We've built a boat that stays afloat, To journey far by wind and star. Now we're keen to chase our dream, With friends and song, we'll travel long. Please share our tale. In peace we sail. Om Shanti
Sometimes they do. This particularly patient boat travelled 3 times by land and 7 times by air before finally getting her bottom wet. On a summer day in 2006 Melodeon took a 1/4 mile jaunt by crane and flatbed trailer to her first launch site in a nearby canal. Throughout the tense 10 hour day we watched the crane shift it's weights and inch forward like a protective dinosaur moving a precious egg. The entire operation was conducted with mummered conversations, in the slow motion of precision and skill. In the middle of the day there was some notable action as Melodeon was escorted down the road. A crew swung down the lane fore and aft, clearing branches, supporting telephone lines and greeting neighbours as the truck rolled steadily forward. Compared to the torturously slow ritual ... read more
If we'd kept a construction log, our helpers would have logged 100,000 hours easily. With humility and gratitiude we thank all those patient souls who invested minutes, hours, days or years of donated time in this project. Their continuous efforts, including physical work, mental planning and emotional support have literally kept us pointed toward our very long term goal. We've been accused quite often of constructing an Ark, but without Noah's grasp of timelines. A project such as this does not move forward in a straight line, at least the way we do it! It is much more a zig-zag kind of path. The miracle is that people have appeared like itinerant birds, helped by building or singing their song and then mostly darted away to their next adventure. To stretch this metphor a little further; ... read more
This story begins at a turning point: the end of 3 decades of boat-building and the final preparations for a journey to sea/see. After a summer of test runs in fresh water in 2006, our ocean queen has to be patient, enduring one more icy blast of winter. There's still lots to do to get her ready for her voyage abroad in the summer of 2007. Tension mounts as the weeks click by. We check our lists, wondering how to move faster with frozen fingers and brains in hibernation. But isn't this what Canadians do?... moan about the weather; especially when there's an Artic air mass hovering over us like a hyperactive polar bear mother. Hurry up and wait. There's lots to do; too much it seems so we'll stop wishing for spring and get back ... read more