At the beginning of last week, still in our oasis of quiet, we finished the last version of the translation of Li Ang’s [...]]]> Once again we’ve left our sanctuary at Xingda fishing harbour and returned to Kaohsiung. Main reason being that Jana was asked to share few of her delicious “instant meals” with few friends.

At the beginning of last week, still in our oasis of quiet, we finished the last version of the translation of Li Ang’s novel “Magic Garden”, put it aside for a week to read it one last time before we send it to the publisher and submit it to a scrutiny of a proof-reader. Have you ever noticed that every time you read what you wrote, there’s always an error to be found? We’ll soon know how many we’ve left behind.

Anyway, we felt good about the work done, and the rest of the week just flew by. We cleaned the boat and became hosts to couple of groups of visitors.

First was Jessica with her family. Jessica was responsible for our talk at the Buddhist foundation Tzu Chi. We wanted to take them around the harbour first – it’s spacious, mostly good wind, and there are no waves. If our guests like it, we can take them out to the sea. Naturally there was no wind at all and they were eager to head out right away.

The entrance to Xingda harbour is quite shallow so even before nice fresh fifteen knots of wind filled Janna’s sails, we began to beat into half meter waves. Our guests remained calm. It’s not that bad, they said. Then Janna heeled, they popped their eyes and grabbed anything within their reach. It was their knuckles that turned white first. Their faces followed soon after. Spray started to fly through the air and it was the men who succumbed first.

We knew from the beginning that they are the problematic group. Apparently they get motion sick all the time. This time they stood up to the elements with dignity, just fell asleep. The female part of the crew became suspiciously quiet and only from time to time their dozy eyes peeked out of the shadows of their wide-brimmed hats.

We were about five miles from the shore. We turned around and headed slowly back. The jibe woke up our friends and soon they felt much better and were quite enthusiastic about the drop in wind speed – the apparent wind speed. Quite naturally, the euphoria didn’t last long as the downwind rocking of sailboats can be rather unpleasant for the stomachs of some. The boat felt into silence again. We tried to ride Janna to ease the pain of our friends, which took us little below the entrance to the harbor. Another jibe was inevitable. The noise and jerking motion that accompanies jibing woke our friends again.

All of them were overjoyed to see that the calm waters behind the breakwaters are within reach. Their longing gazes were saying: Just a minute or two and our suffering will end. It was still more than half an hour, but who would have the heart to break theirs…

Everyone stood up to the elements and once we crossed the invisible line between the red and green beacons on the breakwaters, Janna swayed down the last wave, our friends jumped up and started to fight over the tiller and sheets. We had fresh wind and even though the next item on our itinerary was cooking and eating – the Taiwanese are well-known epicureans – we crisscrossed the harbor for another two hours.

Me and Jana just set in the cockpit and enjoyed the enjoyment of our guests. From time to time we help with crossed line on the winch or to get the boat out of irons.

Those who were hungry – everyone – had a few bites of banana bread we baked in the morning and when we finally docked, in about fifteen minutes Jana fixed up a delicious chilli with tortilla chips, rice and fresh bread, which was then also used to clean plates. The early dinner was followed by a lovely sunset. What a nice day.

This week we actually baked three banana breads and three regular breads. There were just that many visitors. The very next day, our friend A-Cheng, owner of the sail boat Limei, came with his wife and mum. This was a payback dinner for the Korean feast we had with them the first time we arrived to Xingda. The banana bread was gone the first, then half of the bread which was served with the main dish. During the dinner, Jana showed our friends how to make both the banana bread and our regular bread, which were baked the same evening.

Both breads were ready for our last guest that week. A reporter, a cameraman and an assistant from the DaAi TV station came the next day to shoot a feature about a simple life on a small boat. The plan was to shoot for about three hours, but they stayed till five. And we didn’t mind. We didn’t feel quite right in front of the camera, but all of them were very nice people so we enjoyed ourselves.

The cameraman was a man around forty-five and from the beginning it was obvious that he is capable of anything to get a good shot.

“I don’t see any seagulls. How am I going to get the song of a seagull on tape?”

