Paul’s old friend Randin was passing through the area on a didgeridoo tour.  Paul organized house concerts for him in San Francisco and Oakland.

San Francisco concert, at the communal house where Paul lives, was magnificent.  It was a concert and a storytelling lecture.  Randin brought several didgeridoos, including his very first one made out of a vacuum cleaner tube.  There were other musicians joining him throughout the evening.  One of my favorite stories was about the West Wind song.  Randin spent several years living in the Northern Territory of Australia, doing some work for the Yolngu people who adopted him for the time.  The wind goes around the world, and, Randin was told, brought him to Australia for a reason.  I like the idea of the wind blowing around the globe, carrying people around and connecting them, especially after having been carried by a westward wind myself a couple of times.

I arrived to the concert San Francisco-early (allegedly: still learning the local customs 😏).  The stage was already set up.  I sat on the comfy floor next to Paul and Randin, because that pre-concert chit-chat circle was still forming.  Amusingly, somebody over from another circle asked if Randin and I were related, because we had similar postures.

There were other wind passengers in our circle.  A few years ago, Anna finished hers studies in the UK and took a corporate job in Australia.  She spent a year there, but it didn’t feel good.  Then she went to the Bay Area for a week, for work.  She had a friend in San Jose, so decided to stay for the weekend after the work activities… and never took the return flight.  Called her boss on Monday, said she wasn’t coming back. Went to get her things a few weeks later, but that was it.

Anna and I left the concert at the same time.  We exchanged our contact info and she invited me to a dinner party on a boat the following week.

The boat itself is a wind traveler.  It’s a former Icelandic car ferry a bit older than I.  Upon its retirement, a designer made it into a boat house.  Brought it to San Francisco (which way around?).  Lived on it for a little while. Sold it on the Craig’s list  to a few guys with ideas.  The boat served as a start up hub, as a regular dinner party location, and even (when necessary) as a ship since.

You can see professional pictures of the boat here; here is mine, taken as I was leaving, having visited two so-San Francisco locations, learned about a new musical instrument, and met more west and westward wind travelers than I can count in less than a week.

Maritol the Boat