Complainer

Red fishing boat

Yesterday was my boat day again, spent down below working at the laptop nearly non-stop. It could be worse, if I were doing the same work in a windowless fluorescent cubicle.

As you can see, it was one of those ominous-looking days. Thick masses of low dark clouds swept by overhead until it finally rained for a while.

Luis and a buddy motored by on a rib and showed me some of the large sea bream they had caught. I remembered telling myself some time ago that I'd start fishing once in a while just to get out there on the water (marina water is not real even though it's full of fish), run with the stay sail and troll a line while whistling the morning away. Right!

Here they come with a cooler full of fish

I noticed that the Wauquiez is now out on the mooring with his mast stepped.

Look at all the wind generators in the background

Now I'm home again pounding the keyboard like there's no tomorrow. Zany translation deadlines are killing me. My stomach is starting to pinch and my shoulders are sore.

I should stop being a complainer...it could be worse, Right?

Ocean-front Farm

Thursday is my boat day. But not this week.

I had to run an important errand: taking a bottle of red wine and a step ladder to my 7,500 m2 ocean-front farm. A bottle of wine and a stepladder, that's what the two tree pruners requested.

This is Portugal, people still have fun around here!

I hung around for 30 minutes or so mostly complaining about how much work I have (which is true) so they wouldn't get the impression that I couldn't even be bothered to hang around or help.

So I went to the boat today (Friday), lugging the laptop filled with stinking work. OK, so it pays the bills.

This time I took the heater, even though it wasn't that cold, about 14 ºC. That may sound cold or warm for a winter day depending on whether you live in Norway or Mexico.

Which brings to mind the youngish Dutch couple living on the big steel boat. They go for long walks, jogs, bicycle rides or just dally about wearing shorts and T-shirts. Brrrr! Maybe it's because they're built like Olympic athletes and want to show off their chiseled bodies, who knows.

Today Ryker told me that the Dutch woman goes jogging with special lead weights strapped to her feet and legs. No wonder she walks like she's got springs in her shoes.

Ryker's pet birds, double-click so see them better

Just to prove that they can fly too

I worked until lunch, had lunch, walked around and talked to a few people, admired the tall Dutch woman walking by (I swear she looks like she could easily jump over me if I didn't move aside). I'm too shy to take her picture and I'm not too keen on posting pictures of other people without their permission.

Went back to work, and this is my view when I look up.

Having skylights is one advantage of working in the boat, no barking dogs is another

Later I took another short break and started the engine. Shifted back into forward and reverse various  times trying to convince myself that the stupid transmission is working fine. Discovered a trick while doing this though, if I shift into forward and immediately rev the engine a bit it engages just fine. No problems in reverse. See, I'm almost convinced that it will last another decade.

A Cold Day

I parked at the marina in the morning and realized I had forgotten my boat key. I usually keep a spare key in the jeep as a remedy for these occasions. No luck, I had removed it from the jeep before the trip up north.

Drove back home and got the key.

Back at the boat, as I was looking at the heat exchanger deciding on the best approach for removing it, the mobile rang. An urgent job for the next day. Damn it, the heat exchanger will have to wait one more time.

Broke out the laptop, set everything up, sat down, downloaded the PDF file and started working. But it wasn't long before the cold started to gnaw at me.

Searched for the little black heater, but then remembered that I had taken it home last summer before sailing off to the Algarve. I mean, who needs a heater in the Algarve?

As an alternative, put on a ski cap and draped a towel over my legs and started working.
It was about 12º C in the boat, but it felt cold, and I felt like I was coming down with a cold and my nose started to get wet.

So much for my boat day. Packed it up and decided to go home.

Talked to Ryker on the way out. He was feeding his pet birds...they're like tiny seagulls that flock around his boat because he feeds them and leaves out a tray of fresh water. I'll take a picture of these cute little birds soon, I promise.

The Wauquiez I photographed in the last post put the mast on the transient dock and grabbed a mooring. He'll be covered in seagull shit in no time. I kept Jakatar out there for a year, it was like owning a public toilet for marine birds.

A Sunday Outing

Ana and I drove 15 km to Baleal for a change of scenery.
(Does driving from one beach town to another beach town count as a change in scenery? Sometimes I'm awed by my "logical" thinking! I really do have a degree in Philosophy, honest.)

Baleal, Peniche and the whole Silver Coast region is becoming Portugal's surf hotspot and and a mecca for board riders from around Europe and beyond. Surfing is now "the sport" around here, and surf schools and surf hostels are popping up everywhere.

Two surfers for every wave instead of the Beach Boys' anthem of "two girls for every boy"

It was a perfect sunny afternoon for wandering around the narrow streets and for visiting the uninhabited part of the island (it used to be an island, at least at high tide).

A long time ago, before recorded history and probably even before my very remote ancestors had any interest in inhabiting this part of the world, let alone surfing, a tremendously powerful convulsion jolted the rock strata upward forming this dramatic landscape and the island.

I assure you that it looks a hell of a lot more incredible when seen in person rather than through my mediocre camera. Not only that, but compared with the adventures featured on so many action-packed blogs that nearly leap out of your computer screen to grab your attention, this little trip doesn't sound one bit exciting...but that's the difference between reading about it and BEING THERE.

Anyway, after that short sidetrip I'm now deep into translation work again.

I got an email from the office saying that they need a report translated by next week...it's very important and absolutely necessary.

I'm the hired gun on this mission impossible. That's right, I'm the fireman, the ambulance driver, the saviour commissioned to handle fast complex jobs. Lucky me!

I'm like Horatio - from the detective series that I've never watched - hot on a mission. The difference is that I'm the REAL Horatio on a boring mision...not too exciting but real.

