Tuesday 10/6/09   

Today I am filled with an overwhelming restlessness. As i search within myself for the cause of this mental unrest, i realize that my body has been atrophying away for a week and a half, where I have done nothing but sit, eat, and sleep, with only very minor interludes on deck. My hair is an oily mop of tangled tendrils, my face is pale and eyes ringed by dark circles, my skin has turned ashy and is flaking snowy dust, and my muscles are rapidly losing their tautness. I suppose I am suffering from the proverbial cabin fever, but at least in a cabin one can walk out and about and survey their surroundings. Here I am confined to a space smaller than most people's bathrooms! Reading and writing even grow tiresome, but I am exercising my strongest will to continue this discipline. I hate to begin this entry in so negative a manner, and I am doing my best to improve my spirits, after all it is I who signed up for this journey, and I knew I would be ragged and worn by the time we get to port. The wind picked up this morning and we began sailing again, although about 80 degrees off course, so we are hardly making progress. We are sailing close-hulled port tack, meaning we are sailing at the tightest angle at which the sails draw the wind. If we were to hold any truer to our course we would be heading directly into the wind and the sails would flap uselessly about. Port tack just means the side from which the wind blows. We are actually about to switch tacks to see if we can get any closer to our course, but I suspect our deviation will be very similar- we may be lucky to improve by 20 or 30 degrees. (The old sailing command for switching tack is "ready about, hard a lee!") At any rate we are headed south. And it is nice to have a break from the engine anyhow. Eric gave us another tidbit of history during happy hour of which i had previously never been educated. He told us about the Argentinian war in the 1980s in which they invaded the falkland islands. The falkland islands have an extremely rugged and harsh environment, and i couldn't imagine why any country would start a war over this place. Apparently the political leader at the time(Galtiier?) was trying to incense an upsurge of nationalism within Argentina to gain popularity. Tension has long spanned the gap of this large country and small cluster of islands, and Argentinians have always believed in a false sense of ownership, I guess maybe because of their proximity(this is conjecture- exactly I am not sure). The leader thought he could play on this public perception and invaded the colony, which is a protectorate of Great Britain. The British quickly dispatched their military might to the region and defended the archipelago. The war lasted only 72 days and the Argentines suffered far more casualties then the Brits. The South American leader ironically lost popularity and was thrown out, and a democratic government was put in place. Eric told us of the lasting effects of war he witnessed when he visited the islands. He said there were fields into which the Argentinians dropped mines from helicopters and there was no plausible way for the British to sweep and disarm them after the war without further casualties so they were ordered to stop trying. Today there are caution signs in various parts of the islands as there are still many armed mines, not to mention the many three legged sheep. We talked about the follies of war and how unfathomable it is how it can be that the millions of lives that have been lost throughout the various wars of the ages are most often due to the whims and fancies of a single man(who, most of the time is completely insane). It is unbelievable when one takes a step back to truly contemplate this. And so devastating. What a waste of precious life! Eric is extremely knowledgeable about World War 1 and he gave me a brief history of the factors leading up to the war and its culminating effects. He said it can be argued World War 2 was a direct consequence of the first world war-that is to say it set the stage altogether. He told me to read the book "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman, and that she outlines the start of WW 1 very clearly and concisely. I have never taken a thorough course in European history, and with the fascination of it all came a sense of horror and disbelief. What humans were capable of! And what we are still capable of.... When i go back to school(whenever that may be) I think I am going to primarily take history classes. A good teacher makes all the difference though, and one has to remember that history is all in the perspective of the winner-rarely do you hear a loser's side-they are either exterminated or their voices are lost in oblivion.