Wednesday 13th June
I haven’t talked about our other new lone-sailor friend, Jeanne, yet, have I?
Canadian Greg “met” Jeanne over the radio waves across the Southern Ocean waves. And by a great Coincidence Of The Sea, they turned up in Tasmania at the same time. We decided it would be good to go to Shippies with them both, on Anzac Day – a good pub for sailors old and new.
Jeanne Socrates is English and took up sailing in her fifties, with her husband. She was a lecturer in maths at a university in the UK, and in holiday breaks she got totally addicted to sailing. She and George sailed together for about five years and then he died, so she continued, on her own. She is 68 now, still very fit, healthy, happy. She says her children are totally bewildered by her choice of lifestyle. Her son is a dentist, her daughter a natural therapist, and I think they are now resigned to the fact that their mother whizzes about the world on her beautiful yacht, Nereida, only rarely setting foot on land. She has sailed around the world three times now, and has not yet managed to make the record books. This sort of thing happens:
Of the some 260 sailors who’ve circumnavigated solo, fewer than 20 are women. Jeanne Socrates had hoped to add her name to both lists, but she was shipwrecked when she lay excruciatingly close to her goal, just 12 hours and 60 miles short of crossing her outbound track.
I really enjoyed meeting Jeanne, and was very happy to go back for a shot of Argentinian whisky on her boat, moored in the Royal Yacht Club marina. But I, like her offspring, am totally bewildered at her choice of life style. Yes it is wonderful to sail hither and yon but…she spends so much time out at sea, nowhere near land, all alone… When we were on her boat, she showed us how she had stripped it down, for her on-stop round-the-world attempt. Her boat is lovely but…it was not comfortable! She had got rid of her big comfy mattress, her cushions, her dinghy – all of these would add weight to the boat and encumber her on the open sea. So she sleeps on her couches, which are fine, but not as comfy and soft as a mattress, and she has no way of getting to shore other than going into a marina. She had, once again, not been able to succeed at the non-stop attempt because she had engine problems and had to come into Hobart to get things fixed. So now she is sailing back to Vancouver Island to start her round-the-world attempt AGAIN!
At one stage she was in the same part of the watery world as Our Jessica. I am not sure why the media didn’t go wild – the Oldest Woman and the Youngest Woman, all in the same few hundred square (nautical) miles of water!
I have just looked at Jeanne’s blog, and she is in Tahiti, fixing this and that, meeting up with other intrepid round-the-world sailors. Occasionally people Pete and I meet express great admiration for our sailing exploits, and I have to admit that…there are VERY many much brave and more intrepid sailors out there…
NYC #5
At the main entrance to the magnificent 19th Century building which is the New York City Library there are two huge lion statues - their names and Patience and Fortitude. These are two essential attributes in this great city, I feel.
Yesterday we began the day with breakfast at Katz Deli, a New York institution which has been in existence for well over a hundred years. It featured in the fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally". One needs pre-Katz training before going because the system for ordering is impenetrable (no waitress patiently waiting while Meg Ryan says: "I'll have this without that and more on the side"). A door person gives you a ticket and barks at you to go to the counter, at the very long counter there are about 17 men shouting at each other in Sopranos accents. You have to order, eg blintzes, in one place and wait for them in another, sandwiches from one person, tea from another, collection point elsewhere and then little squiggles are made on your ticket for payment at the fortress-like cashier's cubicle when you leave. Meantime there are other men rushing about filling orders of their famous salami to send all over the world. On the back of their Katz Tshirts is the message "Send a sausage to your sons in the army". I tried to order my toast from the wrong man (of course) and did so twice - he then told the right man (about one foot from him) who said: "I'm busy - I ain't got eyes in de back of my back". Eventually, of course, we did get our breakfast and it was very cheap and delicious. But I want to go back and do what the locals do - that is, order enormous pastrami and rye with a heap of pickles on the side. The shouting and rudeness is just theatre, I reckon, it does, after all, have the New York equivalent of a Michelin star. Barbara, who is quite courageous in her photo taking, took many photos of Katz's (and it is indeed worth photographing). Two patrons who might have been in the foreground of one of her photos told her: "There are parts of New York where you could get shot for doing that". And I think they meant it literally.
After Katz Deli, a bus uptown to admire the fabulous art deco foyer of the Chrysler Building, which is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. On the way we passed the United Nations. Further on, the UNICEF headquarters building where we stopped at the shop (as you do). I asked if there was a "rest room" (euphemism used here for lavatory) and was very rudely refused. No more UNICEF Christmas card purchases from me in future. That'll teach them.
