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AMBIVALENT EAGLES

Have you ever seen an ambivalent eagle? I’m sure you know the type of eagle I’m referring to. The ambivalent eagle has a hard time making up his mind about everything. His mind is full of questions without any answers.

Shall I perch on this branch or would that one over there be better? Maybe I shouldn’t sit on a branch at all. Perhaps I should be flying. But I’m not sure I want to fly right now. Maybe I should start building a new nest since my present one is so old. But if I work on my nest, then I won’t have enough time to preen my feathers to attract eagles of the opposite sex. But if I attract female eagles, it won’t be long before I have to provide for baby eagles which would take even more of my limited time. I wonder what I should have for lunch today? A tasty trout might be good, but maybe a fat river rat would be even better, or perhaps a wild rabbit would hit the spot. Should I fly south for the winter? Maybe I should stick around here so I don’t have to do so much flying. It’s really quite a hassle to have to adapt to a whole new habitat south of the border. I know what I’ll do. I’ll just sit on this branch and do nothing.

Eagles are lucky because they don’t have problems with ambivalence. When it’s time to perch, they perch. When it’s time to fly, they fly. When it’s time to eat, they eat. When it’s time to build a nest, they build one.

Can you imagine what the wilderness would be like if there were thousands of neurotic eagles sitting around in the forest overwhelmed by inertia doing nothing? If that happened, they would become just like us when we sit around doing nothing except complaining about our lives and being overwhelmed by ambivalence.

I have decided to fly like an eagle and say good-bye to ambivalence in my life.

BIRD PSYCHIATRISTS NEED NOT APPLY

As I was sailing up the Red Sea, I had the privilege of getting up close and personal with birds of prey. When I watched them in action, I was impressed that God had created such awesome creatures so perfectly adapted to the land, sea, and sky.

Not even once did I see any of these birds talking to a Bird Psychiatrist who reminded them to reach for their dreams, to live without ambivalence, and to maintain their focus. God in his wisdom programmed birds of prey with instincts that prevent such complications.

I am a lot different than birds of prey. I must continually remind myself to reach for my dreams in order to keep them alive. I frequently struggle with ambivalence as I wonder whether it’s worth all the hard work to make my dreams come true. My mental focus wanders here and there and everywhere, and on everything except my dreams. That’s the way things work for me because I am human. That’s also why I like to watch birds of prey in action. The remind me to maintain my focus, to eliminate my ambivalence, and to always reach for my dreams.

Please excuse me. I have to go now. I’m going outside to take flying lessons.

P.S. The birds in these pictures are osprey that live on the deserted islands of the western Red Sea off the coasts of Eritrea and Sudan. When you sail up the Red Sea you can anchor at these islands and watch the osprey in the wild.

STUPID - STUPID - STUPID - STUPID - STUPID

Once upon a time there was a beautiful island in the Red Sea. It was an enchanted refuge where ospreys soared in the sky, sea turtles laid their eggs on the beach, and stupid people put land mines in the ground.

We didn’t know about the land mines, and so we spent a wonderful day exploring the island. There were large osprey nests about four feet in diameter and five feet tall in the middle of the island and on the island’s eastern corner. The nests were situated on small hills which made it possible for the osprey to survey their domain while perched on their nest. The osprey were efficient hunters as evidenced by the many skeletons of small birds and fish scattered over the island, but mostly around their nests. I didn’t see any other species of birds flitting about the island, probably because the osprey had eaten them all. I felt sorry for any bird that might be innocently flying by minding his own business. Their chance of becoming osprey fodder seemed alarmingly high.

The beach at Difnein Island would rival that found at any world class resort. Your eyes feast upon a smorgasbord of powdery white sand, clear water, and spectacular sunsets. And when you walk up the eastern side of the beach, you can see the flipper marks in the sand where the sea turtles have made their way to the top of the beach to lay their clutch of eggs.

Difnein Island has it all - and that includes LAND MINES.

Not more than fifty feet from the sandy shore, I found an unmarked grave typical for this region of the world. The stacked stones reveal the grave belonged to an adult size person. At the time, I thought it strange to find a solitary grave so close to the beach. Although unmarked graves are common, they are usually found in a graveyard full of other unmarked graves. The single grave probably should have tipped me off something bad had happened to this island, and that bad thing was land mines.

So why would anyone want to place land mines in paradise. It seems there once was a war of independence in which Eritrea no longer wanted to be a part of Ethiopia. When you fight a war, you have to put lots of land mines all over the place. Why not go out to a deserted island in the Red Sea and place a bunch of land mines there? Obviously, some genius decided it was a good idea, and went ahead and did it. Unfortunately, the genius who placed the land mines didn’t bother to remove them when the war was over. They would have been hard to remove anyway, because you hide land mines so people can’t see them until they step on them and get blown to smithereens. Why do the words “War Crimes” keep popping up in my mind? Maybe I’m simple-minded, but it seems to me if you put land mines somewhere during a war, and you don’t remove them when the war is over, you have committed a war crime against humanity. Period.

