Weather Report

A chaos of delight

I am back home a full week now, after my trip on board the tall ship The Pelican of London. I have been saying, to those who have asked me about it, that this trip will take me a long time to process. But I think the other ‘p’ word is also apt - procrastinate. Don’t I know well that the best way for me to process an experience is to write about it?

Sails are up!

This trip has been twice booked, twice cancelled but third time was indeed a charm. The original impulse to sail on a tall ship was of course linked to my use of the Beaufort Wind Scale as a support for daily journaling in my book, Weather Report.¹ In common with most others I knew of the Beaufort Wind Scale through its mention in weather forecasts and reports. But as I researched the development of the scale I fell in love with the elegance and effectiveness of it, with the devotion of this 19th century Irishman to noting down details, of things as they were, to eventually use his observations to codify the wind, make it communicable. The wind made visible. It could not be a more perfect match for a daily journaling practice, with the invitation to pay attention and allow the senses to reveal both outer and inner weather.

The illustrations of The Beaufort Wind Scale, by Monty Pyle, in ‘Weather Report’

However, this trip on the tall ship The Pelican of London was way, way more than I had expected. One of the quotes I included in Weather Report (Day 72) is from the journal of Charles Darwin, as he wrote home from HMS Beagle² on his impressions of the Brazilian rain forest, ‘My mind is a chaos of delight’.³ Yes, exactly that.

The Pelican of London is a sail training vessel so everyone was part of the crew and had duties, including round-the-clock rotas on-watch. I experienced a force 8 gale as we went north, up the Irish Sea on Monday night - our watch duty was from midnight to 4am. It was dramatic and exhilarating to be on deck, to sway with the ship, see the waves tumbling, to feel the strength of the wind as I clipped my safety harness to a rope for security. To hear with surprise the occasional cries of guillemots through the dark.

My second time on that midnight watch was on our final night as we sailed south toward Dun Laoghaire and was, in complete contrast, a clear, calm starry night, with above us The Plough and the Milky Way and a dazzling array of stars wherever I looked. My fellow trainee Josh was the first to spot an orange sliver of a crescent moon rising above the horizon behind us to the north-east. As the night hours passed we saw it rise higher in the sky and send a stream of silver light across the barely-stirring sea. Just one of a multitude of beautiful memories. Magic!

We examined a drop of seawater under the guidance of scientist Jeremy, and were wowed by the beauty of some phytoplankton; minute jewels.

When The Pelican was anchored and we were on ‘harbour’ or ‘anchor’ watch all the measurements and metrics had to be checked and written up by the watch team every thirty minutes. I was instructed, by my watch leader Alina, how to calculate the wind speed, using, guess what, the Beaufort Wind Scale and enter it in the log. While we were anchored in Strangford Lough, and not on watch, it was mesmerizing to sit on deck and be still, except for the soothing rocking of the boat. Before me the sea like flowing silk set alight by the setting sun.

The professional crew were wonderfully patient, generous with their knowledge and clear with instructions, all the time laced with robust humour. My fellow trainees, the amazing mentors, the volunteer deckhands and others on board made for a wonderful experience. We were all crew, we all had our roles to play to keep Pelican on course and shipshape. On my day on galley duty with ship's cook Jay and my cabin-mate Susie, I learned among many other skills during the day, how to butterfly a chicken breast⁴, as Jay kept us going with tunes from Beluga Lagoon (check them out!) and others, with plenty of yarns and stories to spice up the hours.

I donned my safety harness and climbed ‘up and over’, under instruction from Stu, and was gratified to find that going up (or coming down) didn’t trigger any fear response for me. I could do this! But I found the going ‘over’ to be the really challenging part, as the platform extended beyond the rope rigging and manoeuvring myself up and on to it was not so easy. My brain screamed, ‘don’t let go you fool!’ even though I couldn’t make progress without letting go of something - metaphors galore here. But it gradually became doable as I trusted volunteer crew member Aoife, who was already on the platform, as she leaned over to offer guidance, support and encouragement.

Something I have long known to be true is that we simply need to create the conditions for people to flourish and it will inevitably happen⁵. This is the model followed on this sail training programme and all kudos to Sail Training Ireland, Ocean College UK, Seas Your Future and The Pelican crew. The age range was from young adult up and represented a myriad of life experiences. We became a wonderful community within hours, a beautiful living system that over the days together instinctively began to course correct on many levels. We worked hard, met many challenges (internal and external), we took delight in each other’s flourishing.

We also had tremendous fun. Believe me, Pelicans can party⁶! We disembarked in Dun Laoghaire harbour after five nights at sea, many eyes shining with tears as we hugged, as we struggled to express our thanks, as we said our farewells. I discovered quickly that walking on solid ground was now discombobulating. So much had changed. Yes, I will be processing this experience for some time.

Would I do it all again? In a heartbeat. I have already put my name down to train as a mentor with Sail Training Ireland in February⁷. Who knows what other course corrections might lie ahead.

1. See my post, ‘Grief and Grace’, for some of the backstory to the development of Weather Report

2. In another delightful twist, Beaufort, as hydrogapher with the British Admiralty, was instrumental in Charles Darwin being permitted to travel on the Beagle. And it was also on the Beagle that the Beaufort Wind Scale was first officially used. See Scott Huler’s wonderful book, Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, and How a 19th-century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry. Another ‘shock of delight’ for me was learning in our first hours on board Pelican that one of my fellow-trainees, Jamie, had visited the Galapagos Islands!

3. Check out my post ‘The Magic of Chaos’ and John Briggs’ book on fractals, where I found that detail.

4. For Chicken Shawarma - we ate very well!

5. See my article on The Story House Ireland, from March 2015

6. It is a ‘dry’ ship, no alcohol is allowed. But singing sea-shanties with First Mate, Tamsin, a hilarious Fancy Dress competition, and more, are most definitely allowed and massive fun!

7. I’m practising saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘how’. To read more, see my post on Peter Block’s thought-provoking book, ‘The Answer to How is Yes’.