• MUDDY BROWN WATER
    • CORDWAIN
    • Colour of Water
    • Lehman Way
    • Loadsa Money
    • Floating Man Cave
    • Cunning Lists
    • Later Lists
    • letters and articles
    • by buying a boat
    • and floating away
    • with a pint of milk
    • not quite 100 percent
    • begin boating
    • Uisge Donn Salach
    • Boat Survey
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    • Hide and Seek
    • Real Deal
    • Finding a Fix
    • Give me my Boat
    • a failed survey
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          • tearpree blink
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    • Sail-Away
    • ULYSSES UNRAVELLED
    • Pogue Away Day
    • Sailing Away
    • CONCEPT v REALITY >
      • to live off-grid
      • ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND >
        • Original List
      • Wrong Way Round
      • epilogue criochnaithe
      • On-Grid-Ways
      • Recession
      • Slough Arm
    • RELATION ... SHIPS >
      • 12-0 humans
      • 12-1 widminter
      • 12-2 WHO
      • 12-3 WHEN
      • 12-4 HOW
      • 12-5 WHY
      • 12-6 WHAT
      • 12-7 on board
      • 12.8 comms
    • 14-0 ODORSHET >
      • 14-1 facebooked
      • 14-3 excremented
      • 14-4 excretions origins
      • 14-2 macerated
      • 14-5 composting
    • Pentargon Days >
      • 2015
      • The Original Blog List >
        • PENTARGON
        • 60906
  • PENTARGONS GALLEY
    • Pentargon Coffee
    • Off-Grid-Catering
    • Pasta Management
    • Porridge
    • Drop Scones
    • Bolognaise
    • Marinade
    • CuppaCocoa
    • Burger Stew
    • Scromolet
    • Cooking with Steam
  • SPLANING
    • 2013-0 Water Wasted
    • 2013-1 Water Heated
    • 2013-2 water costed
    • 2013-3 water not wasted
  • HOT AND COLD
    • Fuelling Fires
    • Hampshire Heat
    • Charcoal Heat
    • Boat Heat
  • SAMUEL JOHN SPRINGER
    • Operation Pied Piper
    • Sam's Harborough
    • Harborough & Rolt
    • Samuel in Expansion
    • Patience is a Minor
  • BILLY'S STORY
  • TALES FROM THE TIDES
    • ponder not how >
      • London Stones
      • down river
    • Inland Storms >
      • river creek >
        • Mapping My Village
        • Dartford Departure
    • FROM WITHOUT >
      • Just Another Day
      • Spoons on the cut
      • Between the Locks
      • TECHNICAL TALES >
        • ships husbandry >
          • hull maintenance
          • recycling
          • carpentry
        • Mitred Fire Escape
        • qualified bullshitters
        • electric enterprises >
          • Electrical Ingenuity >
            • Charge of the Light Brigade
            • wired in radio
            • charging electric
        • boatpaint
        • propellers - propulsion >
          • Leaf Mugging
      • kenya jacaranda >
        • ebb and flow
        • ship security
        • 2017 jetsam
        • 2016 sink some
      • The Bristol Channel
      • The Boat Flag Story
    • years and tears >
      • Bottle of Wine >
        • The wine travels on
      • flow and ebb >
        • Mitre Gate Lock
  • HOMENENE
    • HAVEN FOR BEWILDERED
    • COMPOS MENSIS
    • JANGLERS HAVEN
    • REPRESENTATION
    • PENTARGONS HOMENENE
  • PENTARGONS BLOGS

THE BOAT FLAG STORY

126

Seeming coincidences are but signposts

on my meandering journey through life.

A boat named Pentargon hove into view.

The name was of significant coincidence 

deeply ​buried in my childhood and origin

I was born in Dungarvan, a bustling market  town in the Decies of Waterford with a now silted-up harbour which when I was a lad was a busy port.  In my father's time,  Dungarvan had been a fishing village but all the fleet had been relocated to Helvick while he was a lad.   ​

As a child I was told of 'Bokal'. 
Bokal lay far away
... beyond the southeastern horizon ...
in the misty distance of  Cornouaille.
Dungarvan sailors had landed fish in Bokal for centuries, in the days of sail, returning with full holds.  The fishermen of Bokal did similar the other way round and were recognised on sight in my home port, and not just for fish. 

Marine trade using fishing boats is all-encompassing and with the fish would come exotica.  Trade was reciprocal. 
Waterford had its copper coast
and zinc and tin gold and platinum
to delight bronze-age miners
and post-industrial geologists,
merchants, artisans and thieves.
Visiting Boscastle in 2003, I met old men on the quay who called their place Bokal and knew of Deng-gyarvan.  When they heard where I was born, they solemnly declared "you are one of us" since when I consider myself Cornish-by-Adoption and proudly display the Flag of Piran at the crosstrees.  I respect 5th March each year and hoist a new flag to respect a fellow Waterfordman who came from west the road at the next safe harbour beyond Dungarvan on this treacherous and protective coast.  Piran left Admore ar leac eibhear and had  siodaithe gaoithe and water sprites spirited him to Cornuaille.  I like to think Sadbh accompanied was there with them.

