Bizarre Dream - Life Update to Come

I can tell you what I know.

I know that there was a horrible storm. The dream took place on a brig that was sailing on a vengeful ocean. The swells were the largest any of us had ever seen, some easily the size of our ship -- if not bigger. But that was all apparent to the eye, what I knew, in the way that you innately know things in dreams, is that the sea was angry.

I could feel her down to my very bones, and indeed her rueful emotion permeated through the entire crew; it cut into our souls. Every face was a solemn ghostly white. Our bodies were exhausted and sopping from our feeble attempts to master Her will. She sent the waves pounding against the hull a fitful desperation. To me, the feeling I got from her was that of a scorned lover, and at the same time, that of someone who was stuck in a difficult position. She lashed out in blind pain-filled passion, but it also felt as if she was running from some thing, and the best reprieve was by taking the "fight" reaction against our ship.

My position on the ship was a little less clear. I can tell you that I was far from a Captain, and definitely not an officer. But men thought well of me, and would follow me if I asked. There was also that inherent dream-knowledge which told me I had much more skill than that of the lowly sailor. Were I to guess my position, I'd say I was a Boatswain.

If I were a believer in auras, I would say that there were two being felt. The ocean's was powerful and overwhelming. It was the green-blue flame like Saint Elmo's Fire. It lashed out, it flooded over the decks, over the crew, and dampened our already ebbing flame. Our aura was white, pure white but fading. It was not muddled by any other colour because in that situation, there was nothing to cling to besides memories of good times and blind hope. That hope was rapidly being smothered by the greatness of the sea.

The other thing that was striking was the apparitions on the waves. It seemed as if wolves were rising from the sea and their heads formed the crests of the waves. They would rise and howl then dive back into the ocean. There were whole packs of them, off in the distance, we could see them breach then dive on every wave's crest. The highly superstitious sailors regarded it as the worst of omens, and to be honest, I did as well.

Then it happened. A mammoth wave, one that epics are derived from, came from the darkness off our starboard beam. It was not seen, for all the hands were looking at the wolves off to port. With a deafening crash it plowed into us. Our ship trembled and shuddered. Then my legs wavered under me as the wave lifted our ship with astounding rapidity, the force pulling my body down towards the deck. At the wave's peak we hovered for a moment, then came soaring down. That prior weight turned into weightlessness as we fell into the trough. There the ship was thrown over until her spars were in the water and the masts nearly parallel with the sea. I ran to the foremist shrouds and climbed to the tops'ls (presumably to bring them in so the ship had a chance of righting herself). I looked aft and saw two topmen on the mainmist doing the same. The ship felt heavy and bogged down, as if some invisible hand was holding her, but even that hand was straining to pull her under. Then there was a shift, we could feel the ship under us change and come alive. With the sails in, she began her roll back! I knew what was coming up in the rigging, I knew the momentum would try and throw me, so I held on tight and wrapped my arms in the lines closest to me.

Then in a flash the mast swung back upright, the force was dizzying, but all the while my eyes stayed open, staring aft. It was to my horror that I saw the topmen on the mainmist were less fortunate and with a terrible force they were flung from their lofty duty. I saw the splashes in the bulk of a nearby wave, I pointed to them with my both my arms, while wrapped around the foremist. I felt that if I could just keep pointing, if I could keep sight of them, that they would be ok. The deckhands below saw me pointing, and starting pointing themselves, but the next wave came and swept the men away.

Back down on deck, the crew was clearly broken. Those topment must have been favourites on the ship. The officers just stood on the afterdeck looking dully into the roaring sea. The din and noise of the storm seemed to die away and a silence took the crew. I left them to sulk, and grabbed the wheel. There was safety in sight, a bunch of island nearby would harbour us from the wind, and slowly we began to make our way to them.

Out momentum, when we entered the islands, decreased substantially. There was still quite a current tearing through the islands, and it swept our ship around an island and into a very protected cove. That was miraculous.

These are things I've done, and I want to write more about them but I don't have the time! Hopefully later!

Z

Walking the spars
Towing Adventuress in Ayashe
Finishing my rig
Aubrey as PC
Thatcher
Talisail/comments at the end
boyscouts
Sailing through Wasp Passage
Intergenerational

Ship Stuff!

Hello all!

I'm alive. I wish disparately that I could write one of my epic blogs as it's been ages since the last one and SO many cool things have happened. However, I'm in the Friday Harbor library and they have a time limit on their computers!! I'm already 5 minutes over mine so any minute now I'm going to get the boot!

This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a list of things that stick out in my mind and hopefully that'll suffice.

1. Watching the Tacoma fireworks from atop the main mast
2. Pranking other tall ships at the Tacoma Festival
3. Building connections with other tall ships, their crew, and ASTA personnel
4. Hugging a maple leaf mascot in Victoria BC
5. Bonding with our crew
6. Making the lashings for the mainsail when we had to put a reef in
7. Being the Bosun while our bosun was on leave (I bought a spike!)
8. Sailing at 10 knots across the Straights of Juan de Fuca in 30 knot winds!
9. Getting ill in rough seas from Port Townsend to Friday Harbor
10. Stitching the main sail

There are so many more and maybe I'll be able to get on later! I miss you all dearly.

Z

Sailing Again!

