Page - 191 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 1/2015

Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1 2o15 Nataša Rogelja | The sea: place of ultimate freedom? 191 boat is unsettled and even the movement of the boat itself exhibits many characters. As Phelan observed, the only one who is not moving is the seaman. As the boat moves he waits patiently, struggling to accustom his body to the motion of the waves and the boat or fighting seasickness (Phelan 2007). In his article on Icelandic fishing, Gilsi Pallson used seasickness as a metaphor for learning, writing that enskillment – in the form of seasickness, fishing or ethnography – is not connected with internalising the body of knowledge but with an active engagement with the environment (1994:901). In short, the change from “land legs” to the “sea legs” is a bodily experience. To be at sea, the body must become attuned to the waves and the motion of the boat. To return to land, as many navigators reported, is a similar, but reverse bodily experience where one has to overcome the sickness caused by the land’s stillness. Several of my interlocutors reported having problems with seasickness, the fear instilled by strong winds and big waves, or simply with difficulties of living on the limited space of the boat with no proper shower. Others discovered their health condition improved drastically; they spoke of the bodily experiences of health that they have never felt before and continued with this lifestyle as they acquired the skills that helped them overpass the difficulties of life on a boat (how to have less things, how to shower with cold water…). All these characteristics of the sea can be compared with the concept of smooth space discussed by Deleuze and Guattari (1988). They developed a distinction between a smooth and striated space, the latter being ordered and regulated by a fixed scheme while smooth space allows and requires irregularities. “The sea is perhaps principal among smooth spaces, the hydraulic model par excellence. But the sea is also, of all smooth spaces, the first one attempts were made to striate, to transform into a dependency of the land, with its fixed routes, constant directions, relative movements, a whole counterhydraulic of channels and conduits” (ibid: 387). Regardless of the sea’s disobedient character, the land-attuned view has always tried to put permanent marks on it by imposing charts, latitude and longitude. With the development of GPS technology and its use in applications such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) used for identifying and locating vessels by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships, AIS base stations and satellites, it seems the sea has been finally controlled and is as such accessible for various people. With the development of accurate charts, the invention of GPS technology, and modern sailing boats with keel that can sail against the wind, it is not only the sea that becomes more striated but the journey itself changes, as reported by many of my inter- locutors. Even though the journey at sea is still characterised more by vectors and moving than with the positions and stillness, the electronic chart plotters register and mark the tracks and the journey becomes straightened with the precise position of the boat. There are sailors who agree and others who disagree with this point. One can hardly get lost with the new technology but on the other hand, borders are still difficult to set and the wind still blows as it wants, allowing irregularities to happen (one can end in a different place than he/she initially planned). Imagining the sea We were crossing the Aegean Sea from Peloponnesus to Rhodes on a windy autumn night with no stars above us. My glasses were caked with salt and I felt cold and uncomfortable. Apart from this “chilly reality”, I also enjoyed the experience on the other hand: I was listening to music on my iPod, reading poems, imagining places that we will soon reach, breathing the soft