by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
Once upon a time there was a family – the dad of who had a dream. The dad in the family had dreamt from when he was a nipper that one day he would have an ocean going yacht.
So that is what the Dad did. He worked hard and scrimped and saved, then he retired and he finally had his yacht built.
Not just any yacht, mind you, this impressive vessel was a 54ft. teak yacht, with 10 berths and just as smart and spanking as anyone could imagine.
The yacht was built in Taiwan and shipped (ha) to Piraeus in Greece.
The Dad and the Mom went on a sailing course. The children did not. Delivery of the yacht was taken by the dad and then on the next trip, the family boarded the yacht in Piraeus and started their great big watery Mediterranean adventure. It was September. Unbeknown to the family, September in the Med is Meltemi season.
According to Sailing Issues, ‘the Meltemi wind results from a high pressure system laying over the Balkan/Hungary area and a relatively low pressure system over Turkey. The Meltemi brings with it harsh sailing conditions and doesn’t necessarily die out at the end of the day and can easily last more than three to six days.’
Which is all fine and fair enough, but hindsight and all that. Suffice to say the family’s adventure turned into more of a trial come survival-of-the-ignorant type outing. When they weren’t crashing into harbour walls; getting their anchor fouled; almost being arrested by various Greek islands police for squishing small boats (not on purpose), the yacht with all crew on board almost sank one horrible night just outside the teensiest island harbour ever because of the Meltemi raging across the bay.
Did I mention that the reason the crew had to stay up all night was to keep watch between two points of light in the tossing waves as the yacht’s anchor dragged back and forth? Or the fact that the reason the anchor was dragging was because the locals knew what the storm would do to a tethered boat in the wrong place? Or that they sent the family across the bay into unprotected waters because the yacht was too big and the Russian fishing vessels needed the space in the teensy harbour? No? Well, fact being stranger than fiction, that’s what happened.
You might not have picked up that this story is related with a tinge of humour, but it was actually very funny – almost like episodes of Carry on in the Med, however, that said, I wouldn’t wish most of these experiences on any ocean sailors. It was, in retrospect, a huge learning curve and all of the mishaps were far outweighed by the most incredible experiences, sights and sounds which stay very firmly rooted in memory.
*Blogista’s postscript – the yacht was first named ‘Shimi’ (Tibetan for ‘cat’) but when another yacht with the same name was found registered with Lloyds, ‘Shimi’ became ‘Mavournin’. (Mavournin is Irish for ‘my darling’).
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
‘You must wait for an hour after eating to go for a swim. If you do not, you could get a stomach cramp and drown.’
Does anyone else remember that old chestnut? Absolute torture for us otters who literally lived in the water from sunup to sundown in the summer months.
Despite this dire warning, it seems that an instance of drowning caused by swimming on a full stomach has never been documented.
Close the door behind you, were you born in a stable?!
Weirdly enough, where I grew up, we did have a stable and even weirder, the door couldn’t close. Take that, parent!
Even more peculiar is that most of the stables I’ve seen – all have split doors and they’re mostly closed to keep the gee gees in.
If you swallow an apple seed, an apple tree will grow in your stomach and you will die.
Almost positive there have been zero reported cases of a tree growing inside of a human.
If you squint your eyes like that, they’ll stay that way.
Ya, well, sucks boo to you matey, I did it plenty and my eyes are just fine, thank you!
Eat your carrots; they’ll make you see in the dark.
In retrospect, I’m not quite sure why I never puzzled this obvious silly out, as we had rabbits at one stage and I don’t ever remember them being particularly ninja-ish and nocturnal, by any stretch of the imagination!
If you go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold.
Outside doesn’t give us colds. People give us colds. But, hey.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
I cannot, for the life of me, when I think of the word Wasabi, say it as it’s written. I always martial-art-movie the pronunciation. And I do mean always. Say it with me now,’Wa-saaaaaabi!’
I have wondered whether wasabi was a chilli, pepper or mustard, but apparently it’s a horseradish. According to Wiki:
Wasabi is a plant member of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbage, horseradish, and mustard. It is also called Japanese horseradish, although horseradish is a different plant (which is often used as a substitute for wasabi). Its stem is used as a condiment and has an extremely strong pungency. Its hotness is more akin to that of a hot mustard than that of the capsaicin in a chilli pepper, producing vapours that stimulate the nasal passages more than the tongue. The plant grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan. The two main cultivars in the marketplace are E. japonicum ‘Daruma’ and ‘Mazuma’, but there are many others.
