Annapolis – 4 miles by bus, 5 kilometres walked
We had so much fun last night at our cockpit party that nobody even mentioned the US election. I woke up this morning, put some water on to warm, then tapped my phone to wake it up. I opened a browser, went to Google, and clicked “News”. I was scared to look. I closed my eyes tightly then slowly opened one lid, which let just enough photons to pass to see that Trump had won the presidency and his party had generally edged out the Democrats. I know this is not my country, but what happens here does affect a lot of things in the world, and this was likely going to provide for four years of instability and unnecessary volatility in the world, and the people who are going to pay the price are the weak, the poor, the disadvantaged, the non-whites, and the non-males. That is an exceedingly large proportion of people on this planet. The other casualty will be the environment as this man and this party seems to care primarily about making money, getting richer, taking on more debt, and doing it all at the expense of the planet and the future of young people.
But in a democracy, people have the right to choose a dictator, and that is what the majority of Americans chose. My friend Mike sent us this interesting podcast the other day and the guest Scott Galloway said that in the US they no longer elect politicians; they elect performers – the ones who can summon the most attention with the most radical messages using social media. These people do not represent the majority – they are shameless outliers with sharp tongues, outlandish views, bombast, and the willingness to betray any sense of honour or decency in the name of clicks and exposure... which leads to winning. People love a show, and a show is what they will get.
Though this is not my country, I do fear for mine. Canada and the US are as close as any neighbours could be and it’s long been said that when the US sneezes, Canada catches a cold. I hope this success the far right has accomplished does not present a game plan for our right-leaning Conservative party. In some sense it has already, but they have so far avoided the extreme positions seen in the US as these are palatable to only a small percentage of our population as all of our parties cluster around the mushy middle and could all be fairly described as liberal. But that could change. I hope it doesn’t. And now that the US has a dictatorship in place, I really hope this does not happen.
Enough politics. So far on this trip I have managed to ignore the news and I will continue to do so, instead focusing my time and efforts on exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where a whole bunch of other boats have gone before.
A recap of the day’s events. I started by making some adjustments to our Dock Cutzzz signage. Last night we were telling our guests about the plan to fund our retirement with Ana’s haircutting skills. Wayne asked if she did backs.
“Backs?” she asked.
“Yeah. Hairy man backs,” he said.
“Back Cutzzz,” I said, pondering. “Love the idea.”
“You could even do Back Fadezzz. I’ve always wanted that sexy V-shaped bodybuilder physique, but it could just be fashioned out of hair instead of muscle,” Wayne added. "Way quicker."
The brainstorming continued. This business is really taking shape.
I noticed last night that one of our cute dinghy fenders was missing and I was devastated. We had bought them just before we left and I had obviously tied some lame-assed knot that unravelled itself. In the morning I went into town to do a load of laundry and on the way back I thought I’d take a cruise along the shoreline just to see if by some miracle I could find it. It had been gone for at least 18 hours, and with the currents and wind and mighty big ocean, the chance of that was miniscule. But I found it. It had floated over to the rock breakwall by the Navy academy and its long rope had become entangled in some weeds. I was overjoyed and hoisted it like a Stanley Cup, cheering myself on, then spent a while picking the carpet of marine growth that had already encrusted the rope.
We unhooked ourselves from our mooring ball and motored SeaLight into the town dock where we filled up the water tanks and gave the decks a nice fresh water washdown, getting rid of all the salt that had accumulated after the ocean water cleaning I gave her yesterday. This was to be our final day in Annapolis and we chose to anchor out instead of using the City mooring ball, saving ourselves $35 and no extra hassle as the anchorage was just beyond the mooring field so easily accessible.
It was again a warm and sunny day with the high going up to a boisterous 24C, nothing short of incredible for the first week of November. We took the public bus to Bacon Sails where I picked up a few last things – spare dinghy paddles, some carb cleaner, and some strapping to secure the boat batteries while Ana browsed the merchandise at the nearby Goodwill store, and got me a fancy new white shirt for future dinner parties on the water. We walked back to town and returned to Chick and Ruth’s for one of their famous milkshakes. Actually Ana had the milkshake and I had a malt, both outstanding, as were the two home-made doughnuts we picked up at their end-of-day 2 for 1 sale. I think the strawberry jelly may have been the best doughnut I have ever eaten.
We had a last look around Annapolis then returned to the boat and made a delicious dinner then watched tv for an hour or so before going to bed at a ridiculous hour. It is now dark by 5pm so we will have some very long nights to manage in the coming weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment