Nostr notes by c.c.

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low ...

2026-10-24T13:07:33Z

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”

– William Gibson

/2... No residence, no tax domicile, no tax number, no bank, no ...

2026-10-23T13:01:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…6tcq
_________________________

/2...

No residence, no tax domicile, no tax number, no bank, no social security, no health insurance – my wife’s and my applications to some well-known international providers were refused because of "pre-existing conditions” – and no travel insurance, not any more: “Underwriters require that the insured are resident in the country in which they apply for it.”

We are adrift in an economic no man’s land. We are non-persons.

To apply for legal residence anywhere in mainland Europe or Ireland, we have to return to both our native countries to do the paperwork. We can’t afford that. Brexit Britain is a non-starter.

Morocco used to be a possibility but three months in the southern half of the country, this summer, between the Sahara and the sea, dissuaded us. Eastern Europe, Georgia, even a couple of the 'Stans have been mooted and dismissed.

So we keep moving. We track our allotment of days wherever we are. We rent short-term. We live like fugitives: careful of residue, leaving no trace, always on the run.

* * *

We are so fucking tired.

We have been on the move for nearly a year. We haven’t found anywhere or any way to come to rest. It feels like we are running out of road. Last month, my wife turned 59; I turned 65.

We are running out of money. I lost my one source of regular income two months ago. We have enough savings for one more month’s rent. Then we’ll have to get by like earlier generations of outsider-travellers in Europe — the Roma, Irish travellers, and Jews — selling the few things left of value we carry with us or that we happen upon on our journeys. It’s enough for groceries and medicines, maybe. Nowhere near enough for rent.

We thought about buying a van to live in. But we would have to have a legal residence to register and insure it.

Our identities as settled people are slipping away. The emotional threads that bind us to close friends and family have frayed, in most cases irreparably. The reality of our precarious indeterminacy is, we are beginning to realise, burdensome to them.

“Where are you now?” an exasperated daughter asks in a voice message. “How long will you be there?”

Our children, all now adults, still long for fixedness, for somewhere to assemble as a family from time to time and invest attachment. They worry that we are lost. In every sense.

And maybe we are. Without some kind of intervention — a job offer or financial windfall, a change of government, death — we’re unlikely to find our way out of this. It’s a deteriorating spiral. And it scares the shit out of us.

Every day, we are further from the idea, let alone the reality, of 'home'.

[First published by Burning House Press, UK, 2019]

#theCartographer

Nearly every week, someone asks us how we became so unrooted and ...

2026-10-23T12:54:18Z

Nearly every week, someone asks us how we became so unrooted and why we're still enmired in what feels, to us and others, like an unending nightmare.

The story, like our journey, is long and complicated and not all the waypoints can be plotted. Below is a fragment of it, written several years ago for a UK-based online publication. I find it hard to write about it anymore.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-in-search-of-home

* * *

"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains."

– Rosa Luxemburg

My wife and I left Berlin as winter set in, at the end of 2018.

I had lost a well-paying job. Our residence visas had expired. We were broke. Bailiffs were at the door. We had just enough money to make a run for it.

I gave notice to the utility companies and our health insurer, forwarded our mail to a cancelled postbox, and closed our bank account.

Leaving was easy for me. I didn’t give it much thought. It was hard for Given. For her, leaving anywhere that had been a ‘home’ for us was hard.

At the airport, an immigration officer examined the spill of rubber stamps and pasted-in visas in our passports. He reprimanded us for not leaving Germany earlier.

“Don’t worry. We’re not coming back,” my wife told him.

“Good,” he said. He stamped an exit date beneath our expired visas.

With that, we were homeless, residents of nowhere, no longer migrants but aliens — unfixed, disenfranchised, transient, our status resisting coherent definition.

* * *

We had thought about going home. But 'home’, for us, is complicated.

My wife is an American citizen. I am not. I have no right to live with her in the USA, even after thirty years of marriage.

I can apply for US residence while outside the country. Approval might take as long as two years. During that time I would not be allowed to visit there. If I want to apply from within the USA, I have to travel there on a visitor’s visa and wait three months – until my visitor’s visa expires – before I can apply. I cannot leave the country until my residence is approved. This might take as long as eighteen months. It might be nine months to a year before I am given preliminary permission to work.

Until this preliminary permission is granted, I would be regarded as 'undocumented’. I would risk detention if any border patrol officer questioned my status, a possibility even if I am nowhere near a US border.

I don’t think of anywhere as home. I am a sixth generation Australian. I hold an Australian passport. I have lived there less than a quarter of my life.

My wife has been granted two Australian permanent residence visas in the past twenty years. With recent changes to immigration regulations, obtaining a third might be difficult. She doesn’t care. She dislikes the country. And it’s too far from her family.

Besides, neither my wife nor I are healthy enough to sustain a 27-hour flight, especially in thrombosis-inducing economy seats.

* * *

The moment we left Berlin, our world shrank. We did not just leave Germany. We left the 28 other European states that comprise the Schengen zone. We could not now re-enter the zone for 90 days. If we did return after 90 days, we could only remain within the zone, regardless of the country, for a total of 90 days.

We still had the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Morocco, and chunks of Eastern Europe. We chose the UK. We would be allowed to stay there for 180 days. We would be prohibited to work. We would not be allowed to lease a long-term apartment.

We would still be near to our three adult kids.

I had work I could do remotely. Whether I was allowed to was a grey area. A bigger problem was how I might be paid. As I was no longer legally resident anywhere, I had no right to a bank account or a credit card. I couldn't even open a PayPal account.