“Actually, seagulls don’t so much sing as they caw,” I offered my expertise.

“Can you imitate a seagull then?”

When I confessed that I haven’t been practicing seagull caw lately, he lost interest and ran away to shoot our boat from few more angles. Once we set sail he ran around the deck to get all the possible angles and kept nagging the others to get out of the scene. The waves were much smaller than two days ago, so he was able to keep his balance. Unfortunately, constant peeking into the viewfinder didn’t do much good for his stomach and soon he followed others to the cockpit and with resignation closed his eyes. This was a signal for us that he’s got enough of the sea and of shot.

Once back on the calms waters of the harbor, everyone became cheerful again. The assistant stretched on the bow, the reporter continued her questioning, and the cameraman began to stare at our mast.

“I would like to climb up there. Can I?” His colleagues opened their mouths and opened their eyes wide.

We happily agreed, because it is quite rare that people wish to get up the mast, but the view is so grand that we are always happy to share it with anyone. Particularly with people whose job is to look.

The cameraman didn’t waste any second and started to climb. I pulled him down quickly by his belt. His lady colleague, the reporter, immediately gave him a good dressing-down: you’re going to break something and will have to pay for it. I explained that I am more concerned with his and more importantly my well-being, because if he falls down and breaks his neck, I might very likely end up in jail.

I wanted to get him my climbing harness, but he would probably get up there once I let of him, so I simply tied a bowline around his chest. Bowline was good for the old climbing gurus of the last century and it should be good enough for a Taiwanese cameraman.

The cameraman climbed up to the spreaders when he realized he forgot something.

“Oh my heaven, I forgot the camera!”

We sailed smoothly with full main sail, small jib and a cameraman in the rigging.

Cooking on board was supposed to be another part of the movie. But everyone liked sailing for a little longer – we feel like on a vacation, they told us – so Jana suggested she can cook while we sail back. The cameraman found a good angle to shoot all the cooking as I tacked slowly through the harbor.

“Can we do it again? I didn’t get the sound right, when you were chopping the peppers.”

“I was going to chop another one anyway,” Jana smiled. “We hope you all will eat with us.”

It turned out that the cameraman and the reporter were on a Buddhist diet, which forbids onions, which was already sizzling in the pot. But the assistant expressed a sincere wish to help us with all that food. Nothing should go to waste.

“That’s a wonderful smell,” said the reporter.

“That’s the onion,” laughed Jana.

After the lunch, we unfolded our bicycles to shoot “low key” shopping for water and groceries. We tied a basked for veggies on one bike, a ten litter jerry can on the other and met with the crew in a small town about fifteen minutes ride from the harbor. At about five p.m. after the last interview about our life aboard, the crew left and we fell tired into the cockpit. Can you hear the sound of a beer can being opened? Psshhhh… exhale.

Friday was a resting day. Except that we scrubbed the whole bottom. No wonder we were so slow when coming up here the last time, there must have been an inch of growth, particularly those tube worms, tough SOBs.

In the afternoon we got a call from Jessica, who was apparently quite taken by Jana’s efficient cooking and organized a cooking workshop.

Originally we were planning to go to Kaohsiung on Sunday, but now we were supposed to meet for lunch with Jessica, so we decided to go on Saturday. Sailboats are known for not being on time.

Then we met Mark, who was just finishing antifouling on his Mumm 36 and was planning to go back to water on Saturday. That also meant that our Taiwanese friend Hermann will haul out his boat and we wanted to stick around and give a hand. And since Mark is a nice guy and we were playing hosts the whole week, we had him for dinner of spaghetti Bolognese and few drinks.

The next day, the crane arrived and around lunch Mark’s boat was again safely afloat. What a relief when the straps on which the crane lifts the boat are taken away and she starts to rock free again. Boat on land and particularly in the air is an unnatural phenomenon.

<img title=”Po čtyřech hodinách snažení konečně vodorovně ve vzduchu” alt=”” src=”https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/31450_4651877615158_1606395247_n.jpg” width=”461″ height=”346″ />Success!

