We’re All In This Boat

Changeable Seas for Salted Veins C. 2012, Doug Blair

James’ Farewell Song

Galilee,A strange new urge sweeps over meA pull now stronger than the sea,And I a son of Zebedee,With ships and gear reserved for me,With knowledge of rich fishery,Through years of wooing azure sea,Now casting off my bark for freeTo follow Christ who beckons me …Oh Galilee.

Galilee,The gentle hills surrounding theeResound with news of folk set free;Of sicknesses healed instantly,Of torment turned to sanity,

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Of guilt and shame absolved for free;All this our privilege to see,And Christ reserves a job for me?And to his course I will agree.Have you now lost your hold on me,Oh Galilee?

Galilee,Your moods can change so suddenly,One moment calm as calm can be,The next one pitching dreadfully,Our small craft swamped with foaming sea,While Jesus sleeps aft peacefully.We’ve reefed and bailed in vain ‘gainst thee,Safe harbour but a reverie.Has Christ’s call brought this storm to me?Is this your plan to reclaim me,Oh Galilee?

Galilee,What strange deep evil lurks in thee,Provoking now to jealousy?What raging winds and waves I see,Where once you rolled so peacefully.At last, Christ rises to our pleaAnd mounts the prow where all might see;Commanding you to let us be!Commanding such tranquility!Displaying his supremacy!Oh Galilee.

Galilee,For years you lured me out to sea,Bewitching inconsistency;Your song, your spray, your scent to meWere tokens of some deity,Some Mother Nature thought to beThe essence of eternity,Yet somehow fickle, fancy-free.But now I see, Christ masters thee, oh Galilee;

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No other helmsman now for me, oh Galilee;And from your charms I am set free, oh Galilee.

Shipwrecked

(Taken from the narrative poem Enoch Arden by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

No want was there of human sustenance,Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots;Nor save for pity was it hard to takeThe helpless life so wild that it was tame.There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorgeThey built, and thatch'd with leaves of palm, a hut,Half hut, half native cavern. So the three,Set in this Eden of all plenteousness,Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content.

For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy,Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck,Lay lingering out a three-years' death-in-life.They could not leave him. After he was gone,The two remaining found a fallen stem;And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself,Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fellSun-stricken, and that other lived alone.In those two deaths he read God's warning `wait.'

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawnsAnd winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes,The lightning flash of insect and of bird,The lustre of the long convolvulusesThat coil'd around the stately stems, and ranEv'n to the limit of the land, the glowsAnd glories of the broad belt of the world,

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All these he saw; but what he fain had seenHe could not see, the kindly human face,Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heardThe myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl,The league-long roller thundering on the reef,The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'dAnd blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweepOf some precipitous rivulet to the wave,As down the shore he ranged, or all day longSat often in the seaward-gazing gorge,A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail:No sail from day to day, but every dayThe sunrise broken into scarlet shaftsAmong the palms and ferns and precipices;The blaze upon the waters to the east;The blaze upon his island overhead;The blaze upon the waters to the west;Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven,The hollower-bellowing ocean, and againThe scarlet shafts of sunrise--but no sail.

There often as he watch'd or seem'd to watch,So still, the golden lizard on him paused,A phantom made of many phantoms movedBefore him haunting him, or he himselfMoved haunting people, things and places, knownFar in a darker isle beyond the line;The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house,The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes,The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall,The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chillNovember dawns and dewy-glooming downs,The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves,And the low moan of leaden-color'd seas.

Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears,Tho' faintly, merrily--far and far away--He heard the pealing of his parish bells;Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started upShuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle

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Return'd upon him, had not his poor heartSpoken with That, which being everywhereLets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone,Surely the man had died of solitude.

Thus over Enoch's early-silvering headThe sunny and rainy seasons came and wentYear after year. His hopes to see his own,And pace the sacred old familiar fields,Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doomCame suddenly to an end. Another ship(She wanted water) blown by baffling winds,Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course,Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where she lay:

Sea Fever

I MUST go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tideIs a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield (1878-1967)

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Forty-Six Days: Water Only

They had intended to row in a 12 foot aluminum boat between two islands in the New Zealand territory of Tokelau. Instead they were launched on a 50 day ordeal lost in the South Pacific. Three teenagers ages 14 and 15. Presumed dead. Eulogized in their home village. Then surprisingly discovered on the horizon by a New Zealand tuna boat taking an uncommon hurried trip home.

The aluminum hull was right on the course set by the fishing boat. No diversion for rescue. The boys appeared sound of mind but extremely emaciated. They advised the crew that they had consumed coconuts for the first two days and a captured sea bird for the last two days. Nothing but rain water in between. Forty-six days!

A total of some 1300 kilometres traversed in the drifting.

The father of one of the boys related: "It's a miracle, it's a miracle. The whole village, the whole village. They were so excited and cried and they sang songs and hugging each other, yeah, on the road. Everybody was yelling and shouting the good news."