I learned all I could about offshore banking — in the Caribbean, the Seychelles, the South Pacific, and Georgia. I was the type of prospective client that even banks with loose oversight were at pains to discourage: no permanent residence, no tax number, no referees, no consistent (nor substantial) income. A cautious manager carrying out a KYC (Know-you-client) process, would view everything on my application form as a cause for suspicion. Even online banks that touted their services to so-called tech’ nomads didn’t want my business.

* * *

I remembered I had an Australian tax file number. I didn’t remember what it was so I called the Australian Tax Office. A clerk there refused to answer any questions until I mailed him notarised copies of various documents, including a birth certificate and a passport, to identify myself.

Two weeks later, he told me: “The good news is, I have a tax number. The bad news is there’s not enough information in the file to identify whether it’s yours. There are, um, several, actually, fifty-seven addresses, a change of name…”

“Uh huh.”

“Would you mind me asking, are you a member of the security services?”

.../2

We need it. Thank you.

2026-09-27T14:55:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…k9rw
_________________________

We need it. Thank you.

It has taken us all week to unwind from the stress of packing up ...

2026-09-27T07:36:03Z

It has taken us all week to unwind from the stress of packing up our personal belongings aboard Wrack, decommissioning and cleaning the boat, then wrangling eight pieces of luggage between her decks and Cagliari airport. A long day of travel ended with us hauling the luggage from a taxi up four flights of stairs to the second-floor walk-up that is now our refuge for the next two months in Rome. At least, it abounds with small luxuries: hot showers, a toilet we don't have to pump by hand, a comfortable double bed, a large kitchen, a welcoming café downstairs, and a grocery store less than a block away (our nearest in Cagliari was a three-kilometre round trip, on foot).

Wrack is in the process of being transferred to a new custodian. Our days as sea-dwellers are over. It would be easy to slip back into the wandering purposelessness that shaped our lives during the five years before we bought Wrack, three and a half years ago, but our age and (in my case) an increasing frailty make it urgent to find somewhere, fast, to dig in, resist a fugitive life and embrace fixedness, stillness, if not belonging. In addition to finding a long-term home, we have to figure out a legal framework (and a jurisdiction) within which we can be employed or employ ourselves, have a bank account and health insurance, and maybe access basic social services. Given and I have been 'outsiders' for so long that it's hard to imagine ourselves as part of a community, but I suspect we'd be enthusiastic contributors to it, given the chance.

We are trying to make every day ashore count. The last few days have been spent unpacking travel-worn bags, washing clothes that reek of mildew and diesel, and wondering why we brought so much with us instead of simply dumping it in a skip. But as Given says, "We're always in the shadow of 'what if...?'" We're all too aware that without Wrack, we have no fallback if we can't find somewhere else to live, some way to make a living, when the time comes to give up our temporary apartment here. We might yet find ourselves shelterless at the beginning of a northern winter.

Still, we remain, improbably, optimistic. We have no regrets about what we're doing. There's a new, unmapped path ahead of us, so there is hope — and possibilities — if not yet an end to our long journey.

“We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer ...

2026-09-20T09:15:30Z

“We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived.

"But when the lights are off, we are helpless.

"We cannot move without traffic signals. We must attend classes in order to learn by rote numbered steps toward love or how to breast-feed our baby. We justify anything, anything at all by the need to maintain our way of life. And then we go to the doctor and tell the professionals we have no life. We have a simple test for making decisions: our way of life, which we cleverly call our standard of living, must not change except to grow yet more grand.

"We have a simple reality we live with each and every day: our way of life is killing us.”

– Charles Bowden, American writer

Which is why, these days, I find myself arguing for some kind of ...

2026-09-18T08:51:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…wlh8
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Which is why, these days, I find myself arguing for some kind of benign chaos, and abandoning a measure of organisation and structure (both inherent in the definition of ‘design’) to allow for more random, unmediated patches of unmanaged response and purposelessness – even just plain silence. I’m arguing for more humanity, for more Africa.

We’re reminded by post-modern social thinkers that the emphasis on design nowadays is inextricable from the emergence of shopping as the primary culture of developed societies. More and more products compete for our attention, and each has to communicate a unique distinction to capture a jaded consumer’s attention. The trouble is, the context (design) often overwhelms the content and the consumer, who is drawn by the context is left dissatisfied and frustrated. Which makes them harder and harder to reach, to communicate with. It becomes a self-negating cycle: design rather than substance is used to attract the and briefly sustain the consumer’s attention. Its allure fades and ends up disappearing into the irritating white noise that surrounds our lives. And the disappointed consumer, still compelled by a search for meaning or resonance, just moves onto the next thing.

Marketers and product managers too often think of their markets as somehow orderly, navigable, the result of a coherent architecture, rather like the cities of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, or Canberra (both of which were purpose-built as their nation’s capitals but suffer from a sterility that compels a degree of both individual isolation and collective dysfunction). In fact, most markets are like Lagos in Nigeria. If you’ve seen recent photos of this city, you’ll immediately understand what I mean: there, unfinished freeways and main roads blocked by cars and buses — which use them as parking lots — evolve as extemporary autonomous zones, as shanty towns and massive, makeshift bazaars, loci for simultaneous domestic, social and commercial interaction; they’re no longer useful as arteries for any kind of mechanized traffic, but work effectively, if chaotically, in other, better ways.

In 1999 and 2000, the Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas and the Harvard Design School’s Project on the City studied Lagos, Nigeria and the total breakdown of basic infrastructure and civil order there that defies conventional wisdom on how cities develop. Koolhaas wrote, “We resist the notion that Lagos represents an African city en route to becoming modern… Rather, we think it possible to argue that it represents an extreme and paradigmatic study of a city at the forefront of globalizing modernity.

“That is to say, Lagos is not catching up with us. Rather, we may be catching up with Lagos.”

