Those of us with an interest in boating will probably have noticed that Jarle Andhøy's Berserk has been missing for a week, in the waters off Ross Island, Antarctica. The news went out on Wednesday last week that the EPIRB on board the Berserk had been triggered, only to stop transmitting a little over a half hour later. This happened in exceptionally bad weather, with temperatures around minus forty and the wind kicking up a violent storm. My initial thought was that there wasn't much hope for the guys on board, and with the EPIRB gone, searchers probably weren't even going to recover the bodies.
It is just too easy to imagine what might have gone wrong under such circumstances. Freezing spray can sink a boat in a frighteningly short time, impacting an ice berg in ten meter seas would lead to massive damage, and otherwise trivial technical difficulties can quickly escalate to an emergency under those conditions. Once the boat is gone, the survival time of the crew would be measured in hours, not days, if they even made it into the life raft. Thus, while the rest of the world (or at least the newspapers) seemed to live on in the hope of a miracle, I quitely resigned myself to the infinite sadness of what has happened.
As luck would have it, Jarle Andhøy was off the boat at the time of the incident, taking one crew member with him on an overland expedition by ATV to the South Pole. While I was definitely happy at this news when it emerged a few days after the sinking (I think we can call it that now), I couldn't help but feel a big pang of "Ouch!". Can you imagine what Jarle has been going through the past week? Travelling for days through the desolate ice deserts of the Antarctic with all that solitude and time to ponder the loss of his friends and crew, knowing he could do nothing to help once he made it to the coast... Man, I feel your pain, and it's damn near enough to make me cry. For the first time, I don't envy your life.
Now that searches have drawn to a close, people are waking up to the fact that the three men on board must be dead, and they are levelling an unusual weight of criticism against Jarle. Some of the stuff being said seems relevant, and if it's true that they only had two survival suits on board... well, I wouldn't have done that. 'Nuff said. Then there's the bureaucrats complaining about the proper forms not being filled out. I guess that's their job, being bureaucrats and all, but if they possess even a shred of integrety, they should be able to point out that it wouldn't have made a difference this time.
However, the shit storm doesn't stop there. Now there's a sea captain who proclaims to the world that he observed the Berserk being dangerously overloaded. Excuse me? What the fuck do you purport to know about the stability requirements for that boat? A seasoned naval architect would know enough not to make a statement about it without measuring everything thoroughly and making his calculations. For all your experience, you don't know shit, so please sit back down and stop picking on a man who is in too much pain already.
At first, I was puzzled why people have reacted so strongly this time. I mean, it's not the first time a sailing yacht has been tragically lost at sea, but we don't usually see their captains being subjected to a public humiliation like this. However, when I stop to think about what Jarle Andhøy represents, it is not so puzzling any more. He has been following his dreams, which have also been the dreams of many others. In a short few years he has seen more of this world than most people do in a lifetime, and he has done so with a certain attitude. He has made the happy-go-lucky approach his trademark, and he has rubbed our faces in it by making it all seem easy. The introduction to his blog makes this point more clearly than I ever could.
That is after all the reason why the public loves him, and I for one cannot fully express my admiration for what he has done. Not the going places part - a lot of people could have done that - but putting the ragged people on the map. In some ways, he is a modern working class hero. Sadly, we know all too well what The Nice People think about working class heroes in general, and with him having invaded one of their exclusive clubs, namely bluewater cruising, it is no wonder that they have long carried a thorn in their side for him. As long as he was winning, he was damn near impossible to target, but now that he is down, TNP are flocking around for the kill. May the shame rest with them.
EDIT: The motherfuckers definitely aint done yet
Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Changeable Conditions
You may have noticed in earlier posts that the ice is a dominant factor in my life. I like it strong or absent, as conditions in between pose many interesting challenges. The forecast thaw started in earnest last night, and combined with the snow it has had an immediate impact on the structure of the ice, which has become coarse and slushy on top. It will take days for the thickness to be significantly reduced, but the ice has already softened enough that it might be possible to break it with Oscilia. If the weather develops as they say it will, I'm pretty sure I will be able to establish a break to open water early next week, without burning too much diesel.
In the meantime, I've got to come up with a way to bridge the gap that's formed between the ice and land. Ellen delivered a care package this morning, and it was high tide when I went to meet her up in the forest. Thus, most of the break was 2-3m wide, but I found a point where I deemed it safe to jump across. Luckily it was low tide when Lisette arrived this afternoon, so she didn't have to jump the gap. I don't really want to ask her to do so when she's leaving tomorrow, which means that I must reach for the stash of 2x4 on Nemi. The trouble with structures resting on the ice in warm weather is that they tend to get heated up by the sun, melt through the ice and dissapear, but I think a surplus water drum might solve that.
Right now I'm enjoying the sight of Lisette preparing to cook a proper meal, something which hasn't happened in my galley for a while. While it's nice to watch, I think I'd rather join her, so I say goodbye :-)
Friday, February 25, 2011
The day I learned to respect fog and shipping lanes
The worst of the damage was done on my first kayak crossing of Lake Vänern. I had been making my way down the Dalslands canal for about a week, and as I got closer to the great lake, so grew the scepticism of the people I met. "Really?! You're just going to paddle across? You do know that she eats up a couple of Germans every year?" they would tell me. Being only eighteen, my answer came easily: "Well, I didn't embark on a kayaking trip from Halden to Stockholm because I wanted to stay safe, now did I?" I wasn't too worried about it. If you go into the Dalslands canal system, you'll see more Germans in canoes and kayaks than you can count, and watching them struggle to maneuver their craft on the glassy smooth surfaces of the upper lakes, it is no wonder that some of those who venture onto Vänern do end up dying. At the time, I considered myself somewhat closer to the Inuit, who use kayaks as a viable means of transportation around the icy waters of the North Atlantic. "If they can harpoon a whale from a kayak while surrounded by ice bergs and growlers, then surely I can get across this pond" I thought. Only after sailing to Greenland myself have I grown to apreciate not just the tremendous hardiness of the Inuit, but also the general cheapness of life in those parts.
