This afternoon, I was perusing around the interwebs on my
wireless mobile device, as I do regularly when I need a mind-numbing escape
from the real world. While I thumbed
through all of the same “breaking news,” I saw a headline I hadn’t seen
before: “NOAA Cost-Cutting Move, NOAA to
Stop Printing Nautical Charts” I was
overcome with some sort of emotion. I
don’t know what it was because my phone didn’t tell me how to feel, but it was definitely
something real emotional. My first
response was “Sure. Let’s stop learning
to read, too. Everything we need already
tells us what we need to know and what we need to do, anyway.” So, I guess, maybe I was pissed? Cynical?
Disenchanted? I’m still not sure of
the emotion. But I do know what the
story did for me. It took me back. WAY.
BACK.
Immediately, I was 21 again.
Sitting on the bridge of a boat I had sworn vengeance with. A boat, that, seemingly owned my life. And at 21, NOBODY OWNS YOU!!! But she did.
When she left, I left with her.
When she returned home, I returned as well. Every fourth day came
around, I’d sleep there. Most of the
time, on those days, I’d stand in the cool, early air and watch the dark turn
to dawn, and dawn turn to day. Every
time I crossed her brow in the morning, I saluted the flag and requested her
permission to come aboard. Every time I
crossed her brow in the afternoon, despite a shower and clean clothes, I took
the smell of diesel fuel and simple green home with me. It’s
not a unique place. Many came before me,
many came after me. But that’s the place
that story took me. Back to
Alameda. Back to a simpler time. More specifically, back to a place I didn’t
even realize was simple.
Mornings on that boat were what I thought of when NPR.com
told me that Nautical Charts didn’t require printing anymore. The mornings there, were always the
busiest. Also, mornings are the time
cutter people work inport. Regardless,
the mornings there…That’s what I remember the most. After
I mustered with my crew, I’d take a cup of coffee, and make my way down two
ladders, then up four to get to my office.
My “office” was a cramped corner of the bridge where I sat corrected
charts. All day. Every day.
EVERY. FUCKING. DAY. And I’d sit on that stool, every
morning. A mountain of charts and a cup
of coffee and KFOG on the radio. Not iTunes.
The radio. With all their
commercials and commentaries and traffic reports and unspecified
playlists. So, I’d sit there and listen
to the radio, and drink my coffee and do chart corrections. Occasionally I’d look across the Oakland Estuary, across
the San Francisco Bay, through the Bay Bridge.
I’d look past every navigational beacon, every hazard to mariners,
towards the city. I’d stare at the
skyline and wonder what those people were doing over there. “What were they
doing?” Most likely, it was real important. Can
you believe I had the ability to make it through the day without iTunes or
Pandora? Me neither.
After those days were done, and I suffered through them with
a cup of coffee and FM radio, I would go home. At 1:00. I’d take a nap. Then, I’d go to that bar on Central for beer
and wings. I’d make a case for how hard
my day was, and then I’d do it all over again.
Life was exhausting then.
Then, here, today, I read that nautical charts are no longer
important enough to print. Once the bane
of my entire existence, they are no longer worthwhile to mariners because
technology has corrected them to perfection.
Better than I could ever do, that is certain. But paper charts weren’t just a pain in the
dick to correct on sunny mornings in the San Francisco Bay. They were a reminder of something to look
forward to. Those early mornings on the
bridge, they reminded us of the good times that would come after work. On those frigid evenings on the Bearing Sea, plotting fixes on the worn
paper, we were reminded that we were
that much closer to home.
Thanks to technology, we don’t need to fear getting lost. We also don't need to feel the excitement of finding our way home.
-Inner Peas
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