Hauling of Hermann’s boat was a tad more difficult. It was his first time. There were hauling marks to follow, which were supposed to show where to put the straps, but it soon became obvious that the straps cannot be of the same length. After four hours of hopeless trying, the whole gang under the command of Mark, who had the most experience with cranes, the boat was up in the air, well balanced and safe. Then came the scrubbing and washing and soon it was five and we were all wet and cold.

The hot-pot that Mark suggested really hit the spot.

It was naturally too late for us to sail to Kaohsiung. We didn’t feel like going anyway. We’ll get up early in the morning, should be able to get there before noon.

Do I have to describe the wind speed that morning? I think not. There was no wind of course. But it was quite a while since our engine ran for couple of hours, so let’s call it engine maintenance motoring and we were on a tight schedule.

“It’s boring to motor,” said Jana. “But even with the engine on, it’s so beautiful at sea. Better than being landlocked.”

To make our short, four hour trip, even shorter, we decided to take a good shower. It’s been a while since we washed at sea using a bucket and sun shower to rinse the salt water off. Oh, that freedom. No crouching and hiding from the ever watchful eyes of passers-by on the shore and passengers of the ferry behind. All that being wrapped in a towel. Of course, it’s much better in Xingda, but even there, we can’t just walk freely around as the evolution made us.

At sea again, just for a while and being harassed by a noisy mechanical contraption, but alone and the scenery. The scenery is always great!

The last three days were a real ordeal. From peace of a quiet bay we stepped right in the midst of a full-blown house-party. The Chinese New Year that’s nine days of national holidays, desperate traffic jams, every hotel [...]]]>

We casted off as planned. This time we were resolved that nothing can stopped us.

The last three days were a real ordeal. From peace of a quiet bay we stepped right in the midst of a full-blown house-party. The Chinese New Year that’s nine days of national holidays, desperate traffic jams, every hotel in the favorite destinations is hopelessly over-booked, even small shrines and temples offer their meditation cells to tourists.

Why would we go back to Kaohsiung at the peak of the busiest tourist period of the whole year? Why?

We sailed out of the Xingda harbour into a well set force five winds. The tops of one to two meter waves where crumbling down and spitting spray, the sun shining as crazy and we were smiling at each other as idiots. Our Taiwanese friend A-Cheng, a.k.a. Happy Mouse, was at the helm. The goal of the day was to sail to Kaohsiung and test our windvane Caphorn downwind. So far we were neglecting this great apparatus, assuming that soon we will go for a longer test sail and learn all that is to it then.

We struggled with it for a while, because I have wrongly assumed that the tiller has to be at midships when the windvane is set. This turned out to be a silly mistake and it was pointed out by Jana who got tired of my hopeless efforts and took out the manual. Turns out, reading manuals is a good thing. Suddenly everything was so clear and we could start making fun of the limitations of our collective reason.

The windvane can handle a lot, but within certain limits. The boat has a strong tendency to come up when sailing downwind and the helmsmen counteracts this tendency by putting the tiller upwind. The same help needs to be offered to the windvane.

During few jibes we learned to set the windvane quite well. Then we could finally do nothing but start to eat. Caphorn kept the boat perfectly squared to the wind, only from time to time a wave pushed us aside, but our fateful helmsmen brought her quickly back.

Soon we arrived to Kaohsiung.

As soon as we tied to the dock, Janna‘s cockpit filled with friends. Snacks were unpacked, the garbage piled up, smiles started to wear us down, the cheek muscles started to hurt. Single mantra resonated from all directions: Xinnian kuaile! Gongxi facai! Happy New Year! May you become rich!

Originally we were planning to come back to Kaohsiung only to give a talk at the cultural center of the Buddhist humanitarian organization Tzu Chi and then go back as soon as possible. But a Swiss cruisers Kaspar and Ute on Céluann arrived the next day we left for Xingda, so we decided to stay few more days and get to know them, offer our help and find out about their cruise. Most importantly, they assured us that the area around El Nido is a true paradise. Seems like we are up for a treat!

