Lerwick, Shetland Islands

Current Location: Shetland Islands, UK
Current Coordinates: 60°′″N 1°′″W ( just barely west of Greenwich)
Listening: I've Got a Feeling, by The Beatles, off of Let it Be (1969)
Next Stop: Stornoway, Scotland






Gitana finally parted with Norway on Tuesday morning June 24 around 0945. Our passage from Maloy, Norway to Lerwick lasted 38.5 hours. We encountered Beaufort Force 5 and 6 winds that mainly came from the NNE/ E directions. A stagnant high pressure system sitting off the coast of Norway gave us decent conditions. In-flight meals included a chicken stew and a penne pasta dish that went over quite well with the two other guys. Those of you who are aware of my past culinary deficiencies would be both proud and surprised to know that I have become quite a good cook. Or maybe, the other guys are just telling me that so they don't have to endure being thrown around the galley by waves while trying to chop up onions and potatoes that have to be thrown into a boiling pot of water that is fortunately on gimble atop the stove. Cooking at sea should be an olympic sport.

During one of my watches just as twilight had fully set (finally it gets dark!) in I saw in the distance what first appeared to be a large ship. However, after I took a bearing on the object on the horizon, I noticed that it was not moving. I also observed a more intense than usual glow coming from the object which actually made me a bit nervous. I had this mental image of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, thinking that perhaps I was sailing into a nuclear test site or something apocoplyptic like that. My fears subsided as soon as Jack popped his head up from the hatch and pointed shouting, (much like a little child spotting an ice cream truck) "there it is, the bastard!" "Bastard" sounded like this--"bahhstud!" I had forgotten Jack's eagerness to see the North Sea oil rigs up close and was delighted both in his satisfaction and with the reality that I was not about to meet my maker. The closer I came to the rig the more it looked like an enourmous skyscraper jutting up out of the water all aglow like a Christmas tree. It was one of the most amazing things that I have ever seen. I couldn't help but select John Williams' "The Imperial March" on my ipod as we sailed by the rig that looked so much like something out of Star Wars.

(photo borrowed from the internet)

We arrived in Lerwick, Shetland Islands at 2330 (11:30 pm) on Thursday night June 26. After cleating everything off and securing the boat we all went to sleep, exhausted after 38.5 hours at sea. Glad to finally be out of Norway and thrilled to be in Great Britain once again (2001, 2003, 2004), I shouted "God Save the Queen!" from beneath the hatch before closing it and crashing in my berth.






The next morning I came uptop and noticed that it felt like fall. The air was crisp and it was about 55 degrees-- a welcomed change of climate coming from Norway where it felt like winter. To hammer this point home, think of what Virginia feels and looks like during the month of February--that's what Norway was like virtually the entire time I was there with the exception of a few days where the sun's rays were intense enough to burn my hands as I scrubbed the deck. Hands still on the mend. It seems as though the seasons are moving in reverse as we move further south--Norway was winter, the Shetlands feel like fall, and I'm sure that by the time I am in North Africa in late July that it will feel like summer.






The harbor is located conveniently in the center of Lerwick. Shops, cafes, fishermen selling their catch, and strolling families all line streets that wind through the town's center in a grid-like fashion. The Union Jack flies high above the Port Authority terminal from which ferries bound for the Orkneys and points further south leave on a daily basis. Shopkeepers, waitresses, and other townspeople are nice, all classic embodiments of the British sensibility and disposition. We ate dinner at the Queen's Hotel the first evening where I had lamb for the first time ever. At the disappointment of my Skipper and senior crewmate, I refused to eat haggis. It's interesting that the male fascination with making/forcing one another to eat vile things doesn't recede with age. All the "dudes" out there know exactly what I'm talking about. After dinner that evening I went walking around the town looking for an authentic pub--not a nightclub, not a bar, or anything similar to the meat- market diveholes found in most large cities. I was searching for the real experience here. The way one determines the autheticity of a pub in Great Britain is to listen to the freqency with which patrons use the word "bloody" and/or how often they drop the "F" bomb. After sticking my head into the Douglas Arms for only a moment, I decided that the language was sufficiently offensive and decided to enter.




(photo borrowed from the internet)

Warning: Op/Ed piece begins here.

I was spotted for an American the minute that I walked into the door--Newbies, Carhart pants, and a North Face backpack all contributed to my walking advertisement American consumer aura. I figured out very quickly that not many Americans come to Shetland. I was a sort of a novelty in this setting, and quickly became a reluctant ambassador and defender of all things American when all that I wanted was a pint of real Guinees Extra Cold beer. But 5 pint deep Nathaniel Smith saw other reasons for my visit to his regular watering hole on this particular evening. "Where in the States do you hail from?" he correctly asked from an almost uncomfortable distance across the bar. "Richmond, Virginia, about two hours south of Washington, D.C,"I replied, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. I also explained how I got to the Shetlands and that I was on a 2.5 month sailing trip from Norway to Sicily. But Smith wasn't too interested in my voyage and quickly shifted the topic of conversation to politics, more specifically to the recent European tour of our President. "You know your man was just in the U.K--stood side by side with Gordon Brown, the bastard!--again, "baahstudd!" I was quick to correct Smith that while George Walker Bush might be the President of my country, that he was most certainly not "my man." The conversation went further, but I'll spare you the heartburn.






