Boats and Beaches World Tour: Day Four - Lost Love in Africa

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Day Four - Lost Love in Africa

Love was in the air last night as my friend Peter played the song "Africa" by the Swedish band E-Type at least twenty times. Modern technology allows a small shabby bar in a developing tropical nation to play a love song that played out thirty years ago on a different continent. Peter was the lead male in this drama. Leaving the Swedish Army early in life, he took two fishing boats to the west coast of Africa. His girlfriend accompanied him. A very capable girl in Sweden, she attracted him with her strength. The completely foreign life of commercial fishing in Monrovia during a brutal civil war lead her to become quite dependent on him. Her weakened persona no longer attracted him and he discarded her. She returned to Sweden and her story lives on in a beautiful, haunting song. Today has been a slow, peaceful attempt to recover from a night of catching up with an old friend, a world-class adventurous soul, someone still searching the earth for the love he lost years ago. "...I will follow the road down to Africa, If that's what it takes, just want you to know..."

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Favorite Quotes

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

- Annie Dillard

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

- Antoine de Saint Exupery

"The years thunder by. The dreams of Youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of Patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed."

- Sterling Hayden

"I am continuing non-stop towards the Pacific Islands because I am happy at sea, and perhaps also to save my soul."

- Bernard Moitessier

"The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators."

- Edward Gibbon

"Not all horses were born equal. A few were born to win."

- Mark Twain

"Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mold-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Sea Fever, by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.