We gave the talk at Tzu Chi on Wednesday. It went quite well. People laughed, asked questions and from the feedback we received after the talk we learned that our lifestyle is inspiring. Not that everyone would want to get a boat and set out to sea, but the minimalist lifestyle resonates with the philosophy they are trying to promote. We are really greatful to Jessica, her husband and others to give us the opportunity to visit Tzu Chi and give a talk there.

We entitled our talk “Selfish, but responsible life”. Besides amusing people by talking about all the troubles we had to go through and all the mistakes we made, the important part of the talk was naturally about the life decisions we make, values and general life philosophy. We tried to formulate clearly what our life style means in the context of humankind, the sense of life, etc., etc. That’s the heavy stuff…

We selfishly decided to live in a way that only minority can live. We are dependent on the fruit of the work done on land, on people that haven’t and most of them never will know the wonderful feeling the life at sea offers. On the other hand we try to take only a little. Our energy consumption is tiny. Our territorial claims are negligent. The refuse we leave behind is relatively small…

I guess that’s enough. In fact, our totally selfish craving for quiet, peace and peopleless surroundings, and especially the inability to satisfy that craving, was driving us crazy. We had to get out of Kaohsiung as soon as possible!

We had a windward passage ahead of us, but since we helped to arrange a canvas master Mr. Xu to come and make new canvas for Kaspar and Ute, we left around ten.

The sea was nicely billowing, the wind was fresh. Unfortunately the wind was blowing from the worst possible direction. Naturally. We tacked and enjoyed a great day till about five when we started the engine and took a shortcut against the wind so that our three guests get to their beds in reasonable time.

Now, nothing but silence is roaring in our ears. Tomorrow few friends come over and then we get back to our translation revisions. Four more days and we should be able to finish the novel we are working on right now.

Let the muse be strong with us!

“Who says we are selling?” I snapped at him. I have to confess I don’t enjoy uninvited guests that wander off the touristic paths on their quest for the [...]]]> “My name is Ou,” said an older man in trainers, chequered shirt and pants that hang down from his scrawny waist. “How much for your boat?”

“Who says we are selling?” I snapped at him. I have to confess I don’t enjoy uninvited guests that wander off the touristic paths on their quest for the Attraction all the way to our boat. The worst kind does not even say hello and demands to know how much it all costs and how much for a ride. This one at least introduced himself. So much for mitigating circumstances.

“And if you wanted to sell, how much would you be asking?” said the old man. I looked him over real good – and slow. In Taiwan you never know if that dirty hobo walking around in the cheapest kind of flip flops the money can buy isn’t a moneybags. We didn’t want to sell Janna anyway, even though I do check out other floating beauties from time to time, just in case, for future reference you know. In fact it was me who said it aloud one day, that if someone offered us a lot of money for Janna we could sell with profit and go to the USA to find us a new boat. The truth is, that I probably couldn’t part with Janna just yet. Too much sweat has been shed to give her up so soon.

“Because we don’t want to sell our boat, you would have to pay a lot.” And then I have said some ridiculously high price and considered the whole matter closed.

“That’s not so much. I could do that,” replied that man. “I like your boat very much. It’s the most beatiful boat I’ve seen here. I wouldn’t drive it very often, but I would like to have it. OK, see you later.”

I felt weakness in my knees. What did I do? Is this bloke really going to give us all that money?

“You should have only told him, that we don’t want to sell her and nothing more. What if he comes around tomorrow with a plastic bag full of cash!” said Jana.

This might sound a bit exaggerated, but everyone who has ever visited the Taiwan Post, whose banking services are very popular among the elder Taiwanese, has most likely seen such a plastic bag. Money is a definite measure of one’s success in the Chinese culture and therefore it’s more than common to see elder citizen pulling out a bag full of banknotes bound by dirty rubber band and lining up couple of such paper bricks on the counter. While doing so, they would look around. Not to spot potential attackers, but to check if all the people in the office are giving them appropriate amount of attention. Usually they would speak loudly so that everyone knows that they are bringing a lot of money into the bank.

We toyed with the idea of getting instantly quite rich for a while and quickly went through all the internet servers listing yachts for sale to look for Janna’s replacement. Could we even sell her? Basically both of us were against the idea, but just to make sure, we agreed upon the lowest price for which we would be willing just to start thinking about it.

