| World
of Wetass In Memoriam Sorry folks. No wisecracks, no sarcasm today. Instead, I’d like to pay homage to one Andrew Macauley, who disappeared two weeks ago just 35 miles from completing a solo kayak crossing of the Tasman Sea. Most of us go to sea in part to test ourselves, to achieve something, to learn. And whether we go to sea in a sailboat or in a kayak, we all have a little bit of Andrew Macauley in us. Not too much, or we’d be out there with him, taking the same massive risks. But we all know people like Macauley. We respect them. We watch their adventures unfold. They show us courage and imagination, and somehow make us all bigger. And sometimes we mourn them.
Macauley’s plan to kayak the Tasman was greeted with the usual skepticism by the authorities. And if you haven’t been following his adventure in the forums (is there anything happening afloat that does not get noted in the SA forums?) he survived out there for almost a month, enduring gale force winds, some monster seas, and the weight of loneliness, before something went terribly wrong. Just one day after predicting landfall, Macauley sent out a distress call. His kayak was found floating upside down and empty, within sight of land. No one knows what happened, (click here to read about the aftermath). Like Hans Horrevoets, Macauley left behind a wife and small child, which makes his disappearance particularly tragic. But for all the critics who will now urge new regulations, and new caution, Andrew’s website, quoting Andre Gide, says it best: "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." Quite right. RIP, Andrew… Depressed, catatonic? Sorry. Maybe this sweet Raid 500 video will cheer you up… Have A Wetass Weekend, Tim
Zimmermann |
