Written by:
7/4/2011 12:37 AM 

The sun beams down on my bare skin heating me through for the first time in months. The radiant warmth is thawing something that has been frozen inside my chest. I’ve hungered for this without knowing it. Like a patient waking from a long coma my surroundings seem foreign, but also recognizable. The flap of the sails in the soft breeze, the sound of water rushing past the hull, the purr of the engine vibrating through the boat as it recharges my batteries. I’ve recaptured something I hadn’t even known that I’d lost. The sea may not care that I traverse the world on its surface, but I know now I need it to be whole.

I departed Marsden Cove, New Zealand seven days ago. The nervousness racked my body and I fought the good fight against the desire to vomit and crawl back inside my warm bunk. Once free from the sheltering coast of the New Zealand mainland it would be blowing a gale. This isn’t how I wanted to regain my sea legs after more than six months ashore. I was rusty and Jargo had a new standing rig and drive train that had not yet been tried at sea. A bit foolhardy to jump directly offshore but this might be the last weather window for weeks or even months. In real terms, ready or not, it was now or never.

For five days the winds howled around 30 knots occasionally building to 40 and easing to 20. A fear I had not felt since my very first passage across the Gulf of Mexico gripped me and held fast. It was cold, I was seasick, and the conditions demanded more attention than I wanted to give. Eventually I settled on a double reefed main and a 40 percent jib and tried to rest as much as possible. The stress of the last few months along with the difficult sea state has worn me down. Sometimes a passage is a magical thing. For five days this one was simply a trial to get through.

Yesterday wind and wave eased and the horizon became a beautiful blue blending sea and sky one into another. The wind backed and Jargo gently rode a following sea tending herself letting me get some much needed sleep. It is only today, sipping coffee in the cockpit, watching the dance of the waves, enjoying the feathered ballerinas that circle the boat, browning my pale skin in the sun than I know once again, I am home.

Trackback Print

Tags:

Categories:

Location: Blogs Ship's Log

Your name:
Your email:
	(Optional) Email used only to show Gravatar.
Your website:
Title:
Comment:
Security Code Enter the code shown above in the box below
Add Comment   Cancel