Once again, life gets pushed into the backseat. I dive deep into the work like a whale torpedoing toward the black depths hunting for giant squid. Somebody has to do it, right?

I will resurface...next week!

Holiday at the Marina

I parked the jeep at the marina under a velvety blue sky. It was 2 pm on a Sunday afternoon and I was on a mission: to clean the heat exchanger.

Peniche marina on a Sunday afternoon

I felt so good about the balmy weather, blue sky and my mission that I took a couple of pictures.

Port of Peniche

I felt tempted to go for a calm sail in the gentle breeze. But not today, I had a mission that I should have completed 11 years ago back in Port Dover, Canada.

Eleven years ago the raw water impeller half disintegrated and the missing rubber pieces were never retrieved. That means they're in the heat exchanger restricting water flow and causing the exhaust to steam. The engine has never overheated because I don't motor at over 2,000 rpm.

As you can see, this was a special day, regardless of the perfect weather. And that's what I like about a sailboat, it's an insatiable high maintenance mistress that keeps you on a leash in exchange for occasional moments of ecstasy.

But as I was walking down the pontoon, Ryker popped out of his fishing boat and we leaned against a motorboat talking about the Euro Zone, economics, real estate and a Dutch sailor's sexy wife who walked by pushing a bicycle. Just as we were getting ready to wrap up the conversation, Luis walked up with an electric heater under his arm and something to say, followed by another sailor with a book in hand and ideas on his mind and lastly, another friend just killing time. A regular convention on the pontoon.

Whatever happened to socializing on Facebook, instead of spending half the afternoon yakking with real people.

By the time I got to the boat the sun was already sliding down the steep curve toward the horizon.

In the cockpit, what do I immediately notice? My Rutland 913 wind generator isn't spinning. After 11 years of enduring high winds, rain, being jerked so hard in a storm I thought it would jolt itself to pieces, after all this time baking under the Portuguese sun, it suddenly stopped. Rest in peace 913. You'll probably sit on that post like a stuffed rooster for quite some time before you are added to the "missions to be accomplished" agenda.

Rutland 913, no longer spinning

Zero accomplishment. Are you kidding, I had a great time, got home just in time to light the fireplace followed by dinner and a couple glasses of red wine. Damn it, it's good to have a mistress.

Death of a Writer

Hack translator kills writer for money!!!

After 17 years of working as a freelance translator, I've butchered any hope of becoming a writer.

I stopped writing a long time ago when a nagging voice began hinting that I would never be published. Over time that feeble voice became downright aggressive and, in the end, violent. "Stop dreaming and start living!" it shouted in my face.

That's what I did.

And so I became a farmer, a greenhouse builder, a student (for the second time), a tree planter, a Kerouac impersonator, a steel worker, a delivery driver, a lazy lay-around bohemian, an English teacher and, lastly, a translator.

Looking back, I now see that I would never have made it as a writer, ever. Simply because all I did was daydream about a writer's freedom to roam the world. It was my way of counteracting a teenager's frustration of being chained to a life of never-ending chores on a vegetable farm.



And I wanted to be a writer because during the frozen winter months I read books that stoked my imagination beyond repair. Yes, beyond repair. This is not a metaphor, I really crossed the border into a territory where roads never end and you never reach your destination. "Destination" is where the palm trees are perfect and naked girls cling to your legs as you walk along a golden beach.

WAKE UP!!!

But those dreams took me places and lured me into adventures and misadventures, wonderful times and nightmarish experiences. And here I am in Portugal...it's 10:40 a.m. and I'm writing this after having walked 6 km along the cliff-side road to the fort of Paimogo as the sun came up. It could have been worse.

Walking destination

Portuguese have a habit of saying "neither 8 nor 80." Why didn't somebody tell me this when I was growing up on the farm back in Canada.

Bonding and Desert Islands

Lonesome People

I usually get up at 6:30 a.m. to exercise for 30 minutes in the attic. I've been able to maintain this habit because I keep telling myself that it's essential...and it is.

Yesterday, I was up there working up a sweat when a thought popped into my head: what is the single most important thing in life, besides our very basic necessities?

Later, after showering and breakfast, and since there were no urgent translations on the agenda, I began listing things I could live without. You know, the objects today's trendy minimalists are disdaining such as television, cars, gadgets, clutter and so on. But that got tedious pretty quick.

Then an idea struck me! Why not just wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. In other words, instead of eliminating "things" why not ask the essential question, "what's the one thing that I could not possibly live without?"

It only took a few seconds to root out a firm answer: people.

Just imagine waking up one day and finding yourself on a desert island, forever. Not a very appealing predicament, more like a nightmare. 

Although that's a weird and completely unrealistic scenario, it led me straight to what I was looking for.

People! That's so obvious, even a gaming-addicted teenager could tell you that.

So I dug deeper and concluded that we need to engage with people. That's what we do at work, with salespeople and taxi drivers. But engagement has to go deeper than that, otherwise it's mere fluff.

What we need is friends. Whew, I'm a master at coming to obvious conclusions. How do you think I got a Philosophy Degree? Come on, dig deeper.

What we really need, what is absolutely essential, are persons with whom we can share our life experience. Now that sounds a bit more philosophical.

And what's "life experience?" It's that magical quality that makes every individual unique, unexplainable and incomparable...those little nuances that can evoke all kinds of emotions in others, some good some bad. Oh yes, I'm on a roll now.

Real living starts when we begin to bond and share. Without it, we are doomed to trod along a desolate and meaningless path going nowhere. Jackpot!

You know all this, just like you know that exercising every day is essential.

So, what's the moral of the story?


Think about the small (big) things that really matter in your life. Focus on and repeat them to yourself and they will eventually come true.

Take action!

I remember someone saying that "if you know something but don't act on it, it's the same as not knowing it.