Category: Sea worthy

Perhaps Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is located in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps not. After the immense speculation and leads given the public from corporate and government sources one could think the Boeing 777 jet with its contingent of almost 300 lives aboard might just be anywhere. It is heartening to think a possible crash site might finally be spotted, according to media reports.

The strange paths this Beijing-bound flight supposedly took and the elements to which the flight pertains is certainly a mystery worthy of fiction. If indeed this jet is found in almost completely the opposite direction from where it was headed, then that too seals the mysterious flight which headed out just after midnight from Kuala Lumpur on March 8. And while the 24-hour media has raised the possibility the 777 might perhaps had been en route to as far north as Pakistan, the possibility the aircraft and its passengers and crew may lie in the Indian Ocean east of Western Australia seems to make more sense than any other ultimate destination.

It didn’t really hit me at first when a newscaster commented this morning that the missing place could in a place as “remote” as to the east of Western Australia. When one looks at a map it really can understand just how far removed from civilization such a place really is.

I made a trip once sailing out of Fremantle, the Swan River port city for Perth, Western Australia, headed for Jakarta, Indonesia. I don’t remember much about the passage, our two warships alone  out on the Indian Ocean. We had spent the better part of two months visiting ports all up and down the two major New Zealand islands and to three Australian ports in a semi-circular journey from New South Wales, to Tasmania and up to Perth. The majority of us sailors, under 25, had just experienced “sailor-man heaven.”

So I really cannot comment too much one way or the other about the trip across the western Indian Ocean and into the Java Sea. The only thing that really sticks out in my mind about the Indian Ocean is that it was generally hot as hell, it being during the heat of the southern winter. I did notice what appeared to be dirty-looking ocean water, it being one of those odd instances one comes across when at sea after awhile.

Few islands of the Indian to the west of Australia other than Madagascar are noteworthy.  The only place in the Indian Ocean where I have known people to go was Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory, home of the major U.S. Navy facility that was built in the 1970s mostly by Navy Seabees. A number of my Seabee friends were deployed there at one time or another. One even sent me a B.I.O.T. T-shirt though I don’t know what happened to it.

Yes, I would have to think that area west of of Perth is pretty remote as many ocean areas might be. Still the ocean is tranquil and desolate in many areas of the world as it is there. Hopefully, this remote area will soon uncover this ongoing mystery and provide some comfort to those with loved ones on Flight 370.

Friends, Romans, Country Boys, lend me your ears. I don’t know quite what to do with them but I am certain I will find a use. Just keep your ear wax, you heah?

As you can see, I have nothing worth writing this afternoon. And, although that has not stopped me before I shall be brief here. That is, less than 500 words, or so I hope.

I thought I would update the writing project. What? You didn’t know I had a writing project? Why I do every day, or so. But other than hitting or missing here I have been continually on the path during the last four or five years of what some people call a “writing a book.” I just don’t know what I want to write a book about. That has been my problem for the last four or five years. That and medical problems. Those problems and financial problems. We’ve had hurricanes. A 32-hour-per-week job that is called “part-time.” And on and on.

I can say that this project will not be a work of fiction. Or for the most part that is. Or maybe it will be fiction that is based on truth. Or maybe it will be an epic poem. Or maybe it will be … Or maybe it will be. Hell. I don’t quite know still. I do have an idea, though it sounds kind of stupid. But perhaps Hemingway thought a fisherman’s obsessing over a large marlin was stupid. I don’t know. People have all sorts of stupid ideas.

My novel will need specific structure to succeed. It must be short. I mean really short. It should be so short that having finished this work might move even a village’s most accomplished nincompoop to boast of his bookish conquest.

My struggle with writing a book is probably my greatest conflict in life. Well, it is certainly one of those. I thought of passing along my idea in this blog. But why would I do that? What if it turns out to be an excellent idea that some smart but unscrupulous writer discovers? Then again, why would a smart writer be reading this blog? I’m just using a little self-deprecating humor there. I know I have smart readers. Especially those who continue to follow my work year after year.

Okay. That’s it for today. The next day I have off that I don’t have to visit a doctor, I will begin on my literary journey — once more with renewed purpose. I can see myself on Charlie Rose. Uh, on his PBS show, not on Charlie Rose himself, my heft sitting on his shoulders beating him upon the ribs shouting “Faster, faster, Rose, you old scoundrel!” Well, that just prevented me from ever appearing on the only interesting talk show to be broadcast these days. Plus, that sentence just kept me from all the rest of the TV shows. Why I couldn’t even get on Jerry Springer, I bet.

Enough grandiosity. I’ve yet to even write my first words. Well, okay, how about these?

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”