Author: Ning Xue

23/07/2020

It was another stormy day. I finished reading ‘Robinson Crusoe’ by this little deserted island. It is very interesting to read this book as a novel of wilderness survival, although it is full of fables and incorrectness, such as hunting beasts just for fun; instead of learning the local language, he insisted teaching ‘Friday’ to speak English; being very self-righteous to sell his belief to ‘barbaric and uncivilized people’; long-winded religious discussions, but it is nothing more than being grateful to God just after every survival from disasters; condemning the cannibals but he himself was killing other people with weapons… The ending is also quite disappointing, his investment in the colony allowed him to become a rich man after returning to civilisation, so he was back to upper-middle class which he once despised. After all, it is a novel of the Enlightenment period with many limitations. From a modern point of view, Robinson’s story is actually the epitome of the Europe colonization to overseas, and it also reflects the destiny of human beings to develop agriculture and privatisation due to their natural hoarding habit. For the works of the same period, I would like to read Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” next, to see how he boldly and honestly satirizes the gloom of human nature. It is said that he did not like Defoe at all, even calling him “the man in pillory” instead of his name.

Tonight, we continue to eat winter food in the tropics. J made pumpkin cheese hot pie, with lard and butter in the crust, which is very delicious. The leftover pastry dough was used creativity to make pumpkin crispbread. After St. Helena biscuits, Curlew Island crispbread was born.

22/07/2020

It was windy and rainy all day, and quite cold. It was not the tropical weather that I was expected, but it’s perfect for bread baking and reading novels inside.

I read that Robinson spent two years planting wheats with some seeds shaken out of his pockets. He drove away goats that eat seedlings and birds that eat wheats, made a grinder and a sieve by himself, built a stove, and finally made a loaf of hot bread (no yeast was used so it was actually a hardtack)… I looked at the freshly baked atheist bun (hot cross bun without cross) in front of me, and was thinking this kind of food is a miracle.

For dinner, I made artisan pumpkin soup to go with freshly baked bread made by J. Pumpkins are really good food to keep on boat, they last very long. They are still fresh and sweet when opened after a few weeks. The seeds can be pan fried and make snacks (learn from Robinson who does not waste food at all). The pumpkin in soup was crushed with spoon and fork by hand. I add some ginger powder, garlic powder, pepper, turmeric powder to taste, and finally folded in some milk. It tastes great when it is hot, especially suitable for this windy and rainy night (we were actually eating winter food on this tropical island).

At night, the rain is getting heavier and heavier, and wind was gusty. From time to time, J checked if the boat was dragging the anchor away. The skylight was leaking a bit. J rushed out to cover it with plastic sheet, came back with dripping jacket, what he need was a cup of hot chocolate to warm up. There was a boat came in to the bay In the late afternoon before the heavy rain, and they must be happy now so they don’t have to sail on a stormy night.

21/07/2020

8am We left the island. The in-coming tide was very strong. It took a lot of effort to pull up the anchor, mainly because one of J’s fingers was still injured. Currents between these island groups could be confusing. When we chose the way out, we tried to pick the one with an out going current. We thought the north one would be the right one to take but the it turned out to be coming in current. We had to motor out slowly along the shore at a speed of about 2 knots (the closer to the shore, the weaker the current).

Went through the passage and avoided a shoal, we finally turned the bow to the northwest and set the goose wings up, traveled at a speed of 6 knots.

The afternoon voyage was a bit rolly, but I was completely into reading the story of ‘Robinson Crusoe’. The reason I started reading it was that I had recently listened to a program about classics in Enlightenment Era by professor Xu Ben on the ‘Vistopia’ platform. It made me became very interested in some classics since the 17th century. I only had some basic knowledge about those famous works, but had never read them, such as this one. The main character in the novel was born in a middle-class family. He could have lived the most stable, safest, and most enviable life, but he wanted to get on ships to see the world, which was against his parents’ will. According to his father, only the poorest or richest people would take the risk to go overseas and venture out, and they themselves were in the middle class, which they considered is the best class, neither suffered from hardship nor carried the burden of ambition. Moreover, being free from disasters and illnesses can guarantee a stable and peaceful life, so he was advised to start a career and family in his own hometown, but this unsettled guy took a opportunity to jump on a ship and left hometown, starting a thrilling adventure… Although he always involved himself into disasters, and kept saying that he had regretted and wanted to go back, but I guess if he could choose again, he would still plunge into the sea adventure without hesitation. Just as a quote printed at the back of a business card given to us by an other sailor:

‘Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in boardside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, wow, what a ride!’

At 3pm, we arrived at Curlew island, a five-meter tidal change was reserved, because the full moon and no moon are the periods of biggest tide change. We sailed 32 nautical miles in total today.

We had Thai curry coconut milk pumpkin pot for dinner tonight.