FEBRUARY 2019 BEACON

The piece of Scrimshaw on this month’s cover harkens back to a day long gone by, and I always find myself immersed in the lore of the sea when I come across such an artifact. For most of 17 years of my younger life I spent roughly 360 days a year aboard various sailboats, that’s nearly every single day of every single year for 17 years. I sailed them all over the Great Lakes, the Atlantic Ocean, and all up and down the Antilles, the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. Many long days and nights offshore I thought of the men who sailed these wooden square riggers as I practiced marlinspike seamanship, (the art of knot tying) and navigation, (long before LORAN and GPS we used paper charts, a watch, compass and a sextant). Go back and have a 2nd look at the detail, and imagine having so much time out of sight of land that you can scratch out a piece like this, one needle scratch at a time. It’s said that long distance sailing is enduring long hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror. Anyone who’s ever crossed the West wall of the Gulf Stream at night in the North Atlantic will understand. Take the worst Lake Huron storm you’ve ever seen and put it on top of 40’ rolling waves that fetch ¼ mile apart. These waves are born off the coast of Africa and have 3,000 miles to get bigger and bigger as they cross the Atlantic. What fun. And yet, the men who sailed these leaky, squeaky, wooden, wind powered ships, put out for months and even years at a time, small wonder they learned all sorts of crafty things. Without them, none of us would be here, and so, my favorite British Naval toast wraps around this picture of history. I acquired this piece at an art show. As soon as I saw it, I thought of a Beacon cover, I hope you enjoy it. Blue Skies Following Seas, Ron