Sofar crew 2 has been challenged by the elements, and one in specific; wind.

In our (my) daily city life I never make decisions based on the elements. You can’t suddenly not go to that meeting if it rains (though you want to this is generally not accepted a a great argument) or not go to the supermarket because there is Wind outside.

When it comes to boats this is all different. All your decisions are based on the elements. The tide, the wind, storms, rain, they will all massively affect your journey and if you don’t take them into account they could kill/severely damage you.

This is the reason why we haven’t sailed to Foula yet, the island we were supposed to go to yesterday. It would have been too dangerous. Instead we went to film amazing cliffs and toured around the island to admire the landscape and had a great lecture at the Marine centre in Scalloway. Today we still couldn’t sail to the island out but we went for a ‘small sail’, to get a ‘taste’. The small sail already included pretty rough waves, rain, cold and seasickness (not a great taste) so this afternoon I went a the local cinema to see a film and warm up (of course it was a boat related film, otherwise I wouldn’t have allowed myself to do so). With Ursula I went to see Jason and the Argonauts, a 1963 film by Don Chaffey and visual effects by Ray Harryhausen.

Jason is a young man with a quest, he goes on a voyage to the end of the world (Colchis) to find ‘the Golden Fleece’, a very important kind of blanket that brings peace and looks a lot like Christmas decoration. Like we have the weather that challenges us, Jason has the Gods. Zeus thinks its quite amusing that Jason faces all these battles, – like fighting a giant bronze Titan-, while Hera wants to help Jason and his friends find the Fleece.

Hera and Zeus don’t agree on this matter and leisurely discuss Jason’s life threatening journey hanging around fountains in their lovely white robes. Zeus allows her to give Jason 5 tips during his journey. Hera shows up on Jason’s boat in the shape of a stunning statue with hot flaming lips who whispers cryptic messages into Jason ear how to get to the Fleece.

The crew on board of the boat is carefully chosen by Jason. He selected them on based on their amazing qualities and skills. Some are strong, some are smart (one), some are great at throwing stuff. Together they can conquer the world. I think about my friends and how we probably more or less have the same qualities and skills and how useful that would be if a disaster were to happen. We know when is the best time of the day to put something on Facebook to have a maximum amount of ‘likes’ instead of knowing how to make fire. I think about our boat, our crew on the Swan and our different qualities. I feel we have a lot more smart people on board than Jason did, but I bet no one could push that big rock out of the way like Hercules did. Would we survive this voyage to the end of the world to go and get the Golden Fleece? Do we have a Hercules in our group, and what would my contribution be, now my IPhone is out of battery?