Back then, we still lived in the small one-room apartment near the harbor and would only from time to time come to relax on our boat, to make some small repairs, etc. And so we haven’t seen Mr. Ou for several days. One afternoon we came on the boat to read for a while and put our mind of the thesis that both of us were still working on at that time.

Suddenly we heard a loud “hello”. Once we waved back, Mr. Ou started walking quickly towards us, plastic bag in his hand. That’s it then! We quickly reviewed our agreement that we don’t want to sell, only if…

But Mr. Ou didn’t speak about buying any boat anymore. Instead he invited us to dine with his family. Finally we had the chance to learn a bit about this man, who is a local patriot, bird watcher, owner of several factories and a millionaire.

“This is a very famous painting.” We nodded politely, trying to appear appreciative of that fine art. “It was really expensive,” took us Mr. Ou off guard.

From that day, Mr. Ou started to irregularly visit us at the dock and invite us for dinners with his family or friends. He turned out to be a great and caring person. Only from time to time we would hear that the soup we are just eating is the best in town and that it’s really expensive, or he would point to a work of a famous sculptor in a park and inform us that he has his sculpture at home, and of course every other famous female writer that Jana would mention would turn out to be his good friend. To prove it he would pick a phone and call her right away. As soon as the unsuspecting writer picked up the phone he would just say “Hello, I have someone here who wants to speak with you” and put the phone into Jana’s hands so that she can have a chat with the famous friend of his. After a while we got used to Mr. Ou’s surprises and really appreciated his friendship.

And then the visitations started.

“I will bring over few of my friends,” said Mr. Ou one day. “You don’t have to prepare anything, they will bring food and I will buy beer.”

Mr. Ou would introduce us as qikuaide ren – weirdos. At first, we were not entirely sure how he means that. Neither were his friends that he brought with him. Mr. Ou quickly explained:

“They are very nice people. By qikuai I don’t mean any bad. Simply they live very differently from you and me. But mostly you. You have no idea what they can do. You couldn’t do any of that. And also they are always together. If you see one, the other is somewhere nearby. They are together 24 hours a day on this small boat. See! Could you do that?!”

We were speechless. The first time anyway. I thought about the famous sculpture cowering in the corner of Mr. Ou’s living room. The rest of the audience wasn’t as surprised, obviously they knew Mr. Ou much better and knew about his jokes. Mr. Ou kept on gushing about us for a little while and then announced the next item on the agenda – he always had everything quite well planned – a talk about our lives performed by us.

We were not unprepared for that, since we had to tell “our story” several times before. Mr. Ou has interrupted us from time to time and supplemented our narration where we failed to sufficiently glorify ourselves.

After about three such visitations. During the last one, one lady, a dentist, told us how glad she is to know us. She has two daughters studying abroad and she was worried all the time if she didn’t do a mistake to send them away. She was worried what will become of them, if they won’t get corrupted, etc. When she saw how we live and that we are happy, she said she felt relieved. Her daughters will definitely find their own way in life, she can see now that there are many ways one can live and be happy. Even if it means to stray from the stereotypical path of the masses.

The next day Mr. Our came to tell us that that he will be away, that he has no plans for us and that we have a time off. “But for the next week I have started to plan a visit with a family of my friends. They will bring their daughter, who’s about 30 years old. She sits by the computer all day long, at work during the day and at home during the night. She has no live whatsoever and they are very worried about her. It’s obvious that you have a positive effect on others. Not that everyone must live on the boat and wander around, but many Taiwanese need to see that there are other things to live for, not just work and food and Facebook. So we will bring her here and maybe it will open up her eyes.”

The very next day came Mr. Lin, a professor at local polytechnic, who recently bought an old 30’ racing boat from Japan.

“Would you give a talk at my university?” he blurted out. What would we talk about? He must have noticed our dull expression.

“I am trying to explain to them in the school that it makes whole lot of sense to sail a boat and to go to the sea and that there are other ways to live different from the way most of us live here in Taiwan. So I thought that you could come and talk about your lives, what you did and what your plans are. It’s always on Friday.”