So, that’s clarified then. I did always wonder, as I’m okay with a little bit of bite – chilli wise – but I far more appreciate flavour over my digestive tract screaming like a girl and up and running away in fear when I eat something hot.
This is why I’m not so great with is hot mustard. It’s also where I fall spectacularly short in the stiff upper lip category of having the de rigeur hot English mustard with my rare roast beef.
Horseradish I can still do, but the glaring yellow of HEM, no. (The colour alone should be sufficient warning that your mouth will qualify for its very own ‘scorched earth’ tag.)
Then in wanders Wa-saaaaaabi! with its deceptively fresh, pastel-green colour that says, ’Hot, me? Naah, I’m all spring time meadows and buttercups – perfectly harmless.’
Blithely unaware, you mix a blob in with your soy sauce or you (‘you’ being the crazy, no taste-buds at ALL daredevils) smear it commando style onto your sushi and pop a piece into your mouth. Then the fire engine alarms start clanging, your nose receptors scream for mercy and your throat clamps shut.
I read recently that more often than not we’re not really eating real wasabi, and that the real deal isn’t even that hot. Also, the heat from real fresh wasabi, when grated, doesn’t last for more than about 15 minutes.
Genuine wasabi is pretty expensive – apparently a lot of it that we eat is a mixture of dyed mustard and horseradish root – which would explain a lot.
Whatever I’m ingesting, I’ve learnt to keep a jug of water on the table whenever Ojiisan Wasabi is paying a visit. Oh, and I think the winter warmer trick here is obvious. If you eat enough of the stuff, it’ll keep your head warm, your nasal passages clear and your brain all on fire like nobody’s business – you certainly won’t notice the cold.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
Some days, it’s all about wishing for warmer weather, sun peeking out, birds tweeting and other days, you just go with the chill. Today is one of those days.
I’ve always had a fascination with formation of snowflakes – to the point where I wished I could carry a microscope around with me so I could zoom in on their beautiful shapes. That didn’t happen, so this is the next best bet on uncovering the mystery.
*A snowflake has three basic ingredients: ice crystals, water vapour and dust. The ice crystals form as water vapour freezes on a bit of microscopic dust.
Scientists estimate the chances of two snowflakes being exactly alike are about 1 in 1 million trillion. Meteorologists think that there are 1 trillion, trillion, trillion different types of snowflakes.
The dust particles can come from many different places, including flower pollen, volcanic ash, and even celestial bodies such as meteors.
Snow forms in very cold clouds containing water droplets and ice crystals. As water droplets attach themselves to ice crystals, they freeze, creating an even larger ice crystal.
In any crystal, molecules line up in a pattern. In ice crystals, water molecules line up and form a hexagon. This is why all snowflakes are six-sided.
The temperature of the cloud it forms in determines the shape of an ice crystal. Likewise, the amount of moisture in the cloud determines the size of the ice crystal.
More moisture will create a bigger crystal. When several ice crystals stick together, they form a snowflake.
As snowflakes tumble through the air, swirling and spiralling, they each take a different path to the ground. Each snowflake falls and floats through clouds with different temperatures and moisture levels, which shapes each snowflake in a unique way.
Even though two snowflakes may form in the same cloud, their different journeys to the ground will affect their shape and size, giving each snowflake its own unique identity.
Now you know. Or perhaps you knew already, but now you know more? Anyhow, while you’re still trudging through the slush, hopefully this’ll give you something to appreciate about the magical snowflake.
*extracts from an article at Erepolis.org
by Fern Shaw | Feb 18, 2015 | Water, water cooler
So it started like this … (I’m tempted to say ‘and that’s how the fight started’) … but that wouldn’t be correct. Or true.
It wasn’t a fight. What it was was the seemingly endless discussion about whether to go camping or to not go camping.
Whether camping was simply the best, cheapest way of getting away from it all or just some centuries’ old nomadic instinct from our predecessors which insists that you lug your household around to shivery destinations, I’m not quite sure.
The facts are you get 2 very different camps (ha!) when it comes to camping.
As you may have gathered, I fall into the no-camping-are-you-insane category.
I will relate just one story to you and perhaps you’ll understand why.