If design and communications are to evolve, if they’re to continue to be effective, they have to acknowledge the increasing incoherence and lack of control that are apparent in today’s fragmented, individualised audience/consumer base. They have to become somehow chaos-compliant, rather than operate on the artificial construct of demographic or social order.

They have to respond to the human, and the natural disorder that defines that.

First published, in a slightly different form, as the preface of Living Brands: Collaboration + Innovation = Customer Fascination by Raymond Nadeau (published by McGraw-Hill), USA, 2006.

I came across this line in Wired magazine, more than thirty years ...

2026-09-18T08:50:49Z

I came across this line in Wired magazine, more than thirty years ago, in a conversation between the polymath-musician, Brian Eno, and Kevin Kelly ( https://www.wired.com/1995/05/eno-2/ ) : “The problem with computers,” Eno said, “is that there is not enough Africa in them…”

This can be interpreted in a number of ways, one of them as a kind of inverted racism, but I think what Eno was trying to get across was the idea of Africa as a metaphor for the fuzzy logic and intuitive physicality that is entirely absent from a Western engagement with technology.

You could apply the same idea to design and communications today. Both have become so hidebound by conventions and protocols so inflexible, unimaginative, and lacking in real human engagement that Eno’s perspective of putting “a little Africa” into our current ideas about them may be the only way to liberate our creative thinking – and rescue them from diminishing effectiveness.

Much of so-called ‘smart’ thinking about both today is undone by a pervasive disregard for people’s individual capacity for unpredictability. The fatal flaw of many designed environments, both physical and virtual – an ‘environment’ being anything from a web page, TV ad or a computer game to a living space, a shopping mall or a household appliance – is that consideration for aesthetics and technology comes first, the expressive, improvisational nature of human functionality second. They lack not just basic utility, but soul. Intuitiveness is missing, and instead of our awareness being enhanced, our minds and senses are overloaded.

Too often, too, real creativity has been replaced by what Malcolm McLaren has called, “a karaoke world, a world without a point of view… it is a virtual replay of something that has happened before: life by proxy – liberated by hindsight, unencumbered by the messy process of creativity and free of any responsibility.”

The result: media and humanity have become, somehow, disconnected.../2

An Inughuit hunter paddling a kayak off the mountainous, ...

2026-08-29T07:23:18Z

An Inughuit hunter paddling a kayak off the mountainous, ice-bound coast of northwest Greenland.

Photo by Kiliii Yuyan.

We have been staying with our son in Rome for the past week. We ...

2026-07-28T06:29:26Z

We have been staying with our son in Rome for the past week. We were driven off the boat by extreme heat — In Cagliari, as in Rome, temperatures have rarely fallen below 30ºC, even at night, and have occasionally risen to the mid-40s, which made walks even to the grocery store, 1.6 shadeless kilometres from the marina, something of a risk for us. I have also been struggling with my health; I was often unsteady and in pain whenever I moved around the boat.

Given put some of this down to deepening depression and stress. We have been looking for a home ashore since late February, this year, and despite a score of applications for rental properties, submitted to agents and landlords in nearly half a dozen cities, we haven't had a single positive response. We are not — ever, it appears — the types of tenant they're looking for, even in monthly rental brackets limited to three figures, even in a couple of Italy's poorest neighbourhoods.

Whatever residues of luck we had once are spent. In less than a week, we lose our temporary refuge here in Rome and we'll have to move back aboard a boat we can no longer manage or maintain. High summer berthing fees and a steep insurance renewal will leach a significant part of the money we've harboured for our first month's rent and deposit. We have exhausted escape plans B and C and having spent the last couple of days venting our frustrations on each other, we have exhausted ourselves.

So it goes.

Same here, except very warm water – what Given calls ...

2026-07-05T12:36:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…7800
_________________________

Same here, except very warm water – what Given calls 'stinky humid'.

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low ...

2026-05-21T10:04:22Z

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”

― William Gibson

An opportunity for someone you know? "If Given and I were ...

2026-04-26T04:58:29Z

An opportunity for someone you know?

"If Given and I were looking for a more persuasive argument — we weren't — that our water-bound life is at an end, we've found it, writ large, in the last few days. We have decided to sell our boat or (our preference) gift her, fully equipped, to younger, fitter, adventurous people who might want to take her on and sail her further.

"Wrack is scruffy but sea-kindly and sound; with little work, she'd be a strong, reliable passage-maker — and/or make a practical creative, scientific, or activist platform — that might make a wild dream come true. Giving the boat away means we could 'pay forward' the care and generous support that we have received from so many over the past few years."

https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-in-search-of-home

A(nother) 'senior' humiliation: While loading and stowing ...

2026-04-20T15:36:03Z

A(nother) 'senior' humiliation:

While loading and stowing personal gear aboard Wrack again, I had to cross from the deck of our marina neighbour's Catalina 34 sailboat to Wrack, over a gap of maybe a metre, in dead calm conditions.

I ended up in the sea.
‪
I blacked out for a second. Then, disoriented, I reached for rigging that wasn't there and fell between the hulls, my ribs and wrist hitting Wrack's gunwhale.

The water was bloody cold. I managed to swim, fully clothed, to a barnacle-encrusted ladder from which I was pulled onto the dock.
‪
I tried to stand up, with the help of three 'marineros' (marina workers), but couldn't so I lay on the dock for 15 minutes to regain my stability — and, it has to be said, my sodden dignity.

Below, the lurid souvenirs:

NO. I will be 80 when you turn 50 😆. I'm 71.

2026-03-22T19:16:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…5sxz
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NO. I will be 80 when you turn 50 😆. I'm 71.

Happy 40th and I look forward to hearing that you manage 50 ...

