Kidney Stones at Sea

May 27, 2021May 27, 2021 / Jeffrey Cardenas / 19 Comments

^{Okay, I’m in Italy; a little drama is permitted… But, trying to pass kidney stones while sailing alone is no laughing matter. This fashionable model for the anti-spasmodic tonic Schoum Forte clearly shares my pain. Illustration credit: Soluzion Schoum Forte}

There was that full horizontal knockdown from a rogue wave roaring out of the Southern Ocean. Also during these travels around the globe aboard Flying Fish: I cleaved open my scalp on a sharp edge of fiberglass, I broke a tooth, I nearly severed a toe. And, by the grace of God, I somehow avoided COVID-19 despite being in a crowded market in Langkawi during Chinese New Year in February 2020. Yet, no drama I have experienced compares with trying to pass a kidney stone alone on this boat.

I am on the island of San Pietro in Sardinia today. Carloforte is a lovely town, even through this lens of pulsating pain emanating from the area of my kidneys. There are no internists or urologists here, so I am self-diagnosing. I sought confirmation from a local pharmacist who winced at my Italian and then recommended an anti-spasmodic kidney detox tonic called Soluzione Schoum Forte. The tonic looks like a local Vermentino, but unfortunately, it doesn’t taste like one. First failed lesson: Understand the dosage: I thought, “due cucchiai da tavola, quattro-sei volte al giorno” meant, “take four to six spoonfuls twice a day.” Wrong. I got it backward. In the aftermath of that first triple dosage, I thought I would see that little girl with the spinning head from the Exorcist.

It is estimated by the National Kidney Foundation that one in ten people will have a kidney stone at some time in their lives. Hopefully it won’t happen on a boat in a distant port-of-call. Kidney stones form when certain chemicals become concentrated enough in the urine to form crystals. These crystals grow, and as they make their way through the urinary tract, it hurts.

“Is this what killed Popeye?”
^{Peta Owens-Liston, ARUP Laboratories Science Writer}

There are a lot of myths about what causes and prevents kidney stones. They can be caused by various conditions, including diet, dehydration, medications, infections, and genetics. Foods rich in oxalate, such as spinach, can contribute to stone formation. One thing is sure, passing a kidney stone is memorable. “It woke me up in the middle of the night. It left me gasping and sobbing. Screaming. Someone was sticking a knife in me and slowly turning it,” medical correspondent Petra Owens-Liston writes.

Preventative measures include changes to your diet. I don’t drink enough water when I am on the boat, I use too much salt, I enjoy coffee and good wine. Those can all lead to dehydration and, ultimately, kidney stones. Remedies can include medically blasting the kidney with sonic waves to break up stones. As a last resort, kidney stones can be surgically removed. One friend suggested a more straightforward solution. Her brother had a kidney stone and he felt the pain move down his back as the stone proceeded through the urinary tract. “Jump up and down a lot,” she said. “Gravity is your friend.” My Plan B to help move things along is to try a massage therapist; my happy ending would be the exorcism of this demon that lives in my plumbing.

^{Those are not seashells. A collection of kidney stones from ARUP Laboratories}

With all seriousness, I realize that passing a kidney stone is a “first world problem.” To those who are truly suffering from more severe events in their lives, I mean no affront. We tend to focus on our own little orbit, especially when we are alone. Still, it is helpful to remember that there are more serious issues outside of our personal bubble.

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which this boat takes me.

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Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

Passing in the Night

May 14, 2021May 15, 2021 / Jeffrey Cardenas / 23 Comments

^{Early morning landfall in Italy after crossing the Stretto di Sicilia between Africa and Europe. © Jeffrey Cardenas}

From the Log of Flying Fish: 10 May 2021

I am sailing tonight through a chokepoint of continents.

Sicily and Europe are to starboard; the bright illumination of Palermo is visible far out to sea. To port, in darkness, there is Africa and the Tunisian shoreline once known as the Barbary Coast.