I went camping alongside a river with a boyfriend. It was an impromptu, rash decision fuelled by copious amounts of liquor the day before we ventured out. Due to work constraints, we arrived at the self-designated campsite after dark and parked on the sand at the river’s edge. Dinner was to be a potjie (or stew) which is traditionally made using water, seasoning, vegetables and a meat, no packet sauces or any other cheats aloud. Slight problem was we had no water. The river water was pretty churny and brown and we weren’t taking any chances. We proceeded to use the red wine we’d brought with us as the liquid base for the potjie. Only problem here was that the intense heat from the cooking fire meant that the liquid burnt off pretty quickly. Suffice to say that we ended up some hours later (the whole idea of a potjie is that it takes hours to cook (the originator of the popular ‘slow cooking’ that’s all the rage nowadays?) with half cooked, half singed meat, crunchy vegetables and no wine. It didn’t help that we were ravenous!
The camping didn’t get much better post dinner either. A friend, who ran river rafting expeditions from where we were camped, decided to creep up on us wearing a ski mask. With the sound of the river rushing by us didn’t hear him until he leapt out from the river bank – all 6ft.2 of him – and screamed at us. The following morning, deciding to depart from our rather ill-fated excursion, we discovered that the van that we’d driven in had sunk down into the soft, damp river sand and was stuck. An hour later armed with much choice language and two planks, we finally managed to extricate ourselves and head off back to civilisation. No-one could have been more relieved than I was.
I have since then had the occasional pleasant camping trip, but whenever the 2 camps set up (ha!) around the water cooler and tales of for and against start up, I’m sure this story has swayed more than a few undecided. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
by Fern Shaw | Feb 14, 2015 | Charity, Health and Hydration, Water
In this month of love (being February) I can hear the howls of protest from many an individual as they scarper to warmer climes, (or just anywhere else) to avoid participating in Valentine’s Day.
I have my own personal rules regarding the day in question – I call it Anti-Valentine’s – but that’s for another story and those of you with a stronger constitution than most.
To change perspective a little, I skipped along the web looking for romantic tales/rituals involving water, splashing merrily as I do. I found some truly lovely practices and rituals, but the nicest, by far, was sent to me by our co-ordinator extraordinaire, Michelle. As we‘re very invested in charities, as with The Africa Trust, which provides safe drinking water to people throughout Africa, I thought that this was quite fitting:-
It’s a folk tale from Kenya called The Fire on the Hill:
Long, long ago, there was a lake of cold water in Kenya. Many animals came at night to the lake to drink some water. But people never came to the lake at night. The animals could kill and eat them. Now, a rich man who had a beautiful daughter once said, “The young man, who will go to the lake in the evening and stay in the cold water till morning, will have my daughter for his wife.”
There lived a poor young man who loved the rich man’s daughter very much. He said to his mother, “I shall try to stay all night in the lake and then marry my dear girl.”
“No, No,” the mother said, “you are my only son! The water in the lake is very cold and the animals will eat you up. Don’t go there!”
She cried and cried. But her son said, “Mother, don’t cry. I must try. I love her so much!” So the young man went to the girl’s father. He told him that he wanted to go to the lake and stay in the cold water all night. The rich man sent his servants to a place where they could watch the young man.
When night came, the young man went to the lake and his mother followed him. But he did not see her. There was a hill forty paces away from the place where the young man went into the water. The woman climbed up the hill and made a fire there. The wild animals saw the fire and were afraid to go near that place.
The young man saw the fire, too. He understood that his mother was there. He thought of his mother’s love and it was easier for him to stay all night in the very cold water. Morning came. The young man went to the rich man’s house. The rich man saw him and said, “My servants say that there was a fire on a hill forty paces from the lake. It warmed you and that is why you could stay all night in the water. So you cannot marry my daughter. Good-bye.”
The young man was very angry. He went to the judge. “Well,” the judge said, “this is a very simple case.”
The next morning the young man with his mother and the rich man with his servants came before the Judge. There were many people there who wanted to hear the case. The judge asked for a pot of cold water. Then he walked forty paces from the pot and made a fire.
“Now,” he said, “we shall wait a little until the water is warm.”
The people cried, “But the fire is so far away, it cannot warm the water in the pot.”
Then the judge said, “And how could that young man warm himself at a fire forty paces away?”
So the case was over and the young man married the rich man’s daughter. They lived happily for many years.
Now I’m sure your swain is not expecting you to take a dip in an icy pond at the common to prove their worth this February, but as far as grand romantic gestures go, this is pretty impressive. Think about it before you go off and spend your hard earned dosh on some screaming pink, polyester-haired teddy.