2026-03-22T17:52:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…sg97
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Happy 40th and I look forward to hearing that you manage 50 pull-ups for your 50th...I'll be 81 if I make it that long but I'll still be envious of your youth. [hugs]

If you're thinking about what to do with your summer, my ...

2026-03-20T10:22:02Z

If you're thinking about what to do with your summer, my friend, the Swedish artist and surfer, Peter Stridh, is offering berths aboard his engineless 10-metre sailboat/home on a series of daytrips and longer passages off the coast of Sardinia, between April and October.

Apart from sailing experiences (and lessons if you want), there are opportunities to learn about off-grid living, art-making, and healthier life choices (Peter is also a fine cook, using only fresh, organic local products) or simply to pursue 'la dolce far' niente' at anchor on crystalline turquoise waters.

https://pinoseed.com/

Photo by Dave Lyon [from London Camera Exchange's ...

2026-03-19T22:09:12Z

Photo by Dave Lyon

[from London Camera Exchange's Photographer of the Year Awards, 2026]

Sicily is cold and wet and I have a brutal head cold. "So ...

2026-03-18T19:08:23Z

Sicily is cold and wet and I have a brutal head cold.

"So what do you think of it so far?" my wife asks. We've been in Palermo seven hours.

Imminent alimony — he probably needs to pump his income up ...

2026-03-17T17:56:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…c7gh
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Imminent alimony — he probably needs to pump his income up again.

It's just Gaiman that aged badly.

2026-03-17T17:43:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…ak9h
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It's just Gaiman that aged badly.

'whose' not 'who's'..."whose ...

2026-02-28T21:42:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…c075
_________________________

'whose' not 'who's'..."whose collection"

[hug]

Done.

2026-02-12T19:58:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…rd0m
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Done.

My account here is being 'bridged' to Bluesky. How do I ...

2026-02-12T19:45:07Z

My account here is being 'bridged' to Bluesky. How do I stop that?

"The time has come to stop, to stay in one place — if not a ...

2026-02-02T10:09:02Z

"The time has come to stop, to stay in one place — if not a home, then at least a long-term refuge or bolt-hole — and shape a different sort of life, no longer peripatetic but persistently still."

https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-in-search-of-home

My wife: 'We need somewhere to start again.' At our age, that might be the biggest challenge of all.

When I'm ill, my advancing years weigh heavier on me. I ...

2026-01-20T16:22:19Z

When I'm ill, my advancing years weigh heavier on me. I become aware of my increasing invisibility, my irrelevance, and it sucks the life out of me, out of any inclination to try to stem the slow but inevitable decay. I'm gripped, instead, by an urgent desire to accelerate the process, to erase myself.

I'm already being erased by others. Today I discovered that I'm no longer included on lists of 'interesting' reading or resources by a handful of younger people whom I admire and who once saw some value in my observations and experiences. I understand it, but it still hurts.

'Sewing', not 'sowing'. (Sorry.)

2026-01-17T04:49:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…kgqu
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'Sewing', not 'sowing'. (Sorry.)

Yeah, never leave gold on the floor.

2026-01-08T06:21:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…3705
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Yeah, never leave gold on the floor.

Nostr event nevent1qqs9kus47ywk62xkeqfeqeuupxwgs7u95v3x35p6rht62exdu30wunqzypjlrw2nw6anfq759jq5ymrnqgqr6quzz532xx757xzu0nr4cs6pv0qezfa

2026-01-01T09:07:27Z

And so another bloody year begins.

As I wrote, I didn't think we had options. It has been a ...

2025-12-19T20:06:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…l43q
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As I wrote, I didn't think we had options. It has been a marginal existence, a matter of old age and geographical displacement, and our health has had a significant impact, particularly in the past 18 months, but I love being back on the water and *that* has been restorative, inspring, and challenging (the longer passages). I am, by nature a sea-dweller, a waterman (hell, eight of my paternal and maternal great great grandparents sailed on square-riggers to Australia from England, Ireland, and Newfoundland in the 1830s) as much as I am a traveller. I'm never quite as 'whole' when settled, especially ashore.

Despite Wrack's age and sea-worn condition, I suspect we've had less problems than those you've described aboard Pino (although Wrack is nowhere near as pretty). Her hull and decks are heavy lay-ups, the keel fully encased. She needs a solid force four to sail well but she's a reliable and surprisingly dry beast when the sea is up. Her rig is low profile, modest and over-supported. Her sails are old but well-maintained. The engine had a 'moment' at the end of the long passage to Sardinia from the Alboran Sea but we've serviced her attentively and by and large, she's been trouble-free.

She'll probably need a major refit at the end of next season but by then, probably, so will we.

Our biggest problems, with the boat and our lives, in the past few years, are rooted in our poverty and lack of social support (public health, pension, etc.) and adequate income. We're doing our best to change that.

Why did my wife and I move aboard Wrack in old age? Being ...

2025-12-19T12:08:37Z

Why did my wife and I move aboard Wrack in old age?

Being homeless and out of options was part of it but I was also haunted by my own words in this 2021 interview for Anna Iltnere's When I Grow Up project, in which I described myself as a 'castaway'.

https://beachbooks.blog/2021/10/20/kids-sea-library-castaway-c-c-ohanlon/

There's also this, R E K T A N G L E (npub1z2c…laft) and Devine Lu Linvegan (npub1z8r…mrq6):

Anti-fascist activists and poets, Mary and George Oppen, aboard ...

2025-12-17T23:10:52Z

Anti-fascist activists and poets, Mary and George Oppen, aboard the small yacht that was their refuge (and means of escape) during late 1920s/early 1930s, sailing from Detroit, across Lake Erie to the Erie Canal, then down the Hudson River to New York City.

