In which we discover what lies beneath the boat

August 1, 2018 SY Wake 1 Comment

Holla! Kitty here, and it’s been a long time since I’ve put up a blog post, due to a mixture of sloth, a visit from our tremendously awesome friends, and a number of concerts (Davi touched Lenny Kravitz! and his security guard punched me in the throat)—basically, lots of Shore Leave. But we’re back, with further videos and pics to come, and the dark, dark tale of a rather embarrassing episode in the life of SY Wake.

don't pay the ferryman — “You kids better stop whining or I swear I’ll turn this boat around”

See, it’s been *counting on fingers* six months since we met the boat and brought her back here to La Spezia, and since then our “work” has consisted largely of on-and-below-deck improvements, lounging, and figuring out how to build a floating bar on the paddleboard (totally achievable).

Of all the gin joints in all the world….

Totally like that scene in Titanic

BUT apparently you are supposed to scrub and scrape the underside of a boat on a regular basis, lest it become rife with maritime pests, such as barnacles.

damn sure not going anywhere — Somebody call Rick Moranis

Let’s talk about barnacles! They’re part of the subphylum Crustacea, which means they’re rather unexpected relations of crabs and lobsters (like how aforementioned Lenny Kravitz and Al Roker are distant cousins, look it up). A newly hatched barnacle is called a nauplius, and consists of basically a head with a tail; in the larval stage the head starts secreting a gooey adhesive substance which is kind of gross, and attaches itself to a suitable substrate (such as rocks or our own damn boat). Barnacles then develop an exoskeleton of hard plates, begin using teeny legs to eat plankton, and become the acne of pirate ships which we all know and love.

bummer me hearties — Pirates of the Caribbean Part VI: The Nuisance of the Black Pearl

Also, in Olden Days, certain barnacles were thought to hatch into the goose species Branta leucopsis (unsurprisingly named the Barnacle Goose), because people can be dumb as hell sometimes.

dipshits — Ferioufly, which maftermind thought of thif fhit?

Sooooo when Wake began to cruise at a slower and slower pace, we figured there were probably a few barnacles clinging to the hull, thus hindering the boat’s streamlined progress. No prob, we thought, just gotta take her out of the water on the haul and get her cleaned. Just a couple o’ barnacles. Well, as I said, people can be dumb as hell sometimes.

There exist moments in life in which few words can express the true nature of a sight, and in the case of Wake being lifted from the marina, the sole turn of phrase which came to mind was “holy shit”. See:

Yep. It turns out that barnacles grow freaking fast, and that spooky weeds can sprout around them, too. Fortunately, the good stevedores (can I call them stevedores? that’s a word we don’t use enough) of Porto Mirabello knew just how to power-hose the little bastards off the hull, which kind of reminded me of the guns they use in Ghostbusters.

Meanwhile, each and every worker took the time to ramble over and admire the cats, who waited in their carriers pretending to be wholesome while big burly Italian dudes cooed at them.

27 pieces of Meow Mix and some string for whoever lets me out of here

At last, Wake was clean, returned to full function and ready to return to the waves, and we learnt a valuable lesson in why you need to scrub the hull frequently. Away we sailed, the wind whispering redemption around us, when at once we heard a mournful cry…

And then the boat gave birth to a beautiful new goose!

a christmas-in-july miracle — His name is Fteve

history, humor, Learning With Kitty, photos, Uncategorized

Vikings with nice ankles, or, a brief history of La Spezia, Italy

July 1, 2018 SY Wake Leave a comment

Being hardened sailors with nothing left to lose, we of SY Wake have obviously been engaged in a long and punishing journey across the seven seas—indeed, it’s many a good soul who’s been lost to these deeps. Like Percy. We used to have a cabin boy named Percy. Not anymore.

None of that was true, although I’m sure Percy was a very nice person. Seeing as it’s only the first summer we’ve had the boat, and we’re still learning/lazy as hell when we feel like it, we’ve been bouncing forth and back between Home Base in Florence and the sun deck, or the town where Wake is currently docked: La Spezia, Italy.

the city center, aka the cleanest part — Historical fact: they fought about the “La” for a century until a decree in 1930 said you HAD to use it

I’m quite certain we’ll end up taking a number of photographs of modern La Spezia (or maybe not, see aforementioned laziness), but today I’ve decided that the healthiest thing a person can possibly do is live entirely in the past (that’s what they say, right?). So let’s all take a step back and a swig of cheap wine, and learn some historical shit about La Spezia!