​Just outside Bokal harbour is the tallest waterfall in Cornwall!  Pentargon Falls.  Pentargon means a height with a fine view in Kernewek and Thomas Hardy, far from the madding crowd,  wrote "Beeny Hill" about  the falls and Emma Gifford ...
"Still in all its chasmal beauty
bulks old Beeny to the sky,
Shall she and I not go there
once again now March is nigh

How I came to own Pentargon is detailed in Muddy Brown Water   I cannot say whether my ownership is causal coincidence or  serendipity but, being Irish, I know there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in other philosophies.  I have an unshakable belief in the altair. 

​​Pentargon is protected by a Decies water sprite whose name is Sadbh  [Pronounced  'Sive'  as  in  Hive]  You are entitled to speculate on other beliefs and other worlds or just accept that for Irish sailors water sprites exist and protect us in this world.
Theory and practice
concur in theory
but not in practice

"Look for the right boat and it will find you"
​​​​​Survival At All Costs
PENTARGON60906.CO.UK
And At No Cost At All

[email protected]
© MMXXiv
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  • MUDDY BROWN WATER
    • CORDWAIN
    • Colour of Water
    • Lehman Way
    • Loadsa Money
    • Floating Man Cave
    • Cunning Lists
    • Later Lists
    • letters and articles
    • by buying a boat
    • and floating away
    • with a pint of milk
    • not quite 100 percent
    • begin boating
    • Uisge Donn Salach
    • Boat Survey
    • Hide & Seek
    • Hide and Seek
    • Real Deal
    • Finding a Fix
    • Give me my Boat
    • a failed survey
  • PENTARGON'S BLOG
  • HOME
    • CURLY WURLY >
      • ARTISTIC NARROWBOAT >
        • goldfinch restaurant >
          • tearpree blink
          • tearpree veriews
    • Sail The Dream
    • Sell the Boat
    • Sail-Away
    • ULYSSES UNRAVELLED
    • Pogue Away Day
    • Sailing Away
    • CONCEPT v REALITY >
      • to live off-grid
      • ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND >
        • Original List
      • Wrong Way Round
      • epilogue criochnaithe
      • On-Grid-Ways
      • Recession
      • Slough Arm
    • RELATION ... SHIPS >
      • 12-0 humans
      • 12-1 widminter
      • 12-2 WHO
      • 12-3 WHEN
      • 12-4 HOW
      • 12-5 WHY
      • 12-6 WHAT
      • 12-7 on board
      • 12.8 comms
    • 14-0 ODORSHET >
      • 14-1 facebooked
      • 14-3 excremented
      • 14-4 excretions origins
      • 14-2 macerated
      • 14-5 composting
    • Pentargon Days >
      • 2015
      • The Original Blog List >
        • PENTARGON
        • 60906
  • PENTARGONS GALLEY
    • Pentargon Coffee
    • Off-Grid-Catering
    • Pasta Management
    • Porridge
    • Drop Scones
    • Bolognaise
    • Marinade
    • CuppaCocoa
    • Burger Stew
    • Scromolet
    • Cooking with Steam
  • SPLANING
    • 2013-0 Water Wasted
    • 2013-1 Water Heated
    • 2013-2 water costed
    • 2013-3 water not wasted
  • HOT AND COLD
    • Fuelling Fires
    • Hampshire Heat
    • Charcoal Heat
    • Boat Heat
  • SAMUEL JOHN SPRINGER
    • Operation Pied Piper
    • Sam's Harborough
    • Harborough & Rolt
    • Samuel in Expansion
    • Patience is a Minor
  • BILLY'S STORY
  • TALES FROM THE TIDES
    • ponder not how >
      • London Stones
      • down river
    • Inland Storms >
      • river creek >
        • Mapping My Village
        • Dartford Departure
    • FROM WITHOUT >
      • Just Another Day
      • Spoons on the cut
      • Between the Locks
      • TECHNICAL TALES >
        • ships husbandry >
          • hull maintenance
          • recycling
          • carpentry
        • Mitred Fire Escape
        • qualified bullshitters
        • electric enterprises >
          • Electrical Ingenuity >
            • Charge of the Light Brigade
            • wired in radio
            • charging electric
        • boatpaint
        • propellers - propulsion >
          • Leaf Mugging
      • kenya jacaranda >
        • ebb and flow
        • ship security
        • 2017 jetsam
        • 2016 sink some
      • The Bristol Channel
      • The Boat Flag Story
    • years and tears >
      • Bottle of Wine >
        • The wine travels on
      • flow and ebb >
        • Mitre Gate Lock
  • HOMENENE
    • HAVEN FOR BEWILDERED
    • COMPOS MENSIS
    • JANGLERS HAVEN
    • REPRESENTATION
    • PENTARGONS HOMENENE
  • PENTARGONS BLOGS