Avast There, Me Buckoes!
Having more or less dodged the broadside of Hurricane Florence (which turned out not to be so much of an anchor-rattler after all but a wee nor'easter here on Ocracoke), we can kick back an’ breathe easy.
For a bit there it appeared we were all in for blow. Perched like a wounded gull in the lee of what threatened to be a category four of five Cape Verde storm I was figurin’ to see you all next on Fiddler’s Green... where we’d lie in our hammocks – there’s no work to do... An’ the skipper’s below makin’ tea for the crew…
So how, you asks me, did ye pirates of old know when to hunker down for a hurricane?
“Proverbs” says I:
Red sky at night sailor’s delight
Red sky in morning, sailors take warning!
If the wind before the rain, you may soon make sail again
But if the rain before the wind, topsails lower and halyards mind!
Mackerel skies and mare’s tails
Make tall ships carry low sails
Seagull, seagull, stay off the strand
We’ll have no good weather when you’re on the land
At sea with low and falling glass
Soundly sleeps the careless ass
But when the glass is high and risin’
Truly rests the prudent wise one
An’ as long as I appear to have drug anchor from me main point, I’ll take a round turn and belay it all with a piece by me old mentor Wallace Irwin:
Watchin’ how the sea behaves, For hours and hours I sit
An’ I know the sea is full of waves, I’ve often noticed it
For out on deck each starry night, The wild waves and the tame
I counts and knows ‘em all by sight, And some of ‘em by name
An’ then I thinks a cove like me aint got no right to roam
For I’m homesick when I puts to sea, An’ seasick when I’m home!
So just remember:
To err is human…. to ahhrrr is pirate!
Until next ITLAP day it’s Capt. Larboard Slushbucket bidding you fair winds and followin’ seas!
