Tag Archives: Captain Ciera

IN THE MOMENT

POSTED: NOVEMBER 1, 2024

The combination I have of loving to cook and not having much extra cash means I am rarely out to dinner at a restaurant. But a couple weeks ago I decided to splurge and take Captain Ciera out for a nice dinner at a place here in Malta that is one of the best in town. It has some traditional meals of the region but is more focused on current food trends but of course works with lots of the local fish as well. Its much more upscale than I would frequent even if I had the income, and its market is more celebration than consumption. So, among the various locals who were there celebrating anniversaries or other life milestones, and business people out with clients, there were a few (very few) tourists.

We were seated very close to a tourist couple who were obviously American. Now many who come to Malta are not really tourists in the traditional sense. Many people come for a month or a season and really become entrenched in the place. Some come year after year as an alternative to their climate in northern Europe or elsewhere. This couple looked like that type who were not just off a cruise ship or here for a week, but were very comfortable with the community. What made them look American was exclusively his wardrobe and demeanor. She was very nicely dressed, and had prepped for the night out. He was in shorts, running shoes and a T shirt and after a few minutes took off his baseball cap.  He also was very relaxed about everything and whenever he wanted something would not wait for his server to come by but just snatch the attention of any staff member close by.

The lesson of not judging a book by its cover it seems I need to learn over and over. While he was inappropriately dressed and his behaviour was not up to the standards of most restaurants let alone a premium one, once we chatted with them that book cover lesson came back into the picture. He had asked about the Seabass dish on my plate and we got to talking.

It turns out that their home was Tampa Florida. Now this was October 8th and the news was all about the pending impact of Hurricane Milton that was expected to make landfall the next day as a Category 3 hurricane, or potentially a Category 4 and the forecast was a direct hit on Tampa. I guess the look on my face gave away the fear in my mind for the loss they would incur, and at about the same time Captain Ciera expressed that they seemed very calm about what was to come. And that is when they shared with us their story.

She had been a teacher for most of her working life and he was in investments. When she retired she became a personal trainer. But the real story was that over the years she had been diagnosed with cancer four times and beat it each time. With each iteration however they learned to live more in the moment and after this last battle decided to take a big trip to Europe for several months and do some of the things they had always wanted to do. One was to walk the Camino Portugues section of the Camino de Santiago. This section of that walking trail is 268 km (167 miles) long and starts in Porto, Portugal and goes north along the coast into Spain. It was clear that they were both in their late seventies or early eighties, and part of the fun of this trip was about sixteen days of arduous walking! Yes, some great views along the way but it is getting that eighty-year-old body out there every day for many hours on your feat on what is not always a flat, or a regular surface and regardless of the hot sun or the rain.

This was only one of the things they were taking on when in Europe. Another one that surprised me was skinny dipping in the Blue Grotto in Malta. The trip was for many months and involved living in Portugal for a month, and about a month in each of Malta, Italy, France, Croatia and the U.K. At the end they had a transatlantic cruise booked to take them back to Florida.

They explained that if you have stared down death a few times, the loss of a building, even your home, while upsetting is not the worst thing that can happen. They had learned to focus on the activity they were doing right now – hiking, seeing, dining …..whatever the activity was, might be the last thing you do, so you should savour it. And with that they focused on their dinner, as the here and now is what really matters, instead of watching the news and getting wound up about losing their home.

This chance encounter really shook me up and left me somewhat inspired. I have bumped into some obstacles in my time, largely of my own making, but have never really been challenged on an existential level. This couple, who one might think would be burdened by the aging process, or the risk to their home, where so many memories had been made and kids had been raised, were just enjoying a wonderful meal on a vacation they had designed to do many of the things they thought would be wonderful life experiences.

When the next day I watched the coverage of Hurricane Milton making landfall on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and seeing the way so many lives would be changed forever, I knew two people who would not only survive the storm, but grow from the experience of coming out the other side of that challenge. I am seventy years old and continue to learn that lesson of using all your life experiences to help you put things in perspective and to cope, and part of that is to enjoy the activity you are doing at the time.

Django

OFRA

POSTED: November 1, 2023

A couple of years ago I was on my way home from a walk in a park when I encountered a young woman who was clearly in distress. It was in the early part of the pandemic and we were all wearing masks but hers was lying on the grass. She appeared to be choking and as I tried to determine what exactly was happening, she started to bloat up as if being filled with air. I sat her down at a bench but her throat was closing up badly and she was looking like the Michelin Man. Before I knew it a young fellow was beside us with a device out and slammed it into her thigh and she had almost instant improvement. “Epi pen” he said as he left almost as fast as he arrived, and then turned and said the weirdest thing “get her to the hospital …. and you are her dad”. The first part of his short instruction list was obvious but the second one I found bewildering.

