The first thing that Shanley and I noticed when we stepped back aboardย Sea Dragon after 5 weeks on shore was the smell. Not rank or foul, orย any other number of nasty names, but new โ a kind of dampness in theย air, that had been missing on shore. I’m not sure if it was a sideย effect of the cold wet trip to Iceland and then down the north sea, orย whether we had just gotten acclimatized to the scent of land, butย either way, there it was.
We’ve certainly covered a lot of ground (andย smells) while Sea Dragon made her way to Europe โ conifers and cedarย shavings in Maine, where we learned to build small wooden boats,ย dense, dripping heat as Hurricane Arthur churned by just a few milesย offshore of the house where we were staying in North Carolina, wet mudย and dirt from melting snow in Lapland. In between, of course, theย man-made smells of transport โ the dry, chemical air of an Austrianย Airliner across the Atlantic, the smell of old couches on Amtrak, andย wet dogs on the Swedish Night Train.
Now we’re back aboard, and Iย can’t smell the strange scent anymore โ is it gone, as we clean andย air out the boat? Or are we merely familiarized? Instead all we canย smell is the sea, with the familiar soundtrack of the wind generatorsย chattering away in the stern and halyards clapping against the mast.
It was good to get sailing again, up the coast a few miles fromย Gothenburg towards a rocky cove near Marstrand, effortless motion inย the flat water as the afternoon sea breeze built, followed by a swimย in the oddly warm sea. We’ll have to work to remember these moments,ย to keep trying to find them, as we get back into the swing of theย research and programs, dealing with all the day to day stressors andย concerns that so easily drive me away from the simple pleasures of theย sea, make me feel like I am sometimes more of an office dweller withย an inefficient office. But today Sea Dragon is no office, anchoredย amongst the rocks of Sweden’s west coast, with the sun dipping ever soย slowly towards the sea.
– Eric Loss, Captain, Sea Dragon, July 24, 2014
