We’re headed back to Ireland and Proteus tomorrow. Perhaps needless to say, we are missing our home. It has been a great few weeks of vacation in the States with family, but it’s time to get back and get serious: we have an ocean to cross.
With that, I’ll leave you with a really beautiful video that all coast-wise humans might connect with…
The Coast from NRS Films on Vimeo.
…and have a great day! See you in Ireland.
By Noah D.
Beautiful days in London are best spent outside. Though we completely on the other side of town, on this rather pleasant day, I decided to take a walk around Surrey Quays.
It is one of the few places in the city that you are guaranteed to be around sailboats. For being a city on a major navigable river, sailboats are restricted to this side of the London Bridge, the next bridge up stream from the Tower Bridge. And most don’t bother with the Tower Bridge because it is a drawbridge that only opens at certain times.
There are quite a few little marinas in the area–including South Dock Marina, Limehouse, St.Katharines, etc–but this one is my favorite. Many of these little waterfront areas were once heavily industrial docklands and the remnants can be seen everywhere, even though these areas are now converted into nice residential developments. The rails and big machines still sit, all painted solid and obscure.
I think the best part of these formerly industrial docklands is the fact that, although it has been years since heavy ropes were pulled by even heavier men, the smell of oiled metal and riveted iron is everywhere.
These areas, like the South Dock and Greenland, are largely residential. And, not just on the land side, the boats did not seem left there to rot and many seem to be well-lived and well-tended.
Anyways, just a shame to not spent a pretty day near water. Some of the best ones tend to be.
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By Noah
Twenty-four hours after this pair of photographs were taken, I experienced the most difficult night of my life. And, though that might sound like an inflated statement, here’s a little of the circumstances surrounding this photograph:
My friend, Philip, and I–both photojournalists–were working on a project with the shepherds in the southeastern Caucasus. This particular evening in Georgia, we were in the lowlands awaiting our hosts: shepherds of the arid Samoukhi region in the far southeast tip of Georgia. This beautiful location (exactly here) is final staging ground for shepherds who will make the hard push up and over the Abano Pass into the summer grazing grounds.
This particular night of relative comfort–due to the tent–was followed by hiking approximately 20 miles from 1500ft to 9500ft the next day… at which point we were in conditions too bad and too urgent for the tent, so we “slept” in every piece of clothing we owned (including our coats)… inside a sleeping bag… under our rain cloaks… surrounded by all our gear… rolled in a blue tarpaulin.
Now, that wouldn’t be so bad, except the fact that outside our little blue burritos were about 6000 sheep, goats, cows, and horses. At this point, none of us–not even the shepherds–had eaten much other than vodka-soaked bread and some canned tuna (I think it was?) and half-way wild onions for the last 36 hours. This was the danger of this trek at this time of year: all the livestock are pushed hard because there is nothing to eat above the tree-line.
I mention the hunger issue not to make you pity us, but pity the sheep and the fact that I was nibbled and stepped on countless times during the night. Somewhere around 3am, I was nibbled on and whatever-it-was pinched the skin of my shoulder… so, I punched it through the many layers. The satisfaction of clocking a random animal in the middle of the night was short-lived…
The conditions were complete misery. For the few minutes of sleep I might have gotten, I spent most of the time shivering and soaking wet. It had been “raining” lightly as we lay down; however, I think it was just pervasive clouds. And to tell you how pervasive was the water… everything–literally everything–was wet. Every layer of the 5 or 6 that I had on was wet. Even under my back, which was inside the sleeping bag all night. The only thing that was not wet was the contents of a $10 oversized dry bag that my cameras and notebooks were inside and I had been very careful not to open it.
What a strange way to start a review of a tent: a night in the most miserable conditions I’ve ever experienced and I didn’t even put up the tent! I give you this little anecdote because that is the situations in which I have no problem taking this tent. Even though the situation did not allow for it to be set up this time, it would have handled it, I have no doubt.
Rewind one year to the first time I ever used the tent for an extended period of time:
I rather consider it a shakedown cruise of my equipment and myself. For eight days, I bicycled from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi: the entire length of the Natchez Trace. For 444 miles over eight days I lived on a Jamis Aurora Elite expedition bike and lived in the MSR Hubba Hubba NX Tent
The 2014 version of this tent has been redesigned, but my copy–the 2013 version–I actually slightly prefer due entirely because it is green. (Though it is a tough find these days.) I wouldn’t have thought much of this until I saw it in action. One hazard of wild camping–especially certain places in the world–is being bothered by people. The tent, though kind of lime green, blends in well with the environment. The new version, however, is all red and grey… certainly a little more stylish, but a bit less natural colors.
One thing that I do recommend with this tent is the proper MSR Tent Footprint
Now, why is discussing a tent relevant for a sailing site? One of the coolest things I’ve seen people do while sailing routes like the Great Loop is to actually get out of the boat and camp along the way.
This tent can put up with some of the most ridiculous conditions I’ve thrown at it. But don’t think that means it is difficult to set up or break down. It literally sets up in 7 or 8 minutes and, from the experience of the morning after the top photo was taken, it can be broken down in perhaps 60 seconds. Most importantly, footprint, structure, and rain fly packs down to the size of an American football (maybe a fraction larger) and weighs much less. I can pack it into luggage for international assignments and I don’t have to sacrifice too much else.
The tent is also spectacularly designed. Having spent weeks and weeks worth of time in this tent, I’ve never felt a drip on the inside that I didn’t inadvertently bring in. The design extends to the rope-free set-up. The tent pegs are really perfectly designed to hold each corner and the rainfly without fuss. I’ve been in a few storms with (Force 3-4) wind and I haven’t worried about it at all.
