Away from the hurly-burly, drifting in contentment
Issue 44: Sept/Oct 2005
I KNOW A MAGIC PLACE. A PLACE WHERE there are no 10-mile-long traffic jams, no honking horns, no howling disk jockeys or lying politicians, and no hurly-burly scrum for money. A place where you can look back on all of that as it fades away into the distance. A place where elemental forces prevail and peace comes with the knowledge that you are in the hands of something much larger and more powerful than you can ever be, where the only sounds are the lap of water, the rush of wind, and the gulls’ cries.
Here is how to find it: clear the harbor . . . pass the breakwater . . . turn off your engine and set sail in any direction away from land. Send your senses outward. Feel the heaving power of the sea as it carries you away. After a mile or so, heave to. Drift now in the lap of the sea. Feel the damp breeze on your naked skin. Trail a hand in the water of life. Maybe a dolphin will glide under your hand and press its smooth cold skin to your palm, greeting you in the language of our planet. Breathe in harmony with the swells. Sailing is, above all, sensual.
Look back at shore. The buildings of any city will have taken on their proper insignificance in the ageless order of the universe. Here is where life began, and here you can get a clear look at the true nature of our world. All the lessons needed for life can be learned here. You can sail to Cebu or Madagascar or the enchanted isles, but whatever magic you seek or need can be found here, a mile beyond the breakwater.
We don’t conquer it
No one conquers the sea. No one really conquers anything, except himself, and accomplishing that task comes more from acceptance than overcoming. There are times when we must beat into the wind to stay our course, but to get where we are supposed to be, we must find the right course just off the wind and work with the forces of the universe. Headlong, insistent banging into the wind will result only in being thrown back down to try again.
Deep in the night, I dream of long Pacific swells rising and falling away off the coast, and I float on them in a small sailboat, balanced to go wherever wind and wave might take me. The swells surge, fathomless, green and dark, with power enough to take me anywhere. Strands of kelp fringed with foam break the surface, gulls cry and wheel, and the land, sere and baked, drifts farther and farther behind. I float in pelagic communion, knowing that I am no more and no less than the gulls or the kelp or the plankton. And I am comforted by that knowing.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