Smith appeared to be at least 80, old enough to have been marked by or perhaps even a part of the Second World War. Here I was in his pub--for him, a personifcation of American relative youth and virility. For me, Smith was an aged (and slightly drunk) European Statesman, a personification of post war European Politics and attitudes about war and the desirability and use of military power. Smith used words that I won't reiterate here to describe the incongruency of our President's willingness to start war with his reluctance to fight in one. Again, all I wanted was a cold beer, but what I got was conversation about the implications of American foreign policy.

What I saw with Nathaniel Smith and what I believe to be paramount for all of Europe is a general distaste for war and the politics of good vs. evil-- the irrefutable antithesis of the policies set forth by the Bush administration. But President Bush is not alone responsible for this kind of thinking.






In the United States much is written about the "Greatest Generation"--Americans of Smith's generation who served in World War II who rid the world of Adolf Hitler and Japan, known as the "axis powers." Men and women from this period did exactly this--they saved the world from the forces of undeniable evil and oppression. They are absolutely to be credited for this. I believe, though, that their legacy (while an important part of American History and character) is what's affecting our relationships with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, we can no longer view the world through their eyes. Some powerful members of the baby boomer generation including Mr. Bush have inherited from their parents this kind of "good vs. evil" attitude about the world. In fact, Bush's use of the label "axis of evil" to describe the governments of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea is no doubt an appeal to this sort of oversimplification of global politics.


My experience with Nathaniel Smith in that pub brought me to this conclusion: The notion of "American Exceptionalism" that inspired this nation at its inception is now compromising its relationships with the rest of the world. The Bush administration has gone to great lengths to perpetuate the American Post WWII tendency to consider the world in clear cut binaries--good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, friend vs. enemy ("you're either with us, or against us"), and perhaps most significantly, Christian vs. Muslim. The total effect of this is a foreign policy that has alienated Europe (certainly including our drunk European Statesman Mr. Smith) and much of the rest of the world and also one that reveals the ironic weaknesses of a nation that boasts the most powerful military machine in the history of the world.

Again, I love America deeply and I believe strongly in its future. This is precisely why I am eager to see us change our foreign policy, amonst other things. It is also precisely why I have chosen to move to Florence, Italy to study foreign policy this fall.

Note: Op/ Ed piece ends here.

For a while I've owed you a more detailed description of John Charles "Gentleman Jack" Nye, the other crew member aboard Gitana until we reach Cork, Ireland. Jack is 84 years old but has the energy of someone half his age or less. He appears to be in good health, so much so that it is hard to believe that he is truly as old as he claims to be. But his age shows when you look at his hands. Jack's hands were toughened shoveling coal aboard a British destroyer in the Pacific during the Second World War and by working with metal and heavy machinery in the years following his stint in the Royal Navy. The same hardened hands now tend the same helm, lines, and rigging that I am responsible for aboard Gitana.

As I've said before, he's a real Dickensian character who finds commensurate truth in the Neoclassical wit of Alexander Pope and the many bawdy limericks and maxims that he recites regularly. He also loves to wear his Canadian tuxedo--fully aware of the implications of this fashion in popular culture.









Mike told me that Jack doesn't talk about his time in the Royal Navy during WWII unless you prod him. Last night at dinner I did just that. Jack opened up about his time in the war, telling of Japanese Kamikaze "dive bombers" crashing into his ship, leaving Sumatra in 1944 after being relieved by American forces and about two of his friends who jumped overboard after learning that the Luftwaffe had bombed their families and destroyed their homes back in Great Britain during their absence. The most amazing fact here is that Jack was 17 when all of this began. In describing all of this Jack still spoke as if the events had happened yesterday, the memories and awesome images coming back to him some 65 years later in a small Italian restaurant in the northernmost territory of his native country.


Jack eventually left he UK because he was put off by the rise of the Labour party and the expectations amongst the British public that "the government owed them something." He tells the story of a bar fight in Surrey, South England on July 5th, 1945 when he refused to acknowledge the election of Labour Party candidate Clement Atlee who replaced Winston Churchill. Shortly after the barfight Jack moved to Canada where he started Nye Manufacturing LTD, a metal fabricating business that his two sons now run. By the way, Jack won the barfight.







Above all, the most important thing that you need to know about John Charles Nye is that he is at peace when at sea. Even after his tragic experiences during the war and an unsuccesful and nearly fatal attempt to cross the Atlantic by himself (to mark his 80th birthday), Jack can't wait to be by himself on watch, looking out at the horizon at oblivion, curious and unafraid of what's ahead. I sense that this trip for him is also a pilgrimage--a fearless journey into his past where he is for one final time confronting his successes and failures, his demons, reconciling the uncertain future conjured up by his youthful imagination with the path that he has followed and the choices that he has made in the many years since his first experiences at sea in the Royal Navy during WWII.

It's late Saturday night now and the pub that i'm typing in has turned into one of those diveholes I described earlier in this post. It's time for me to go.

We're likely not leaving here for Stornaway before Tuesday. We've got winds coming from the south and the southwest at Beaufort force 5 and 6 through Monday and there is a low pressure system that might be moving in later that evening. To clarify, Stornaway is about 210 miles southwest of Lerwick via the North Minichs, part of Isle of Lewis. I'll do my best to give more information tomorrow, but for now, I'm being overwhelmed by the crowd of party goers overtaking this pub. Cheers!

"There has been a good deal of comment—some of it quite outlandish—about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army—hard to imagine."

Paul Wolfowitz, House Budget Committee testimony on Iraq (February 27, 2003)