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November 1, 1998
San Francisco to Hawaii, Second Attempt. Update #41
41. Date: Sun, 1 Nov 98 04:57:25 GMT
Latitude: 25 degrees 33.825 minutes North
Longitude: 140 degrees 29.509 minutes West
Wind NE, Force 3-4
Heading 235 degrees (M)
Business as usual today, although we decided to change our heading slightly more south to avoid a last minute struggle to Hilo. It's a bit like what I imagine landing an airplane must be like -lining up for the final flight path for as smooth a touch down as possible. Right now our nose is a little high.
I am on the second day of antibiotics for an infected wisdom tooth -probably from one of the many nuts in the trail-mix we munch between meals. Seems to be stabilizing OK. Although I can't chew my M&M's and hence in very bad mood! 150 years ago, I'd probably be dead before too long on a long ocean passage like this - especially if infection reached the blood. Thank God for western medicine; small white pills come into their own out here!
To make the most of optimum weather conditions -in case they don't last- we've fine-tuned our 'ecosystem' on Moksha to be more regimented and time sensitive -a far cry from the free-form way we started the voyage. In order to keep our two jockeys in question as refreshed and able as possible for each of their 12 hours in the saddle each day, certain essential needs -in the form of water-making, food, sleep, navigation and communications -have to be fulfilled in the remaining 12 hours. My day today eg started at 9am with a 3 hour pedal stint til 12. I then had 3 hours 'off'; One hour to make water, 1/2 hour of email communications with the outside world and latitude and longitude check, 1/2 hour cooking and eating, one hour getting the head down in the rat hole. From 3-7.30 I do the second daylight pedal stint, during which I write this report using a special brace to hold the computer in front of me while pedaling (Steve sleeps at this time). From 8-9 I make a meal for both of us, then sleep 9-3am, coming on from graveyard shift 3-9am. Then while process starts over for another day!
This little ecosystem, although very efficient in terms of making miles good, is also very fragile like any other ecosystem on our planet to unexpected outside interferences. Eg two days ago I spent an hour fixing the power cable to the computer that suddenly failed. Because of the tightness of schedule I had to borrow an hour from somewhere else in the day. I ended up taking the hour from water-making, as I could 'borrow' a 1/2 gallon from out of our emergency bags and replace it the next day. However, I still haven't had time to repay the debt -so we are still short on ballast on the starboard side. Everything has a domino effect on something else: like more complex ecosystems in the world, everything is inter-connected and inter-dependent, including ourselves as humans. Both Steve and I are looking forward to maybe using the insights of living within this scaled-down ecosystem on Moksha -in which we are continually faced with the effects of our actions- to be more aware of how harmoniously (or not!) we fit into larger, more sophisticated ecosystem on land and thereby gain more control over our lives and perform better in everything we do.
Another interesting by-product of living in a 'dolls-house' for two months is how we do things. Although the above described routine sounds awfully rote and dull, we are becoming increasingly aware of how well we are making water, kneading the bread mix, pedaling during our shifts etc. The ocean -by cutting out most external distractions- has forced us into a kind of involved extended meditation in which we are spending more and more time with our attention turned inwards (as you might have deduced from recent reports). We are starting to find immense fulfilment from doing one thing at a time to the best of our ability, by employing concentration and focus, however seemingly dull and boring it may at first appear. And although our time is cut up into 3 or 6 hourly chunks, it doesn't seem that way. In fact the added structure seems to help; when immersed in a seamless union with a particular task in which you, the subject, and the objective world fuse into one, the man-made increments of hours, minutes and seconds cease to hold value; an hour can pass in what seems like a flash. Again it would be great to be able to translate this emphasis on the state of mind about external circumstances into our lives on land rather than focusing on the external circumstances themselves. But as we found out after crossing the Atlantic, its so hard when surrounded by the mayhem and distractions of the twentieth century to retain such clarity of vision for long. But perhaps that will be the next goal, once we finish this one!
Lewis & Smith,
The Moksha crew
Posted on November 1, 1998 6:36 PM