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July 12, 2016

A feeling

BY: Pere Valera

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Hello everyone.

Another little entry. Today I’m going to talk about a feeling I had the other day.

I’m a lover of traditional sailing, without electronics (though of course I wouldn’t for a moment renounce all the facilities that we have these days). The other day we were spending the night adrift a few miles from Valletta, to avoid wasting hours going to and from the port. We were in an area where a lot of merchant ships are anchored waiting to be given a job or to refuel. The number of ships that you could see was impressive, and I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said there were more than a hundred. And I took this image with me when I went to rest while it was still daytime, before watch duty. And when I got up the image I had was  that of having land in sight”?. In fact, it was a big city! But looking at the plotter I realised that we were far from Valletta, and that what I saw were the lights of all the merchant ships anchored in the area. How easy it would have been for a sailor coming from afar and sailing without electronic instruments to feel lost, mistaking ships for buildings and unable to recognise the previously planned landfall!

Well, that’s all until the next entry.