We finally got Wrack's 25-year-old Volvo Penta 20hp diesel ...

2025-12-10T21:12:22Z

We finally got Wrack's 25-year-old Volvo Penta 20hp diesel back online this afternoon.

My wife, as the engine started and idled without a hitch: "The African Queen is BACK!"

Next up, some troublesome electrical issues — a rat's nest of old wiring behind an antique switch panel, an inaccurate, legacy wiring plan, batteries set up in three different spaces, a half dozen, dead, unmarked terminals — but hey, at least our alternator is charging again.

His felt a lot harder and vulnerable. (You might remember, my ...

2025-12-10T12:57:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…xg7t
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His felt a lot harder and vulnerable. (You might remember, my father is quoted at the top of the first chapter.)

I am ill — serious flank pain, fever and nausea, blood pressure ...

2025-12-06T17:44:59Z

I am ill — serious flank pain, fever and nausea, blood pressure up to 160/88.

Given wants me to go to a hospital but I can't be arsed so I'm curled up on my bunk reading a biography of Lancelot Capability Brown.

A painting (acrylic on canvas) by Lee Madgwick. ...

2025-12-04T13:50:36Z

A painting (acrylic on canvas) by Lee Madgwick.

Usually the front desk will oblige...if they have one manned 24 ...

2025-11-30T21:45:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…mrkk
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Usually the front desk will oblige...if they have one manned 24 hours.

No, they did. They just won't admit they did.

2025-11-29T07:18:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…ntk5
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No, they did. They just won't admit they did.

Most who watched it back in 1965, when it came out, are likely ...

2025-11-29T00:31:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…7r9x
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Most who watched it back in 1965, when it came out, are likely dead. Or maybe it's like Australians and 'Crocodile Dundee' — noone wants to admit it.

I might appear to be the last guy who should offer critical (if ...

2025-11-17T19:58:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…69jg
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I might appear to be the last guy who should offer critical (if somewhat glib) advice like this, but I was once CEO of a couple of well-known, hip companies and the burn-out crippled me and damaged my family so badly I chose to live a broke-ass dirtbag life rather than to put any of us through it again.

Quit.

2025-11-17T18:59:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…4rut
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Quit.

My wife and I are sometimes asked why we named our boat Wrack. ...

2025-11-08T12:50:36Z

My wife and I are sometimes asked why we named our boat Wrack.

When we bought her she bore the name Endymion, after my least favourite of John Keats' poems ("A thing of beauty is a joy for ever..."). For a while, I thought about changing it to Ibn Majid, after Ahmed Bin Majid, a legendary fifteenth century Arab mu’allim (navigator) and poet. But I liked the hardness and lack of sentimentality of 'wrack', as well as its visual and aural proximity to 'wreck'.

Wrack is a seaweed, usually one of the brown seaweeds of the Fucaceae family, that is uprooted by storm seas or strong currents and eventually washed up on beaches or entangled with tidal reefs. Wrack is also the scattered debris of a shipwreck.

Wrack is defined by having been broken somehow and cast upon a shore.

Our Wrack is a hard-worn, scarred, old vessel, but sea-kindly and sound. The name isn't a reflection of its history but rather that of its crew. Before finding refuge aboard, we had washed up several times in unlikely corners of the world, clinging to the wreckage of previous lives.

Which is to say, we are wrack.

I agree.

2025-11-05T11:12:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…zlm0
_________________________

I agree.

This evening: lightning and torrential rain over Cagliari, where ...

2025-10-15T22:13:11Z

This evening: lightning and torrential rain over Cagliari, where we and our old sailboat, Wrack, are berthed for the autumn.

A phone conversation with an officer of the Polizia della ...

2025-09-30T13:42:28Z

A phone conversation with an officer of the Polizia della Frontiera to see whether I might claim ‘force majeure’ if my health keeps me in port (and within the Schengen zone) for longer than 90 days. Their response was positive and sympathetic: “Your situation is a definition of ‘force majeure’. No need to come to our offices. Show your hospital papers when you’re at passport control, leaving the country. Until then, rest and recover.”

Very possibly. I’m so old, all my clothing choices look like ...

2025-09-28T23:49:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…muum
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Very possibly. I’m so old, all my clothing choices look like some kind of askew cosplay. I was going for Captains Courageous, the 1937 version with Spencer Tracy, but the Crocs spoil it.

oh, for a disposable camera…

2025-09-28T16:57:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…a69m
_________________________

oh, for a disposable camera…

Oh, no. Nothing so sporty and waterproof. An ankle-length, oiled ...

2025-09-28T16:34:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…xerk
_________________________

Oh, no. Nothing so sporty and waterproof. An ankle-length, oiled canvas, brown Dri-Z-Bone Australian stockman’s coat with a fleece-lined hood. Fleece-lined grey Crocs, no socks. Beneath, flannel pyjama pants over fleece-lined track suit bottoms and silk long-johns by Ermenegildo Zegna (a gift from my late mother). On top, a knitted, Irish oiled woolen jumper over a Portlandia-like lumberjack shirt and a long-sleeved t-shirt. My style guru was the late Vito Dumas of Lehg II fame, who wore a similar long oilskin coat and wrapped his body with old newspapers for insulation.

My mix ‘n’ match foul weather gear makes me look like a ...

2025-09-28T10:10:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…df2h
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My mix ‘n’ match foul weather gear makes me look like a discount rack in a thrift store.

"Since Hasan and his team of reporters don’t own or use ...

