Living in the Belly of the Beast

Lurch, surge, glide, and over again with the lurch. And on it goes. I am in the belly of the boat and I can feel the waves as they rush up behind us, the wind that pushes us from the top of the wave and the increased speed as we surf down the wave. Then there is a lull at the bottom of the trough where the wind can’t quite fill our sails. When we are almost to the top of the next wave and the wind catches our sails in a sudden thrust we are propelled over the crest of the next set of waves. The heel of the boat tells me where the wind is coming from and I can tell from the roll of the boat that the waves are going faster than us. I can tell from the sound of the spinning prop that hums against the resistance of the water what the approximate speed of the boat is.

In the blackness of my cabin I am waiting for sleep and feeling Fearless, like a surging animal that has swallowed me whole and I feel her rhythm like it were my own feet that are treading on the watery rolling hills beneath us. It has been almost a week at sea. We left on Tuesday the 4th of December and it is now the night of the 10th of December. I am composing my journal in my head and trying to sort out the string of events that has brought us within a hundred nautical miles of Cabo San Lucas. It all blends together in a blur. I remember some events but the timeline is fuzzy, the offshore life has no need for days of the week so the fact that it is Monday is not a fact I can gather from my head, I have to look it up. The date is another story. When we take our watches (mine is between 3am and 6am) we log our position, our speed and bearing, the sea and weather conditions and the date and time of day. If there were ever any problem with our navigational equipment we would have a rough idea of where we were and would be able to find our way back with a compass only. So I am well aware of the date.

I am realizing that I should have written more often since now the tensions of the first few days at sea have passed and I am having a hard time grasping what the tension was about. I know that the sleep was a little hard at first. At least at night, when you are commanding yourself to sleep so that you can be rested for the next day. During the day sleep comes unbidden and a pleasant drowsiness is my constant companion. I will try now to put it all in some order.

On the first nights of our journey when I slept in the night and I felt the the boat moving it was not my friend. As I tried to balance myself against its sway I would clench and unclench my body and wake with sore muscles and a stiff neck; but, despite the initial lack of sleep, the night watches have been a nice moment of solitude. I have sat and reflected on the largeness of the sky. The pure enormity of it is breathtaking when the stars are dancing in the Milky Way. The feeling is like one who is very small and the world is sooooo big. It has been the new moon and on my first night watch the crescent rose like a cradle and I saw it coming over the horizon, the thin scythe was two sharp tips until the body came up to join them. A sight I surely would have missed behind some building or within the smog of LA if I where at home. The stars are magnificent. Equally magnificent is the answer of the ocean. The sparks that fly inside the crush of waves that spray from under the heaving bow are no less bright and no less numerous.

On our first day out we also lost the generator. Brett went to turn it on and the thing felt like it was going to shake through the boat and I, who do not know a thing about generators, could tell you that the sound was not only loud but very dangerous sounding. Its okay, we can live without the generator, its only how we make our water, power our electronics and keep our food cold in the refrigerator. We went on strict water rations (water was only for drinking and cooking and brushing teeth, and if you absolutely had to, a sponge bath) and on a strict schedule with our electronics as well. Until we (Brett) could determine the problem with the engine and get it running again we were going to have to exercise some control. I was quite ripe when we (Brett) got the generator fixed in two days time and we fell in an orgy of showers, dishwashing and movie watching.

I baked, I cooked and I whisked and I scrambled. It was a lot of cooking for three grown men and myself. The best moment by far was when I made us brownies and my stove, which is gimbaled so that the food can remain on a level surface while being cooked was at its maximum tilt, but still not enough to prevent all my brownie mix from sliding to one side of the pan. Though I must say that in the end the brownie had a little for everyone. If you liked the chewy type of brownie go to the uphill (thus slimmer) side of the brownie tray. If you like a moist brownie go the the downhill side (where it had all fallen into a big gob in the corner.) It was very funny.

I keep thinking about the brave explorers and how they traveled without the benefit of a life raft, Gortex, fleece, GPS, radar or even any clue where they were going. The moon was waning to new when we started our journey but as we plunged down the coast she was gone altogether and the night was a pitch black. My night watches were less of a fascination with the stars and the shimmering lights but eyes now squinting to see the bow. It must have taken a rare man to plunge into that darkness without knowing, for sure, what lay ahead.

Tonight the clouds went away and although I could not see the moon I could see the stars and I felt very small, a part of a bigger thing. I was very insignificant, like a mote on the water. Is that what God feels like when you touch him? So with LA far behind me and arriving at this new port it is the end of the beginning and the beginning of something that is bigger.