Shortly thereafter the ambulance people arrived and after asking me what had happened and who she was, again the statement “You are her dad and you need to come with us.”

Once at the hospital she was admitted and then it all became clear when I was doing the registration. When a patient is admitted the administrators need a person to attach to the file administratively. This is partially because with so many visitors in Malta who are not part of the EU the procedures for approval for treating them are extensive if not EU citizens so once identified as my “daughter” and I produce my identification they don’t seem to ask beyond that for the purpose of treating her and then later the admin stuff can get worked out. It is the relationship of the admin side not being done as quickly as the actual emergency work that needs to occur as something of a lifesaving workaround.

So for that brief time I was her dad. I have never been a dad and I had a glimpse into that overwhelming sense of responsibility – even with this just being a little administrative fiction.

The wait was long. We started in the afternoon and as the hours dragged on it was clear we would not be out of there until the next day. They had said that it was anaphylactic shock from a wasp sting and once home she would have to follow up to see about this extreme reaction. They periodically told me she was doing fine but in a small facility that was already running past capacity I could not visit her. Finally, at about 6:40 in the morning they said we could go and I got a taxi.

Her name was Ofra and she was staying with some friends on holiday in a place not too far from our Marina. The truth of it is Valletta is not a big community so everything is fairly close. Her phone was dead and I had not brought mine out for what I had thought would be a short walk that previous afternoon so her friends were relieved but startled when we arrived at their rental flat. We had a tea with them and I learned a bit more about her. She was from Tel Aviv and a student and was here with some friends just for a few days of holiday. We exchanged some contact info and I went home to bed.

Since that time captain Ciera has my little pack equipped with not only an epi pen for dealing with people who go into anaphylactic shock for an allergic reaction but also with a Naloxone kit for people who have overdosed on opioids. She had always kept an epi pen handy on the boat for extreme allergic reactions but also keeps one in her personal bag and now one in mine. So periodically these expensive little needles get to the end of their useful date and Ciera gets an orange or grapefruit and has me practice on jabbing into them. I have saved several pieces of fruit over the last couple of years!

Ofra was a bit of a political junkie like me and we would periodically email back and forth about the world’s problems. I enjoyed hearing her perspective as it reflected the ideas of my optimistic but naïve younger self.

So why am I going on about this now? Well sometimes she would copy her cousin in the email loop as he was quite political as well. Two weeks ago I received an email from him that Ofra had been hurt at a pro-Palestinian rally in Tel Aviv, trying to convince the current government coalition under Netanyahu to not over react to the terrible atrocities committed by Hamas. As a reservist she was on alert with an expectation of being called up and with others was conflicted by her duty and her conscience. Her cousin said that even her family had mixed reactions to both his and her participation in the rally, some proud, some disgusted.

At that rally she was hit by a rock, thrown by one of her countrymen at the protestors. After some medical complications from a delay in accessing medical help, from a high quality medical facility that was very close to where she was injured, she died. An Israeli reservist, trying to keep her government in check, killed at the hands of another Israeli.

The older I get, the more complicated and confused the world seems to be.

Rest in peace Ofra.

Django

A.I.

POSTED: October 1, 2023

There has been a lot in the news about A.I. lately, driven partially by the writer’s strike in Hollywood. Now that A.I. is artificial intelligence and really is a concern on many fronts, but the A.I. I am referring to here is one that relates to the inflation in our stress and has more of my attention: Anxiety Inflation.

We all have anxiety, it’s a good thing to have in the right dosage, much like fear, a sense of adventure, ambition etc. But there are times in our lives or circumstances that really ramp it up and dealing with it becomes more difficult without counselling, meds or a real change of thinking.

I have found that as I age, I have less control of many things in my life. The simple example is that as we age our bodies start to wear out and let us down. That takes on many forms but because most of those aspects are incremental. Sometimes we don’t see it at all and at other points can clearly see the increase in the rate of deterioration in our sight, hearing, memory, or joints. That deterioration is an underlying fear that creeps into my thinking more often these days.

