Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Now all I had to do was put a handful of these dried items in a pressure cooker with water
and a cup of rice and, within twenty minutes, we had a great tasting stew. I had become a
seaweed junkie and crushed up dried seaweed was sprinkled into all the soups and stews I
made, much to Gavin's annoyance. I believe that seaweed is very good for one's health, as
it is rich in phosphor which is absent in almost all other foods. And we were healthy, that
was for sure!
Gavin had changed somewhat since our last trip together. He had come of age, as far as
sailing was concerned. In fact, he had sailed from Hawaii all the way down to Australia via
several South Pacific islands. He was not the wide-eyed twin crew he had been before. I
welcomed the extra confidence in him, to a point. I did not need all of his challenges, and
we had quite a few tiffs. He constantly reminded me of his trip on old Tom's forty-footer,
as well as the high esteem in which he had been regarded by the old boy and his curvy,
young mistress. It seemed that on a number of occasions he resented my being the skipper
over the two of us. I knew of no other way of putting to sea, other than having only one in
command; besides, it was my boat, and I was not about to relinquish control. I made plenty
of concessions, more so than if he had just been a good friend, which of course he was and
then some. I imagine that if we had not been twins, rather, just siblings with a year or more
difference between us, things may have been more natural. I was ten minutes older than he,
but of course he never took that into account. No respect whatsoever for his elders!
My one real advantage over him was my ability to figure out celestial navigation. I hasten
to add that I had agonized over acquiring this knowledge myself. I believe that a long bout
of flu had been instrumental for allowing me the time to learn the method. I had been given
a wonderful little book, written by Mary Blewette, called Celestial Navigation. I studied
each line of that book and finally, one day, the penny dropped, and it became clear to me
what all the fuss was about.
Unfortunately, Gavin had attended no lectures and certainly didn't read any books on this
subject. No matter how many times I tried to show him, some little detail in the formula
always managed to trip him up, and his anger mounted silently. He was now quick to lose
his temper, and I had to constantly remind him of the unpleasantness of these outbursts. I,
in turn, retreated within myself and tried hard not to antagonize him. I admitted freely that I
was a jerk at times, but certainly I couldn't have been one all the time. Surely not? Really?
No!
It wasn't always like this. We had some really fun times and always the fishing line
was out trolling through the constantly changing purple water. The tea-towel fishing trick
was played ad nauseum but continued to get laughs from both of us. We had been aver-
aging around one hundred and twenty miles a day, but now as we neared the equator, the
wind dropped off, and there were days when we were completely becalmed. I recall cloud
