fog, feeling low and mean. There's someone in my head who feels like having a serious shot of rum.



I'm thinking this is the downside of cruising. I'm thinking most people are indoors by now, or in their cars, with the heater on.

But then one of the Aquatic Park swimmers pass by, and I can feel my mood change for the better. These swimmers defy wind and fog.

I know that living close to the elements is a teaching in change. There's nothing personal in it, and there's no one really who deserves a drink for being miserable.

City of steel and fog

I've always found it kind of strange that cities, and even whole countries, can be reduced to simple psychological terms. As if we're talking about a single human being.

Say, a person could be suffering from paranoia, a delusion which often comes with hubris, and I sometimes find this a perfect match for a certain superpower, namely USA.

But San Francisco will not be pinned down as easily. It has a beaming smile for the tourist, but this will start to weaver if anybody are in for a prolonged stay. In fact, San Francisco seems have some serious mood swings. There's a distinct gloomy side. And this could very well be the reason for why I find the town so interesting.


I left Nina on Market Street. We had a transfer ticket, but I wanted to walk. I had been waiting for the town to change.

It was late in the evening. Fog rolled in and obscured the sun, the tall buildings. Fog drifted like smoke through the structures. The last bit of sun set a facade of glass and steel on fire.




Architecture may be the language of economical and political power, but buildings often grow into something unforeseen. I was wondering about this as I walked. How could downtown San Francisco be so powerful and yet so transient?





Clerks and executives crowded the sidewalks. Cars where backed up in Sutter Street. But I kept looking up at those tall buildings. The upper floors seemed peculiarly lofty. Like dreams. Like something that's not really there. I had never seen steel and concrete like this before.

I often have this vague feeling while dreaming; like a neutral surrounding that's about to change for the worse.




It was getting darker. People had cleared the street as I walked up Mason. A cold, moist wind was blowing.


I passed a corner shop with three Chinese men standing in the doorway, smoking. They seemed somewhat depressed. Most windows where dark and empty.

The lights were on in a yellow kitchen. I spotted a little boy drumming with chopsticks. It was like a racket in total silence.

And on the next block, in a bleak and desolated window on third floor, was it an old, Chinese woman grinning? Did she really hunch closer to the window frame? Was she grinning down at me?