Shorebound

Well, Laughing Gull is on the hard and almost snugged down for winter (I’m still fumbling through the pickling of the watermaker). In the end, she was lifted out at Crosshaven, near Cork. It will be a lot more convenient to have her within driving distance than it will to have her over in the UK. And Crosshaven Boatyard handles plenty of big boats, even if they do still use timber baulks, rather than steel jackstands, to brace boats upright. It looks unusual and anachronistic. But why mess with technology that has been working for hundreds of years?

I haven’t hauled LG for more than a month since I started sailing her in 2022, and have always sailed somewhere warm for the winter. A six-month hiatus will do wonders to dry her out, and allow for some projects. But it is a definite vibe shift (reality shift, really) for me. For the next six months I am a terrestrial animal, living under a roof and anchored in one spot. It felt bittersweet to be sidelining LG, and life afloat, for an extended spell. So we’ll see how it goes. At least the view is still beautiful, and the sea is nearby.

Throughout this voyage of transition my instincts whispered that if I was to land myself somewhere, Glandore might be the place to do it. It is a small and warm community, full of interesting people, both local and expat, that is deeply connected to the land and sea. The culture is practical and minimalist, yet intensely colorful. There is a love of story, art and history. A love of nature and the natural world.

A writer I know from Washington, DC, Eric Weiner, is a brilliant travel book author and expert appreciator of place. He recently wrote about a concept he calls “soulplace” that rang very true for me:

I HAVE a theory. Just as each of us has a soulmate we also have a soulplace. Your soulplace is where you know, just know you were meant to be. Like a soulmate, your soulplace brings out the best in you and nurtures abilities you didn’t know you had. Just as you can have many lovers but only one soulmate, you can adore many places but have only one soulplace.

Is West Cork my soulplace? It might be. I was recently riding my bike along the coast toward a little village with a jewel of a beach, called Tragumna. It was a perfect bluebird day, and the stunning tableau of green fields, rocky shoreline, and sparkling blue sea was so beautiful I found myself rolling to a stop to be still and soak it all in. There are special moments in life, usually unplanned. In that instant I experienced such a powerful feeling of awe and contentment that I couldn’t help but exclaim out loud my astonishment (luckily, only the cows could hear me talking to myself).

I hadn’t yet come across Eric’s concept of soulplace, but it perfectly captures the intense reaction I had to what I was seeing. I resumed cycling, my head now in a dopamine-infused and very zen place. And I realized that I get little hits of that soul-stirring vibe many times each day as I gaze at the very particular landscape aesthetic of West Cork. It may not be for everyone. But it really, really works for me.

Ten minutes later, after rolling down a hill into Tragumna, I watched a swimmer paddling off the beach as a dolphin calmly nosed after bait fish just a few meters away. Two very different beings, sharing the same water and doing their own thing, on a sunny day in West Cork. Kind of what you would expect to see in a soulplace.

Whether that feeling of contentment, of being in the right place, holds up through the months of chilly, sun-deficient, winter, is an open question. Two days ago it was gray, wet, and blowing a full gale (though I admit that also has its charms), courtesy of former-hurricane Humberto which wandered across the Atlantic to strafe the west coast of Ireland. I was glad to be under a roof, and glad that Laughing Gull is on the hard.

Storms that humble you with their power are one of West Cork’s many moods, and help shape the resilience and connection to Nature prominent in the culture here. Will they wear out my psyche over the dark winter months? There is only one way to find out.

Anthropocene Notes:

1. A treaty to protect the oceans finally arrives. It could be the start of something meaningful:

   This agreement, which will become international law next year, applies to parts of the ocean referred to as the high seas that lie beyond countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs). These are maritime areas established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), that recognize countries’ sovereign rights to explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources within 200 nautical miles from a country’s coast.
   

   Those vast areas beyond countries’ EEZs make up two-thirds of the ocean. That’s nearly half the surface of the planet. And yet, only around 1 percent of those waters, which include both the entire water column and the seafloor, are currently protected. Until now, there was no global mechanism to designate protected areas aimed at conserving biodiversity there. Now, countries finally have that tool to do that.
   

   This new legal tool is essential for meeting the “30 by 30” goal—a global target that aims to protect 30 percent of all land and sea by 2030 to address the current biodiversity crisis. Because of how much of the ocean consists of high seas, you have to protect some of these areas to reach that target, and pretty much the only way to do that is through this new treaty.

2. Jane Goodall, who died last week, was a global treasure, both because of her work with chimpanzees and even more importantly in recent years thanks to her passionate pleas for humanity to stop destroying its “only home,” and treat non-human animals with dignity and moral consideration. We should listen.

3. The eastern Atlantic orcas continue their destructive infatuation with sailing boat rudders. Avoiding this fate is a growing pre-occupation with many sailors cruising Spain and Portugal, or transiting the Strait Of Gibraltar. Wild (literally) stuff.

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