For those that don’t know Patrick O’Brian’s works, and who may not have read my other posts on Aubrey/Maturin, I will quickly summarize. Patrick O’Brian over the course of several decades wrote 21 books based on Lord Cochrane an active frigate captain in the Napoleonic wars.

The novels depict the life and adventures of two characters Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey, and Dr. Stephen Maturin. Jack obviously is the model for Lord Cochrane. Stephen is pure genius invention on O’Brian’s part. Jack is the man’s man, fighting captain eager to win fame and glory by capturing prizes and winning battles. Jack who picks up trigonometry and calculus later in life becomes a master sailor and navigator, which also allows him to become a brilliant naval tactician. While Stephen a Catalan/Irish physician is a natural philosopher and an intellegence agent for England against Napoleon. Due to his mixed parentage and keen intellect he speaks French, Catalan, Castillian, some Portuguese, Latin and Greek, and knows the name of every bird and beast that can walk, fly, or swim.

I began the Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian with zeal. I pushed through the first 10 books two years ago. As I got closer to the end I slowed down, wanting to savor each book like chocolate. But alas, I have finished the whole box in one sitting like a glutton. Now I am only left with splendid memories in my head of each book. Moments where my life was full of stress and I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer, I would get out of bed and go to my reading chair in the living room, flip the light on, and open one of Patrick O’Brian’s novels. Aubrey and Maturin managed to collapse the weight of life long enough for me to decompress and finally fall to sleep, dreaming of our dear HMS Surprise at sea, with a fine top gallant breeze moving her along at 10 knots and only deep blue under hull for a thousand miles in any direction. For those of us that have played at sea, the wind and the waves put us at ease. It gives us a sense of joy to be in an environment so wild, so tempestuous, and ultimately that free.

Some of the best days in my life have been on open water with the wind at my back away from complications on land. Both Aubrey and Maturin as characters were deeply flawed. But their friendship and their ability to go to sea allowed each of them to endure O’Brian’s sometimes malevolent story driven machinations.

Here are but a few (spoiler warning) :

• Aubrey is accused of defrauding the London Stock exchange and is disrated from the navy and thrown in the pillory.
• Aubrey looses his fortune to a fraudulent prospector who misleads him into believing there is Silver on his property
• Stephen in the grips of a serious Opium addiction accidentally kills a man during surgery
• Stephen while trying to evade French intelligence services is forced to allow a small Mediterranean town to believe he has a mistress, which of course is instantly reported back to his wife Diana. Who consequently runs off to Sweden with a handsome young army officer.
• Once reconciled Diana and Stephen have a child while Stephen is at sea. The child turns out to be autistic which causes Diana to abandon the child and run off with a new lover.
• Once reconciled again. Diana dies in a carriage accident on the way home from the Harbor.

With each of these knife wounds, it’s easy to see why going to sea might provide some refuge. And while listed out like this above, it looks melodramatic, O’Brian’s style is often to portray these events out of narrative, and characters often discuss them after they’ve occurred. The force of the novel’s is in my opinion in the portrayal of two very flawed, but seemingly real characters. Jack who is Dionysian, and Stephen Apollonian. Jack represents the baser instincts that crave food, women, wealth, and violence. Stephen craves knowledge, wisdom, and peace. Also each possesses certain traits. Jack is open, honest, friendly and eager to please. Where Stephen is quiet, introspective, sullen, if not mercurial. I’ve said this before, but the reason why this works so well, is that no one person is all of these things, and we see a little of ourselves in each character.

All in all, I of course enjoyed every battle and cutting out action and would reread each many times trying to picture in my head how each ship would tack, and jibe to gain an advantage. I love hearing about quick tacks and raking the other ship’s stern to cut up their rudder, rigging, and sails. Often the HMS Surprise was outmatched against larger more heavily armed ships, and it was a master stroke of writing to continually hammer home the fighting qualities of Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey, and his crack crew who could fire three broadsides in five minutes to the other ship’s two.

I also found great delight in Stephen’s subtle schemes and discoveries as an intellegence agent for the Navy. His diary written completely in code, and his ability to walk off the ship and in most cases begin to blend in wherever he was.

Some might dismiss these novels as pure genre trash, but I would challenge any reader to find better examples of character development. Not to mention that the character development takes place through 21 books. I’ve certainly read other books that have moved me as well. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Jose Saramago’s Blindness, William Faulkner’s-The Sound and The Fury, Cormac MacCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. However, finding 21 books that capture your imagination so vividly, conveys so much information about life in another time and another place with such accuracy is not likely to happen again in my lifetime.

