{"id":66526,"date":"2021-11-05T23:37:19","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T23:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eco123.info\/en\/?p=66526"},"modified":"2021-11-12T23:23:25","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T23:23:25","slug":"no-113-heroes-for-one-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eco123.info\/en\/short-stories-en\/no-113-heroes-for-one-day\/","title":{"rendered":"N\u00ba 113 – Heroes for one day?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday 6th November 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The global sailing community is something very special indeed. Surrendering yourself completely to all winds and weathers that sailors are dependent on for survival requires a different kind of \u201elifestyle\u201c<\/em> than the one you\u2019d have on dry land in a big city. Which is why sailors are as thick as thieves. This sticking together has a deeper meaning, described by Boris Herrmann in his new book, \u201eAlone between Sky and Sea\u201c, which has just been published in German by Bertelsmann and will surely soon be available in English, French and Portuguese translation. A bestseller in Germany, the book is of course to do with the toughest sailing race in the world, the French Vend\u00e9e Globe. It was during this race that the boat of one competitor broke in two on hitting a wave and sank in under a minute. There was just about enough time to send a Mayday, adding that this was not a joke. Then the sailor fled on to his inflatable life raft with not even enough time to grab his emergency kit holding drinking water, food and an emergency telephone. That disappeared together with the sailing yacht into the depths of the ocean.<\/p>\n

The French regatta organisers immediately asked the five race participants closest to their colleague drifting off the South African coast between the Indian and the Atlantic Ocean to start looking for him. Miraculously, he was located and rescued within 24 hours. The proverbial needle in a haystack, and the whole operation carried out amongst winds registering 7 to 8 on the Beaufort scale and waves six metres high. Where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean you\u2019ll always have a little more swell than in the private sailing zone off Lisbon or the Berlengas arquipelago, Kiel or the Ammersee lake…<\/p>\n

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On land, amongst long-distance hikers, travelling in nature below wide open skies, things work in a similar way to the way they do at sea. \u201ePortugal on Foot\u201c is a book by Nuno Ferreira, from Aveiro. The first edition of this very special book was published in November 2011 by Vertimag and is celebrating its ten-year anniversary. This is something we want to call to mind, as anyone starting out on foot to discover their world and observe their entire country from south to north along a long-distance trail will also experience how beautiful everything is we\u2019ve been entrusted on loan, our livelihood: the Earth and the oceans we are allowed to live on and call home.<\/p>\n

Every one of these stories has its very own narrative form. In early 2008, for the first time this had been done in the country\u2019s long history, a journalist by the name of Nuno Ferreira started walking from Sagres, marking the start of a long and difficult hike through his \u201ebeloved Portugal\u201c. The book is the result of over two years of hikes, with a few breaks in between. It shows us a little-known Portugal, a land of traditions and stories that seem to become ever more scarce these days.<\/p>\n