Cambridge: muscles and money
Cambridge: muscles and money
When I was sailing CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE I soon learned that as soon as I began a passage I began deteriorating. Not just my skin, which was exposed to sun and salt water, but my body. Little strength was require to sail the little boat; it was almost impossible to stand; there was no place to walk; and my diet was limited. So I ended each passage weaker than when I began it, and had repeatedly to build myself back up again.
I am beginning to think that this may be true of all passages, though not to so great an extent. Sailing THE HAWKE OF TUONELA I seldom have to exert myself more than a few minutes a day. There are exceptions, particularly in storms or when something breaks; and I do use my upper body winching in sails; but mostly it is a sedentary life.
All this came vividly to mind when I resumed my exercise routine. For new readers this includes stretching, 150 push-ups and crunches in sets of 70-40-40, 100 side leg raises each leg, and 250 knee bends in sets of 60-40-150. When ashore I try to do this three times a week; and in normal years when I do not sail as much as I have since leaving New Zealand in April 2008, I do the routine at least one hundred times. Last year I managed only seventy; and so far this year only twelve, three of them in the last week.
My weight hasn’t changed. I look the same. But the pain eloquently proved that I have weakened.
I did manage to get through the entire routine the first time I tried, though with rather poor form.
Each subsequent time has become easier. After a while exercising doesn‘t hurt at all.
I expect I’ll get to that point just about the time I fly back to the boat.
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If you have read the entries about my time in Panama, you know that because I did not lie to the Canal Authority admeasurer that THE HAWKE OF TUONELA can do eight knots under power, I had to post a bond of almost $1600, twice the usual bond, with extra charges for a delay fee, additional launch service for the advisors, and a mooring fee.
You are required to pay the transit fee of $609 in cash. The bond is put on a credit card.
During the transit, I caused no delays and considered challenging the extra charges. However I have just received in the mail my receipt from the Panama Canal Authority for $609, and they have never run the credit card charge form I signed. I may be wrong, but I believe that they never will.
Not long before I sailed from Opua last year I had the rigger there replace all my standing rigging, which cost about $2000. (All prices are in U.S. dollars.)
When in Durban a strand was found broken on one diagonal shroud, I paid the rigger there $800 to replace all four upper and lower diagonal shrouds. THE HAWKE OF TUONELA has a two-spreader ring.
When the starboard lower diagonal broke in the Atlantic Ocean, I paid the rigger in Antigua $400 to replace it.
When the port lower diagonal broke in the Pacific, I directed the rigger in Raiatea to replace it and the two upper diagonals. Although there was no sign that anything was wrong with the uppers, I no longer trust the work done in Durban. I have just learned that the charge will be $1000. This being French Polynesia, where everything is extremely expensive, I expected it would be more.
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The photograph is of trade wind clouds astern at sunset somewhere in the Pacific.
Sunday, July 19, 2009