Tag: bag pipes

(And so am I)

My little boat project has been completed with rave reviews and even a kudu from the marine surveyor. Fellow yacht tinkers have expressed their approval which has left me very chuffed indeed. It has been a very expensive ordeal for the owner but he now has a head-turner that will take him everywhere he wants to go. She sails as well as she looks. ‘Avanti’ is a 1966 Frisco Flyer Mk III, built by Cheoy Lee (Hull1691) and designed by Tord Sundén, creator of the famous Folkboat. Essentially this Cheoy Lee is a Folkboat with standing headroom and a very cleverly designed interior. She sails like a dream and with all her teak she has very traditional feel. She may be tiny but she’ll never be a sandwich at anyone’s banquet.

Now another Cheoy Lee has arrived at the dock. Oddly, just like ‘Avanti’ I installed an engine in her while I worked in the shipyard. Here we go again! A new owner has brought her back to Silva Bay and yep! He wants me to do a bunch of work on her. I don’t want to see another Cheoy Lee at the moment, but a monkey on my shoulder is whispering something about looking a gift horse in the mouth. We’ll see.

And where do I want to go from here? I’ve been here on Gabriola Island for nearly four years. I came for a job offer and what I thought would be a great opportunity. I truly believed it was where the gods were leading me and that soon enough it would

make sense. It’s all turned sour; well at least I certainly have. I love the beauty of this place and the wonderful friends I’ve made. There are also a few folks here at the end of the road at the end of the island who

make living here a misery. Without any grand prospects ahead it maybe time to move on. My personal life is under deep duress and I’m becoming a bit over-reactive to foolishness and rudeness. Of course when your karma is dented it seems some people have an acute predatory sense. I’m sure that somehow signals are unconsciously sent and received. Suddenly “Punching Bag” seems to be tattooed on your head. If one’s personal spiritual health is good, the normal bumps of life go virtually unnoticed. When you’re bruised, every touch and poke is painful and it is hard not to react. It can be a spiral or a growing experience and some lessons seem to need to be relearned.

Every morning now comes with a heavy dew and the rainstorms are becoming more frequent. Soon they will be a daily or week-long fact. Boat owners are busy finding and repairing the leaks which have developed through the long, hot summer. I find myself marking the passing rush of time by the ‘Best by’ dates on the milk cartons I buy. We’re into October dates already, November soon. It was September 1^st a blink ago. The evenings are cool and dark and damp. The tree frogs are beginning to sing. Mist and fog are common now and there is wood smoke in the evening air. Soon the clocks will go back to “Daylight Savings” (Which, I think, is yet another piece of stupidity we accept.) It is time think south.

My buddy Jimmy Poirier has arrived home from his great South Pacific marathon on his Corbin 39 cutter ‘Noroue’. He’s deeply tanned, grinning broadly and minus a lot of weight.

He looks great despite not having cut his remaining hair(s) for the whole adventure. It is an inspiring personal achievement and I’m happy that he’s happy. I don’t know how many miles he’s travelled in less than a year. I’m much more of a flower-sniffer but I’m looking forward to sharing a jar or two with him and hearing the whole story. I’m also delighted that he repeatedly offers praises for Donna, the steadfast wife who has been his base support all the way. This is yet another story about how there’s a good woman behind every successful man.

My friends Tony and Connie are about to finish a wonderful adventure in France and go back to their boat ‘Sage’ where it is dry-stored in Phuket. Check out their blog ‘Sage on Sage’ which can be accessed through the sidebar of this blog. The photography is wonderful.

I am left feeling quite frustrated that I’m not making any apparent progress toward my own goals. It is now the beginning of October and old ‘Seafire’ should be on the move down to Mexico. After the devastation of Hurricane Odile a few weeks ago I’m sure I can find gainful endeavours there.

I know that dreams are realized when things look bleakest and one refuses to quit. That is often when a glimmer of new possibility begins to glow. But like the old buzzard said, “Patience my ass, I want to kill something!” I’ve got another month’s work here on Gabriola so I must soon make some important decisions. Ordeal or adventure, it is a matter of choice in how we deal with life. The hardest part of a voyage is untying the knots in the dock lines.