Then to Grand Central Station to look up and admire, with thousands of other tourists, the lobby, ceilings, lights, stairs, the huge size and the sheer magnificence of the terminal, built when rail travel was King. We saw signs for Rail Line No. 117, but there may have been even more It is huge. Many, many thousands of people per day pour through the concourses each day, if not each hour. The underground concourses are like a mini-city, with many shops and food halls and restaurants. I achieved my goal of eating at the famous Grand Central Oyster Bar, which was huge, magnificent and very, very busy. The ceiling and lights alone are worth going for, even without the food. We had New England clam chowder - delicious and cheap and then I had Oysters Rockefeller, which seemed appropriate, and consisted of cooked oysters with creamed spinach and mornay sauce. Barbara had garlic shrimps which turned out to be garlic very large prawns. (Everything is huge - the smallest "cup of tea" is a cardboard container about 20 cm tall). The Oyster bar is a fairly upmarket place, full of well-dressed people , the maitre d' (s) wore very spiffy suits, the waiters wore smart blue jackets and the table clearers wore white coats (as in France, all men). Despite all this, when Barbara politely and demurely asked directions to the "rest room" from a blue-jacketed presence she was shouted at very loudly indeed: "Can't you see I'm figuring (adding up). What's wrong with you?" Poor Barbara, she gets shouted at daily. All this rudeness and shouting is probably understandable, because, shortly after, a pair of businessmen I had been listening to complaining about their ex-wives and alimony (the tables were very close together and I am a shameless eavesdropper) shouted peremptorily: "Waiter, get me the check". No smile, no please, no thank you, no acknowledgment of the humanity of the waiter. The poor buggers must have to put up with this hundreds of times a day and probably they are on that terrible couple of dollars an hour "tipping wage" which has been unchanged for thirty years.
After Grand Central Station, we went to the glorious, glorious, public library, which is huge, one of the major research libraries of the world, and full of literary, artistic and architectural marvels. Librarian Barbara thought she was in heaven. There was a wonderful exhibition, called "Shelley"s Ghost" which featured Percy Bysshe’s very own writings in the flesh, so to speak.
As always happens, my feet were very weary by this time and I found a nice bench upon which I stretched out. Bliss, but only for about two seconds, then I was ordered to sit up. I guess, even though this library is free to everyone, wherever they come from (Barbara now has a New York City Library card) they still must make sure that it not used as a resting place - that might encourage the homeless....
Back in our Billyburg days we were intrigued on one of our walks when we found ourselves in an Hassidic Jew area, where the streets were teeming with men in their traditional clothes - tall hats, shaven heads, shawls, long side ringlets, black suits, long white sock things and black slip-on shoes. Accompanying many of them were young boys in junior versions of same. We tried smiling and saying "hello" but they just looked straight through us as though we did not exist. They kept striding along very fast, and then disappearing into doors which appeared to be places of learning. There were almost no women. Anyway, we thought it all very interesting. Recently, the newspapers have been full of stories about sex abuse of hundreds of boy children in the Hassidic Jew community and accusations of coverups and ostracism of victims. That has caused a sad rethink of what had seemed such an interesting sight of the young boys being taken off for instruction.
The politics here are too depressing for words. Rick Santorum has formed a new group to raise money with the intention of making the Republicans - get this - more conservative. There is a huge move on not just to ban abortions, but to ban contraception (and Mitt Romney is onside). Anti "planned parenthood" legislation is being pushed through in various states. Now, you would think that this would give Obama an advantage; that women would not want governments to take control over their lives in this respect, but right wing women commentators are saying that they are much more concerned about jobs and the economy than about their reproductive systems! Obama's approval rating is only 43% and some states are busy culling their electoral register to remove possible Democrat voters, despite having been ordered to stop.
Only another six days in The Big Apple before we begin the long trip home. Where has the time gone?
Yesterday we began the day with breakfast at Katz Deli, a New York institution which has been in existence for well over a hundred years. It featured in the fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally". One needs pre-Katz training before going because the system for ordering is impenetrable (no waitress patiently waiting while Meg Ryan says: "I'll have this without that and more on the side"). A door person gives you a ticket and barks at you to go to the counter, at the very long counter there are about 17 men shouting at each other in Sopranos accents. You have to order, eg blintzes, in one place and wait for them in another, sandwiches from one person, tea from another, collection point elsewhere and then little squiggles are made on your ticket for payment at the fortress-like cashier's cubicle when you leave. Meantime there are other men rushing about filling orders of their famous salami to send all over the world. On the back of their Katz Tshirts is the message "Send a sausage to your sons in the army". I tried to order my toast from the wrong man (of course) and did so twice - he then told the right man (about one foot from him) who said: "I'm busy - I ain't got eyes in de back of my back". Eventually, of course, we did get our breakfast and it was very cheap and delicious. But I want to go back and do what the locals do - that is, order enormous pastrami and rye with a heap of pickles on the side. The shouting and rudeness is just theatre, I reckon, it does, after all, have the New York equivalent of a Michelin star. Barbara, who is quite courageous in her photo taking, took many photos of Katz's (and it is indeed worth photographing). Two patrons who might have been in the foreground of one of her photos told her: "There are parts of New York where you could get shot for doing that". And I think they meant it literally.
