Tag: the Arctic

Memories & Living With La Cabra Negra

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Humour me, I’m going to be self-indulgent. I’ve been having some weird sensations recently. It has been a long time since I’ve gone this long without travelling to another country. Even travelling within one place. The lockdown has made me change habits. You can’t run off somewhere when you fancy a change if the whole world is on lockdown. Sitting on a jungle beach in Costa Rica, diving in the Andaman Islands or maybe with a mate of mine in Brazil. Just sailing somewhere warm like Fiji or the icy cold north has also entered my little realm of fantasy recently. But I’m also in a weird way happy not to be running off. As I said habits have changed and I see possibilities with this version of normality I have created. It needs to evolve and it’ll change immeasurably before I make it in my own image but I suspect all of those things will still happen at some point before and after I reach this point. I’m really happy with this too. These sensations though have nothing to do with future desires or ways of life. These are feelings from the past.

For much time I have forgotten my adventures, determined not to be that guy who just lives on his them, repeating them to someone until they get bored and you’re forced to move on. This forgetting though has also been because I have been creating new ones and haven’t needed to dwell on things that have happened. Now though without this ability to move on and find something new to experience, I am stuck experiencing a new way which I’ve allowed forced upon me. I different kind of forward. I have found myself over these last few months remembering past events or people and this began out in a sad way as in a way I wished I could go back to these moments. This is entirely natural. This has evolved though as now I have found myself experiencing these moments and seeing them through eyes that are happy to have had them. Instead of desiring their return I have been appreciating them, but more importantly in the strangest way experiencing parts of them once more.

It’s these sensations. This is the important part, the rest is a different special. To imagine yourself back in the moment and experiencing the forest air on the nostril, the sea water on the hot skin, the rain on the face. The emotion of seeing someone or experiencing a place that leaves you speechless. Even the sounds and visuals that I felt have been coming back to me. It’s hard to explain but it’s as if I’m experiencing memories with an intensity that touches on the actual moment as it happened, not just a thought of something that runs through my mind as a movie screen. I’ll go with it because it’s fascinating and I know it too won’t last forever. It’s all just about trying to understand. That’s all we can do. Be the cabra.

Out On The Water

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’ve done a bit of sailing. Not loads but enough to be fairly proficient. I could survive I think, I say that despite the failed sailing exam. There were extenuating circumstance with the thirty knots of wind and a crew who had never sailed before, but I must take responsibility for panicking when a navy boat came up behind me in a small channel and me dangerously tacking into the wind, proceeding to get stuck behind an oil tanker as it started up it’s engines and then messing up my reefing as I tried to make the sails smaller. I needed to be better but it was a ridiculous and comedic situation. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed learning so far, it’s a good way to see the world in a whole new way. I hope I get to carry on again at some point once everything has calmed down.

The reason I bring this all up is I was thinking about the weather. It’s really hot and humid. I had to learn about the weather when learning how to sail because, well, it’s quite important. To avoid embarrassment I’m not going to try and explain it beyond that I think we’re moving through a period of low pressure, we should be getting westerlies and the rains are coming. Now I could be wrong but I think I’m right. Being able to read these barometric charts is quite cool in an uncool way but probably only if you’ve ever needed to know how. It’s actually really interesting knowing what weather is coming up by working it out for yourself. It adds another type of practical to the whole.

I’ll never be a sailing wanker but I am fan. It’s a very social way of life. Everybody is living on top of each other, working together, helping. It’s the complete opposite to living life in lockdown isolation. The calm and the space. I’ve experienced community in a few different ways and this is just another version. Mini communities for one week, one month. Strangers coming together with an intensity everyday society cannot match. This is something I actually miss, this intensity of interaction. Working together is something that can be hard because we don’t have to ordinarily. We will become better at it or lonely. You get to really know people. People are real very quickly.

I realise I miss the travelling community. I love the art of sailing but it’s the travelling that gives me the real kicks. I have arrived places I’ve previously been but this time by sea and they feel like whole new versions. You’re viewing everything from a different angle. I’m looking at places around the world I have never previously thought that much of before. I dream of sailing in the Arctic around Svalbard, the Antarctic, the fjords around Tierra del Fuego and the tip of South America. These are magical kingdoms. I can’t imagine there being a better way to explore them. But that will be then, for now I’ll just enjoy this moment and what it brings, I’ll keep an eye on the weather all the same.