Despite my cockiness, I had a bit of a lump growing in my chest on that bright and sunny morning as we got out of our sleeping bags on Hjortens Udde ("Deer point") to make the crossing. Memories of the tremendous bonfire we'd built the night before mixed with the mental imagery of Germans suspended face down by their life jackets. "That was a great night yesterday. I hope we'll live to see another!" said Per Otto, only half joking. Once we sat down and started going, however, it all became much too easy. The lake lay ahead of us like one great big unbroken mirror, and we powered across with long, easy strokes. The only valuable lesson we learned was that going up onto the Hinden reef to stretch your legs is worse than just keeping on going, as it is a smelly, bug infested and thouroughly inhospitable place. I also came away with the not so valuable impression that crossing Vänern is a piece of cake, and this would come back to haunt me.
My second Vänern crossing was a much more constructive lesson in risk assessment and proper planning. This time I had brought Magnus Hansen along for the ride. I wasn't scared at all, and to my enduring shame I even laughed at some of the people who tried to warn me. I wasn't even worried when the news struck that four tourists in two canoes had perished in light weather on the lake, only a few days before we had scheduled our crossing. We camped a bit further into the bay than I had with Per Otto, and as morning dawned there was a breeze blowing from the SW. It was supposed to freshen somewhat, but it didn't seem particularly bad to begin with, so we set off after a quick power breakfast of oats and jam.
It quickly became apparent that the tall pine trees on the shore had been shielding us from the wind, and as we made our way into the bay it started hitting us with increased force. Having it on our quarter meant that it was more of an aid than an impediment, until we were a couple of hours into it and lost the protection of Hjortens Udde. That's when the important difference between an offshore wind and twenty-odd nautical miles of fetch was driven home to me. In a short time the waves quadrupled in size, and they started tossing us around. I had to use a lot of rudder input to stay on course, and we had to work harder with the paddle to maintain balance and momentum.
The conditions steadily deteriorated during the next hour. The waves grew to a size that obscured the horizon when we were in the troughs, and now came with angry heads of white froth. The conditions were such that I couldn't focus my attention on the compass, and with land beneath the horizon all around us, my only visual reference was the direction of wind and waves. The resulting zig-zag course combined with the sea state to make our going painfully slow, and at times our VMG was well under three knots. We were getting tired as we passed the midway point, and I was having private doubts about the wisdom of our undertaking, but then a thin gray stripe appeared across the blank horizon ahead of us. We both cheered loudly, and then things went to hell very quickly.
Keeping a kayak upright under such conditions has nothing to do with stability as most boaters think of it. It is all about dynamic forces, and can be compared to riding a bicycle. As a wave pushes you over, you lean your hips into it and dig your paddle down on the opposite side to right yourself. Another important part of the equation is to maneuver your craft so as to avoid the brunt of the shit coming your way. However, with my kayak being 6.5 metres in length, having a straight keel line, displacing over a quarter of a ton fully laden and moving ahead with the all the speed and grace of a drifting log, that wasn't much of an option. We were struck by a particularly nasty breaker, and as we leaned into it to stay level, the aerated water at the crest swallowed the whole length of the kayak, and our paddles found no bite in the foam.
With no time for further analysis we found ourselves submerged and upside down. "Well, that took a big dump on a beautiful day!" said Magnus when we popped to the surface, either side of the capsized hull. I couldn't think of a way to disagree. Somehow I hadn't counted on this happening, and it didn't take much time for me to realize that we were in a very bad situation indeed. Bit by bit, it dawned on me that I hadn't brought any emergency equipment at all. No bilge pump. No flares. Not even a pail to bail out the water. We quickly established that my hat was useless for bailing. After that we tried pretty much everything, to little avail, and we started losing hope. Thankfully, although we both admitted it later, none of us said it out loud. There are few things more detrimental to the soul than thinking that you are going to die surrounded by a blank horizon, and such things are better left unsaid.
Desperate times bring forth desperate measures, and in the end we resorted to using the cooking pot. The only problem with that was that it was packed all the way into the bow. Have you ever crawled head first into the hull of a flooded kayak in open water? If not, you can just take it from me that it's not a fun thing to do. Even with the pot in hand, the task of bailing proved near impossible, as the waves crashed over us and re-filled the kayak every five-ten seconds. In the end we soved the problem by having Magnus push the stern so that the bow pointed into the weather, while I lay across the fore deck to break the waves with my body while I bailed from the front cockpit.
On his part that was such a Herculean feat of strength and endruance that to this day it leaves me deeply humbled. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had brought anyone else along for the ride, we would both have died that day. By the time we were back up and going, we had spent about eighty minutes in the water. Do you have any idea what it means to spend that amount of time struggling in water at fifteen degrees? If you're a doctor, you'll say that it means you're approaching unconsciousness. To me, having near zero body fat, it meant that I was at the bitter end of my rope. Or so I thought.
Once we had removed as much water from the kayak as was practical, we gathered up whatever equipment was still floating in the immediate vicinity and got going. We still had enough water on board to double our displacement, and this meant that the waves were breaking heavily over deck and slowly filling the hull back up. As I felt the water level slowly but steadily creeping up my thighs, I started resigning my last vestige of hope, but I retained my deepest resolve to go out fighting, and increased my pressure on the paddle. Still, the colors of the world were graying out, and I knew then that I was failing. Magnus felt this, and knowing he had no hope of survival if I quit, he pushed the one button he knew would bring me back to life.