The last unfinished Novel, simply titled 21 left me feeling a little sad that O’Brian couldn’t finish it. It felt like someone got a bite out of the last chocolate right as I was ready to take a bite.

tags: Age of Sail   Aubrey Maturin   HMS Surprise   Literature   Master and Commander   Napoleonic Era   Naval Literature   Patrick O'Brian  

It doesn’t happen very often, but I thought I might like to write about a good Flash experience lest I be labeled a Luddite. Derrick Mayoleth’s blog listed this LA Times Article.

This flash piece despite the fact that it does pretty much take over the whole content area is visually impressive enough to make it worth your while. But it isn’t just aesthetics or subject matter that makes it appealing.

Size

The size of the element is big enough that it causes a scroll on the screen. No big deal the fold as we know is dead anyway. But this element still works because of the way it is embedded. The page is already scrolling due to the large amount of navigation and the content on the page. The Altered Oceans element also has no hard borders and breaks on the edges to hide . The element also h

Prevalence and Balance

This flash piece also has prevalence, meaning everything has weight and balance. The large image of the sewer pipe draws your eye and the header element to its right clearly explains what you are looking at and why. The overall header while somewhat muted in black is styled differently but appropriately to let you know the overall title of the piece. The white text to the right explains exactly how many pieces are in the expose and who wrote and photographed it. The call to action area with the message board is present, but not loud.

The sections are laid out in a logical fashion and have good imagery and clear readable text. The highlighted section, “part one” is faded out to indicate which section you are currently looking at.

Navigation

The navigation is very straightforward. There are no hidden options or surprises. There is an absolute minimum on iconagraphy. What little symbols are used are accommodated by sensible text such as “Read Story”, or “view”.

Small Problems

The flashing numbers area is the only area where I might have done something different. The stats that flash across have a short delay, and every time I looked it seemed like they were fading out to the next stat. Slightly aggravating. It would also have been a good idea to tie these into an article and make them clickable.

The video player not being integrated into the main element seemed to take a long time to load and then had a lot of flourish with little delivery. Also the video controls did not have standard elements such as a volume control. As a more advanced user, I can use my system volume but why make me do that? Put in a volume control on your flash player.

If it was me I would rethink how to incorporate the video player into the main element, rather than navigating to a second window. But the videos were well worth watching once I was in them. Also they had a really cool feature where you could use a slider bar to increase or decrease the size of the video on the fly. A+ for that, but the time would have been better spent on a volume control.

Good Execution on a Simple Design

Most of the time when I see Flash I see it used poorly for no effect. Here it actually made for a good user experience and made me want to read the articles and see the content, instead of inhibiting my ability to do so with non-standard controls, and poor performance.

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“Rotten meat and a weevily bread
leave her johnny, leave her,
pump or drown the old man says,
it’s time for us to leave, her.
The voyage is done and the winds don’t blow,
it’s time for us to leave her.
No more around cape horn we’ll go,
leave her Johnny leave her…
“

From the songs of the tall ships, The Starboard List.

After three false starts to South Haven over the last two weeks a storm of moderate proportions finally hit that bears comment.

The wind started out of the due west at 20-25 knots and then veered northwest until it peaked at 30 knots. Risking catastrophe at work and home, I made my excuses in the middle of the day to drive to the beach to surf. I had that knot in my gut that it would not be worth all the effort. But finally as I approached the beach I saw a solid tier of breakers as far as the eye could see. The surf angled in to the beach from the NW in the way that makes my heart all warm and fuzzy. There were sheer glassy faces peaking at 6-8 feet. The connection line tied with a knot of anxiety that I associate to my terrestrial life eased and went then went slack as I suited up to surf.

I hopped in the boogie and then broke out about 300 yards, with some serious effort. I waited until I saw a rip in the water and followed it out like a runway. It’s funny because when you are breaking out, the waves closer to shore are quicker and dump a little more forcefully so the pit of dread in your heart wells up as you head out in a little 7’9 surf boat every time your bow rises higher than your head. But once out, even really big waves seem manageable because you start to get a quick feel for exactly how steep the wave needs to be to get a good ride. I spent a fair amount of time watching the break and trying to judge where I could get a good ride.