2025-09-22T17:05:36Z

"Since Hasan and his team of reporters don’t own or use computers, the newspaper is handwritten and then photocopied. But they also believe writing stories by hand...makes the paper feel more intimate and brings their community closer.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/8/30/our-story-a-day-in-the-life-of-a-handwritten-newspaper-in-bangladesh

“Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go ...

2025-09-21T16:08:27Z

“Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing.”

- Henry David Thoreau

Because of our engine issues (and a consequent lack of money), ...

2025-08-25T22:15:30Z

Because of our engine issues (and a consequent lack of money), we’ve missed a narrow weather window to sail to Rome. We’ll lurk around the Gulf of Cagliari until the weekend, then head into Tyrrhenian Sea.

Full moon setting, as we weigh anchor this morning for a 20-mile ...

2025-08-10T05:34:38Z

Full moon setting, as we weigh anchor this morning for a 20-mile leg up the east coast of Ibiza.

Ibiza, finally. Landfall at dawn, today. ...

2025-08-07T10:24:47Z

Ibiza, finally.

Landfall at dawn, today.

This time last year: leaving l’Aberwrac’h, in northern ...

2025-07-04T03:13:42Z

This time last year: leaving l’Aberwrac’h, in northern Brittany, aboard Wrack at dawn.

9.00am, and it’s 30°C.

2025-07-03T08:15:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…8a45
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9.00am, and it’s 30°C.

Aquaman: our Swedish dock neighbour Peter checking the growth ...

2025-07-03T07:51:07Z

Aquaman: our Swedish dock neighbour Peter checking the growth below the waterline of his 10-metre sailing boat.

As hot as it is here, only the foolhardy (and Swedes) brave the Black Lagoon-like waters of Almerimar marina.

"is there a german word for 'absolutely worn out with ...

2025-06-02T20:16:04Z

"is there a german word for 'absolutely worn out with contempt'?"

– M John Harrison 🐀 (npub1a7f…w4vs)

It works fine. And if you look at the total volume of water ...

2025-05-27T21:50:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…uprh
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It works fine. And if you look at the total volume of water aboard for a week to ten days sailing (across Western Med), there's a large reserve.

When I first sailed long distances it was aboard a small volume 24-foot boat. 2 litres a day was all I could carry for 4-6 weeks at sea. Even on the dock here, in 26ºC and harsh sun, we use less than 10 litres a day (we shower ashore so that's not included) and it feels profligate.

Just read about your water management aboard Pino: 10 litres per ...

2025-05-27T21:37:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…rfe9
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Just read about your water management aboard Pino: 10 litres per person a day? I presume that's on the dock? When Wrack's at sea, we limit ourselves to 2 to 2.5 litres a day each for ALL purposes (cooking, hygiene, drinking). To cross the Med from west to east, we'll have 100 litres in jerry cans — 5 x 5 litre, and 4 x 20 litres plus 50+ litres in 1.5 litre bottles.

Nah. We have an ice box. We buy three bags from a convenience ...

2025-05-27T19:20:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…2v6q
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Nah. We have an ice box. We buy three bags from a convenience store, store perishable foods for three days on it, and then use the last of the ice for our iced coffees.

We don't even have hot or cold running water, or a water tank. We have food-safe jerry cans all through the boat (plus bottled water).

We're into the days of iced café lattes, taken below, out of ...

2025-05-27T17:52:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…ft94
_________________________

We're into the days of iced café lattes, taken below, out of the sun (not even June and it's already 26-27º in the late afternoon). No wind. Balmy sub-tropical nights.

A reminder that a former chairman of Nestlé, Peter ...

2025-04-13T21:52:24Z

A reminder that a former chairman of Nestlé, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, once dismissed the idea that we should have access to water as a basic right as "extreme" and argued that all water should be privatised and access to it controlled by corporations.

And learn how to use them so you can be there for others.

2025-04-08T16:06:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…j7tu
_________________________

And learn how to use them so you can be there for others.

Rhino, Namibia, from the series Land of Nothingness, 2016. Photo ...

2025-04-03T11:28:44Z

Rhino, Namibia, from the series Land of Nothingness, 2016.

Photo by Maroesjka Lavigne.

“We’re all assholes, more or less, otherwise the world would ...

2025-04-03T03:34:59Z

“We’re all assholes, more or less, otherwise the world would be in much better shape.”

– Bernard Moitessier

When are you going to reveal where Pino is heading?

2025-03-25T16:25:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…arh2
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When are you going to reveal where Pino is heading?

April/May before the fierece Meltemi (northerly) of the summer ...

2025-03-25T16:24:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…arh2
_________________________

April/May before the fierece Meltemi (northerly) of the summer months sets in. We would sail via southen Sicily, then up the Aegean — few stops. Given would come because there are plenty of ports with good hospitals and anchorages (if needed, for rest) en route. We already have a free mooring in Istanbul (miracle!) as well as in Marmaris.

My son is quite well known as a video director there (he divides his time between Istanbul and Rome) and he loves the place. He has also found a lot of work as well as opportunities to publish, exhibit, and connect. We would live with him in a rented place but spend spring, summer and early autumn sailing. The Turks would give us residence, health care (Turkish nedical and dental is pretty good) and other social benefits as part of my son's residency. I don't expect I'll live long enough to find America as welcoming or as inspiring as I did in my youth and that saddens me. I do love North Africa, the Eastern Med, and I was raised in southern Italy. The Med' is about as good a home as I could wish for.

Both voyages are long — but the trans-Atlantic, if we have to ...

2025-03-25T15:38:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…scsc
_________________________

Both voyages are long — but the trans-Atlantic, if we have to do it, would probably begin in October with a couple of legs (along the coast of Morocco to Essaouira, then on to the Cabo Verdes) then a wait to cross to the Caribbean in early December. In the meanntime, we'd loiter around the Western Med and try to live mostly on the hook.

