Today, Sunday, September 11, 2011, marks the tenth
anniversary of 9-11. On an international governmental – political level, I’m
not sure we humans of the world are any closer to living in a way that benefits
one another and the ecosystems in which we participate. However, on a local,
truly democratic level (in which we each choose how we will respond to live our
lives) I think we humans have made some strides. I see local markets springing
up all over, I see people choosing to live with less (while increasing their
quality of life) so that others can live. I believe, these are the kinds of
lives and examples that impact others in other parts of the world. When I have
traveled internationally, I have been treated with a hospitality that is truly
amazing and grace filled; a humbling experience to be treated as an honored
guest. At the same time, I have been made uncomfortably aware that I am also a
representative from the places from which I have come. I represent my own
people. Traveling with a sense of humility, a willingness to learn from other
people and cultures, is the best kind of diplomacy, especially when one is
traveling simply, too.
In light of that, I want to highlight Harry Pidgeon. For
those of you who are unfamiliar with Pidgeon, he was the second person to
solo-circumnavigate the world by sailboat (1921 – 1925), and the first person to do so twice. Pidgeon was a Quaker
with a working class-farmer background, who lived simply on a simple boat. I
cannot help but wonder if this gentleness of spirit impacted the peoples he
encountered, as they impacted him.
In a world that is still filled with violence and
imperialism, here is to a gentle way of living among others! Here is to a way
we can all strive to live a life that brings out the best in one another! Here
is to people who travel the world as ambassadors for God’s Kingdom/Kindom! Here
is to people like Harry Pidgeon!
Harry Pidgeon:
Exploring w/Gentleness of Spirit
The Janurary/February 2009 edition of WoodenBoat Magazine
contains an article on Harry Pidgeon (“In Search of Harry Pidgeon: The Second
Solo Circumnavigator,” Eric Vibart, trans. from the French by Tom Jackson –
quotes are from this edition. This edition also has some wonderful photos which can be seen in these two collections: UCR CMP and CSU-Fresno).
Harry Pidgeon was the second solo circumnavigator. He built
is own 34 foot yawl on beach of Mormon Island in the port of Lost Angeles. From
the ISLANDER’s launching in 1919, she became Pidgeon’s sole residence.
At the age of 52, Pidgeon left Los Angeles on November 18,
1921 sailing through the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, Fiji, New Hebrides,
New Guinea, the Indian Ocean, the Coco-Keelings, Rodriquez, Maurice, Durban,
Saint Helena, Ascension, Antilles, Panama, and after a long beat to windward
arrived in Los Angeles in October, 1925.
He told no one he was going, and arrived back in Los Angeles
to no fan fare. “Pidgeon showed no one his journals and quickly entered a life
of almost total anonymity. Other than some local lectures accompanied by his
magic lantern shows [like an early slide projector], his experience brought him
not a penny. He declined official receptions and an offer to take his show on a
U.S. tour. Later, he published one long, well-illustrated piece in The National
Geographic in February 1928. That year, the Olympic Committee awarded three
exceptional awards for uncommon exploits: the laureates were the pioneering
American aviator Charles Lindbergh, French circumnavigator Alaine Gerbault, who
completed his voyage several years after Pidgeon, and … Harry Pidgeon. Seven
years after his return, and on the instance of his friend George Bonnell, a
founding member of the Cruising Club of America, which warded Pidgeon the
second Blue Water Medal ever conferred, Pidgeon finally published an account of
his voyage, a very nicely edited and quite factual volume, one of the most
unassuming classics in American sailing literature [Around the World Single-Handed: The Cruise of the "Islander" (1932)]” (54).
1932 saw Pidgeon departing the US East Coast for a second
circumnavigation, which he completed in 1937. Even though he met Margaret, a
woman 15 years younger than his 68 years, he left the East Coast one more time
to arrive in Los Angeles in July 1941. World War II immobilized his boat
ISLANDER for the duration of the war. “Pidgeon believed he would be too old to
accomplish a new circumnavigation with Margaret. They were married during the
war, too. ‘I had never been married,’ he said, ‘but now that I was 72 years
old, I considered myself sufficiently ripe to give it a try’” (55).
After the war ended, in 1947, the Pidgeons set out again,
taking an additional crewmember. “In the New Hebrides, having no time to leave
a bad anchorage before the elements were unleashed, ISLANDER’s rode parted,
and, in the night of January 23, 1948, she struck Hog Harbor on the island of
Santo and broke up. Only the sails and navigation equipment were salvaged”
(55). They returned to Los Angeles where a friend had an unfinished yawl, of a
similar version, but smaller than ISLANDER. After completing the 25’8” Sea Bird
yawl, which they christened LAKEMBA in August 1951, she too became the
Pidgeons’ permanent residence. Harry Pidgeon died of pneumonia November 4, 1954
at the age of 85.
The above gives an overview of Pidgeon’s life, but the
article fills in some of the details, and got me remembering my reading of
Pidgeon’s book 12 or so year’s ago.
Pidgeon grew up a Quaker. He was a working man, and it was only through
an inheritance that he was able to put together the means to build a yawl, by
himself, on the beach. The yawl was simple and basic, but sound, in the sense
of K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple, Sailor). Vibart in describing the yawls says thus:
“The form of the boat, which was wide for its length, full forward, with ample
freeboard, and with a low, gaff-headed yawl rig, had nothing of the yacht about
it. Yet it was not without a certain rustic grace. There were no comforts under
its prominent coach roof: sitting headroom of about 4’3”, no ceiling planking,
a bench to each side, small open lockers, a cast-iron stove with a pipe
emerging through the coach roof above, a bunker behind the companionway ladder
to store wood for the stove…and almost nothing else. Not a chart table-what
instruments would it carry?- not a head, nothing but the essentials” (51-2).
I cannot but wonder if this is part of Pidgeon’s grace with
the local folks he encountered. Growing up Quaker he would have been
comfortable with silence. For a length of silence is but prayer. He was
comfortable with his own company, having already spent a considerable time by
himself in Alaska taking pictures of Black Alaskan Mountain Sheep for the
Smithsonian. And then of course there were the photographs and his photographic
shows he showed others.
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