Blame it all on yourself 'cause she's always a woman to me
Oh, she takes care of herself, she can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, she never gives out and she never gives in
She just changes her mind
She is frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases, she's nobody's fool
But she can't be convicted, she's earned her degree
And the most she will do is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me
Billy Joel
Sailing down the Turkish coast is lovely. there is the coast on one side, and Greek islands on the other side. It is strange, but because of the wind patterns? (definitely need to look this one up), some parts are covered in trees, while islands right beside them are stripped completely to the earth. Dolphins came and swam with our boat today. It is the third time we have seen dolphins. The first time was in the Sea of Marmara the first day. they looked like they had swam in circles around a school of fish and were now having a feeding frenzy in the whirlpool of fish in their midst. The second dolphins were at the beginning of the Aegean, but they were fairly far away, and did not come close. There were about 5 or 6 that came close today. It could be because are heading through an area of intensive fish farming??? Imagine what a farm looks like to a predatory animal. All these delicious pieces of dinner, locked up so they can see them and smell them and they just can’t get to them. I never thought about it before, but our farms take food out of the food chain, and makes us see animals that would eat our captured animals or our stored grains etc, as bad, and gives us some sort of right to kill them or at least drive them out of their own territories, Humans are bullies.
Speaking of bullies, I realize that people like Recep, make me fundamentally unhappy. It is not any single thing they do, it is the day to say subtle abusive behaviour, tearing away at my self esteem and constantly making me defend myself and take precautionary measures and be constantly on guard. I have to make sure that everything I say or do is perfect and defensible if put to the test. It is never being thanked or told that you are liked or a good person. Each comment, or wrinkled nose or raised eye or huff or ignored question, is not a problem. Each one is nothing. Well, almost nothing. It is like throwing a tiny pebble at someone, it will just bounce off easily. But after a thousand pebbles, and a thousand tiny bruises, they start to meld together and form large painful areas. And of course the abuser looks at the giant bruises, and says "pshaw, i didn't do that - i only threw a tiny pebble, it was just a joke, you are blowing things out of proportion, you are just thin skinned" they say. And the leather, that has become your skin, grows thicker as all the labels are decoupaged on. Stupid, lazy, uncaring, difficult, none of these are ever actually said. But however subtly inferred, these labels stick, digging in with fishhook like barbs. They never come out. Like porcupine quills, they need to work their way deep in and come out the other side. I can do it, I can work them all through, but only because I am one tough bitch whose soul cannot be destroyed, no matter how many times people decide to play baseball with my soul and my heart. I survive, and they lose everything I would have freely given, everything they think they have to wring from my soul.
Next time someone says they want a woman to sail with... I might not be the best choice, because I don't act like your typical "woman"
"Point to where the anchor is.” I point straight down. "Point to where the anchor is” the incessant wheedle repeats. I point straight down. stomp stomp stomp up to the front of the boat, as the boat, colluding with its owner, drifts ever slightly forward. "I need you to tell me to go forward" he waves his hand around, or backwards turns and waves his hand around the same way, or tell me if the anchor is out to the side." "It was straight down" I reply. "Shush shush, I need you to liiisten, look at me, listen, and then you can talk (ie, when I am gone). "I need you to tell me which way I need to go, you know the anchor is down at the bottom, to get it up, it needs to be under the boat, I need to know which way to go." "I am not going to tell you how to drive your boat, I am telling you where the anchor is, so that you can..." cut off mid-sentence, amid exasperated sighs and assorted mumbles. "Just tell me, if the anchor is under the boat you have to tell me to go forward, I can't see it and I don't know what you are pointing at.” "I am pointing at the anchor I say.”
Recep is most like Henry, The catamaran we sailed with in Bahamas.
He is nice enough, but sexist. Underneath there is a pent up anger anger and frustration. Hopefully, unlike with Henry, he will never feel the need to expose that sordid underbelly.
I'm sure Recep is no happier with me that i am with him. Henry was not happier with me, than I was with him. He wanted a playmate for his girlfriend. He wanted a simpering, cute little princess that would run around his boat making him sandwiches and saying what a great sailor he was. He was happy with Greg, and could relate to him and wanted to take him under his wing. He was overjoyed with having Greg on his boat. He wanted Greg to drive his boat and help chart the course and do all the manly manly things with him. He just about had an apoplectic fit when he saw me take the wheel from Greg the first or second day, and practically leapt across the entire boat to rectify the situation. He turned all of his frustrations about me not fitting into his “woman” mold, and let it all loose in one horrific vomit of anger and venom towards me. He said my jokes weren’t funny and I talked too much and that absolutely nothing I ever said was interesting to anyone ever. He said that I thought I was something special and that I wasn’t. He told me these thing for long enough for me to get up from the table, and go over to the kitchen and pour and drink 6 glasses of water. I tried to argue back, but his girlfriend and Greg just sat there stunned and gaping, and not realizing what was happening inside of me. I tried to defend myself, but he had so much angry energy and my head was spinning and my face and my hands were burning and I knew that nothing I could ever say would be heard or understood by his broken ears, or interpreted correctly by his mouldy vicious raging brain. I never understood why he hated me that much, but I guess that unlike his girlfriend and daughters, I was an easy target with no lasting repercussions. I will assume that his four ex-wives would testify to that. He had no right to try to break my spirit and pour out all of the frustrations of his life on me. Hopefully Recep will not do that. He seems to be a little more put together, so I think it will not be the same - it is maybe just my own history that paints him with Henry's black and rotting ink.
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| Sunrise sequence over the Ionian Coast |
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| Just before sunrise |
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| Sunrise |
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| Breakfast most days |
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| A little temple and one little grove of trees on a barren island |
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| Lunch - I cook well on a boat:) |
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| A nice colourful container ship |
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| A dolphin swimming with the boat |
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| The cove we anchored in just south of Cesme |
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| Anchored in our little cove |
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| Our spinnaker, still flapping around. He finally decided to try and fix it, by unfurling it partway while anchored in the cove, and then took it down. |
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