Last year, friends in Australia alerted me to the fact that an exhibition of aboriginal art, Songlines, would be touring to the UK, opening here in Plymouth, because it is the port from which captain Cook set sail on the voyage that led him to ‘discover’ Australia. The exhibition finally arrived last week and I was at the door on day one.
The theme of the show is a legendary story of seven sisters, whose travels through the country are dogged by a mal-intentioned, shape-shifting male whose attentions they are keen to avoid. No one knows how old the story is because there is no indigenous writing, but I assume it to be as old as the culture itself, since it resides in human memory, in place names, cave paintings and the distinctive indigenous pictorial style. Thus do the paintings on display have both aesthetic and anthropological appeal. In these days of heightened awareness of and concern for habitat destruction, Songlines is a timely reminder of what life was like when humans lived in harmony with nature, before the imposition, by colonists, of the acquisitive economic system that they unquestioningly regarded as progressive and civilised. But, despite the British having at best thoughtlessly and at worst deliberately attempted to obliterate the native culture, its persistence – and partial revival – is testament to just how deeply rooted is the human sense of attachment to place.
Songlines was a cultural highlight, but I also embraced physical activities during the week: I took to the water again – for the first time since the unfortunate kayak-capsizing incident a few months ago. At the invitation of our friends and neighbours, Pete and Sue, I boarded their impressive catamaran (a sort of water-borne motorhome, as I see it) for two days of coastal sailing, with an overnight mooring in the mouth of the river Teign. I looked forward to this, despite the slight apprehension with which I now contemplate deep water. My previous experience of sailing is limited: a three-week round trip from Aberdeen to Spitzbergen, skippered by Sir Robin Knox-Johnson, in a cadet-training vessel large enough to accommodate 50 people; and a couple of hours on the Solent on a racing yacht owned and skippered by John, who is not, technically, my brother-in-law, but is for practical purposes. What both these experiences had in common was that they took place on the open sea and with little or no input from me. On the catamaran, however, I had a go at helming, fumbled with a few of the many ropes and showed an interest in the technicalities of wind traction. Unfortunately, the exhilaration of scudding over the waves was somewhat dampened by an abiding sensation of queasiness. The most enjoyment I had was when we moored up to visit the pub.
Seasickness does usually subside but, even so, it is not the only downside to sailing. There is what I call the ‘faff-factor’, something I have experienced in other fields of leisure activity, notably the ski slopes where the excitement of swift descent on slippery surfaces is countered by the tedium of the return to the top. And, before you get started, there is the kitting up in special gear, the monetary expense of the whole enterprise and the sense that time is slipping expensively away while you could be reading a good book. Sailing is like that, but with a lot of urgent shouting thrown in. Having said that, the social side of things is a blast, fuelled, no doubt, by the physicality and camaraderie involved.
Should I be invited again to go sailing, I might politely decline. Apart from the fact that it’s no fun for the host having a less than enthusiastic guest, I do have the feeling that no real good ever came of sailing. Just ask the aboriginal Australians, for example.
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