The thing is, I like singing and Magnus doesn't like to listen. This had been an ongoing theme between us for a long time, so I was stunned when I heard his broken, unmusical voice utter the first phrase of Eric Idle's classic: "Some things in life are bad \ They can really make you mad" I perked up and joined in. "Da-da-da always look on the bright side of life!" Thus, singing and whistling, we made it into the relative calm water north of Hindens Rev. The last part of the trip is hazy in my memory, and many of the details are missing, but I do remember when the bow crashed onto the rocks on the shore of one of the islets west of Kållandsø. I also remember qutie vividly that I was unable to move my legs, so that Magnus was forced to tip the kayak on its side to extricate me and drag me up on land.
Usually when I've survived a traumatic experience such as this, I'm perversely happy about it. I somehow find a way to be grateful for the wisdom it brings. However, this one just left me drained and shameful that I could have made such horrifying mistakes. I learned a valuable lesson, but to this day the price almost seems too much to bear. What's worse, I didn't learn the right lesson, as my next Vänern crossing would demonstrate.
Fast forward one year, and you find Magnus and myself camped near the same spot, preparing to cross Vänern the next morning. This time we had all the necessary equipment on board, and the weather report sounded promising. We had a fantastic time, got ourselves thrown out of a midsummers night party and crashed in the tent with much too few worries on our minds. Morning dawned on a mirror smooth lake, and in the still air we hurried to pack our tent and get going.
Just as we were paddling away from shore, the fog came down. I didn't even stop to think about it. Sure it was a hassle, but we would be navigating by compass anyway, and we even had a GPS. Much more important was the dead calm, which still seemed set to last through the day. To stop and wait for the soup to clear would have put us at risk to windy conditions, or so I reasoned. As we kept going, the fog got heavier until we could barely see a boat length ahead. It was so bad that we nearly crashed into a little motor boat with a family on board, which had anchored in wait for clear weather once the skipper realized that he had blundered into shallow waters. We stopped for a chat, and they invited us on board for coffee. We talked for a while, and I showed the skipper how to enter waypoints into his GPS (of which he didn't seem to understand much), but he elected to hang around nonetheless. They even offered us to wait with them, but we were anxious to get going.
"Don't worry, you'll see that it clears up just nice once we get a bit further out" I told Magnus, who was having second thoughts when we got going again. I was in the rear cockpit with the rudder pedals and the compass, while Magnus was up front with the chart and the GPS. "What are these pink lines?" he wondered after a while. "Oh, those are just shipping lanes out of Vänersborg" I said, and we continued in silence for a while. "Aren't we supposed to worry about those?" I thought about it for a second. "Well, I guess, but I haven't seen much shipping going that way. And besides, even if there is one ship every hour, which I doubt, the risk of getting hit by one isn't all that bad. If the width of the ship is, say, sixty feet, we only occupy that space for much less than a minute. It boils down to a fraction of a percent."
We kept on going in an uneasy silence, and the fog got even thicker. Mathematic risk assessment aside, zero visibility creeps me out. Always has, always will. We had just made it into the southbound lane of the separation system when my ears picked up a faint throb. For a moment I hoped that it might be a helicopter, but no, it was the unmistakeable exhaust note of a very big engine turning at only a few hundred RPM. Magnus had heard it too, and he turned around. "Is that what I think it is?" he wondered. I just nodded, and we sat and listened for a while. The sound seemed to fill the air around us, and it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. Very tentatively, we kept going at slow speed, straining our ears.
The exhaust note was joined by the swish-swish-swish of a large propeller transmitting its vibrations through the water and into the hull of the kayak, and there was no doubt that it was getting closer. A minute later, another sound was added to the mix, this time a faint rumble, like a waterfall. I was increasingly certain that it was approaching us on the port side, which was bad news since we were almost in the middle of the southbound lane. It was impossible to tell if the ship was going to pass ahead or astern, and I was suddenly acutely aware that with the clutter controls turned up for the fog, the ship's radar operator didn't stand a chance of spotting a fiberglass kayak on the surface.
My instincts told me to go full steam ahead in a mad dash for the separation line, but logic told me to stay still until I had some kind of an indication of the ship's location. The rumble of the bow wave grew sharper, as we could hear drops of water hitting the surface, and in an instant it seemed like it was on top of us. I thought I heard voices, and then the sound passed in front of us. Seconds later we were struck by the wake, an indication of how incredibly close it had been. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, then we kept going forward. A short time later the powers that be waved their magic wand, and the fog lifted. We saw the ship then, a Vänermax cargo carrier, completely oblivious to the drama that had just played out a few meters off their starboard side.
Although these two incidents have taken a chunk out of my ego, they have taught me a few valuable lessons. First, I'm not invincible, and I need to act accordingly. Otherwise, I risk not only my own life, but also that of those who choose to follow me on my adventures. Bringing basic safety equipment along for a major crossing is pretty fundamental, as is respecting an uncertain weather forecast when I'm unfamiliar with the local conditions. Through the clarity of hindsight, it is shocking to see that I had to get into an accident to fully understand that. Second, never focus just on the factors which you know from experience, but take a step back to consider the full picture. Keep in mind that your experience might be downplaying the stuff that hasn't already smacked you in the face. Third, and perhaps most importantly, my risk assesment was badly flawed. Risk equals the probability of an event, times the consequence of said event. Rolling a thousand-sided dice for the end of your life is just plain stupid.
I'm sharing this with you in the hope that embarassing myself might save someone having to figure out the same thing for themselves. All of these are things I knew well beforehand, but I had to see them for myself before I really got the message. That's pretty fucked up. But you know what's more fucked up than that? Magnus still wants to join me on another major kayaking trip. Understand it, those who may.
