March 28: Day 16

Best Day Ever

Yesterday the sun came out and we celebrated one thousand miles to go. Almost there. I did not realize how much I missed the sunshine. We celebreated by having a glass of wine (second on this passage), opening the cockpit to the welcome sun and blasting all of our favorite songs on the stereo. First tme the radio has been on for this passage. It was so beautiful, nothing broken and nothing that needed to be fixed right away. It was like a real party on the boat. I am filled with a calm exubrance. We spent some time together, a rare occasion since when one of us is on watch the other is sleeping or caching up on the many chores that we can never lag behind on. But today the watches were not a lonely tedium but a social hour. We enjoyed a nice sunset, the best meal we had had in a while: fried chicked, corn and mashed potatoes. When we played Yahtzee I got Yahtzee three times in one game.

As we were winding down for the nght Brett heard the puff-splashing sound of dolphins and we looked out to see their blue phosphorescent torpedoes slicing through the water. Up on the bow with the dolphins below I looked up and saw the spectacular spash of diamonds in the sky and realized that the stars out here are brighter. You just have to let yourself look at them. And watch on a night like last night, with no clouds in the sky on a moonless night. When Brett went to sleep and I started my watch the dolphins stayed with me and and I could hear their puff-splash and see their blue torpedoes next to the boat. I was entranced. It was impossible to read or to take my eyes off of them playing so I gazed out ot the stars and let my eyes penetrate the many layers of blackness and the absence of light in the shadows of the stars. Ever since the lunar exclipse that we saw in Puerto Vallarta I have been more concious or planets as giant boddies with weight instead of a pretty picture and thinking about them in this way has made them all the more magnificent. And I am so tiny on this planet, out on this giant ocean. So small. And in a different light I am large, they send the light but I am here to see it and I give them meaning in some way.

So while I looked at the perfect stars and breathed the taste of my perfect day I came to understand the peace that has come over me and why. Out here everything is very crucial and very immediate. If the wind picks up you reef the sail. It is physically demanding but it must be done. The auto pilot is broken, you fix it or yoiu steer by hand. If you are hungry you have to cook, then you clean up because there can be no dirty dishes smashing around in a moving boat. So there is never worry and the mind is free. At home (in LA) I am running from one thing to the other and the needs are so diaphenouse that I could worry for hours if I said the wrong thing at a party, if you know me well you know that this is not an unfounded concern. There is a good chance that what I said at the hypothetical party was at least off color, though well intended. What might I do, won’t I do, what kind of impreshion I made at work or if I should be doing more for the environment etc. But here there is none of that. There is only what must be done and doing it. So that is the source of peace. I am enjoying it while it lasts.

By the end of my first watch, now that I had unravelled my inner secrets and found my place in the Universe (all in one night, mind you), the winds died down and I fought the sails for inches of progress. The sails where clancking loudly, I had to keep adjusting my direction to suit the wind. Ever three minutes, something had to be done to keep up with the shifting puffs of wind that kept teasing from every direction. I abandoned higher thought with the frustrating battle of catching an errant breeze. Like all things out here I eventually won out and got pointed in the direction that I needed to go. It was this afternoon that the wind picked up to the speed it is supposed to be blowing here (according to our weather files) and started coming from the East. Finally! A broad-reach, now we will get the best use out of our light wind boat. Today we made excelent time and when the dolphins came in our bow today I ran to the bow and was yelling to them to jump and laughing when they did, getting splashed with seawater and never felt better. After we came back to the cockpit we saw a rainbow, the biggest I have ever seen in my life. The whole thing from pot to pot. It went accross the entire sky and its many colors where reflected in the ocean. So amazing. During the Net tonight we saw that one of the boats in te fleet was within 20 miles of us (passing distance). We established radio contact and had a nice chat. We may have already know them from Avalon, go figure.