Don’t expect it to keep you too warm, but shockingly, the interior of the tent says warmer than I expected considering how breathable the material actually is.
The Hubba Hubba (two Hubba’s) version says “2-person.” Yeah, that is true. But you probably need to be quite good friends with them. I used it as a 1-person tent while on the Natchez Trace and kept all my equipment inside. With two people, the only space you have is for lying down. The rainfly extension becomes the gear shed, which the footprint does not extend to… meaning, if it rains, water will be running under your gear… or shoes.
It also has only a very small little pocket on either end for storage. It really might not matter very much to some people, but I could see how this Gear Loft
Would I buy it again? Absolutely. It is not the biggest tent in the world (far from it) but it is perfect for extended living in rough conditions. MSR (Cascade Designs) have constructed a serious tent and not wasted anything while not stripping it down too far.
Is it a perfect tent to keep aboard a boat? Yes. Put it in a little out-of-the-way compartment. And when you need to take it to shore in your tender, you won’t even know it is on the boat.
Though my comments and opinions about the tent itself are entirely my own and generated from real-world use, the links I post that open to Amazon are actually part of an Amazon Associates program. If you are in the market for these products, please click through and purchase them by my referral. It costs you nothing extra and I get a percentage of the sale cost:
MSR Hubba Hubba NX Tent
MSR Hubba Hubba Tent Footprint
MSR Universal Gear Loft
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By Noah
The brilliant blog Wait But Why wrote a piece not too long ago entitled “The Fermi Paradox.” It’s definitely worth a read if you have a few minutes. Basically it discusses a few heavy topics about space and time that might, at first, seem quite aloof and not slightly sci-fi. If you hold out for the whole thing, you might realize–like the author does–that this incomprehensibly massive universe is a lonely place. Not “lonely” as in “nobody wants to be my friend” kind of lonely, but absolute and total emptiness, devoid of anything. And here we are.
Well, that’s a cheerful start to the first post!
Of all the technology that you currently know of–from the device you are reading this on, the phone you use, the car you drive, the medicine you might take, etc–how many of those technologies existed 10 years ago? How about 50 years ago? How about 100? For instance, my great grandfather was a profound mechanic: he made a great living fixing Model A‘s and Model T‘s. Did his grandfather ever seen a car?
So, while the past 500 years has brought the ability to print and mass-produce books, writing itself and the ability to communicate by written characters is clocked at about 5000 years, attributed to the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia around 3200BCE. Considered the “official” beginning of recorded history, the writings from that time are quite basic: most are not exactly “histories” as much as they are records of things.
Go back 3000 more years before that. This was the dawn of the sailboat. Though boats were likely used in prehistoric times (since prehistoric civilizations have been found to have lived on remote islands) the earliest record of a sailboat is from around 8000 years ago. So which of these is more shocking: the fact that most Egyptologists aren’t sure if wheels were used in the building of the Great Pyramids of Giza… or the fact that sailing is twice as old as the Pyramids! (BTW: Here’s an interesting article about ancient Egypt and their papyrus boats.)
Besides basic tools those used for cutting and pounding, the basics of sailing and the technologies involved with sailing have existed longer than almost any other technology. Who wouldn’t want the boat to push itself, right? And, until the rise of the airplane, the world has been conquered and empires have risen and then they, too, have been conquered… exclusively by sea.
Now, let’s take technology forward. Your cell phone was “old” after how long? Could you guarantee that we will still be using cell phones in 100 years? They were still using horses in World War 1; I bet every man in the American Civil War (50 years prior) would have bet everything they had that horses would always be used in war. How many of the people reading this blog–written on a laptop that is .7 inches thick at its thickest part–took typing classes on a typewriter when they were growing up? How many remember rotary phones? Whoever it was that thought, “Hey, let’s put up a big sheet in front of that boat and let it pull us!” invented something that literally has been done for 8000 years.
So I think I’ll do that.
Reading the following list, you might think I’m some sort of hipster: I like notebooks and pens; I prefer manual transmission vehicles and steel frame bicycles; I’d rather listen to a vinyl record all the way through to get to the song I like than jump to it on Spotify; and travel/living by sailboat is one of the finest of lives. I’m not stuck in the past or claim that one “works better” than the others. All of them work, most of them are relatively inefficient or downright frustrating, and I’m too much of a nerd to shun technology.
What do all of these things have in common? All of these things give tactile feedback to the user. I watch my notebooks pile up on shelves and in drawers, reminding me with their tattered pages and water spots that I did, indeed, travel there and record it. A manual transmission vehicle feels like I am driving it rather than it driving me. A steel frame bicycle flexes with the rider and any load you put on it and it is fixable with little more than a wrench and a welding torch. A vinyl record pops and crackles and is literally a needle picking up physical scratches on the surface of plastic. And a sailboat…?
Well, a sailboat is a direct connection to everything I cherish in a thing: a bizarre amount of history, the natural world, the wind, and the ocean. It represents a tactile feedback to all these things. And it represents a physical bridge between Point A and Point B in which you cannot just fly past or around the storm, you must go through it. Or you cannot zap yourself from here to there as if flipping channels, you must stay the course and have a longer than 17-second attention span. If properly prepared, all things to remedy the problem are within reach. The answer is here, you must only figure it out. Sailing simplifies and clarifies and–just possibly–purifies.
A friend of mine accused me once of being born in the wrong generation because, as a professional photojournalist, I have no problem using film. Maybe I was. But when it comes to sailing, it doesn’t matter what generation I was born in… because it has always been done.