Despite my cockiness, I had a bit of a lump growing in my chest on that bright and sunny morning as we got out of our sleeping bags on Hjortens Udde ("Deer point") to make the crossing. Memories of the tremendous bonfire we'd built the night before mixed with the mental imagery of Germans suspended face down by their life jackets. "That was a great night yesterday. I hope we'll live to see another!" said Per Otto, only half joking. Once we sat down and started going, however, it all became much too easy. The lake lay ahead of us like one great big unbroken mirror, and we powered across with long, easy strokes. The only valuable lesson we learned was that going up onto the Hinden reef to stretch your legs is worse than just keeping on going, as it is a smelly, bug infested and thouroughly inhospitable place. I also came away with the not so valuable impression that crossing Vänern is a piece of cake, and this would come back to haunt me.
My second Vänern crossing was a much more constructive lesson in risk assessment and proper planning. This time I had brought Magnus Hansen along for the ride. I wasn't scared at all, and to my enduring shame I even laughed at some of the people who tried to warn me. I wasn't even worried when the news struck that four tourists in two canoes had perished in light weather on the lake, only a few days before we had scheduled our crossing. We camped a bit further into the bay than I had with Per Otto, and as morning dawned there was a breeze blowing from the SW. It was supposed to freshen somewhat, but it didn't seem particularly bad to begin with, so we set off after a quick power breakfast of oats and jam.
It quickly became apparent that the tall pine trees on the shore had been shielding us from the wind, and as we made our way into the bay it started hitting us with increased force. Having it on our quarter meant that it was more of an aid than an impediment, until we were a couple of hours into it and lost the protection of Hjortens Udde. That's when the important difference between an offshore wind and twenty-odd nautical miles of fetch was driven home to me. In a short time the waves quadrupled in size, and they started tossing us around. I had to use a lot of rudder input to stay on course, and we had to work harder with the paddle to maintain balance and momentum.
The conditions steadily deteriorated during the next hour. The waves grew to a size that obscured the horizon when we were in the troughs, and now came with angry heads of white froth. The conditions were such that I couldn't focus my attention on the compass, and with land beneath the horizon all around us, my only visual reference was the direction of wind and waves. The resulting zig-zag course combined with the sea state to make our going painfully slow, and at times our VMG was well under three knots. We were getting tired as we passed the midway point, and I was having private doubts about the wisdom of our undertaking, but then a thin gray stripe appeared across the blank horizon ahead of us. We both cheered loudly, and then things went to hell very quickly.
Keeping a kayak upright under such conditions has nothing to do with stability as most boaters think of it. It is all about dynamic forces, and can be compared to riding a bicycle. As a wave pushes you over, you lean your hips into it and dig your paddle down on the opposite side to right yourself. Another important part of the equation is to maneuver your craft so as to avoid the brunt of the shit coming your way. However, with my kayak being 6.5 metres in length, having a straight keel line, displacing over a quarter of a ton fully laden and moving ahead with the all the speed and grace of a drifting log, that wasn't much of an option. We were struck by a particularly nasty breaker, and as we leaned into it to stay level, the aerated water at the crest swallowed the whole length of the kayak, and our paddles found no bite in the foam.
With no time for further analysis we found ourselves submerged and upside down. "Well, that took a big dump on a beautiful day!" said Magnus when we popped to the surface, either side of the capsized hull. I couldn't think of a way to disagree. Somehow I hadn't counted on this happening, and it didn't take much time for me to realize that we were in a very bad situation indeed. Bit by bit, it dawned on me that I hadn't brought any emergency equipment at all. No bilge pump. No flares. Not even a pail to bail out the water. We quickly established that my hat was useless for bailing. After that we tried pretty much everything, to little avail, and we started losing hope. Thankfully, although we both admitted it later, none of us said it out loud. There are few things more detrimental to the soul than thinking that you are going to die surrounded by a blank horizon, and such things are better left unsaid.
Desperate times bring forth desperate measures, and in the end we resorted to using the cooking pot. The only problem with that was that it was packed all the way into the bow. Have you ever crawled head first into the hull of a flooded kayak in open water? If not, you can just take it from me that it's not a fun thing to do. Even with the pot in hand, the task of bailing proved near impossible, as the waves crashed over us and re-filled the kayak every five-ten seconds. In the end we soved the problem by having Magnus push the stern so that the bow pointed into the weather, while I lay across the fore deck to break the waves with my body while I bailed from the front cockpit.
On his part that was such a Herculean feat of strength and endruance that to this day it leaves me deeply humbled. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had brought anyone else along for the ride, we would both have died that day. By the time we were back up and going, we had spent about eighty minutes in the water. Do you have any idea what it means to spend that amount of time struggling in water at fifteen degrees? If you're a doctor, you'll say that it means you're approaching unconsciousness. To me, having near zero body fat, it meant that I was at the bitter end of my rope. Or so I thought.
Once we had removed as much water from the kayak as was practical, we gathered up whatever equipment was still floating in the immediate vicinity and got going. We still had enough water on board to double our displacement, and this meant that the waves were breaking heavily over deck and slowly filling the hull back up. As I felt the water level slowly but steadily creeping up my thighs, I started resigning my last vestige of hope, but I retained my deepest resolve to go out fighting, and increased my pressure on the paddle. Still, the colors of the world were graying out, and I knew then that I was failing. Magnus felt this, and knowing he had no hope of survival if I quit, he pushed the one button he knew would bring me back to life.
