{"id":830,"date":"2019-05-08T15:50:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T15:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/?p=830"},"modified":"2019-05-08T15:50:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T15:50:13","slug":"the-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/the-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"The Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joshua Slocum, on his solo voyage around the world, looked up into the cockpit one dark and stormy night and saw the pilot of Drake\u2019s ship The Pinta at the wheel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jean Le Carn in the Vendee Globe Race held his sister in his arms – and woke up hugging a sail bag.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hallucinations, when you\u2019re alone at sea, are not unusual. <\/span><\/p>\n

Feeling someone touch the back of your neck, however, on only the second night of a passage from Falmouth to Caernarfon – especially when pushed by northerlies into that empty gap between the Smalls and the Tuskar Rock separation schemes where there\u2019s just nothing but empty sea (and on this occasion, not a breath of wind) – well, something\u2019s up…<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d had nothing to do for the past 18 hours but sleep and read and sit in the cockpit drinking coffee and watching some tiny land-birds flutter about the boat and try to balance on the guardrails…<\/span><\/p>\n

So this was just plain creepy\u2026 but <\/span>there: <\/span><\/i>It happened again, just as I was pouring hot water into the pot: A feather-light touch on the back of the neck\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

That was when I realised that the birds – having given up on the guardrails – were now in the cabin: Six of them whizzing about like rockets, exploring. It was a scene from Hitchcock. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then they got into the fo\u2019c\u2019sle which, now it\u2019s turned into The Shed, full of sails and the bike and the dinghy and the new enormous ball fender – well, it\u2019s easy for a small bird to get lost in there – and start panicking.<\/span><\/p>\n

With all six of them simultaneously bouncing from off the chandlery and banging their heads on the windows, they didn\u2019t do much for my state of mind either. I got in there too and started waving my arms about and shouting.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, of course, we all calmed down enough to take some pictures. One of them perched on my hand and even allowed me to carry him to the companionway and toss him into the sky like Noah and dove.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope he made it back to land (he hasn\u2019t re-appeared with an olive twig). Another made a nest in the cockpit with a couple of non-slip mats for a cushion. He was gone by the morning. It was only then that I found another had settled down beside the petrol can. Maybe it was too cramped down there to spread his wings. I don\u2019t know. Anyway, he was dead in the morning. <\/span><\/p>\n

I gave him a sailor\u2019s burial complete with a short prayer appropriate to a poor dead bird. I\u2019ve no idea what he was. Maybe there\u2019s a twitcher out there who can help…<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joshua Slocum, on his solo voyage around the world, looked up into the cockpit one dark and stormy night and saw the pilot of Drake\u2019s ship The Pinta at the wheel. Jean Le Carn in the Vendee Globe Race held his sister in his arms – and woke up hugging a sail bag. Hallucinations, when … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2703,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions\/2703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}