Well that’s the best of the pirate shanties I can recall (someone look up the “Corsairs” – a pirate band out of Dallas and send me some music!!) Just returned from six days of sailing and bush-walking….
Lake Kariba – up on the Zambian border – a powerful hydro-electric home. We took seniors – It’s the ultimate senior trip – sailing catamarans and camping. And I do mean SAILING – in that we do all the work – no luxury cruises here – hauling ropes (halyards) to hoist mainsails and genoas, mooring lines – tills….constant motion and keeping a weather eye on the horizon. The photos (see facebook) will show it best…I can merely recount snippets to best tell the story. Some things, as we all know – must be encountered for oneself…
How does one begin to describe the absolute synchronicity of being in the midst of the dance of creation – not as it’s master, but as a participant?
There is no point of variable reference to properly describe the thumping of my heart when one of our game guides, Neil, and I had a group of seven students out in the bush, and we came across a herd of Ellies…and according to the footprints and clues (for we’re learning to track as well you see) there were young in the herd. We were able to walk quite close until the head cow decided we were FAR ENOUGH thank you and she started to walk toward us…not in a charge, but enough to have me put the boys behind me and back them up and enough for Neil to take the safety off his rifle….no zoo no cages….we were in the middle of the Elephant lunch spot….again NO PROPER WORDS…
Or to the fact that to me, the newbie (and the Star Wars fan) that hippos sound JUST like Jabba the Hutt when they “talk” to each other…and it’s a sound that’s magnified and funny (to me) when they’re at the stern of your boat as you’re sleeping for the night). Or using the “loo with a view”, which is a bucket with a toilet seat on a bucket dug into the sand with a three “walls” of shadecloth around it. The fourth wall does not exist and faces the lake. The trick when using the loo at night is to manage your torch (flashlight) with one hand – keeping it sweeping the lake to check for crocs (their eyes reflect, much like gators) while managing your trousers with the other hand…and hopefully you brought your own loo paper!!!
I’m a water elemental, and while I love boats, sailing is a whole other thing – to engage with the world all about – feeling the sea (huge ass lake), and the wind…one enourmous satisfied AHHHHHHHHHHH!
We spent time walking through the bush…and while I presumed I would be hot and grumpy – I actually could not have enough – every time the Rhoadies rifled up – I was there!!!! And similar to the sea – one simply cannot be surrounded by such LIFE all about and begin to have the understanding of all the falseness we really live with in life…ok me (I’m not you)….So much of my existence is based on smoke and mirrors and merely biding time and rushing about from one diversion to the next….and it took the rawness and real of the bush to expose that. It’s just a beginning thought and I’m nowhere near having it processed out…but it’s there just the same.
