APPROACH TO POHNPEI In the Pacific trade winds a sailor will often talk about the slipping by of time, how two days seem to turn into twenty without any conscious interval. The days are punctuated by blazing skies, feathery pink at sunrise and vividly fiery in the evening. The ship becomes like a metronome which has been attached to a human heart. Sometimes a breaking wave excites this heart: the helmsman’s hands cannot correct the course and the ship sways more violently, straining alternately at the rigging to port and starboard. The crew conform to the rhythms of seconds, watches, days and passages with a huge sense of well -being. Many of my shipmates have vivid dreams of navigating the ship through city streets. Lying on deck at night, watching the stars roll in and out from under the sails, I could not help feeling infinitely small, yet in such good company. The ripples which abandoned the shores of Costa Rica had been built up by the trade winds into magnificent ocean swells, some breaking on the rocky reefs of Hawaiian islands, some continuing with us, crested and bullish. Often in the gentle swaying of the ship offwatch dreams were interrupted, and the helmsman struggled , as one of the waves focused its energies on our hull with a small turret of dilating spray. Twenty-five days changed landmade tiredness to pleasant haziness, through which the beauty and lucidity of the sea became consuming. The first indication that our voyage was ending was a mass of grey cloud in the sky. The forest zephyrs of Pohnpei sent up moisture, spreading out in a gigantic mass of cloud which in turn caiused 300 days of rain per year, making the land fertile in its cycle. I had been up since four, carrying out routine maintenance, thoughtfully, with the spectre of land in my mind. As the sun rose it split the sky, a seam of gold through the cloud, making the island look somehow unreal. It barely distinguished itself from the mountains of silver trade wind clouds which had been the crux of my waking dreams since leaving Hawaii. Drowsily, we all looked at the shadow land, hot cups of coffee melting into our hands, anticipating ends and beginnings. The wind was the same as it ever was, the land had not yet disturbed the sea as we climbed aloft to stow the sails, shaking morning dew from the rigging as we grasped the nightcold wire stays. The sails billowed slightly in their gear as if they were eager to take the ship the last bit of the way into dock. For the first time in 3000 miles they were tied up, reduced to ornaments as the sound of engines began to fill the world. What is important is to remember that it is not the way in which we record our existence, but that we do record it. In the air, and everywhere around, we must remember how the streets ring out for every soul that thought and felt and passed through them in weakness and in strength. ALOFT , OFF NORTH NORWAY Watching the crew up on the yardarms shortening sail caused a little envy inside me. Looking upwards from under the mainmast, I could see that the main royal was yet to be stowed. At 2300 I found myself volunteering to climb. Three crewmembers in addition to myself, and an old man from another watch ascended, stopping to hold on, white -knuckled as a particularly large wave struck the ship. On the royal itself, the wind whistled past at 35 mph as with a beating heart I stepped onto the footrope. I had made it. Now to do the job. My imagination was racing, headlines entering my head like arrows as I became conscious of only wearing a rope around my waist for safety. The best part of working on a yard to furl a sail is the teamwork. Everybody works slowly and steadily with each other, driven by adrenaline and necessity. After a certain point, adrenaline stops pumping through the veins. It is replaced by pure life. Throughout most of the night, the sun was up. the sky was clouded over but for dim shapes of light on the windward side. It was as if God was watching us, and the remote flicker of the sun on the water extended a tiny thread to protect us all. God was to windward, watching from where we all should be. 1900: We are now proceeding up the fjord to arrive at perhaps 2200. The fjord stretches many miles into Norway, like a gulley cut into its very soul. Clouds hang over the mountaintops, providing a ceiling and curtained veil for waterfalls to form trickling valleys into the basin. From the royal at sea I was the most powerful being alive, but now I am aware of being overpowered . Wordsworth wasted his time in Italy. The ancient cities held little for him. I think that he would have found a greater spiritual home in Norway, among the fjords, as Shelley did at Mont Blanc. From Nicholas’ notebook, aged about 19 Every life is a tragedy. Our end is inevitable from the very moment that our characters emerge, and the thrill of the thing is not in the end itself but in the route we take to reaching that end.... The notion of life as a tragedy is not one which should be taken in a negative sense. Far from it. Our lives represent, in the words of Milton, the highest form of Drama. Our deaths do not so much represent the end of our character but the completion of our character. There is nothing more to know about ourselves but that the tragic formula is complete. It is the perfect moment which one may call heaven. The fact of the matter is, the people to whom we refer as lowlifes and consider to be below us, are not excluded from a tragic experience equally great to that of Aristotle or Milton. All life is one, and he who watches another man’s tragedy will gain the equivalent of the highest literary enlightenment. Inequality of expression is not inequality of mind.

