Steady As She Goes
Or not. Nothing quite like the sense of adventure in young people to rev up their expectations of what life can offer them. Life out of the ordinary, the pedestrian, needless to say. For what challenge is there in meeting life head on in the norms of societal expectations? To acquire a good education, to get a good job, to find a life partner, to settle down in a nice little picket-fence cottage with a kitchen garden and raise children. Nice.An enticing prospect for some, but most certainly not all. Nice is not enough. But then, we're talking about those truly rare creatures. People who actively search out serious adventure. In the belief that their love of life and adventure will prove capable of withstanding any serious obstacles that nature or happenstance places on their way to fulfilment. People who no amount of common-sense lecturing from parents and friends will infiltrate their consciousness.
It's just such stubbornly-seeking adventurers that the "undiscovered" globe has to thank for initial explorations and geographic revelations of the past. Those global adventurers willing to surrender themselves to the vast unknowns that comprised this unsearched world. Meeting adventure and misadventure head on. Sometimes triumphantly, sometimes with tragic consequences, but always with benefit to the world at large in their discoveries.
What's left to discover? Not a whole lot, outside of scientific revelations hitherto unsuspected. As for adventure; very little. Other than the constant allure of seeing new places, meeting new people, witnessing nature up close and personal, sailing solo around the world. Not quite as potentially frightening as it once was, given modern methods of communication and nautical equipment. And since so many others - still representing a hardy few - have successfully circumnavigated dangerous waters, why not we as well?
Two young people, full of life, love and adventure. A 27-year old woman from Salt Spring Island and her 31-year-old boyfriend from Victoria, British Columbia. They left in their 30-foot Tahiti Ketchmake vessel from New Zealand in October 2006, for the adventure of a lifetime. The photographs of the happy couple show two young people in the prime of their lives, happy and confident. Whatever could go wrong, it would appear, did. They headed into gales, in a tempestuous oceanic atmosphere at what seasoned travellers would call the wrong time of year.
Losing contact with the outside world when their radio receiver was destroyed by salt water. In bigger trouble when their main boom broke under the pressure of a huge wave crashing over the stern. A large fishing vessel appearing to be oblivious of their presence on the dark waters in an even darker night, "chased" them wherever they turned their boat, desperate to escape the looming presence.
In a blog she kept the young woman wrote when they left Hawaii on September 8: "It is amazing and wonderful and I never want to leave! Unfortunately though we will be heading out in two days - it's getting to be wintery in the north Pacific." The Canadian Coast Guard was alerted by her anxiously waiting parents that their ship had not arrived as expected in Victoria, on October 16. Upon which the Coast guard began issuing communication alerts to ships in the area.
Their families are still waiting, still hopeful. And wouldn't it be wonderful if they did, eventually, turn up, unharmed, with stories of the perils they had faced, the wonders they had witnessed, the adventure story of their lives.
Labels: Environment, Realities
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, December 20, 2007
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