On Waves

My father, the man who taught me how to sail, has invited me to join him on a sailing journey on which he is the skipper. The sailing journey is one that starts on the Canary Islands and goes, over the Atlantic Ocean, through the Gibraltar Strait and past the Spanish coast to Mallorca. Yet as much as it is a journey over, through and on waves, it is also a journey of a different kind: of getting to know the boat, the crew, my own father and my own mind. Sailing is a mode of transportation in which the world around us imposes itself strongly upon ourselves. I have always thought of philosophy as a practical way to make the surface of the world around me more transparent. A way of accessing what is in the backstage of world we immediately see. The tale of this adventure strikes a pleasant balance between travel-writing and practical philosophy. Travel-writing to become part the world, and practical philosophy as a way to look at it. This book of narrative essays will show things like; why the vastness of the ocean can make the world feel immeasurably small: to what extent Gibraltar is a real thing: and how to cure seasickness of both the physical and the emotional kind.