At 04:00 on this moonless night, I see the jaw-dropping silhouette of a mega yacht pushing fast to the east. My AIS shows the vessel as the 532-foot pleasure craft Eclipse, bound for Dubrovnik. Owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, Eclipse is said to be valued at nearly $1 billion. As it roars past, purple vanity lights under its hull shine deeply into the Mediterranean Sea.

This chokepoint is also one of the primary transit routes for migrants fleeing poverty and politics in Africa. Over 700,000 Africans crossed the Stretto di Sicilia to Italy in the past decade with the hope of opportunity and a new life in Europe. Most migrants leave the African shoreline entrusting their fate to human traffickers who grossly overload small boats of questionable seaworthiness with men, women, and children who can pay the price. Many pay the ultimate price; thousands have drowned making this passage. Human cargo passing through these waters continues to be a frequent, sometimes nightly, occurrence.

I have been thinking about this narrow passage in the Stretto di Sicilia for some time, wondering how I would respond if the shadow of a struggling migrant boat appeared to port, just as the silhouette of Eclipse had appeared to starboard.

If a private vessel, like Flying Fish, makes contact with migrants in the Mediterranean–even to lend assistance–it is an offense punishable by imprisonment from European Union authorities. Captains have been convicted of “human trafficking” for aiding migrants they felt were in distress. The irony is that international maritime law requires a captain to lend assistance to anyone in distress at sea. This legal contradiction would be fascinating to hear debated in a courtroom, but preferably not as a defendant.

Radio traffic is silent from the surveillance aircraft and patrol vessels in the straits tonight. I encounter no migrants on this dark expanse of water.

Larger questions loom: As I sail onward aboard Flying Fish, I wonder what am I doing for the greater global good? How do I reconcile my privilege and opportunity while others flee their homes with only the clothing on their backs? What is the solution? And if I am not a part of the solution, am I a part of the problem?

Along the Barbary Coast, some might argue that what is truly barbaric is the vast economic disparity of those of us aboard ships who are simply passing each other in the night.

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Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which this boat takes me.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

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Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

Traditional Maltese Boats (and Kannoli)

May 8, 2021May 15, 2021 / Jeffrey Cardenas / 13 Comments

^{A boat owner paints his luzzu with pride (and a little music from the earbuds) at the traditional fishing harbor of Marsaxlokk in Malta. © Jeffrey Cardenas}

Maltese fishermen come from a long line of seafarers. I watch them moving about in the early morning of Msida Harbour, readying their traditional boats for another day on the water. Brightly painted luzzus and handcrafted rowing dories are loaded with nets and provisions. I am preparing for another day on the water, too. I will leave in a few hours on a 320-mile passage from Malta to Sardinia. I have a long to-do list this morning in Msida, but my attention is diverted by the scent of fresh-from-the-oven Maltese kannoli coming from the Busy Bee Bakery. Hmmm, I think as I turn toward the bakery. A sailor can’t go to sea without proper provisions…

The images of Malta’s traditional boats (not to mention the island’s kannoli) created memories I will carry on departure from this unique island. I arrived in Malta at a difficult time. The island was still in pandemic lockdown. Bars, restaurants, churches (even bakeries!) were closed indefinitely. Life was at a standstill, except at the waterfront. Each day, the sea came alive with fishermen in their traditional multicolored boats. Not even the worst virus in a century could stop the Maltese from going to sea.

It is interesting which images of a place etch into the grey matter and which fade away. I will sail from Malta with a little bit melancholy–there is never enough time–but also with a debt of gratitude. And, if things get rough, I have a sack of fresh-from-the-oven Maltese kannoli to help me along my way.