It's a couple of thousand miles to Turkey but there are literally thousands of anchorages for rest and shelter for us both.

As for the preparation, Wrack is a very minimal boat: strong, basic gear, primitive electrics, ok sails, but she lacks self steering (I got rid of the ancient, unreliable Aries) and solar power and both will be essential for what would likely be a singlehanded Atlantic crossing (Given would have to fly ahead — her heart is now too unreliable for a long passage).

A flurry of activity along our dock: the westerly gales have ...

2025-03-25T14:48:48Z

A flurry of activity along our dock: the westerly gales have subsided, for now, and an Atlantic high has brought clear skies and light winds for the first time this month. Everyone is readying their boat for sea.

Some are departing as early as tomorrow — our young neighbour, a Swedish singlehander, is loading aboard stores, bricks of beer and bottled water, and cooking gas before he heads north-east to Ibiza in the morning — others, we among them, are finishing repairs and refits with an eye to departures in late April.

We are working on two voyage plans: one across two thirds of the Mediterranean and all of the Aegean to Turkey, which depends on the outcome of the current upheavals there, the other south west across the Atlantic. Both have a terminus in a home and legal residence ashore (and consistent medical care for Given) but there are some bloody hard months — and thousands of sea miles — between that and where we are now.

"I have made an art out of the indefinite. When I was young, ...

2025-03-23T08:56:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…km8k
_________________________

"I have made an art out of the indefinite. When I was young, if you asked me what I did for a living, I might try to discourage your curiosity by telling you I was a a deckhand on a fishing boat or a small-time criminal, a standover man or a fence. And I might actually have been, then. Nowadays, I am retired. No-one is interested in what old people do."

"The drift is not for everyone. Uncertainty is pervasive. If ...

2025-03-23T08:43:00Z

"The drift is not for everyone. Uncertainty is pervasive. If you need to know where you are and what you’re doing there, you are probably in the wrong place. And yet it isn’t about self-negation but rather an imaginative form of self-reliance, an embrace of the uncharted and the relentless unexpected."

[for l̸̹̍̀a̸̜͋̐͜k̴̼͗̽͆̈́ḛ̵͗̈́ͅ (npub15l5…uqg8)]

https://ccohanlon.tumblr.com/post/675902122938744832/notes-on-being-a-life-artist

"Birthdays are ghost bounty hunters that track you down to ...

2025-03-22T18:19:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…pkw5
_________________________

"Birthdays are ghost bounty hunters that track you down to ask, 'Que pasa, baby?'"

– Jim Harrison, author

Warmest wishes from Given and me — our hopes for many, many more years of inspired creativity and adventure.

[hugs]

“I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation ...

2025-03-19T20:07:01Z

“I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea.”

– Bernard Moitessier

[from his book, The Long Way, 1974]

#theLibrary

“The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the ...

2025-03-15T22:27:24Z

“The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer.”

– Terence McKenna

A huge squall looms at dusk (over Puerto Almerimar, thirty ...

2025-03-14T18:58:21Z

A huge squall looms at dusk (over Puerto Almerimar, thirty minutes ago).

Light rain and violent sou'westerly gusts for a few minutes, then...nothing.

"When you want to build a boat, do not start gathering wood, ...

2025-03-08T10:04:18Z

"When you want to build a boat, do not start gathering wood, cutting planks and distributing work, but awaken within men a longing for the wide immensity of the sea."

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Our sea-bound life is precarious and often physically ...

2025-03-06T13:31:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…h5nm
_________________________

Our sea-bound life is precarious and often physically challenging, but it still offers us more than we had ashore, including shelter, community, and mobility. And while we're striving to achieve a modest self-sufficiency and stability, we survive now thanks to the support of others.

Two years ago, my wife of 37 years and I escaped homelessness ...

2025-03-06T13:30:32Z

Two years ago, my wife of 37 years and I escaped homelessness aboard a sea-worn, half-century-old sailboat named Wrack.

Still untethered and adrift, our slow voyage has been plotted between imprecise waypoints, episodes of misadventure, and random, short epistles here.

We are currently at the north-eastern edge of the Alboran Sea.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-in-search-of-home

#introduction

"People have been asking me lately about countries that fell ...

2025-03-02T00:56:16Z

"People have been asking me lately about countries that fell into an authoritarian abyss. They want to know when the tipping point will come....What are the effective ways to resist?"

An unsettling essay by Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps.

https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/heroic-work-from-ordinary-people

Me please.

2025-02-26T15:26:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…pyjs
_________________________

Me please.

Oh. Please don't give my wife ideas.

2025-02-19T17:04:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…5esc
_________________________

Oh. Please don't give my wife ideas.

My wife began the day with a project to rid Wrack's lockers ...

2025-02-19T15:28:55Z

My wife began the day with a project to rid Wrack's lockers in the saloon and galley of mould. By mid-afternoon, she'd demolished 1.5 metres of rotten plywood shelving and cut out large scraps of mildewed vinyl lining.

Wrack's cockpit looks like a builder's skip, filled with debris.

I don't like writers. I grew up among them. My father was a ...

2025-02-16T19:12:04Z

I don't like writers.

I grew up among them. My father was a successful novelist and no matter where 'home' happened to be, the presence of other writers (and editors and publishers and agents) was everyday. Half a century on, I have scores of acquaintances who describe themselves as writers but I think of only a couple of them as 'friends'.