After Katz Deli, a bus uptown to admire the fabulous art deco foyer of the Chrysler Building, which is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. On the way we passed the United Nations. Further on, the UNICEF headquarters building where we stopped at the shop (as you do). I asked if there was a "rest room" (euphemism used here for lavatory) and was very rudely refused. No more UNICEF Christmas card purchases from me in future. That'll teach them.
Then to Grand Central Station to look up and admire, with thousands of other tourists, the lobby, ceilings, lights, stairs, the huge size and the sheer magnificence of the terminal, built when rail travel was King. We saw signs for Rail Line No. 117, but there may have been even more It is huge. Many, many thousands of people per day pour through the concourses each day, if not each hour. The underground concourses are like a mini-city, with many shops and food halls and restaurants. I achieved my goal of eating at the famous Grand Central Oyster Bar, which was huge, magnificent and very, very busy. The ceiling and lights alone are worth going for, even without the food. We had New England clam chowder - delicious and cheap and then I had Oysters Rockefeller, which seemed appropriate, and consisted of cooked oysters with creamed spinach and mornay sauce. Barbara had garlic shrimps which turned out to be garlic very large prawns. (Everything is huge - the smallest "cup of tea" is a cardboard container about 20 cm tall). The Oyster bar is a fairly upmarket place, full of well-dressed people , the maitre d' (s) wore very spiffy suits, the waiters wore smart blue jackets and the table clearers wore white coats (as in France, all men). Despite all this, when Barbara politely and demurely asked directions to the "rest room" from a blue-jacketed presence she was shouted at very loudly indeed: "Can't you see I'm figuring (adding up). What's wrong with you?" Poor Barbara, she gets shouted at daily. All this rudeness and shouting is probably understandable, because, shortly after, a pair of businessmen I had been listening to complaining about their ex-wives and alimony (the tables were very close together and I am a shameless eavesdropper) shouted peremptorily: "Waiter, get me the check". No smile, no please, no thank you, no acknowledgment of the humanity of the waiter. The poor buggers must have to put up with this hundreds of times a day and probably they are on that terrible couple of dollars an hour "tipping wage" which has been unchanged for thirty years.
After Grand Central Station, we went to the glorious, glorious, public library, which is huge, one of the major research libraries of the world, and full of literary, artistic and architectural marvels. Librarian Barbara thought she was in heaven. There was a wonderful exhibition, called "Shelley"s Ghost" which featured Percy Bysshe’s very own writings in the flesh, so to speak.
As always happens, my feet were very weary by this time and I found a nice bench upon which I stretched out. Bliss, but only for about two seconds, then I was ordered to sit up. I guess, even though this library is free to everyone, wherever they come from (Barbara now has a New York City Library card) they still must make sure that it not used as a resting place - that might encourage the homeless....
Back in our Billyburg days we were intrigued on one of our walks when we found ourselves in an Hassidic Jew area, where the streets were teeming with men in their traditional clothes - tall hats, shaven heads, shawls, long side ringlets, black suits, long white sock things and black slip-on shoes. Accompanying many of them were young boys in junior versions of same. We tried smiling and saying "hello" but they just looked straight through us as though we did not exist. They kept striding along very fast, and then disappearing into doors which appeared to be places of learning. There were almost no women. Anyway, we thought it all very interesting. Recently, the newspapers have been full of stories about sex abuse of hundreds of boy children in the Hassidic Jew community and accusations of coverups and ostracism of victims. That has caused a sad rethink of what had seemed such an interesting sight of the young boys being taken off for instruction.
The politics here are too depressing for words. Rick Santorum has formed a new group to raise money with the intention of making the Republicans - get this - more conservative. There is a huge move on not just to ban abortions, but to ban contraception (and Mitt Romney is onside). Anti "planned parenthood" legislation is being pushed through in various states. Now, you would think that this would give Obama an advantage; that women would not want governments to take control over their lives in this respect, but right wing women commentators are saying that they are much more concerned about jobs and the economy than about their reproductive systems! Obama's approval rating is only 43% and some states are busy culling their electoral register to remove possible Democrat voters, despite having been ordered to stop.
Only another six days in The Big Apple before we begin the long trip home. Where has the time gone?
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