"...and when I am far away on the briney ocean tossed..."
I remember learning this song in elementary school and thinking that the "tossed" was just a fanciful word in a song. Surely boats at sea were not "tossed". Now I know it as an apt description of movement on the ocean.
Our boat is 33 feet long, with a dinghy hanging off the back that adds another couple of feet. It weighs 11,000 lbs when it's empty and we have it loaded down with water, food, fuel, books, clothes. Everything we need for 9 months.
On the lift in the boat yard, or when we are squeezing into our dock space at the marina, it seems pretty big. But on the ocean - it can be "tossed" by the swell.
On a sailboat, everything moves. In big wind, the decks, the floor of the cockpit, the seats, the dishes in the galley, all move.
Right now we are living in a world which is governed by the body of water our boat is in and the air that moves around us. Sometimes the sea is like a huge puddle of mercury. Smooth and glassy all around. Other times it is dimpled like a golf ball or tossed like the inside of a washing machine. And other times, the swell rises like elephants beside us. Often, all in the same day. We are living in a fluid world.
On this trip we have watched the coastline of rural Nova Scotia slide by. It is dotted with small communities, a nod to the livelihood that the sea once provided. After all, only about 30% of the land in the province is suitable for farming. So the sea was the source of wealth and the prime means of transportation.
But the sea has a long history of giving, and taking away. Every port that we have visited has some sort of memorial to folks lost at sea. We try to read at least a few of the names we see there. However I do admit to laughing with a bit of dark humor when we sail by "Little Hope Shoal", followed by "Lesser Hope Rock" and finally "Wreck Point".
We are thankful and reliant on the electronic charts, paper charts and real-time bouys which chart our path. Those charts were created by the unfortunate misadventures of our ancestors. If I get to choose - I'll stay away from "Devastation shoal" and hang out at "Aunt Edies Ledge". She sounds friendlier.
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