I don't trust them. I learned at an early age that there was an unsettling disconnect between what writers say and what they set down in words. Joan Didion once wrote, "Writers are always selling someone out", especially if it enables them tell a better story. The world in which my
father lived most happily was in his own head, not the messy, unplotted happenstance of real life,

Writers are rarely as good company as they like to imagine. Maybe because they tend to be alone and cloistered when they work, they're unsteady in social interactions. They're either awkward or overbearing. With booze and a bit of attention, they can be hard to shut up. Plus you're never quite sure if their conversation isn't just a rough draft of some other dialogue, or a chance to try out fragments of unrefined prose, to get a sense of how it ‘plays’ with an audience.

My father was always alert to the effect of words, his own and others'. Like a stand-up comic, he'd sometimes hit on a seam of new material as he talked and immediately start re-working it with showy erudition. A lot of writers do this. The trouble is, too many mistake their facility with words, mere inventive vocabulary, for real understanding of, or insight into, well, anything.

I suspect this is why there are so many writers' conferences and festivals. Of all the arts, literature is the one that most likes to talk about itself, even if, too often, it feels like it's talking to itself.

I can't explain why I still love books. They're important to me, an essential presence in my life. I suspect it's down to my father, again. He taught me, by example rather than explicit instruction, that if I was after the truth, books, not people, were the best place to look for it.

Exactly.

2025-02-15T16:27:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…vw5j
_________________________

Exactly.

In the first six weeks of ownership, we removed 500 kilos of ...

2025-02-15T16:15:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…sduf
_________________________

In the first six weeks of ownership, we removed 500 kilos of rubbish, broken and/or redundant gear that the previous owners left aboard. We also reduced our personal luggage from five expedition duffels to two. It took a further 12 weeks to work out how best (and most conveniently/drily) to stow what remained.

@npub1z2c…laft @npub1z8r…mrq6 A reminder of my first day ...

2025-02-15T11:40:11Z

R E K T A N G L E (npub1z2c…laft) Devine Lu Linvegan (npub1z8r…mrq6) A reminder of my first day aboard Wrack...

May there be 9 years more, all as adventurous, productive and ...

2025-02-14T20:10:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…rre9
_________________________

May there be 9 years more, all as adventurous, productive and inspiring (to yourselves and to the rest of us — R E K T A N G L E (npub1z2c…laft)'s writings were the midwife of our two years and counting aboard Wrack ) as these past 9 have been.

2.35am: too restless to sleep, reading @npub1z2c…laft's ...

2025-02-10T01:52:20Z

2.35am: too restless to sleep, reading R E K T A N G L E (npub1z2c…laft)'s 'log' at https://kokorobot.ca/ . And I've just come across not one but two mentions of the GoFundMe set up on our behalf that I've somehow missed on previous scans of the log. And now I'm deeply embarrassed because I should've/would've thanked her. Especially as her words were gentle, understanding, and kind and both my wife and I really need all three right now. So thank you, R E K T A N G L E (npub1z2c…laft), from the bottom of our hearts. You are a rare and inspirational soul.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-voyage-in-search-of-home

I am so not a high latitudes sailor anymore, as much as I'm ...

2025-01-18T17:48:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…4qqq
_________________________

I am so not a high latitudes sailor anymore, as much as I'm enchanted by the *idea* of the PNW — these days, I embrace my sub-tropical upbringing (plus my wife's half Polynesian). I don't even own foul weather gear.

I bitch about the cold — and keep a heater running below decks ...

2025-01-18T17:20:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…ewx3
_________________________

I bitch about the cold — and keep a heater running below decks when the sun sets — but the daytime temperature is usually around 15ºC. Of all Spanish cities, Almerimar boasts the most hours of unclouded sunlight a year.

I still feel bloody cold.

Dusk as seen from Wrack's deck, Almerimar marina, Spain. ...

2025-01-18T17:06:05Z

Dusk as seen from Wrack's deck, Almerimar marina, Spain.

So am I! I've always wanted one.

2025-01-09T15:10:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…ukvs
_________________________

So am I! I've always wanted one.

@npub1z8r…mrq6 Envious of your Voigtlander 35mm rangefinder ...

2025-01-09T09:36:36Z

Devine Lu Linvegan (npub1z8r…mrq6) Envious of your Voigtlander 35mm rangefinder (via #izzzzi).

The latest we could even leave by early December (from Tangier).

2025-01-01T16:45:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…ln6y
_________________________

The latest we could even leave by early December (from Tangier).

An idea...you join us/me aboard Wrack in late October and we sail ...

2025-01-01T16:33:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…hftg
_________________________

An idea...you join us/me aboard Wrack in late October and we sail to the Caribbean, maybe up to the States, via Morocco, Canaries and maybe Cap Verde Isands. (Seriously).

If only...

2025-01-01T16:23:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…egfx
_________________________

If only...

A new year, a new #introduction I live with my wife of 37 years ...

2025-01-01T14:36:24Z

A new year, a new #introduction

I live with my wife of 37 years aboard a half-century-old sailing vessel.

Old, untethered, sometimes adrift, we navigate between ill-defined waypoints, close to nature, on a slow voyage traced by episodes of misadventure, vague marks on hand-wrought maps, and random, short epistles from everywhere/nowhere.

We are currently wintering afloat at the north-eastern edge of the Alboran Sea.

Ugh. A glaring error in my post to izzzzi.net today: yes, I do ...

2025-01-01T12:58:23Z

Ugh.

A glaring error in my post to izzzzi.net today: yes, I do know how to spell 'artisanal'.

[sigh]

We are ‘celebrating’ New Years Eve ashore, in a hospital in ...

2024-12-31T22:19:50Z

We are ‘celebrating’ New Years Eve ashore, in a hospital in Ejido, just north of Almerimar. My wife’s heart went into atrial fibrillation late this afternoon and she had to be taken ashore by an ambulance crew. She’ll undergo cardio-version to re-start her heart in the next hour or so.