Migrations

by Charlotte McConaghy

birds who have been named the most protective in the sky.

I was born Franny Stone. My Irish mother gave birth to me in a small Australian town where she’d been left, broke and alone.

We had no money, but we went often to the library.

Libraries saving the world.

the books grew so heavy. I started leaving them on the road, a trail of words in my wake.

“It only became illegal because of the trawling methods huge liners used to use, which would capture and kill all the surrounding marine life and birds.

The Arctic tern has the longest migration of any animal. It flies from the Arctic all the way to the Antarctic, and then back again within a year. This is an extraordinarily long flight for a bird its size. And because the terns live to be thirty or so, the distance they will travel over the course of their lives is the equivalent of flying to the moon and back three times.”

abeam On the beam; a relative bearing at right angles to the ship's keel; e.g. describing an object located at a bearing of 90 degrees (starboard) or 270 degrees (port) as measured clockwise from the ship's bow.

forepeak The part of the hold of a ship within the angle of the bow.

belay 1. To make fast a line around a fitting, usually a cleat or belaying pin. 2. To secure a climbing person in a similar manner. 3. An order to halt a current activity or countermand an order prior to execution.

The icebreakers can’t cut through a berg.

Titanic situation.

“It’s deconstructed.” “Well … can it please be reconstructed?”

Bwahaha

“What makes a young thing like you so tired of life?”

I gather sea spaghetti

How to cook Sea Spaghetti - Mo WildeSea spaghetti (Himanthalia elongata) is a type of edible brown seaweed that is shaped like spaghetti and has a thick, fleshy texture.

it’s simply remembering what it feels like to love creatures that aren’t human.

They were just people looking for a better life.” “Than what?” “Than poverty. Isn’t that the way of all migrations?

“It’s the remotest place in the world, farther from land than anywhere else.”

Point Nemo, also known as the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, is the farthest point in the ocean from land: Location: 48°52.6′ south latitude, 123°23.6′ west longitude Size: About 22 million square kilometers Distance from land: Roughly 2,688 kilometers (1,670 miles) from the three closest landmasses Name: Comes from the Latin word nemo, which means "no one" . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_inaccessibility

“Humanity is a fucking plague upon the world,” Niall says.

Nonsense.

I realize that it’s an enormous island of plastic,

They are seeing patch #4 that is near Brazil. https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/ The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Lying between California and Hawaii, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is three times the size of France and is the world's biggest ocean waste repository, with 1.8 billion pieces of floating plastic which kill thousands of marine animals each year.

“the city at the bottom of the world,” as Ushuaia is known.

I’ve been there. And Palmer Station. And sailed thru the Drake Passage. I’ve also been to the Arctic, northernmost city, Svalbard.

true. It’s impossible to control someone else’s capacity for forgiveness.

descending again is nauseating.

I wonder if rappelling down is an option.

the infamous Drake Passage.

Been there, done the passage. National Geographic Expedition: Antarctica.February 2019

Maybe this means there are more hidden away, and maybe there are more of everything and the world is still breathing.

If there are terns left, and it’s possible, and not too difficult, I would like my ashes to be scattered where they fly.

So Franny has been doing this traveling, risking other people’s lives, to scatter Niall’s ashes.