Where stuff is — The “boot” of Italy: kicking Sicily around since 100,000 B.C.

Located in a picturesque and highly strategic little gulf upon Italy’s west coast, on the Ligurian Sea (I’ll get to the gulf in a later blog entry, ibid. laziness), the area of La Spezia has been occupied since Ancient Times, which were really important. Before there was history, there were prehistoric people: we know this because they left their crap lying around for us to find. In the days of the Roman empire, when it was completely chill to put people in a ring with lions and see what happened, the place was a significant maritime asset, though I presume the tourist industry didn’t thrive as it does today because they hadn’t invented sunscreen yet.

the continuing glory of the latin language — Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries

Anyhow the empire got embarrassingly sacked, after which the Byzantines took control of the region, followed by Lombard rule. Over the next few centuries La Spezia saw some Saracen invasions (sad emoji) and Viking raids: apparently this one Viking dude, Hastein, pretended to convert to Christianity, faked his own death, and subsequently leapt out of his coffin during the sacraments and decapitated everybody, which is totally metal.

Beginning around the twelfth century, La Spezia became one of those assets tugged and tossed around by Italian city-states engaged in political bitch fights, mainly Milan, Genoa, and a brief episode in which the city belonged to a single family, the Fieschi, who began construction of the castle of San Giorgio, which is still around today.

On the other hand, the Fieschi family now does late-night infomercials for pasta makers

As a well-situated port, La Spezia grew increasingly significant as a military hub, holding one of Italy’s most powerful maritime arsenals (it still serves as a naval base, so there’s a multitude of frustrating no-trespassing signs). Correspondingly, the city saw extensive conflict and bombings during the second World War (dude, fuck Nazis), but the totally awesome Partisan resistance remained strong within its walls, eventually recapturing the city from the occupying Axis army; the city itself received national medals of valor following the war. Subsequently, La Spezia served as a main departure point for surviving Jewish refugees, becoming known as the gate of Zion. Seriously dude, fuck the Nazis. In the decades to follow, the city was rebuilt, an economic crisis led to demographic decline, and it settled into the quasi-naval quasi-touristic very-pleasant place it is today, where we have been inebriated a number of times (like with these guys, which was so unspeakably awesome).

BUT in the course of my research regarding La Spezia, I discovered it was once the sometimes-home of this bodacious chick I just now decided to talk about. Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, was born in 1837 to a minor noble family and, according to the historical record, she was really hot. One supposes this to be true, since most notoriously she was the mistress of Napoleon III of France; she was a pretty spicy lady. But the coolest part is that, well aware that she was a fox, the Countess initiated a project in collaboration with two important early photographers whose names I forgot. Directing and dictating each image, she posed in theatrical outfits with exquisite postures, portraying herself as Jezebel, Lady Macbeth, a nun, Medea, a hooker, pretty much anything she wanted—and homegirl showed no modesty, going so far as to show her ankles, which is just about as scandalous as banging the emperor. See (NSFW):

$25 and you can look at the other eye — $25 and you can see the other eye

We've all been there — Go home Virginia, you’re drunk

that bosom though — So much hairspray involved in the making of this photograph

That kid don't look happy — There are 23 more children under that skirt

NSFW — An image kept under the mattresses of so many 19th century adolescent boys

You go girl.

boat, cast of characters, cats, friends, photos, Uncategorized

The best skies are blue: a weekend with our friend Gregory!

June 27, 2018 SY Wake 2 Comments

With immense happiness and slight hangovers, we’ve returned from a fantastic weekend with our friend Gregory – an incomparable singer, a wise and worldly soul, a sweet New Yorker and a wonderful friend. Between diving (Greg leaping from the bow) and dinghies (we went fast!), Prosecco (have another glass, please), sunbathing and reading and the terrible greed of cats at lunchtime, we had a freaking awesome time – so here’s an album for the awesome jawesome memories!

The universal gesture of friendship: the Nose Kiss

Paddleboard Polaroid = Polarboard? Paddloid?

We’re on the second bottle and not even done

Gregory and I discovered my new selfie cam has a beauty face

That cocky cockpit attitude

Did you want to use my sundeck?

Bring it on, kiddo, I’m in the water and you’re a cat

The Second Coming of the Cat is nigh

They have no idea what they’re doing

Can’t catch them now

They left Wake and made a wake and that is so meta

Gregory and Davi looking so nice

We will accomplish absolutely nothing

Is this the part that makes it go fast?