The thing is, I like singing and Magnus doesn't like to listen. This had been an ongoing theme between us for a long time, so I was stunned when I heard his broken, unmusical voice utter the first phrase of Eric Idle's classic: "Some things in life are bad \ They can really make you mad" I perked up and joined in. "Da-da-da always look on the bright side of life!" Thus, singing and whistling, we made it into the relative calm water north of Hindens Rev. The last part of the trip is hazy in my memory, and many of the details are missing, but I do remember when the bow crashed onto the rocks on the shore of one of the islets west of Kållandsø. I also remember qutie vividly that I was unable to move my legs, so that Magnus was forced to tip the kayak on its side to extricate me and drag me up on land.
Usually when I've survived a traumatic experience such as this, I'm perversely happy about it. I somehow find a way to be grateful for the wisdom it brings. However, this one just left me drained and shameful that I could have made such horrifying mistakes. I learned a valuable lesson, but to this day the price almost seems too much to bear. What's worse, I didn't learn the right lesson, as my next Vänern crossing would demonstrate.
Fast forward one year, and you find Magnus and myself camped near the same spot, preparing to cross Vänern the next morning. This time we had all the necessary equipment on board, and the weather report sounded promising. We had a fantastic time, got ourselves thrown out of a midsummers night party and crashed in the tent with much too few worries on our minds. Morning dawned on a mirror smooth lake, and in the still air we hurried to pack our tent and get going.
Just as we were paddling away from shore, the fog came down. I didn't even stop to think about it. Sure it was a hassle, but we would be navigating by compass anyway, and we even had a GPS. Much more important was the dead calm, which still seemed set to last through the day. To stop and wait for the soup to clear would have put us at risk to windy conditions, or so I reasoned. As we kept going, the fog got heavier until we could barely see a boat length ahead. It was so bad that we nearly crashed into a little motor boat with a family on board, which had anchored in wait for clear weather once the skipper realized that he had blundered into shallow waters. We stopped for a chat, and they invited us on board for coffee. We talked for a while, and I showed the skipper how to enter waypoints into his GPS (of which he didn't seem to understand much), but he elected to hang around nonetheless. They even offered us to wait with them, but we were anxious to get going.
"Don't worry, you'll see that it clears up just nice once we get a bit further out" I told Magnus, who was having second thoughts when we got going again. I was in the rear cockpit with the rudder pedals and the compass, while Magnus was up front with the chart and the GPS. "What are these pink lines?" he wondered after a while. "Oh, those are just shipping lanes out of Vänersborg" I said, and we continued in silence for a while. "Aren't we supposed to worry about those?" I thought about it for a second. "Well, I guess, but I haven't seen much shipping going that way. And besides, even if there is one ship every hour, which I doubt, the risk of getting hit by one isn't all that bad. If the width of the ship is, say, sixty feet, we only occupy that space for much less than a minute. It boils down to a fraction of a percent."
We kept on going in an uneasy silence, and the fog got even thicker. Mathematic risk assessment aside, zero visibility creeps me out. Always has, always will. We had just made it into the southbound lane of the separation system when my ears picked up a faint throb. For a moment I hoped that it might be a helicopter, but no, it was the unmistakeable exhaust note of a very big engine turning at only a few hundred RPM. Magnus had heard it too, and he turned around. "Is that what I think it is?" he wondered. I just nodded, and we sat and listened for a while. The sound seemed to fill the air around us, and it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. Very tentatively, we kept going at slow speed, straining our ears.
The exhaust note was joined by the swish-swish-swish of a large propeller transmitting its vibrations through the water and into the hull of the kayak, and there was no doubt that it was getting closer. A minute later, another sound was added to the mix, this time a faint rumble, like a waterfall. I was increasingly certain that it was approaching us on the port side, which was bad news since we were almost in the middle of the southbound lane. It was impossible to tell if the ship was going to pass ahead or astern, and I was suddenly acutely aware that with the clutter controls turned up for the fog, the ship's radar operator didn't stand a chance of spotting a fiberglass kayak on the surface.
My instincts told me to go full steam ahead in a mad dash for the separation line, but logic told me to stay still until I had some kind of an indication of the ship's location. The rumble of the bow wave grew sharper, as we could hear drops of water hitting the surface, and in an instant it seemed like it was on top of us. I thought I heard voices, and then the sound passed in front of us. Seconds later we were struck by the wake, an indication of how incredibly close it had been. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, then we kept going forward. A short time later the powers that be waved their magic wand, and the fog lifted. We saw the ship then, a Vänermax cargo carrier, completely oblivious to the drama that had just played out a few meters off their starboard side.
Although these two incidents have taken a chunk out of my ego, they have taught me a few valuable lessons. First, I'm not invincible, and I need to act accordingly. Otherwise, I risk not only my own life, but also that of those who choose to follow me on my adventures. Bringing basic safety equipment along for a major crossing is pretty fundamental, as is respecting an uncertain weather forecast when I'm unfamiliar with the local conditions. Through the clarity of hindsight, it is shocking to see that I had to get into an accident to fully understand that. Second, never focus just on the factors which you know from experience, but take a step back to consider the full picture. Keep in mind that your experience might be downplaying the stuff that hasn't already smacked you in the face. Third, and perhaps most importantly, my risk assesment was badly flawed. Risk equals the probability of an event, times the consequence of said event. Rolling a thousand-sided dice for the end of your life is just plain stupid.
I'm sharing this with you in the hope that embarassing myself might save someone having to figure out the same thing for themselves. All of these are things I knew well beforehand, but I had to see them for myself before I really got the message. That's pretty fucked up. But you know what's more fucked up than that? Magnus still wants to join me on another major kayaking trip. Understand it, those who may.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
On a positive note, while it's on my mind
I just recieved a care visit from my dad. He's a champ for making his way all the way through the woods and across the sea ice to my desolate little corner of the world, a journey which has unnerved many of my hardier friends. His gift basket contained a substantial meal, which I decimated in minutes. He also came lugging the highly important gift of fifty litres of fresh water. I don't need much, but without drinking water my life gets pretty desperate pretty fast.