Fools walk in where angels fear to tread. Our angels must have been working overtime that day because we walked through the mine field without getting blown up. When we got back to our yacht, someone came up on the radio and informed us that the eastern half of the island was full of land mines. They had a cruising guide that showed the general location of the land mines, and it advised sailors to not set foot on Difnein Island. We went over to the yacht and looked at the book. Sure enough, there was a drawing of the minefield. Hmm. I wonder why nobody put a fence around the high risk areas or posted signs to stay off the island because of the hidden menace beneath the soil. In poor countries like Eritrea, they probably don’t have enough money to build fences and post signs, because they have to spend their cash on wheel chairs and artificial limbs for people blown up by land mines.

Difnein Island is a special place. It’s perfect for ospreys, sea turtles, and of course, land mines.
 


Log 1 Peter Pan Around the World
Log 2 Weapons of Mackerel Destruction
Log 3 Pirates of the Malacca Straits
Log 4 Kissing Cobras
Log 5 Debriosaurus Rex
Log 6 Go Ahead - Live Your Dreams

Log 7 The Man Who Built His House on a Rock
Log 8 Ambivalent Eagles
Log 9 One-Shovel Full at a Time
Log 10 Hitchhiker's Guide to Planet Earth

Log 11 Keeshond

Log 12 The Red Sea Blues

Log 13 Feel the Freedom

Log 14 The Danger Zone

Log 15 Lucky Man
Log 16 Dream Machines - Land Rover Defenders

Log 17 Trade Wind Dreams
Log 18 Logs With Fins
Log 19 Everywhere, Everything
Log 20 Shark Slayer Is History

Log 21 Viking Funeral - Burial at Sea
Log 22 Improbable and Impossible

Log 23 Keep on Trucking
Log 24 Dream Machines II
Log 25 Bodysurfing Whales
Log 26 Hitting the Wall
Log 27 Surviving the Savage Seas

Log 28 The Next Step
Log 29 Welcome to Barbados
Log 30 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers
Log 31 The Man with the Unplan
Log 32 Dali Dolphins
Log 33 Flying Like a Turtle
Log 34 The Foolish Man Built His House on a Pitch Lake
Log 35 Go West Young Man
Log 36 Crossing the Atlantic in a Row Boat
Log 37 The Unsinkable HMS Diamond Rock
Log 38 Catamaran Capsize in 170 mph Winds
Log 39 When Are You Coming Home?

Log 40 Master and Commander of Anegada - Frigate Birds
Log 41 Baths of Virgin Gorda - Batholiths of Central Arabia

Log 42 Free at Last
Log 43 Stalking the Wild Manatee

Log 44 Spreaderman
Log 45 Attack of the Flesh Eating Bees
Log 46 Sharks and Coconuts
Log 47 Stingray Picnic
Log 48 Boo Boo Hill
Log 49 Whale Slayers
Log 50 Noddies (Not Naughty)

 

Log 51 Exumas Land and Sea Park
Log 52 David and Goliath
Log 53 Turquoise Clouds of Paradise

Log 54 Momma Nightjar
Log 55 Maximillian The Great
Log 56 Chiton Kingdom
Log 57 Flying and Holding On
Log 58 Far Horizons
Log 59 Clouds Are a Sailor's Friend
Log 60 Getting Connected
Log 61 Fear
Log 62 Grand Schemes and Other Important Things
Log 63 If Jellyfish Had a Brain
Log 64 Cousins That Don't Kiss
Log 65 Swimming With Sharks
Log 66 Perfect the Way You Are
Log 67 Space Travelers
Log 68 Aliens
Log 69 Monsters of the Mind
Log 70 My Butterfly Collection
Log 71 Somewhere Other Than Here Societies
Log 72 Five-Hundred Pound Spiders
Log 73 Red Sea Sunsets
Log 74 Gibraltar Sunrise
Log 75 Big Sea - Small Ship
Log 76 Just Cruising
Log 77 Castle Mania
Log 78 You Must Know the Sea
Log 79 Flying Like a Goat
Log 80 The Joy of Photography
Log 81 Universal Camouflage
Log 82 My Rainbow Collection
Log 83 Indian Ocean Reward
Log 84 Fiber W
Log 85 Turkish Reflections
Log 86 Mirrors and Mirages
Log 87 Lycean Tombs Rock
Log 88 Rigging Emergency
Log 89 Pamukkale
Log 90 Volcano Land
Log 91 Sniffing the Air
Log 92 Why I Don't Kite Surf
Log 93 Resurrecting Exit Only in Turkey
Log 94 Greased Pole Competition
Log 95 Tsunami Damage
Log 96 Afraid of Living
Log 97 Living on the Edge
Log 98 Borneo Adventure
Log 99 Uligamu Tree Tender with Full Benefits
Log 100 God's Fireworks Display

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