Naturally we’ve heard from our friends who sailed with us how great sailing is, how soothing are the waves and the rocking of the boat, the wonderful sense of space and the lack of noise, which is so pervasive in Taiwan. Many would say that for those few hours they forgot about their daily troubles and stress at home and at work.

But now it appears that not only the sailing and the sea, but our lifestyle became the part and parcel of Janna’s therapeutic function. Actually it shouldn’t be that surprising. After all, we have also felt the big change when we moved aboard Janna fulltime.

To set the record straight, those few first days aboard were not so cheerful. But mostly because we haven’t organized the living space inside well ahead. Once we sorted out that tiny heap of our possessions and threw away bit more crap that we didn’t need, we started to really enjoy our life aboard. So what that we need to buy a block of ice every two days so that our cheeses stay fresh? So what that we carry our drinking water in jerry cans and we have to pump up our water tank first before we can have service water in the galley, which we have to pump out using a foot pump? So what that we have to wait till it’s dark so that the hordes of tourists don’t bother us when we take cold showers using a hose on Janna’s deck and that every time it starts to rain we have to run about the boat and check that everything is closed and there are no leaks. In exchange for the little discomfort we become more free in several respects:

1. Since there is only so much storage space on our boat, we don’t accumulate useless stuff and other belongings that would otherwise limit our freedom – I would like to go on vacation, but who will look after my house, water the flowers, walk my dog? Where to put all that stuff? Is there really no place left? Logical solution would be to chuck some of it out, but usually what people do is they get themselves a new cabinet and continue buying even more stuff. Luckily, aboard Janna we have adopted a rule that we picked up from one of L&L Pardeys’ books – if you come across something that you wanna buy, try to resist the temptation and wait for a few days. If, after a week, you still feel that you need it, you go on and buy it.
2. The second kind of freedom our floating home affords us could be called the “freedom of the snail’s shell”. Like a snail, we can also move around together with our home. Moreover, unlike the poor snail who has to carry his house on his back, we let our home to carry us around. Not to mention that we get to be rocked in the process! If we don’t like some place, we can just heave the anchor and move to another bay or port.
3. The third item is not so much about freedom but about a possibility to live closer to nature and return back to the physical world that surrounds us. In an essay called Cruising Blues and Their Cure, it’s author speaks about how through our current lifestyle we get more and more entangled in the virtual reality, which pulls us away from the real physical world behind the windows of our air-conditioned homes and offices. On the other hand, life aboard a boat constantly makes us aware of that sometimes rather cruel and stormy world out there and forces us to live in a closer relationship with it.
4. Related to this is also the ability to rejoice in and cherish the ordinary things that we usually take for granted. I remember a scene from the movie With Jean-du-sud Around the World, in which Yves Gélinas, attempting a nonstop voyage around the world, after he left from Canada, crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Cape of Good Hope is meeting with people from a TV company and in exchange for his film footage is given some fresh strawberries and other fruits. His joy, while he bites into those ripe strawberries, the juice from the fruit dripping down his beard, is hard to describe. Admittedly, this example is a bit extreme, but let’s take water instead. We got used to just turning on the water tap. Most of us don’t think about where the water comes from, how much water do we use during one shower or that we leave the water running while brushing our teeth. However, when the capacity of your water tank is limited and you’re not sure when and where you’ll be able to top it up next time, you start to literally cherish each drop. As worldwide awareness of water management is concerned, maybe it would be a good idea to make a short-term stay aboard a sailboat part of basic school curriculum.
5. …

The list could go on but that is not necessary. Nor is it our intention to force our lifestyle upon anyone, on the other hand we should probably not be that surprised that our life aboard Janna is therapeutic not only for us, but that the encounter with two “weirdos”, who live aboard a small sailboat without a TV-set, shower and fridge but are apparently contended anyway, seems to have the same positive influence on our overworked, stressed out Taiwanese friends, who have been since their early childhood raised to believe that a person’s success is measured by a successful career and the amount of valuables that he or she manages to accumulate. In other words, when four years ago we bought Janna and repaired her, it’s not only her, who benefited from our care, we actually gained so much more.