curious sensations of little consequence

The first is that the front of the boat appears to be moving through the water more quickly than the back of the boat. If you sit in the cockpit looking out over the water while moving in a straight line it will appear as though you are slowly turning, traveling in a large circle. If you compensate for this effect on the ocean or in the desert by walking what appears to be a straight line, you will in fact travel in a large circle. The crux without instruments is knowing the curve one should follow to walk or steer a straight line.

The second, that my fellow crew members appear to take no notice of banging cabinets. The second corollary to the second sensation is that objects left to roll around will do so in the noisiest way possible. If we remove a condiment bottle or two from a cabinet, the remaining bottles will shuffle around to fill the space like travelers on a subway. As the boat surges and rolls through the water, the bottles will stagger back-and-forth, banging into each other as though they've had too much to drink. The bottles that hit the back of the cabinet will do so with a clack. Those that hit the cabinet walls or door offer a more solid clunk, while bottles that strike each other make the time honored clink. Add to this the teapot that slides back and forth crashing into the sides of the sink, the stove left to gimbal repeatedly banging into its stop, the empty brownie pan in tempo with the boat relentlessly races across the counter top to smash into the wall, then slides back for another run. The resulting cacophony is worthy of a symphony: El Phoenix del Muerte. I don't know how, but the crew doesn't hear any of it.

And lastly, it's a curious feature of this aquatic landscape that tendrils of wavelets appear to race along side the boat, independent of wind or swell. Like the dolphins that paced us further north or dogs that run along side the horse during a hunt, these little packets of perceived energy race along side the boat, some fading back while others race ahead. Quijote travels with an entourage of the mind.