APPROACH TO POHNPEI

In the Pacific trade winds a sailor will often talk about the slipping by of time, how two days seem to turn into twenty without any conscious interval. The days are punctuated by blazing skies, feathery pink at sunrise and vividly fiery in the evening. The ship becomes like a metronome which has been attached to a human heart. Sometimes a breaking wave excites this heart: the helmsman’s hands cannot correct the course and the ship sways more violently, straining alternately at the rigging to port and starboard. The crew conform to the rhythms of seconds, watches, days and passages with a huge sense of well -being. Many of my shipmates have vivid dreams of navigating the ship through city streets. Lying on deck at night, watching the stars roll in and out from under the sails, I could not help feeling infinitely small, yet in such good company.

The ripples which abandoned the shores of Costa Rica had been built up by the trade winds into magnificent ocean swells, some breaking on the rocky reefs of Hawaiian islands, some continuing with us, crested and bullish. Often in the gentle swaying of the ship offwatch dreams were interrupted, and the helmsman struggled , as one of the waves focused its energies on our hull with a small turret of dilating spray. Twenty-five days changed landmade tiredness to pleasant haziness, through which the beauty and lucidity of the sea became consuming.

The first indication that our voyage was ending was a mass of grey cloud in the sky. The forest zephyrs of Pohnpei sent up moisture, spreading out in a gigantic mass of cloud which in turn caiused 300 days of rain per year, making the land fertile in its cycle. I had been up since four, carrying out routine maintenance, thoughtfully, with the spectre of land in my mind. As the sun rose it split the sky, a seam of gold through the cloud, making the island look somehow unreal. It barely distinguished itself from the mountains of silver trade wind clouds which had been the crux of my waking dreams since leaving Hawaii. Drowsily, we all looked at the shadow land, hot cups of coffee melting into our hands, anticipating ends and beginnings. The wind was the same as it ever was, the land had not yet disturbed the sea as we climbed aloft to stow the sails, shaking morning dew from the rigging as we grasped the nightcold wire stays. The sails billowed slightly in their gear as if they were eager to take the ship the last bit of the way into dock. For the first time in 3000 miles they were tied up, reduced to ornaments as the sound of engines began to fill the world.

What is important is to remember that it is not the way in which we record our existence, but that we do record it. In the air, and everywhere around, we must remember how the streets ring out for every soul that thought and felt and passed through them in weakness and in strength.

ALOFT , OFF NORTH NORWAY

Watching the crew up on the yardarms shortening sail caused a little envy inside me. Looking upwards from under the mainmast, I could see that the main royal was yet to be stowed. At 2300 I found myself volunteering to climb. Three crewmembers in addition to myself, and an old man from another watch ascended, stopping to hold on, white -knuckled as a particularly large wave struck the ship. On the royal itself, the wind whistled past at 35 mph as with a beating heart I stepped onto the footrope.

I had made it. Now to do the job. My imagination was racing, headlines entering my head like arrows as I became conscious of only wearing a rope around my waist for safety.

The best part of working on a yard to furl a sail is the teamwork. Everybody works slowly and steadily with each other, driven by adrenaline and necessity. After a certain point, adrenaline stops pumping through the veins. It is replaced by pure life.

Throughout most of the night, the sun was up. the sky was clouded over but for dim shapes of light on the windward side. It was as if God was watching us, and the remote flicker of the sun on the water extended a tiny thread to protect us all. God was to windward, watching from where we all should be.

1900: We are now proceeding up the fjord to arrive at perhaps 2200. The fjord stretches many miles into Norway, like a gulley cut into its very soul.

Clouds hang over the mountaintops, providing a ceiling and curtained veil for waterfalls to form trickling valleys into the basin. From the royal at sea I was the most powerful being alive, but now I am aware of being overpowered .

Wordsworth wasted his time in Italy. The ancient cities held little for him. I think that he would have found a greater spiritual home in Norway, among the fjords, as Shelley did at Mont Blanc.

From Nicholas’ notebook, aged about 19

Every life is a tragedy. Our end is inevitable from the very moment that our characters emerge, and the thrill of the thing is not in the end itself but in the route we take to reaching that end....

The notion of life as a tragedy is not one which should be taken in a negative sense. Far from it. Our lives represent, in the words of Milton, the highest form of Drama. Our deaths do not so much represent the end of our character but the completion of our character. There is nothing more to know about ourselves but that the tragic formula is complete. It is the perfect moment which one may call heaven.

The fact of the matter is, the people to whom we refer as lowlifes and consider to be below us, are not excluded from a tragic experience equally great to that of Aristotle or Milton. All life is one, and he who watches another man’s tragedy will gain the equivalent of the highest literary enlightenment. Inequality of expression is not inequality of mind.