This week, beginning Monday, I have been dreading bedtime, because every night I have been having different nightmares.
Monday night: I dreamed that I got my wish: a 60 feet sailboat parked outside my Hong Kong home. Once I sailed outside the harbor, I realized I had not have the main sail up. Worse I don’t know how to do it! Then I saw myself climbing up the mast and somehow managed to put the main sail up. Then suddenly the wind was blowing at more than 20 knots, and the boat was keeling to one side severely, and then it captsized! Somehow after some struggled I managed to straight the boat, and since the wind was blowing so severely, I parked it in some harbor. I got off the boat and got onshore to get some refreshment, and when I came back to the boat, it was nowhere to be found! I LOST IT! Then I remember that I did not tie the boat to the dock, so the boat was floating away to the ocean. And I have lost her forever!
The feeling of the loss was deep and I remember keenly after the dream.
Tuesday night: I dreamed that I lost all my teeth, enough said. (recently one of my front teeth got chiped)
Wednesday night: I dreamed that I lost more and more of the hair, enought said.
Thursday night: I dreamed that the top of my head was bleeding. It was bleeding very seriously and I asked other people what to do and they said they don’t see any bleeding. But the top of my head is bleeding, I know.
Filed under: Musings
Nothing cheers me up more than talking to my parents on the phone and hearing that sound of joy in their voice. If they are happy, I am happy.
One of my favorite topics is my Dad, because he is so odd.
Since I was young, friends of our family refers to him as “Fisherman” Wong. It takes very little to fire up my Dad — FISHING. If there is one thing that makes him happy, it is — FISHING.
It is actually very nice to be around people who have well defined hobbies. Because they are the ones who are easily to please. When you talk about fishing, Dad’s face will be lit up with excitement.
So in my conversation with him a couple days ago, he said that his life since retirement (after May) has been blissful. Enthusiastically, he said that in the past 1 month he has repeatedly caught LARGE fish — fish that weighs a couple pounds to a ton! This is rare in HK as it is an overfished city. I remember that in the many years that he fish he usually came home with the largest fish, the size of your palm. But usually, it is the length of your third finger.
This recent bout of large fishes — and he said that he has been catching these large fishes EVERYWHERE he goes in the past month — is indeed strange in Hong Kong.
So being the father and daughter that we are, we started to argue about the cause of these consistent large catches.
My theory is that those fish probably came from China! It must be that the Chinese government laid down some fishing laws due to the Olympics! THat caused all the fish to swim down to Hong Kong!
If you think my theory is kuku, listen to my Dad’s:
My Dad calmly says that the large catches is due to his retirement from work.
The calmness of his mind and the detached way he is now with the world (some sort of Budda principles) caused the big fishes to swim to him.
And he is serious.
But still I insist it’s the Olympics.
Having watched the swimming event in Olympics for a week, which means watching the beautiful bodies of Michael Phelps and Aaron Piersol every night, I can’t help but feel this attraction to beautiful male body.
Let’s face it, they do have beautiful bodies.
I am never one for being attracted to “hot bodies”, but Phelps and Piersol and Lockte simply possess the epitome of beauty in human bodies.
My little brother used to be obssessed with weight training and building muscles. For the last two summers, he has been eating a lot and kayaking almost everyday (even in typhoon weather) in the Hong Kong Ocean. He would show off his muscles to me.
He would have these really broad and powerful shoulders, and slim waist.
Just like Phelps, Lockte, and Piersol.
So from my little brother, I had a close off glimpse of what a well trained male body would be like.
They are beautiful.
The last 2 weeks were series of sport stimulated memories. Before Olympics watching took over my life (I am glued to the TV every night until 1:30am), I had spent several nights satiating my voracious appetite for sailing books. A couple years agp, I randomly picked up a book named “The Godsaken Sea” which documents the 1996/1997 Vendee Global Sailing Race, where one competitor lost his life. Ever since, I have been somewhat obsessed with the Vendee Global. In the last 2 weeks, I followed up with reading Peter Goss’ “Close to the Wind”, and Ellen MacArthur’s “Taking on the World.”
