Sea Roads We think of paths as existing only on land, but the - TopicsExpress

Before The Mast

Sea Roads We think of paths as existing only on land, but the sea has its paths too, though water refuses to take and hold marks... Sea roads are dissolving paths whose passage leaves no trace beyond a wake, a brief turbulence astern. They survive as convention, tradition as a sequence of coordinates, as a series of waymarks, as dotted lines on charts, and as stories and songs. … as by Line upon the Ocean we go, wrote John Dryden of English navigators in the 1660s, Whose paths shall be as familiar as the Land. Along these sea paths for thousands of years have travelled ships, boats, people, objects and language: letters, folk-tales, sea songs, shanties, poems, rumours, slang, jokes, and visions. The second thing to know about sea roads is that they are not arbitrary. There are optimal routes to sail across open sea... Sea roads are determined by the shape of the coastline as well as marine phenomena. Surface currents, tidal streams and prevailing winds all offer limits and opportunities for sea travel between certain places. - Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways, pp 88-89

Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 14:34:11 +0000

Sea Roads We think of paths as existing only on land, but the - TopicsExpress

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