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This
year, the weather cooperated and we were able to
enjoy Thanksgiving dinner on the terrace of our
Kawau cottage. |
Dear Friends:
We celebrated Thanksgiving at our home base in New
Zealand a few days ago. As Larry and I worked together
making real American pumpkin pies (from The Joy of Cooking
recipe) in the kitchen he finished building only the
afternoon before 26 guests were coming for dinner, we
began talking about Thanksgivings past. I reminded him
of one of the more unusual sailing stunts in his life,
way back in 1967 when he'd been among the first to sail
across the Sahara desert. A copy of National Geographic's
November issue with Larry's picture on the cover arrived
just the day before Thanksgiving. We'd proudly taken
it with us to share with my family a hundred miles north
of where we were building Seraffyn. I remember feeling
we'd never do anything to top that adventure as relatives
and friends decided we'd been crazy, clever, foolish,
wise, to sell my piano and Larry's 1948 MG and close
down our boat supply business to do it.
 |
Larry
made the cover of National Geographic. This photograph
was taken by Jonathon Blair, National Geos' man
who is actually strapped in front of the mast on
Larry's machine.(photo courtesy of National Geographic
Society) |
Larry, along with 14 others did actually manage to
sail land-yachts 1700 miles across hard packed earth
and gravel routes from Bechar in Algeria to Noakchott
in Mauritania. guided by a Bedouin called Ahmed Zoom
Zoom. The American team consisting of Larry as Captain,
plus Richard Arthur and Warren Zeibarth became famous
for being able to fix tires really fast. Because the
French still had some military personnel in Algeria,
they were able to stage a race against the last French
Foreign Legion Camel platoon. (Land-yachts won.) Larry
brought back amazing tales of evenings spent in the
tents of the Blue Bedouins, and with costal villagers
of Morocco who swam into the Atlantic pulling seine
nets out to surround schools of mullet fish, then brought
the ends of the nets back to the beach where the whole
village set to work pulling their catch ashore. The
landyachts were, like iceboats, able to reach speeds
far in excess of the wind. In fact Larry recalls one
day when they were being paced by Land Rovers. "I
was close-hauled making 85 miles per hour when I passed
the fastest of them." After 5 weeks of sand and
wind (they sailed in February and March to have the
best winds - winds that often reached gale force and
above) they sailed in to a heroes welcome at Noakchott,
capital of Mauritania.. Larry described his surprise
at coming across a formed road in the middle of the
apparently uninhabited desert. "It gradually got
better and better, then I saw buildings in the distance
and about six blocks before we reached the buildings
there was tarmac on the road. We rushed through the
streets, past cheering arabs for six blocks to cross
the finish line in front of the elaborate government
buildings. The next day we learned that the tarmac and
the road itself ended six blocks further on at the other
side of town there was just more open expanse of desert."
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This brightly colored sails of the landyacht
fleet attracted attention at each of the small
oasis along the route. (photo courtesy of National
Geographic Society)
|
Each of the men who sailed the total distance were
awarded the Mauritanian Legion of Honor, We have the
bronze and enamel star on its green and yellow stripped
ribbon to this day. Larry has his wonderful memories
of the camaraderie of that adventure. I have my irreplaceable
memories of Paris. We gained as a couple when we succeeded
at getting there and back because we found that we could
adventure without using a lot of money, we could improvise
and stay flexible enough to find solutions when conditions
such as me being unable to join the expedition and needing
to find a way to cover the costs of staying in Paris.
I think the success of that expedition may have been
one of the reasons we were willing to set off cruising
as soon as Seraffyn was built and sea-trialed.
 |
These
two pages from National Geographic Mag. November
1967 remind Larry of some of the best days of that
event. |
Of course we also reminisced about more recent sailing
adventures as we prepared this years Thanksgiving dinner.
We again savoured memories of our warm welcome in San
Francisco where Bob and Jane Van Blaricom arranged for
us to have a pleasant week just a few blocks from their
home at the San Francisco Yacht Club (in Tiburon just
east of Sausalito), a grand sail down the bay to Alemada
where Diane and Jim Jesse had arranged for a perfect
berth for Taleisin to spend the winter right next to
them. Because she is relatively small and would not
be moving in and out during her stay, the folks at marina
found a rarely used side tie that just fit and made
us feel most welcome. The day we sailed in an old friend
of Larry's from Vancouver noticed Taleisin. Soon Dave
Wilson was secured alongside and began the enjoyable
social fling that helped speed the two weeks we spent
in San Francisco Bay while we winterized Taleisin before
flying down here for yet another summer - our seventh
in a row. But this summer includes a healthy dose of
writing (me) as Larry finishes rebuilding the cottage
and upgrading Thelma in preparation for the Classic
Yacht Regattas that begin in six weeks.
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Back
to the modern world - John Swain took this photo
of Taleisin at anchor just off Tiburon, opposite
San Francisco. |
May your holidays be the beginnings of many fond memories.
Lin and Larry
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We
made the mistake of feeding these ducks when we
first came back to our home base. Now I find I have
to chase them out of my office as they definitely
are not house trained. |
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