Episode 5.11: The Yeshi Special (Patreon)

Hello world, I've met Alexander before, you know.

Before I picked up Seth from the Lighthouse.

I should have told him.
But to tell the whole story would have worried the poor boy.
Alexander asked me not to, not till the time was right.
Well it's not getting any MORE right!
So here it is.

I should start with the Molly Hughes II.

This new ship could have been the death of me.
I don't mean that it would have actually killed me, probably, but I could have worked on it back on Svalbard for ever.

Tinkering and tweaking.
A little here and a little there.
Whiling my life away.


Afraid that to take her to sea would have meant that the Molly Hughes II would have suffered the same fate as Alexander's old ship, my old ship, the Bondar.


She was a great ship, the Bondar.
I found her rusting on a beach in Svalbard.
She looked bad, but the hull was sound.
I named her after Roberta Bondar, the first female Canadian astronaut.
I have some Canadian friends who I knew would love that name!

I spent all my time fixing up the ship, taking odd jobs helping the fishing fleet here to make ends meet.
Spending every spare moment working on the Bondar.
I repaired her the best I could - and I'm pretty good at fixin' up stuff, by the way.
A new tiller, a new engine, a bit of paint, and she was ready.
I was SO proud of her on our maiden voyage over to Greenland.
The journey was easy, and we were back and celebrating in no time!

All was well for many years.

Our last voyage was from Svalbard to Tromsø, at the north end of Norway, the only part that is still habitable.
The passengers were the large group of scientists that had gathered over the years, who now called the ship their home.
We were sounding the ocean floor, and building maps.
Driving away the dragons at the edges of what we knew.

On this last voyage, one of the scientists, Katherine, had brought her son on board.

Her son, Alexander.



I've always dreamed about building a community workshop.
Or rather, I've always dreamed about having BUILT a community workshop.
It turns out that getting one off the ground is lot of work!

After the shipwreck of the Bondar, when I had recovered and was feeling the need to build and tinker again, I made a little workshop in the shipyard back on Svalbard.
Paweł was great, he made us tough waterproof sheets to cover the holes in the roof, machine covers, and even a little flag!
(The Novamediterra flag is just a map of the globe, as seen from above the north pole. It's pretty easy to paint on to a piece of blue fabric!)
We had a lovely workshop that anyone from the town could come and use and share and make.
I would open up the shop in the morning, then maybe someone would pop in and have a chat over a drink and a build.

Nothing's nicer than building stuff with your friends.

After the wreck, which I was one of the only survivors of, I was nervous about going to sea again, so I worked in the shipyard.
Fixing the Molly Hughes II was a big job, and it seemed like there was always work to do.
Which, looking back, is how I liked it.
I thought that if there was always tinkering to be done, then maybe the ship would never launch, and history would not repeat itself.

Paweł dug me out of that way of thinking.
I should thank him, I suppose.
It's not always easy, you know?



We embarked at lunch time.
On the final voyage of the Bondar.

A mistake, that was.

If you're ever on a voyage, start in the morning, you have lots of time to fix your screw-ups if you do that!
The weather was perfect, a lovely crisp spring day.
At least, when we set off.

It was Alexander, or one of his internal family, fishing off the stern of the Bondar, that first saw the storm.
The sunset was dragged earlier in the day by the clouds, it was getting dark.

The heating of the ocean made all the old climate models obsolete.
Warm water causes storms.
Storms are bad business.

We'd weathered many of them before, indeed, the whole point of the voyage was to collect climate data, but this one was bigger than any we had seen, even in the Pacific.
We had protocols for everything, the delicate instruments were brought in and carefully stowed.
All the exterior doors were sealed, everyone was accounted for.

But... one of the windows in the galley failed.
Then another up in the bridge.
And another,
And another.

They started letting the storm in.

Do you know how difficult it is to get glass these days?
It's all ready for salvage, most of it in perfectly good condition.
But... not all of it.

*I* installed those windows.
Was the glass imperfect?
Did I make a mistake?


"It's not your fault" Alexander told me when Seth introduced us at his Lighthouse, years later, after Paweł twisted my arm into going on another voyage.
There was a lot of confusion as the Bondar was sinking in the pitch black of the night.
I won't go in to the details.
I can't.

But when the sun rose, I was in a lifeboat, and could see no sign of the ship, or anyone else.
I thought I was the only survivor.

A fishing boat picked me up a few days later.
There's a lot of boats in the Novamediterra.
We're a sea-faring lot!


I thought I'd never go back to sea.
But look at me now:
Running a community workshop on a ship I helped rebuild!
Rescuing people from the other side of the world.

Maybe Seth's right, maybe we can do anything.
Fix everything.
Get back what we've lost.

It just takes a community, building things with your friends.

(END-TRANSMISSION)