Now in better times we can put this into perspective and effectively digest that  level of anxiety, but today there are so many concerns that start to pile on. Our geopolitical world is a mess. Chinas aggression, Russia’s aggression, and increasingly countries looking inward. The migration of mass population groups creates its own conflicts, particularly in some countries not prepared to accept the waves of immigrants. We have largely made it through the pandemic I think but the financial fallout of price inflation, housing issues, and both individuals and governments unable to keep up with costs, are starting to really hit home in many places. Increasingly there is evidence that society is breaking down, with less tolerance for others, a lack of mutual respect and a general growth in self interest. And with it all this going on the foretelling of the climate crisis is no longer foretelling – its all happening right now – the floods, wildfires and hurricanes.

I am a political geek and love to keep up with what is happening in the world. I also care about the environment and am disturbed by all the evidence of our damage to the planet. But watching the news sometimes is just overwhelming. The anxiety inflation is just running at a rapid rate and I need at times to just go for a nice walk, try to stay in the present. Of course, it is that staying in the present that’s the key. Anything that makes us slow down, not project ahead to the worlds end, or to stress over past mistakes or missed opportunities, is the way to go. A good coffee with a fresh croissant and some homemade jam will often do the trick for me, but some days even those nice things have only a short-term effect and its tough to rise above it. I find I am drinking too much alcohol and letting the state of the world get to me.

But for now, I am off to take this big boat out for a sail. My reality is that these days En Plein Air usually sits in her slip for months at a time, but with water and wind conditions right, Captain Ciera at the helm, and a couple of friends to crew, maybe on this beautiful first of October day, with a steady wind and in this little bit of sea just south of Malta we can turn off the world…. if just for an afternoon.

 

Django

P.S. The afternoon turned out to be an amazing outing and as the wind died down and the sun started to retreat a sky to remember showed up…

 

CAPTAIN CIERA

Posted January 5, 2019

Usually, my posts are thought out and a bit more reflective, but I am pretty bogged down with lots going on so this one is going to be tight and without as many of my usual diversions.

I got my new captain! From my post last summer about Captain Kyle post you know that I had my eye on her for some time but she had other commitments, so I muddled through waiting to get her on En Plein Air. The wait was worth it.

Her name is Ciera and for those of us who are not Irish its pronounced Kee-ra. She is about ten years younger than I am -ok I will help you with the math – she is in her mid 50’s. To be brief, she is a medical doctor, a bit on the run from a nasty husband, and lives in the moment. She is a great captain, much more like Captain Sven, so I can just not sweat how the boat is handled.

She is from County Cork and her dad was a sailor. He didn’t do much fishing but used his boat in season to take tourists out and tell them stories about the region. In the off season, he would write but was never published. Her mom worked a bit with her dad on the boat but was a textile artist who at times just made really kitschy pieces for tourists but in her later life was recognized for her landscape quilts and had some pretty big art shows.

Ciera was not artistic and unlike her parents, she was focused on science, which eventually led her to a degree in medicine. Much of her adult life was not very nice and I will have to leave that to another day to tell you about.

So all through her life, she sailed with her parents, and that skillset and a healthy respect for the moods of the sea, made her the captain she is.

The deal I cut with her is pretty straight up. Everything we earn goes first to the boat – repairs, dockage, fuel, any hookup charges, and also includes our personal food and wine. The rest gets split between us. So what this amounts to is that in slow months there is nothing left to split and once we get to some good months there will be a bit, and of course, this is getting her and me our room and board covered in the boat costs. But she has a pension and some money that she can access when she needs to and I have my little Canadian allowance so life is pretty good and when things are slow she will be able to go traveling a bit and with someone to look after the boat in slow times I will be able to make plans to get back to Canada to see my neurologist, my dentist and a few friends like Jim and Janice.

Everything I just described in terms of our arrangement is what I proposed and she agreed to but she had one other stipulation that I agreed to. Whenever she wants and for three times, she can ask me for a big favour. And she made it clear they are big – like donating a kidney big.  I have a good sense of one of them and even though this is a really open-ended commitment on my part I agreed. Life is a gamble and from the exposure I have had to her over several months I trust her.

She is almost as tall as me, attractive with long grey hair and is not overweight but solid and probably stronger than I am. I understand through her whole life she has worked out which makes her quite a contrast to me.

So before you all start getting excited about this as a new romantic relationship in my life (that was the first thing Janice said when I sent them an email about her) you should also know she is a lesbian. So this is my business partner, captain, and buddy I am introducing.

I will fill in more details later but for now I am in a bit of a scramble as we are off to the southern coast of Greece having some mechanical work on the boat done in the off season.

Django