We need a geologist

This post is not about Russia, but I need to express my frustration with a crew issue. As we passed the diversion north to Bolgar, whose minarets were just visible through the rain, a fine stratified cliff lay on our starboard side. It prompted me to post this comment.

One of the things Tainui has often needed but sorely lacked is a geologist. We have had musicians, art directors, social scientists, economists, doctors, lawyers, tour guides, boat builders, playwrights, airline pilots but never, ever a geologist. If I had a dollar for every time we have marveled at a rock formation and wondered what it was and how it got there, I would be rich.

The pinnacles on the west coast of Campbell Island, the columnar basalt cliffs of Cape Raoul, those spectacular folds of marbled granite in Seno Pia Este, the extraordinary cliffs on the approach to Longyearbyen, the disappearing island south of Tonga, the grotesque volcanic oddities at Heimay, all of Loch Ness, not to mention the Gillen Landform in that greatest of oceans, the central Australian Desert. In Tainui all of them spark curiosity and speculation but no answers. Over and over again we ask “where is our geologist?”.

If ocean voyaging is about brief vignettes of our wonderful world, it would be very helpful for us to have an interpreter. Maxine is great with Cyrillic, but who can explain the remarkable landforms we come across? Just look at these pictures and you’ll see what I mean.