Mikebat
Member III
At the end of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the elves, Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo travel to the Grey Havens to board a ship. The place they were bound for is Valinor. Valinor is part of the continent Aman, also called the Undying Lands, to the west of Middle Earth across the Great Sea. Valinor was founded by an immortal race called the Valar, who created most of the peoples of Middle Earth. It is also where lesser immortal beings like Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron came from. It is where the Elves are travelling to, though they did not come from there.
Valinor isn't mentioned in the movies, and it is only hinted at in the book trilogy, in the songs and poems. There's no passage in Lord of the Rings along the lines of "...and so the Ring-bearer sailed with the Elves to Valinor..." But there's more about Middle Earth and Valinor in the supplemental books called The Silmarillion. It's in these stories where the mythology behind the world of Hobbits and Elves and magical Rings is fleshed out. An interesting thing about Valinor is that, among the inhabitants of Middle Earth, the Elves are the only ones who know how to sail there. After the Downfall of Númenor, the world assumed its round shape, except for Valinor, which left the Bent World. Mortals sailing to the west eventually circled the world and returned to their starting point. But an Elven ship sailing to the west could leave the Bent World and travel through the air 'as it were on a mighty bridge invisible' eventually making landfall on Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, and then crossing the Bay of Eldamar to reach the shores of Valinor.
Kinda looks like the West End of Catalina, doesn't it?
I thought of naming my boat Tol Eressëa (pronounced TOL ehr-ESS-ay-uh) but I think I'll save that for the dinghy. Might be too hard to understand over VHF, I think. So is the name of Eärendil the Mariner, (ey-AR-ndeel) the first Elf to sail the Straight Road. His name is Elvish for 'Sea-Lover'. His vessel was Vingilot - 'Foam-flower' in Elvish. Good name for a boat. After his mission in Valinor, the Valar hallowed Eärendil and his ship, and they now sail together in the sky shining as the evening and morning star.
So anyway, that's why I named my boat Valinor. And because besides all that, I'm a big geek.
Before I submitted my documentation papers, I checked the USCG registry for any other boats with this name. Look it up here: http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/commercial/landings/cg_vessel2.html
There were none in January, so I thought mine was going to be unique. But wouldn't you know it: someone else named their boat Valinor at the same time I did. The very same month my USCG registration went through, someone on the East coast also registered a boat named Valinor. And the other Valinor is also an Ericson!
Valinor isn't mentioned in the movies, and it is only hinted at in the book trilogy, in the songs and poems. There's no passage in Lord of the Rings along the lines of "...and so the Ring-bearer sailed with the Elves to Valinor..." But there's more about Middle Earth and Valinor in the supplemental books called The Silmarillion. It's in these stories where the mythology behind the world of Hobbits and Elves and magical Rings is fleshed out. An interesting thing about Valinor is that, among the inhabitants of Middle Earth, the Elves are the only ones who know how to sail there. After the Downfall of Númenor, the world assumed its round shape, except for Valinor, which left the Bent World. Mortals sailing to the west eventually circled the world and returned to their starting point. But an Elven ship sailing to the west could leave the Bent World and travel through the air 'as it were on a mighty bridge invisible' eventually making landfall on Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, and then crossing the Bay of Eldamar to reach the shores of Valinor.
Kinda looks like the West End of Catalina, doesn't it?
I thought of naming my boat Tol Eressëa (pronounced TOL ehr-ESS-ay-uh) but I think I'll save that for the dinghy. Might be too hard to understand over VHF, I think. So is the name of Eärendil the Mariner, (ey-AR-ndeel) the first Elf to sail the Straight Road. His name is Elvish for 'Sea-Lover'. His vessel was Vingilot - 'Foam-flower' in Elvish. Good name for a boat. After his mission in Valinor, the Valar hallowed Eärendil and his ship, and they now sail together in the sky shining as the evening and morning star.
So anyway, that's why I named my boat Valinor. And because besides all that, I'm a big geek.
Before I submitted my documentation papers, I checked the USCG registry for any other boats with this name. Look it up here: http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/commercial/landings/cg_vessel2.html
There were none in January, so I thought mine was going to be unique. But wouldn't you know it: someone else named their boat Valinor at the same time I did. The very same month my USCG registration went through, someone on the East coast also registered a boat named Valinor. And the other Valinor is also an Ericson!
Just Google it. 