We spent the time talking, as there is little else to do around here, and five hours passed in a flash. My old man has accumulated considerable wisdom, and now I'm more grateful than ever that he saw fit to dispense me a good dollop from his seemingly never-ending supply. Those of you who didn't find your way in here by googling "gift basket" or "substantial meal", but rather have been coming here for some time, might have realized that much of the conversation was about anger management (I hesitate to say "problems"). While we don't always agree on everything, he has an uncanny knack for making me see things from a new angle.
Earlier today, I made the snap decision to revert to writing in English. Yesterday I pissed off a good portion of the Norwegian speaking boating public, and I was never one for winning anyone back, so I might as well switch audiences again. Norwegian is such a bland language anyway.
We spent the time talking, as there is little else to do around here, and five hours passed in a flash. My old man has accumulated considerable wisdom, and now I'm more grateful than ever that he saw fit to dispense me a good dollop from his seemingly never-ending supply. Those of you who didn't find your way in here by googling "gift basket" or "substantial meal", but rather have been coming here for some time, might have realized that much of the conversation was about anger management (I hesitate to say "problems"). While we don't always agree on everything, he has an uncanny knack for making me see things from a new angle.
Earlier today, I made the snap decision to revert to writing in English. Yesterday I pissed off a good portion of the Norwegian speaking boating public, and I was never one for winning anyone back, so I might as well switch audiences again. Norwegian is such a bland language anyway.
En unnskyldning til mine fem faste lesere
For første gang siden jeg begynte å blogge, hadde jeg i går noe på hjertet som jeg ville at ALLE skulle få med seg. For å oppnå det, tydde jeg til nettop den typen spekulativ skittkasting som jeg tidligere har tatt sterk avstand fra. Som det ble meg grundig påpekt, var det et selvdestruktivt grep som var lite egnet til å oppnå noe til min fordel. Jeg oppnådde allikevel akkurat det jeg ville: På noen få timer fikk det ene innlegget flere lesere enn hele bloggen min gjør på en måned. Det kaller jeg god uttelling for en selvmordsbombe.
Jeg klarte altså å bevisstgjøre en andel av de grå massene på det jeg anser som grov diskriminering av de som velger en alternativ livsstil. Det er trist at jeg måtte slakte en mellomleder i NAV på et offentlig alter for å få det til. Ikke fordi jeg synes synd på vedkommende - hvis du setter ditt navn på et angrep mot min livsførsel, får du tåle en personlig reaksjon - men fordi det var det som måtte til.
Mens jeg satt og skrev dette ble jeg oppringt av Pappa, som presterte å forklare meg et par viktige ting. Hun som gjorde dette mot meg er ikke OND, bare en inkompetent byråkrat som ikke skjønte hvordan hun skulle håndtere en person som ikke passer inn i malen. Jeg har derfor valgt å anonymisere henne, selv om de tusen arkiveringstjenester allerede har foreviget mine ord.
Faen, hvorfor takler jeg ikke sympati? Det er så enkelt å være hatet - jeg vet jo alt for vel hvordan jeg besvarer denslags. Men det skal ikke mer enn noen vennlige ord og litt forståelse til for å knuse meg like grundig som tusen kilo murstein fra oven. Nå er jeg redusert til en våt flekk.
Jeg beklager på det dypeste at dere måtte bli med på denne deprimerende reisen gjennom min forstyrrede verden. Det var meningen å skrive en søt historie i dag om Nimo, som er tilbake fra dyrlegen minus en tå, pluss en krage og med en helt ny sans for smertestillende medisiner. Men jeg orker ikke. Det er bare så jævlig svart, og alt som kommer ut av tastaturet mitt er forgiftet og illeluktende. Da er det bedre at jeg trekker meg tilbake og slutter å drite meg ut, til jeg finner veien opp og ut av dette hølet.
Jeg klarte altså å bevisstgjøre en andel av de grå massene på det jeg anser som grov diskriminering av de som velger en alternativ livsstil. Det er trist at jeg måtte slakte en mellomleder i NAV på et offentlig alter for å få det til. Ikke fordi jeg synes synd på vedkommende - hvis du setter ditt navn på et angrep mot min livsførsel, får du tåle en personlig reaksjon - men fordi det var det som måtte til.
Mens jeg satt og skrev dette ble jeg oppringt av Pappa, som presterte å forklare meg et par viktige ting. Hun som gjorde dette mot meg er ikke OND, bare en inkompetent byråkrat som ikke skjønte hvordan hun skulle håndtere en person som ikke passer inn i malen. Jeg har derfor valgt å anonymisere henne, selv om de tusen arkiveringstjenester allerede har foreviget mine ord.
Faen, hvorfor takler jeg ikke sympati? Det er så enkelt å være hatet - jeg vet jo alt for vel hvordan jeg besvarer denslags. Men det skal ikke mer enn noen vennlige ord og litt forståelse til for å knuse meg like grundig som tusen kilo murstein fra oven. Nå er jeg redusert til en våt flekk.
Jeg beklager på det dypeste at dere måtte bli med på denne deprimerende reisen gjennom min forstyrrede verden. Det var meningen å skrive en søt historie i dag om Nimo, som er tilbake fra dyrlegen minus en tå, pluss en krage og med en helt ny sans for smertestillende medisiner. Men jeg orker ikke. Det er bare så jævlig svart, og alt som kommer ut av tastaturet mitt er forgiftet og illeluktende. Da er det bedre at jeg trekker meg tilbake og slutter å drite meg ut, til jeg finner veien opp og ut av dette hølet.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Flinke, flinke NAV!
