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Milanto - Log Day 8 - Communication



Day 8
Communication

I am typing this on deck. Its Saturday evening and I have just finished an hour at the wheel. The sky is clear and the moon as yet not present. Too dark to see anything else to aid us, we sail by compass and by judging the wind on the side of the face and neck. To maintain our course it needs to just brush past your left cheek. The waves have settled a little now, but we manage to surf every other three or four. We have just finished a vegetarian curry, Jamie Oliver style I believe. B Watch have their heads down, and we on A Watch have had a natter or two and have now just settled into our own metaphorical spaces. Michael listening to his iPod, watching the sky, me typing this and Josh ploughing our furrow through this, our own particular part of the North
Atlantic.

Earlier today B Watch caught another Durado. We lunched on fish soup, but the fish, nicknamed Notorious Big (I have no clue) is indeed big enough for supper, but we have stored it away for tomorrow night (Sunday) instead, to make way for veg curry. We had a brief celebration for Valerio's birthday in the afternoon, a brief sip of Cava, a cheer and of course a photo. Followed by a demonstration from the man himself of his best 70's disco moves.

It's a tough job Valerio has set himself really. A boat of this scale doing what it does means he is a man of many hats. Captain to washer upper, maintenance man to cook, and convivial host to ER man. And all to be delivered in a very orderly small space in a relaxed manner. But he does it in style.

Its hard to imagine in this day and age a place where you cannot pick up the phone and call someone you need, wherever you or they maybe. But we have only reached this point really very recently. There was a time, not that long ago, that when you were out for the day, that was it, you were out for the day. But there is now a whole generation who has never experienced genuinely to be incommunicado. Okay perhaps a flat battery once in a while for an hour or two. Well not even here, mid Atlantic, is that the case, for we have not one, but two satellite phones on board. One belongs to Josh, which he uses to stay in touch with tech world HQ wherever it may be, the other belongs in the boat, and is used in the main for emails. Yes, like Triffids, even they can get you here
if you allow them to.

I always want to call the thing Imodium, but I know that's something different altogether. There's a joke there somewhere involving verbal diarrhoea, but I really cant think of one, and anyway, I must learn to call it by its correct name, Iridium.

So I had my first Iridium phone experience a few days ago, and another just now. One of the possible disappointments of a trip like this, is being unable to share the experiences with your family, the ones you would love to be there with you. Those fleeting 'look at this and look at that' moments, as you travel through life, which become the precious 'remember whens' of the years to come. But to be able to speak to my wife Caroline and a couple of kids home at the time, to hear her voice and to share a little family life for five uplifting minutes, made me realise that the 'what was it likes?' to come are probably just as important and possibly even more valuable.

Now that's what communication is about isn't it?


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