Joseph Rolls Over!
An Achronism
Balclutha Beating Out of Bristol Channel in Winter of '94
From a painting by Oswald Brett
(Photo of painting purchased in an antique shop in Astoria)
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One of the many great aspects of geocaching is how readily it ties into other hobbies and interests such as hiking, photography, music, cycling, and in the case of this puzzle, literature and reading.
For many years, I have enjoyed reading and a favourite genre is nautical fiction. Polish/British author Joseph Conrad, considered one of the greatest novelists, wrote numerous sea-faring works, a number of which I have had the pleasure to read.
Conrad had the rare ability of writing sentences and passages that are so skillfully crafted that the reader may want to read them over a few times. Here is an example from The Shadow Line:
After sunset I came out on deck again to meet only a still void. The thin, featureless crust of the coast could not be distinguished. The darkness had risen around the ship like a mysterious emanation from the dumb and lonely water. I leaned on the rail and turned my ear to the shadows of the night. Not a sound. My command might have been a planet flying vertiginously on its appointed path in a space of infinite silence. I clung to the rail as if my sense of balance were leaving me for good.
And from The Mirror of the Sea:
The sea - this truth must be confessed - has no generosity. No display of manly qualities - courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness - has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power.
With profuse apologies to Joseph, and indeed to any who read further, I have penned by own little contribution to the body of maritime fiction ca the late 1700s. I cannot hope that you will enjoy it, but perhaps it will lead you to a nice rocky hole at the base of a street light on a beautiful hill.
On an evening in the year 1786, encroaching twilight found me ashore, free to act as I might find fancy, in a port town of the great land of Gibraltar and no insignificant distance from that most wondrous of landmarks, the Rock itself.
Shore leave! I had but few possessions to weigh me down and indeed left with some degree of ceremony those marks of my seafaring trade behind on the Bristol Princess - the octant3, the astrolabe5, the solar compass2, the telescope1. Stepping gingerly around the columbiad4 at the base of the headland, I felt myself becoming one with the land after months upon the sea, a veritable lightning rod7 for adventure and intrigue.
The harbour was awash with the ceaseless activities inherent to any deep-sea port and the darkening of the day cast phantasmagoric shadows upon the rigging, the masts and the endless array of ships crowding the docks, from magnificent triple-masters to a tiny flatboat8 which caught my eye for some reason as yet not revealed to me.
Amongst those few items which I had packed prior to departing the ship were a small selection of victuals destined to compose the substance of a late-evening snack - salt pork2, taffy1 (of the salt water variety, naturally), a wonderfully-anticipated doughnut2, coffee4, a rapidly melting float1. I was glad to have also thrown in some dental-floss4 as a last-minute thought!
The gathering gloom of coastal twilight enveloped me as I completed the meal and enjoyed the unsurpassed maritime view. A fellow selling newspapers10 from a wheelbarrow4 passed, and I made a hasty purchase. News of a hot air balloon6 ascent over Paris! Falling barometers8 signaling impending heavy weather. A calliope5 concert scheduled at a nearby sailors' home. A wondrous time to be alive.
Resuming my walk uphill from the harbor, I observed the vast array of pandemonium ensuing all around me, the signature sounds of life ashore. Two sailors, one wearing bifocals2, the other seated in a swivel chair9 whilst sending Morse-code1 to some unknown recipient greeted me and offered a quick warm-up abaft their Franklin stove13, which I politely declined. A warm bed in a comfortable inn was my sole ambition after so long at sea. An evening spent reading and working my slide rule3 would suffice.
The barbed-wire5 path fraught with unceasing danger upon which our lives dictate we follow hast depicted not a whit of conscious empathy for the embattled mariner. For now, though, I was at peace.
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