Every 4 years, in this seaside village in France held the Vendee Global– solo (SINGLED HANDED ON A 50-60 boat!), non-stop, unaided, sail across the world. The duration of the race can be from a little over 3 months (the fastest), to 5 months. The rule is that the boat should be AT LEAST a certain distance for land. The sailor cannot dock on the land. Even if the boat is damaged and the sailor need to repair the boat, he/she can only do it on the sea, with his/her creativity.
Itineary: The boats leave France and sail South down Atlantic Ocean, until they reach Cape Horn (The south most tip of South America), they turn toward Anartica, and the rest of the 60 days or so are spent in the Southern Ocean, along Anartica, until they circle around the globe, and return to France via Atlantic Ocean again.
The Southern Ocean is the MONSTER in sea. As wiki says it: “Cyclonic storms travel eastward around the continent and frequently become intense because of the temperature-contrast between ice and open ocean. The ocean-area from about latitude 40 south to the Antarctic Circle has the strongest average winds found anywhere on Earth.”
In the 1996/97 race, such a cyclonic storms occurred while several sailors were sailing in this part of the world.
The boat of Rafael Dinelli, one of the competitor, was damaged so severely during the storm that it sank. Photos showed him standing at the tip of a rapidly submerged boat. He was out there in the Anartica for 3 days, and was going to die in that peace and quietness of Anartica had not PETER GOSS came to the rescue.
Peter Goss was a competitor from UK who was about 160 miles ahead of Dinelli when he received the call to rescue Dinelli. To backtrack 160 miles, he had to AGAIN go through that typhoon occurring in Southern Ocean.
Being the honorable person that he is, Goss turned back.
“Godforsaken Sea” narrates the whole Vendee Global 96/97 race from the point of view of a journalist who is observing from France.
Peter Goss later writes about his experience in “Close to the Wind.” The book is about Goss’s journey to the starting line of Vendee Global, to the finish line. After reading it, one may think that the journey to the starting line could be as hard, if not harder, than finishing the Vendee Global! To get to the starting line, one requires much perseverance to secure sponsorship.
This book is different from Godforsaken Sea in that Peter Goss had a first hand witness of that terrible Southern Ocean storm. He said that waves had hit the height of a 6 story building, at about 80 feet.
I can so imagine it.
I can imagine that the boat would be surfing on the tip of the 80 ft wave, only to crash down to the trough. And Peter Goss would be in the cabin (autopilot on outside), and adrenaline rushing in anticipating of hitting the trough. If he was at the cockpit he’d see that 80 ft tall wave coming in, only hoping that Agua Quorum (The boat’s name) would hang on.
After suriving the storm, Peter Goss probably sighed in relief. Imagine only when he decided he must turn back to rescue Raphael Dinelli, only to go through that storm again!
Vendee Global is truly the pinnacle of human adventure and perseverance.
In the 96/96 race, about 20 something boat set out, only 6 finished the race.
Fast forward 4 years later in the 2000/01 Vendee Global, amazingly 24-year-old Ellen MacArthur finished 2nd! And she is amazingly only 24 years old!
She documents her journey to the starting line and then to the end line in her book “Taking on the World.” Her sailing journey shows that she is an enormously passionate person. Her passion drives her to do great things. But I feel that she had it so much easier than Peter Goss, who really really struggled financially to get to the starting line.
Ellen MacArthur has the state of the art sailing equipments, so her victorious 2nd place finish is less glorious to me than Peter Goss’ 5th place finish — although I am still amazed by her!
(Before reading the book, I was a BIG FAN of Ellen MacArthur, but now my admiration is more qualified because Ellen MacArthur is so….whiny! My heroine cannot be so whiny!)
(Unfortunately, real life indeed does not give good ending to good people. While Peter Goss got the highest level of honor by France and UK, his sailing career sort of died later. He had this ambitious project to build the largest catamaran, spending millions. But the boat was shattered INTO PIECES in a trial race!….millions gone in seconds! Meanwhile, ELlen MacArthur went on to break several world records and became ever more successful)
So where do my memories come in all these sailing races?