EDIT:
Dette bør leses i sammenheng med mine tidligere erfaringer med NAV:
http://oscilia.blogspot.com/2010/12/sa-langt-men-ikke-lenger.html
http://oscilia.blogspot.com/2010/12/og-det-hadde-jeg-virkelig-trodd.html
For ikke å snakke om den gangen de rotet bort søknaden min to ganger på rad, eller da de mente at jeg fikk klare meg uten trygdeytelser etter å ha invalidisert meg (for et halvt år) mens jeg var i forsvaret.
/EDIT
Bankmannen min ringte like etter at jeg postet i går. Forståelig nok, siden jeg har latt rentebeløpet stå ubetalt i to uker over forfall. For å unngå konsekvenser for min kjære mor, som i all sin godhet og uforstand har garantert for båtlånet mitt, ble jeg nødt å skrape sammen alt jeg har av mynt, pante alle flasker og få 50 kroner av Lisette, som jeg deponerte i banken i dag. Er det akkurat passe lavt, eller? Her sier jeg nei takk når hun tilbyr seg å kjøpe sigaretter til meg, fordi jeg synes det er galt at hun skal finansiere rusvanene mine, og så må jeg gå og tigge penger til lånet i stedet. Et lån til en båt som har sørget for at vi ikke bor sammen lenger, på tross av hvor høyt vi fortsatt elsker hverandre.
Med det var det på tide å ta turen opp til trygdekontoret igjen. Det har jo tross alt gått flere uker over behandlingsfristen for kravet om dagpenger, uten at jeg har hørt noe. For en gangs skyld var det minimalt med kø, og på rekordtid kunne den vennlige damen i skranken fortelle hva som hadde skjedd med søknaden min. Den hadde faktisk blitt behandlet på dagen og svaret hadde blitt sendt til mitt barndomshjem i Luenbakken.
Da jeg spurte hvordan det kunne ha seg, siden jeg ikke har vært folkeregistrert der på mange år, og gjentatte ganger oppfordret NAV til å slette adressen fra sine registre, viste den vennlige damen seg kompetent nok til å konstatere at det ikke lot seg gjøre uten å erstatte den med en ny. Jeg uttrykte min undring over at de ikke hadde fått postadressen min fra folkeregisteret, siden jeg har opplevd flere ganger tidligere at andre offentlige instanser (bl.a. Ligningskontoret) har fått det til, men hun bare ristet på hodet og viste til et vindu på skjermen sin som kun oppga bostedsadressen min. Det var visst alt de fikk ut av det flotte datasystemet sitt, som sikkert har kostet mer enn min livsførsel fra fødsel til død.
Men tilbake til svarbrevet, tillat meg å sitere: " (...) Ditt krav om dagpenger er avslått fra 03-01-2011. (...) NAV Forvaltning Østfold viser til din dagpengesøknad der du oppgir at du er uten fast bopel (UFP) (sic). Det er et krav at du skal være tilgjengelig på en adresse, slik at det er mulig å oppnå skriftlig kontakt med deg. Du anses (sic) å ikke være reell arbeidssøker. (...) Med hilsen NN e.f. (...)"
EDIT: Jeg har i samråd med Pappa Advokat valgt å omformulere den lille tiraden min slik: Kjære NN, jeg forakter deg og det byråkratiet du representerer. Måtte din egen umenneskelighet komme tilbake og skade deg stygt og personlig. Så kan det malende språket jeg brukte for å beskrive deg for alltid få leve dypt i magen på archive.org
Faen Terje, du knuste hjertet mitt i dag. Der satt jeg og fylte ut søknadsskjemaet, mens det svirret slike tanker rundt i hodet mitt at jeg hadde blitt lagt rett i bakken av Securitas om det hadde syntes utenpå. Nå som du har lest hva jeg skrev, kanskje du skjønner. Og så kom du altså bort og kommuniserte så mye sympati og medlidenhet med ett eneste blikk, at det var såvidt jeg ikke begynte å grine som en drittunge. Hadde det ikke vært for deg ville det vært så enkelt å hate hele systemet, men du tvang meg altså til å innse at det finnes mennesker der inne, midt oppe i alt byråkratiet.
Jeg er i dyp følelsesmessig ubalanse akkurat nå, og erfaring har vist meg at det ikke er den beste tilstanden for å skrive. Mot min bedre viten velger jeg allikevel å trykke "Publish Post", and damn the torpedoes!
Dette bør leses i sammenheng med mine tidligere erfaringer med NAV:
http://oscilia.blogspot.com/2010/12/sa-langt-men-ikke-lenger.html
http://oscilia.blogspot.com/2010/12/og-det-hadde-jeg-virkelig-trodd.html
For ikke å snakke om den gangen de rotet bort søknaden min to ganger på rad, eller da de mente at jeg fikk klare meg uten trygdeytelser etter å ha invalidisert meg (for et halvt år) mens jeg var i forsvaret.
/EDIT
Bankmannen min ringte like etter at jeg postet i går. Forståelig nok, siden jeg har latt rentebeløpet stå ubetalt i to uker over forfall. For å unngå konsekvenser for min kjære mor, som i all sin godhet og uforstand har garantert for båtlånet mitt, ble jeg nødt å skrape sammen alt jeg har av mynt, pante alle flasker og få 50 kroner av Lisette, som jeg deponerte i banken i dag. Er det akkurat passe lavt, eller? Her sier jeg nei takk når hun tilbyr seg å kjøpe sigaretter til meg, fordi jeg synes det er galt at hun skal finansiere rusvanene mine, og så må jeg gå og tigge penger til lånet i stedet. Et lån til en båt som har sørget for at vi ikke bor sammen lenger, på tross av hvor høyt vi fortsatt elsker hverandre.