Now here I am at 04:00 on the final day of September. I’ve just returned from an exploration under the pilings on the jetty. A few weeks ago I lost a treasured silver pendant through the cracks of the deck above. It is the lowest tide of the month this hour today and so there I was beneath the slimy, dripping pilings, slithering over the barnacles with a flashlight and one gumboot full of seawater. I knew it was a hopeless quest but I had to go look. I’m always fascinated at the night life in the shallows and so it was not a wasted venture. The shrimp with their fluorescent red eyes, big Dungeness crabs, little fish in an inch of water and other wriggling creatures were all out in the middle of the night. Jack has gone back to bed, disgusted I suspect, with my nocturnal interlude. “Nutter human!” After a couple more hours of sleep, Jack the dog is on deck enjoying the sunrise in a clear blue sky. The DeHavilland beaver woke us as usual as its engine clattered to life for the first scheduled flight of the day. Not many people have a float plane for an alarm clock. There is a load of chores to address on this beautiful morning, life goes on.

It has been few weeks since the last blog. There’s not a lot to talk about, it has been mostly head-down drudgery. Enough said, ‘Avanti’ is finished. There was a hangar-tour at the Victoria Airport which stirred this once upon a time helicopter mechanic into nostalgia and even regret for leaving that industry. The absolute hi-light of the month was a concert in Nanaimo. Carlos Nunez is a Spanish piper from Galicia. If you are interested in Celtic culture you may know that it’s influence was spread from Spain and Portugal north to Brittany and as far east as the outer islands of Ireland and Scotland. We tend to think of Bagpipes as being unique to Scotland but they are in fact a fairly new arrival there of only a thousand years or so. Bagpipes, of varying design and sound were once common across Europe. In many areas the instrument is enjoying a renaissance even in places like Sweden and Syria and India.

If you don’t appreciate the sound of tortured cats (As many people describe traditional Scottish piping) you may be blown away, (Yes, that’s a pun) to learn how piping, including flutes, whistles and other wind instruments have evolved into contemporary music genres including rock and jazz. Carlos Nunez, Susana Seivane, Cristina Pato as well as many others are all on Youtube and well worth checking out if you have eclectic musical tastes. For humour check out our own Johnny Bagpipes from Vancouver Island who can play ‘Thunderstruck’ as well as AC/DC. There’s also a dude who calls himself the ‘Bad Piper’ who actually has flame throwers built into his pipes! And while we’re in the mood for exploration let’s go the extra inch and explore some Portuguese Fado music. Names like Mariza, Madredeus and Cristina Branco will lead to some rich, mesmerizing entertainment. It’s musical talent at its basic best. I wandered on to discover Scottish tribal drumming and then a guitarist named Tom Ward. Check out his rendition of Asturia. Which leads to an interesting question: Why dos so much of the music we listen to sound the same? Dull, dull, dull.

Funny how a blog about sailing and boats can include a mini-essay about random musical interest. It’s especially odd coming from an old salt like me who couldn’t carry a tune on a barge. “You are the wind beneath my kilt, You could make a bloody thistle wilt…” that’s where I take the gong. Once a sailor, always a sailor! Gentlemen need not apply.

I thought that in closing I’d research a clever wee quote about bagpipes. Little did I know!

I have found fistfuls! I’ve refined them to four.

– “Bagpipes– the secret behind crop circles.”

– From the journal of Alvisa da Cadamosto, a Venetian explorer in Portuguese service in Senegal in1455 “The sound of one of our country pipes, which I had played by one of my sailors, also caused wonderment. Seeing that it was decked out with trappings and ribbons at the head, they concluded that it was a living animal that sang thus in different voices, and were much pleased by it. Perceiving that they were misled, I told them it was an instrument and placed it deflated in their hands. Whereupon, recognizing that it was made by hand, they said it was a divine instrument, made by god with his own hands, for it sounded so sweetly and in so many different voices. They said they had never heard anything sweeter.”

– “At a funeral I played, the priest pointed at me during the eulogy and said, “so long as there are bagpipers, there will be free people.”

– “See you, Jimmy…..you’d best throttle that shite down now..”

Auch aye!