Dearest Family & Friends --

I'll keep this brief. The time has come again for me to go on a sailing adventure! As of Sunday the 15th of June I'll be aboard the historic tall ship "Adventuress." We'll visit may places during my 6 week stay aboard, including: Bellingham, Port Townsend, Tacoma, Friday Harbor, Victoria BC, and various anchorages between. You can go to the Adventuress' web-page to find our schedule and if you happen to be in any of those places when I am, give me a call! I'd love to meet up with you.

I know it's only 6 weeks, but I want you all to know I care for you immensely and I'm so happy to know you. Being gone for any period of time is hard, especially when the people you're leaving are so amazing. After August 1st I'll be back on land and living in Seattle! So give me a call or shoot me an email and lets get together!

Oh, and if for some reason you wish to send me snail mail or a postcard, send it to the following:

Zachary Simonson-Bond
c/o Sound Experience
PO Box 1390
Port Townsend, WA 98368

I love you all,
Cheers,
Z

The end is in sight.

I literally have a final next Friday. To me, that signifies the beginning of the end, and it's a mere 9 days away. This is all that's left to do:

My COM video is due tomorrow. We're polishing it up tonight.
My SOC paper is due next Tuesday. I need to get on that. I think I'll make a phone-call regarding my paper this Thursday.
Then my Spanish final is next Friday, the 7th. Followed closely by my COM final on Monday the 9th, and finishing with my SOC final on the 11th.
Then I'm on the Adventuress on the 15th (Training is the 16th but they want us there the night before)

Somewhere in there I have to get a food handlers and CPR/First Aid training for the Good Ship. My schedule and all the schedules I've found don't match up so well. But it looks like I'll be taking my CPR/First Aid from the Red Cross on the 14th of June, 9am- 4pm. As for the Food Handlers. I think I'll take it either on Monday the 2nd at 8:30 in Downtown, or I'll do the Sand Point one at 9:30 on Wednesday the 4th of June.

Other then that, I've already started preparing for the Adventuress. I've made a lanyard for my spike that Jesse made for me, as well as a new Turks Head for my wrist. It's still got a long tail on it because I need to lash the two ends together, but obviously I'm unable to do so myself. So I can leave the tail wrapped around my wrist until I get on the ship in 3 weeks, or I can try and have someone burn the ends for me... I don't really like either proposition. I could always make another one if this one goes bust.

As for my pleasure reading, I've been engulfed by 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. It's getting me all fired up about my summer adventure! Here's a line I just read and it's fantastic:

"The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. It's breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the 'Living Infinite'" - Cpt. Nemo

My new workout plan is great, except I was meant to work out yesterday but didn't because of Memorial Day (they Gym closed early). So I'm about to do it in about a half hour. Then another one tomorrow morning at 10. The thing is, you're meant to leave a day between workouts so that may or may not be the best idea. Something needs to change though. I've lost no weight since being back and I've been eating pretty terribly. I have to stop that. I have three weeks until the Adventuress and I want to lose 10 pounds (I'm about 208 today). I think it's possible if I can just eat better. 195 is the goal at the present. 185 would put me in the "Normal weight" BMI range. Right now i'm in the overweight range. Boo.

Leaving that depressing subject behind, I've started guitar lessons with Rosy! It's fun and the lady teaching is really nice. Right now I'm practicing my pentatonic scales (for solos and bluesy stuff) and familiarizing myself with the fretboard; moving up and down it, knowing chords and notes etc.

I think that's it for today. More later!
Z

Highlights of the Week

Zach's Top Five Favourite Moments of the Week
5. Getting asked out on a date
4. Cold-reading the play "The History Boys" with my new friends
3. Slack-lining, studying, and tanning in the Quad
2. Passing a man dressed as "Bleaker" from the movie Juno, then him giving me orange tic-tacs.
1. Meeting the President of the University of Washington Mark Emmert and having a great conversation with him!

I might live in France

I just keep hearing great things about France.

For some bizarre reason, the powers that be have decided that we shouldn't like the French. They're prudish, uppity, elitist, blah blah blah. Well, every country has those people, but you can't say generalize the entire French populace as such! I've been there and sure, Paris may be like that a bit, but even the rest of the France believes Paris is basically its own entity. The non-Parisians are from a mold quite their own.

I'm constantly impressed by what they're doing. Their stance on our war for one. Their language for another. They are well educated and on average, very healthy. And their food! My god.

But two things have struck me recently. First, in my Sociology class we've been talking about poverty and welfare programmes. Here's the thing, most western societies have implemented a poverty line and numerous welfare programmes, but some countries have been more successful at curbing poverty than others. France has done a great job of that. The difference between their programmes and ours is that they A) have set the poverty line higher than we have, and B) they have implemented more encompassing programmes; they consider things such as multiple children, debts, etc. Our system merely considers how much you make each year which is only one factor in a slurry that can lead to poverty.

But besides actually spending the money to help out their poor, they also care about health. I believe they have a universal health care system, but that's not what I'm talking about. Recently a bill was passed by France's lower house of Parliament that would make it illegal for anyone, including magazines, advertisers and websites, to "publicly incite" extreme thinness. The French even care about the self image of their people! MY GOD that's phenomenal!! They've long been the experts in fashion, and used the ultra-thin model trend to the full extent, but now they're leading the change for a better body image! This is a great step towards healing our ailing, over exercising, purging men and women from their endless quest for zero fat and flatter abs. Granted, exercise is immensely important, but not everyone can be Keira Knightly.

Thank you God. Or Buddha. Or whoever. Thanks for this gem of humanity in these dark times.