THAT’S FOR ME!

Ahem, don’t you think it’s a little rude not to share?

boat, Learning With Kitty

Etymology like a boss

June 22, 2018 SY Wake Leave a comment

As some of you may have noticed, our boat is named Wake. Hey, that word means more than one thing at once! And that’s why we’re here to ~~drink~~ explore its meanings and history, and what the shit that might mean to us.

So, as a verb (that’s the activity kind!), to wake derives from a Middle English fusion of Old English wacan, meaning “to become awake, arise, be born, originate”, and Old English wacian, “to be or remain awake”, both emerging from the proto-Germanic waken, which in turn finds its origins in the proto-Indo-European root *weg-, “to be strong or lively”. Do you ever just read this crap and wonder how goddamn weird ancient people sounded when they spoke?

the olde warrior — © Bodleian Library, Oxford

So if we’re getting all metaphorical up in here, the boat could represent a kind of awakening which is:

Intellectual
Spiritual
Emotional
Hungover

Fill in the bubble entirely; answers will be graded after class.

Years spent making the calculator spell out BOOBS — So many years spent making the calculator spell out BOOBS

But as a noun, a wake can denote “the track left by a moving ship”, first attested in the 1540s and perhaps taken from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch wake, “a hole in ice”, from proto-Germanic *wakwo. Is wake then a literal reference to what the boat actually does? Fuck if we’re going to be sailing through any ice, though.

Please draw a wake here:

blank — Don’t screw this up, it will appear on your transcript

Or a wake may indicate the act of “sitting up at night with a corpse”, which is either really Irish or really hardcore. This usage dates from the early 15^th century, though there’s also an obsolete Scottish rendition, lichwake (why are we no longer using this word?). It’s not necessarily all bad, though, as it’s meant also to celebrate the memory of what is lost and loved. Or it’s just spooky, how should I know.

Holy crap, you woke up — Dude, how long have you been awake???

Thus, if we are to persist in our really smart analyses of the word, the boat’s name touches upon the notions of death and mourning in order to remind us of: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Please use complete sentences; spelling and grammar errors will be recognized as consequences of the irrevocable transience of humankind. Essays due at the Apocalypse.

The final judgement — Behold, for the great day of Wrath hast come

boat, cast of characters, cats, photos, Uncategorized

Digital voyages for robot buccaneers

June 2, 2018 SY Wake Leave a comment

An introductory post by Kitty, about who we are and other crap

Welcome to the blog! This is the first entry, so it’s super high pressure and I gotta make sure this sounds well thought-out and does not exceed a 1:10 proportion of curse words to regular speech. Sonovabitch, don’t fuck this up Kitty… Anyhow (as further detailed in that whole section on the menu bar), we’re the crew of a boat christened Wake, a 1991 Amel Super Maramu (an awesome mode of transportation because it’s very photogenic and has a pretty good sound system, and there’s water around it).

wake water edit — *It’s a ketch, which is Olde English for “pimpin’ slab”*

We consist of:

Davi, my wife of 12 years, our brilliant and beautiful Captain whose roots lie from Libya to Hungary to Australia and Colorado and Italy and now beyond… who can pretty much do anything, I shit you not

And Cristina, our darling partner, a Moldovan flower with a gift for fabulous photography and professional sunbathing, fluent in six languages and adept at saying adorable, ingenious strokes of lost-in-translation

cristina sun — Even the sun’s like, “damn”

And Kitty (that’s me!), a published author who really doesn’t do anything except write and learn interesting crap so I can get drunk and tell you all about it (I’ll talk philosophy if you’re buying bro)

And of course…

Katinka, the Halloween cat, who is officially our treasure-hunter since she’s quite greedy and steals everything, including wine corks, lard, butter, and Cheetos

20170703_110602-01 — Technically the boat counts as her offshore bank account

Rocket, the quartermaster, a real ladies’ man with a tender heart and the courage of a lion, and this weird thing where he sucks on his paw for a half an hour per day

rocket dignity — Dignity. Always dignity.

And Kirby, who is an asshole. She’s very pretty and she knows it, was once on Italian national television, and tried to kill a pigeon in front of small children

20170531_202947-01 — Kirbs don’t give a shit about shit

So that’s us! I hope y’all like the blog, because it’s a bitch to format. Also check the YouTube channel, find us on the Facebook, look at our pretty stuff on Instagram, and send us good vibes so we don’t die!

An Endless Wake