Already I have heard comments around town about the "good luck" of these teens in the news item. Luck, or the providential purposes of God?

Sea-Scapes First Hand

Taken from the narrative poem "Dauber" by John Masefield:

He was the painter in that swift ship's crew,Lampman and painter-tall, a slight-built man,Young for his years, and not yet twenty-two;

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Sickly, and not yet brown with the sea's tan.Bullied and damned at since the voyage began,"Being neither man nor seaman by his tally,"He bunked with the idlers just abaft the galley.His work began at five; he worked all day,Keeping no watch and having all night in.His work was what the mate might care to say;He mixed red lead in many a bouilli tin;His dungarees were smeared with paraffin."Go drown himself" his round-house mates advised him,And all hands called him "Dauber" and despised him.Si, the apprentice, stood beside the spar,Stripped to the waist, a basin at his side,Slushing his hands to get away the tar,And then he washed himself and rinsed and dried;Towelling his face, hair-towzelled, eager eyed,He crossed the spar to Dauber, and there stoodWatching the gold of heaven turn to blood.They stood there by the rail while the swift shipTore on out of the tropics, straining her sheets,Whitening her trackway to a milky strip,Dim with green bubbles and twisted water meets,Her clacking tackle tugged at pins and cleats,Her great sails bellied stiff, her great masts leaned:They watched how the seas struck and burst and greened.Si talked with Dauber, standing by the side."Why did you come to sea, painter?" he said."I want to be a painter," he replied,"And know the sea and ships from A to Z,And paint great ships at sea before I'm dead;Ships under skysails running down theTrade Ships and the sea; there's nothing finer made."But there's so much to learn, with sails and ropes,And how the sails look, full or being furled,And how the lights change in the troughs and slopes,And the sea's colours up and down the world,And how a storm looks when the sprays are hurledHigh as the yard (they say) I want to see;There's none ashore can teach such things to me."And then the men and rigging, and the way

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Ships move, running or beating, and the poiseAt the roll's end, the checking in the sway--I want to paint them perfect, short of the noise;And then the life, the half-decks full of boys,The fo'c's'les with the men there, dripping wet:I know the subjects that I want to get."It's not been done, the sea, not yet been done,From the inside, by one who really knows;I'd give up all if I could be the one,But art comes dear the way the money goes.So I have come to sea, and I supposeThree years will teach me all I want to learnAnd make enough to keep me till I earn."Even as he spoke his busy pencil moved,Drawing the leap of water off the sideWhere the great clipper trampled iron-hooved,Making the blue hills of the sea divide,Shearing a glittering scatter in her stride,And leaping on full tilt with all sails drawing,Proud as a war-horse, snuffing battle, pawing.

‘Round the Horn

(Here is a wonderful ballad of commotion and courage at sea just now written by my son Jordan Blair)

She rides upon the rolling tideHer mastheads gently swayWith seagulls her companions In the fading light of day

And down below, in dim-lit bunks Their courage now rebornThe men recount the terror

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Of their voyage `round the Horn

How calm seas turned to chaosAnd the day became like nightHow each man's battle-hardened faceHad turned a ghostly white

How sails had torn like tissue When the wind began to blowAnd desperate prayers were offered up From poor souls trapped below

But though their darkest hour had comeSo far from friendly shoreThe Captain's words were filled with hopeFrom those gone on before

"It's just a little wind my boys, We've got a sturdy mastWe'll round the other side Before the devil knows we've passed!"

"It's just a little rain my ladsWe'll barrel through its pathAnd God knows all you scurvy dogsCould use a bloody bath!"

"We've been through storms a thousand timesYou men decide your fateSo reef the main-sail, steady's she goesThe Pearly Gates can wait!"

And just like that, their fear dissolvedEach man there knew his tasksAnd ran to do his dutyFor a captain never asks

Onward still into the wavesThat threatened certain deathThey pitched and rolled through salty spray

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And fog like demon's breath

But then at last a cry was heardThat filled their hearts with joy Young seaman Nelson's breathy voiceThat warbled "Land Ahoy!"

And there from misty distant viewThe shape began to form Of jagged cliffs that tower'd aboveThe place they called 'The Horn'

They'd made it round, and none too soonTheir ship was badly maimedBut spirits high and hopes renewedTheir joyful hearts proclaimed

"Here! Here! For Queen and country And for Lucky Captain Jack!Here! Here! For HMS SurpriseShe sailed through hell and back!"

So stories told, and memories madeOf fortune's bitter testEach weary sailor slipped away To steal a well-earned rest

And now the seas are calm againA gently rolling foamAnd oil lamps dim their dancing flameTo beckon dreams of Home.

- Dedicated to my Dad for his love of the sea and the epic tales by Patrick O'Brian of Jack Aubrey's voyages on the HMS Surprise.

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