The Sea Within

Sailing is a magnificent thing.  It's hard to put into words, but the experience seems to soak through you, to seep into every pore and sense you're feeling.  As you're out there you don't really realize it, so slow is the process, but that whole time you're being softly seduced by the waves and sea.

Of course, that's not how it starts though.  At first, you're seasick.  Nauseous and miserable.  Each wave-wrought lurch and plunge of the deck draws higher in your mouth the gristly, salty taste that so faithfully precedes vomit, so you stare at the horizon or you stare at the waves and at the same time you're praying to God, to your screwed-up sense of balance-- to anything that might listen, really-- that the nauseum end.

And, eventually, it does.  In the romance of the sea, I think this is where you're officially smitten.  As the seasickness subsides a new awareness rises up in its place as you find yourself intimately attuned to the rocking of the waves.  The rush and roll of the boat, so recently a cause of torture, now soothes with its meditative rhythms.  You find that when the boat sways, you sway, too.  And when it dips, you're dipping.  Like a dancer feeding off the movements of his partner, you fall in step with the flowing waves, expecting and embracing their motions.

And all this time the wind is blowing, gliding swiftly over the surface of the sea, quietly collecting the cool salt spray it will brush upon your cheeks.  That wind, that air-- it's easy to be blind to it.  Until, that is, you raise your sails.  Then, the taut white sheets bucking against the gusts, you feel the sheer force of that once tranquil wind.  And as you ply against the rigging, throwing every muscle into raising the sails, the distinction between man and ship grows dim.  I know it sounds strange, but at those times it's hard to tell where taut tendon ends and taut rigging begins, and at least for a moment that bright white wing is yours; it's you that's rising on the wind.

At night, as with most romances, the emotions thicken.  Sitting watch at midnight, the sails ablaze with a magnificent back-lit white, the waves ever-rolling, ever-soothing, a vault of stars twinkles down to reflect the froth-topped waves.  The night's silence resonates, seems louder in fact against the wind whistling, the waters crashing, and the rigging sighing against its load.  There are the things that seep in; this is the depth that fills your pores.

It's strange-- I thought that being on a sailboat a person would feel an expanded connection with the world at large.  You're borne on waters that have seen worlds away and on winds that have touched mountains you'll never know.  Yet as you look out in all directions on miles of swaying water, your world contracts.  There's the boat.  There's what you feel, what the boat feels.  Your perceptions of the world change, but rather than expanded they've turned more focused, bent inward and sharpened on the moment around you.

But it's not just while you're on the water.  The rolling of the waves, the soft caress of the wind, and even the serene, careless feeling of being adrift-- on the water or in your life-- they stay with you, whispering softly for days after your feet have touched the land.  You notice the breeze and the swaying in your legs.  You stare at a glass of water and envy the glass its waves.  The memories, the feelings, the waves-- they've trickled through you, left a residue of cool salt spray.  Somehow, in those few short days, things have changed, you've changed.  You aren't who you were.  Somehow, the sea is in you.

(Note: Matt suggested adding a travel map to show where I've gone and what route I took-- what a great idea!  I've added a link on the right side of the page to a google map showing just that.  Enjoy!)