Dear Call of the Sea supporters and volunteers,
This week it feels as if we are in the doldrums. The good news is that we are healthy and safely battened down–and we are wishing that you are safe and virus free as well.
Another piece of good news: At 5:15 AM on Friday, the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Center gave it’s official approval of our complicated hybrid-electric systems. Many thanks to the Center for continuing to work during the pandemic doldrums to conduct its review. And many thanks to volunteer Charlie Walther and to Dan Higgins, Tripp Hyde, Roger Fuller, “Electrical Bill” Weinberg and his crew, Peter MacInnis, Tony Guild, Adrian McCullough and Sylvia Stompe for their help to expedite the process. Although other volunteers are also performing tasks that will need to be completed before we can resume sailing, there is little to report other than that there is “work in progress” being done remotely.
Apart from these signs of progress, we seem to be adrift, not knowing when a freshening breeze will come up, how long it will be before we can sail out of the doldrums, and what the state of the sea will be when we emerge.
I have asked three of our steadfast volunteers and leaders to share a brief story about their own real life experience in the doldrums at sea. I hope you will read their tales as examples of how to cope with, learn during, navigate from, or even enjoy, becalmed waters. Here is the link to the doldrums stories of Captain Alan Olson and Mate Sylvia Stompe.
“The heart of [wo]man is very much like the sea, It has its storms, it has its tides, And in its depths it has its pearls, too.” Vincent Van Gogh
Stay safe and healthy,
Steven Woodside