My first decent ride brought me down a steep 5 foot face and a quick cut back kept me on the greenwater, my tail skidded out a bit, but I managed to hold it. And then it closed out and I ended up in the white water almost all the way to shore. This resulted in a whiteknuckled concrete dig all the way back out.

Once out again, I closed in on the pier and a board surfer and I started swapping waves. The first one I caught was a beauty but I didn’t get the diagonal line I wanted and I got nuked hard, rolled up, got nuked by the wave’s little brother and then rolled up again. Luckily I didn’t have to break back out again.

Shortly after this, I nabbed the golden fleece of rides, a beautiful glassy steep spiller just off the pier, that I caught just right, I edged hard onto the wave I sped downwave at an amazing rate, cutting back as the wave curled and then flew off the back as it closed out. I have to say I had no thoughts of work, home, or anything other than pure joy at that point. To quote Bono again,

you can’t sell it or buy it, you already lost it

That is the essence of surfing I think.

All I got to say is, I hope fall has a few more storms like this, and make the next one on a saturday!!!

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When I first got into kayaking I was thrown by how young I was compared to everyone else. I am still a young pup compared to the average age of paddlers in WMCKA. Alex Pak is probably the closest to my age and attitude towards paddling that I’ve come across. But of course Alex is pretty phenomenal even for a kid…He might be 25?

That said age turned out to be pretty meaningless for my trips on Lake Superior. Through good fortune and WMCKA I was blessed into the acquaintance of Frits Kwant. He is one half of the team I call the Dirty Dutchmen. Maynard Flikkema being the other half. For a guy closer to seventy than sixty, (I believe) Frits is a tireless paddler, a steady and dependable friend, and someone you turn to for advice. Although he may claim through humility to being a novice, his persona commands no small portion of respect. I was quickly shaken out of my notion that being over forty meant you were slow on the uptake.

Frits has built 4 of his own boats, rolls really well, and surfs occassionally as well.

I am going with a far younger crowd to the Apostles, and I have that aching feeling of bad luck in my gut, and I can’t explain why. Except to say that everyone has their Nestor. Nestor was the elder statesman and general in the Iliad that eventually settled the conflict between Achilles and Agammemnon. Frits is our elder statesman that everyone turns to for advice, experience, and a bit of common sense. Frits, unlike Nestor though is never a bore. We all hope that Poseidon keeps us on course this time, despite his absence.

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In the icelandic sagas, the characters have particular concern for the thinning of the blood from their fathers. Sons tried to measure up to fathers. And it was considered very grave if men failed the muster of their genealogy. Or if their fathers were particularly bad men, they did everything possible to break the bad blood with some great deed.

We all wonder if we measure up to the deeds and feats of our parents. Or if maybe we are the runt of the breed. My drive for certain physical and intellectual accomplishments has grounds in this.

My father turns 60 this year, and I can’t say if I measure up or not? Certainly I feel like I have some things under my belt. But I wonder if there is some final accomplishment that will put me at ease with myself, or if I will always feel as if I am a visitor in Valhalla?

What feat will grant me acceptance into that personal valhalla?
A marathon under 3:30?
An elbow roll?
Surfing the biggest waves out there?
Another book?
Raising a decent family?

I don’t know?

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I’ve been reading the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series, of the Master and Commander Far Side of the World movie fame. I can truthfully say I like the movie. Though the story in the film has an incindental if not tangential relationship to the texts it purports to be translated from. But the actual novel, Far Side of the World, 10th in the series, has one great line I’ve been mulling over for the last week or so, “Jack liked others and expected to be liked in return.” This speaks to a virtue in character I hope I possess. Whether or not that virtue is returned in kind is another matter. This line while trivial, speaks to me in particular.

Jack Aubrey in the novels is an indomitably cheerful man. Despite hordes of personal setbacks, troves of financial difficulties and the general stress of being in command of a Frigate during time of war; he generally is kind and good natured and very difficult to discourage.

Granted Jack can be dimwitted on land, but in his own habitat he is very capable, and often very successful. I wonder if in my own small way, I am the same as Jack, a blundering buffoon on land, ready to shoot himself socially, fiscally, and politically in the foot at any given opportunity. But with wind in his rigging, and blue sea underneath him, there is no one who can stop him.

I hope to find plenty of blue water soon and to hear the hum of the wind in the rigging.

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