^{Click on an individual image to see a higher resolution and open a scrolling carousel.}
^{All images © Jeffrey Cardenas}

^Malta’s ^{Busy Bee kannoli. Passage provisions.}

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which this boat takes me.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

24 Doors Malta

April 27, 2021April 27, 2021 / Jeffrey Cardenas / 24 Comments

^{The walled medieval city of Valletta withstood centuries of siege and world war and remained the spiritual center of Malta. Photograph © Jeffrey Cardenas}

As I sail through a pandemic that seems to have no end, the significance of finding a portal allowing me to move onward has more meaning to me. Mediterranean Europe is on fire again with a new wave of coronavirus. As I prepared for my departure from Malta to Italy, my destination in Sardinia went from COVID Condition White (completely open) to Orange and then to Red (completely closed) in only three days. Much of Malta, where Flying Fish is currently moored, also remains closed. The cure for my restlessness this day is to walk through the medieval city of Valletta… and look at doors.

Doors control entry or exit, depending on which side you are on. They represent a border; doors divide and connect two worlds. They provide a passageway for starting something new or leaving something behind. A door is a universal symbol that implies transition, giving way from one domain to another. It is the place of passage between two completely different states. A door can divide a hostile and dangerous space from the comfort of a safe place.

“There are things known and things unknown, and in between are the doors.” –Jim Morrison

In Valletta today, most doors remain closed and locked. Some show centuries of use and wear. Others feature details of pride. All provide protection. And so it is with sailing in a pandemic. One day, the doors will reopen.

^{Click on an image to see a higher resolution. All Photographs © Jeffrey Cardenas}

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which this voyage delivers me.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

Gregale

April 16, 2021April 17, 2021 / Jeffrey Cardenas / 13 Comments

^{Gale force wind lashes Malta’s Marsamxett Harbour. Photo: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

There is a Maltese expression: bahar jibla’ l-art, which translates as an event “when the sea wants to swallow the land.” It is a perfect description of the Mediterranean gregale that is sweeping over Malta this morning. Weather warnings for gale force winds reaching 40 knots from the northeast add an exclamation point to what has already been a winter of unstable Mediterranean weather.

The wind in Malta should abate by tomorrow, but a gregale is never taken lightly on this island with a rich maritime history. In February 2019, gregale winds in Malta reached Force 8 and 9 (50 knots), flooding streets and uprooting trees. The sea did “swallow the land” in Malta’s worst recorded gregale in 1555, causing waves that inundated the city of Valletta, drowning 600 people.

^{Today’s wind map for Malta and the Central Mediterranean Sea, with a future course line to Sardinia. Image Credit: PredictWind Offshore}

Weather and religion frequently coincide, especially in this part of the world. The gregale is also known as euroclydon, meaning “a violent action.” Euroclydon was the Biblical cyclonic wind that wrecked the ship of St. Paul on the coast of Malta. “…About midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country; And sounded, and found it twenty fathoms: and when they had gone a little further, they sounded again, and found it fifteen fathoms. Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day.“

“And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.“

Aboard Flying Fish, I have underestimated the severity of winter (now spring) Mediterranean weather. In Turkey and Greece, there was the Meltemi. Ahead lay the easterly Levante that funnels through the Straits of Gibraltar, the summer Sirocco is filled with Saharan sand, the Libeccio raises high seas in Corsica, the violent Mistral of southern France shoots cold air out of the Rhône Valley, and the northerly Tramontane is generally defined as “anything seen as foreign, strange, or even barbarous.”

With all of its idiosyncrasies, the weather is one of the most captivating aspects of sailing across the world’s oceans and seas. Weather can be fascinating (like a cobra coming out of a basket), it can be frustrating, or it can be otherworldly glorious. Weather always reminds me that I am human and that there exists a higher power than me.

^{Not even a gregale will move this canon embedded in Valletta’s shoreline. Photo: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

Stella Maris Sail

New Horizons

Kidney Stones at Sea

Passing in the Night

From the Log of Flying Fish: 10 May 2021

Traditional Maltese Boats (and Kannoli)

24 Doors Malta

Gregale