When I was 16-year-old, I went on this 2-week long bootcamp-type summer camp in Hong Kong. The program is called “Outward Bound”. Evidently, the HK Jockey Association frequently send their riders to train in this program. I had 2 jockeys in my 9 people team. They were short but really really tough. In this camp, we spent a week camping and hiking across mountains, and another week sailing.
We sailed on a 60-70 feet boat (I forgot exact dimensions) to the South China Sea. The farthest we went was Phillipines.
As I read the part in Peter Goss’s book about the 80 feet waves during his storm, flashes of memories of my time in the South China Sea came back to me.
It was about the 3rd day in the sea. Around the afternoon time, a storm came. The boat was diving into waves after waves. While the waves were not 80 feet tall, I remember it being at least 20-30 feet. The 60 feet boat was dwarfed by these waves. Most of the other people (30 or so) were getting sea sick from the storm and hiding out in the cabin.
But not me — Anna the Amazing– for I grew up by the sea and alway go on boatrides with my Dad. In fact, I took my harness, walked to the bow of the boat (the very front part of the boat– imagine Titanic, the scene where Jack and Rose stood at the bow, except in this case it is with wind, rain, and waves in front of them), and clipped the harness to the rail, and ride the waves! The thrill kicked in particularly when the boat surfed on the top of the wave and got ready to dive down the 30 feet waves!
Anyway, Peter Goss’s ’Close to the Wind’, and Ellen MacArthur’s “Taking on the World” remind me of these moments 10 years ago.
The urgency to take back those adventures in my current life increases. (I added an “Adventure” category” to this blog just for this post, with the incentives to add more adventure in my life in the coming years)
I need to plan my future adventures.
Filed under: Musings
Watching the Olympics reminds me of some moments of my past and also important lessons learned in the past year.
1. Live simply.
I am convinced that Michael Phelps’ success this year owes not only to his talent, but mainly due to his simple livestyle in the past 4 years. (By the way, he trained in Ann Arbor — which means that FOR SURE he doesn’t have much distractions!) He said in an interview that in the past 4 years, he only “sleep, eat, swim.” While a personal life was probably the casualty, the lifestyle sure focused him on the goal. So many talented swimmers had come before him, but so often they faltered at the moment of their limelight and performed under expectations. To come to Olympics a 2nd time, and did all that he did, it took more than the sheer physical aspect of the sport, but also his mental preparation.
2. Be consistent
Do not ever let your guard down. The French probably let their guard down during the 400 men freestyle relay, consequently losing the race to the Americans. As a competitive athlete, you have to always perform at your best otherwise, someone else will creep up from behind you and take what should have been yours if you had always pushed yourself to the limit.
Boy, did I learn this lesson well.
3. Do not EVER, EVER give up
The US men gymnastics team was not expected to even get a medal, due to the inexperience of the team and the loss of the two Hamms. Yet they performed at their best, cheered each other on, and tried not to blame each other for their mistakes.
The fulfillment after that is great.
How do even know how close you were to success if you had given up?
I learned this lesson hard last year, but it was such a tough lesson to learn that I am not sure I can and want to replicate those moments of desperation and hanging on.
I love the Olympics!
1. Katherine Chan, the guru of wisdom, asked me, Who do you think are the happiest people?
I gave some superficial answers which I don’t even remember.
The gura said, “Those who achieved their goals.”
2. In a dinner, a Dept of Transportation officer delinearates 5 things that can give you a happy life:
-work in a job that you are passionate about (for me: check)
-marry your best friend (for me: I’m gonna do this before I comes back to Chicago)
-do a roadtrip across America and meet the different people (for me: check)
-take risks in relationship while you are young. When someone didn’t reciprocate your feelings, and you have this crappiest feeling in your stomach and feel like never to do this again, STILL GO OUT AND GET HURT AGAIN. When you are young, you have the resilience to bounce back. (for me: totally unapplicable)
-argue with people, but don’t hate them, and understand them, but maintain your passion of your argument. (for me: n/a)