Med det var det på tide å ta turen opp til trygdekontoret igjen. Det har jo tross alt gått flere uker over behandlingsfristen for kravet om dagpenger, uten at jeg har hørt noe. For en gangs skyld var det minimalt med kø, og på rekordtid kunne den vennlige damen i skranken fortelle hva som hadde skjedd med søknaden min. Den hadde faktisk blitt behandlet på dagen og svaret hadde blitt sendt til mitt barndomshjem i Luenbakken.
Da jeg spurte hvordan det kunne ha seg, siden jeg ikke har vært folkeregistrert der på mange år, og gjentatte ganger oppfordret NAV til å slette adressen fra sine registre, viste den vennlige damen seg kompetent nok til å konstatere at det ikke lot seg gjøre uten å erstatte den med en ny. Jeg uttrykte min undring over at de ikke hadde fått postadressen min fra folkeregisteret, siden jeg har opplevd flere ganger tidligere at andre offentlige instanser (bl.a. Ligningskontoret) har fått det til, men hun bare ristet på hodet og viste til et vindu på skjermen sin som kun oppga bostedsadressen min. Det var visst alt de fikk ut av det flotte datasystemet sitt, som sikkert har kostet mer enn min livsførsel fra fødsel til død.
Men tilbake til svarbrevet, tillat meg å sitere: " (...) Ditt krav om dagpenger er avslått fra 03-01-2011. (...) NAV Forvaltning Østfold viser til din dagpengesøknad der du oppgir at du er uten fast bopel (UFP) (sic). Det er et krav at du skal være tilgjengelig på en adresse, slik at det er mulig å oppnå skriftlig kontakt med deg. Du anses (sic) å ikke være reell arbeidssøker. (...) Med hilsen NN e.f. (...)"
EDIT: Jeg har i samråd med Pappa Advokat valgt å omformulere den lille tiraden min slik: Kjære NN, jeg forakter deg og det byråkratiet du representerer. Måtte din egen umenneskelighet komme tilbake og skade deg stygt og personlig. Så kan det malende språket jeg brukte for å beskrive deg for alltid få leve dypt i magen på archive.org
Faen Terje, du knuste hjertet mitt i dag. Der satt jeg og fylte ut søknadsskjemaet, mens det svirret slike tanker rundt i hodet mitt at jeg hadde blitt lagt rett i bakken av Securitas om det hadde syntes utenpå. Nå som du har lest hva jeg skrev, kanskje du skjønner. Og så kom du altså bort og kommuniserte så mye sympati og medlidenhet med ett eneste blikk, at det var såvidt jeg ikke begynte å grine som en drittunge. Hadde det ikke vært for deg ville det vært så enkelt å hate hele systemet, men du tvang meg altså til å innse at det finnes mennesker der inne, midt oppe i alt byråkratiet.
Jeg er i dyp følelsesmessig ubalanse akkurat nå, og erfaring har vist meg at det ikke er den beste tilstanden for å skrive. Mot min bedre viten velger jeg allikevel å trykke "Publish Post", and damn the torpedoes!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Jobbe? Ja lissom!
Jeg fikk nok en telefon fra den nye sjefen i går. Denne gangen gjaldt det utsettelse på ubestemt tid, så jeg får vel finne på noe lurt.
Akkurat mens jeg skriver dette ringte heldigvis Gærne Ulf og vil ha hjelp med katastrofeprosjektet sitt. Seriøst, folkens, ikke kjøp en Kina-ATV med istykkerklippet ledningsnett, særlig ikke hvis alle de små svarte duppedittene mangler. Dere aner ikke hvor mye tid som går med til å spore opp reservedeler til slike bruk-og-kast-produkter. Nå skal jeg liksom få tak i likeretter, CDI-boks og triggercoil til en Zongshen! Og det er før jeg begynner å lappe sammen et ledningsnett som mest minner om korte stumper av brent spaghetti...
Ja ja, jeg burde ikke klage. Det er i alle fall noe å henge fingrene i, og det trenger jeg virkelig med tanke på at min totale pengebeholdning beløper seg til 132 kroner. NAV har jeg selvfølgelig ikke hørt noe fra, så nå er jeg bare noen få dager unna å måtte fiske for å få mat på bordet. Jeg takker lykken for en lillesøster som donerer uspiste feltrasjoner. Uten deg hadde det sett litt svart ut om dagen!
Akkurat mens jeg skriver dette ringte heldigvis Gærne Ulf og vil ha hjelp med katastrofeprosjektet sitt. Seriøst, folkens, ikke kjøp en Kina-ATV med istykkerklippet ledningsnett, særlig ikke hvis alle de små svarte duppedittene mangler. Dere aner ikke hvor mye tid som går med til å spore opp reservedeler til slike bruk-og-kast-produkter. Nå skal jeg liksom få tak i likeretter, CDI-boks og triggercoil til en Zongshen! Og det er før jeg begynner å lappe sammen et ledningsnett som mest minner om korte stumper av brent spaghetti...
Ja ja, jeg burde ikke klage. Det er i alle fall noe å henge fingrene i, og det trenger jeg virkelig med tanke på at min totale pengebeholdning beløper seg til 132 kroner. NAV har jeg selvfølgelig ikke hørt noe fra, så nå er jeg bare noen få dager unna å måtte fiske for å få mat på bordet. Jeg takker lykken for en lillesøster som donerer uspiste feltrasjoner. Uten deg hadde det sett litt svart ut om dagen!
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