Out There

Sailing offers an unyielding flow of opportunities to broaden one’s perspective. Whether it’s my crew mates or the weather, I’m surrounded by pelagic windows that open to new points of view. Peering through them entrains my awareness to concepts I’ve never considered, dimensions of life I never knew existed, or points of sail I never imagined possible. It’s a perpetual voyage that stretches my perception into expanded states of existence.

A friend recently asked me, “What’s it like out there?,” which is a nearly impossible question to answer, not because it’s ineffable, but because there’s infinite aspects to entertain.

Out here, in that sliver of space where atmosphere meets ocean, existence itself is magnified by a pellucid elemental lens.

Despite the monotone blue sea-scape, it’s bursting with mind-blowing hues, and somehow, hints of every other color are still to be found.

Twinkling as if it was their last burst of life, the stars…

It’s timeless, but not timeworn, because each blink of an eye is like hitting the refresh button.

Empty and expansive and extreme, it’s the epitome of living on the edge.

Because, out here, it’s beyond borders and boundaries and defies the concepts of time and space, it’s the most perfect place on the planet, for me at least.

“Ya… but what’s it like, really?” My friend further prompted.

Well, despite the vastness, there’s absolutely no room for bullshit. It’s as if the air clarity commands the same quality of communication. Transparency is essential, if not unavoidable. Because there’s nowhere to hide. You can almost hear other people’s thoughts and feel their emotions. So it’s just easier, for the long haul, to be honest about them.

Sincere communication takes as much courage as braving a storm— one is just more of a mind squall, where the other actually shows up on radar. If you’re lucky, they both dissolve upon acknowledgement or loose momentum before impact.

Regardless, it’s important, if not imperative, to be prepared. One of my sailing mentors taught me, when at the helm, to always plan your “out.” So, if a strong gust grazes the sails or causes a power up, you’re ready to react. Maneuvering a boat is a lot like navigating conflict; agility and grace expedite the arrival to a safer angle or pace.

The ability to respond gets refined with every opportunistic moment. Passages are immersion courses for respons-ability. For, your focus must be able to shift from the data points on the chart plotter to the shape of the sails to the cloud formations in the sky to the print on the compendium describing the dicey anchorage at landfall. But when you weave it all together with awareness, it’s pure bliss. Because it’s simple, really. Responsibility is just showing up for life by engaging respectfully with the reality at hand.

Ironically, you’d be surprised how many different realities are experienced on the tiny footprint of a boat. A handful of people can be out at sea, on the same boat, eating the same food, weathering the same storms, and still be living in different realities. Because perspective is, indeed, everything.

When multiple perspectives are attuned, however, I swear those realities merge into a collective experience that’s harmonized with heaven. It’s the best. You get to a point when you don’t have to talk, because you actually can hear your mate’s thoughts from across the beam. But it only works if you’re okay with being heard and you’re willing to be seen. Because transparency isn’t like one-way glass, it’s a translucent lens that enhances both sides of the spectrum.

You don’t just step aboard automatically attuned with crew. It takes a few hundred— or even a few thousand— nautical miles to harmoniously co-exist. And there’s nothing like the universal call to duty, all hands on deck! to get everyone on the same page. When that alarm is sounded, it’s on. It’s time. Change is happening and the captain is commanding a presence and life is inviting you to meet it there on the very edge of your comfort zone. And if you show up responsibly, if you engage sans ego and expectation and heed the elements at play with a common goal in mind, you sync up instead of sinking and sail on.

While all hands on deck! may signal danger, fish on! is an exclamation of potential bounty. Regardless of the sentiment, the call to duty is equally important. Someone jumps on the reel, while someone else grabs the helm. The first goal is to slow the boat down, which, depending on how many are aboard and what kind of boat it is, can be very different procedures. Then, as the reeling ensures, you gather the gaff, the gloves, the spike, etc. The first time we hook a fish during a passage, it can be a little frantic. I’m usually running around, trying to help, but mostly just getting in the way with giddiness. After a few hookups, however, systems and roles become more synchronized. And that’s when it starts to get fun. Losses are heartbreaking, especially if you loose “the one”. But a hard-earned, fresh catch that feeds the family is one of the most satisfying experiences out there.

As for food, the need for nourishment is a humanizing stipulation of life aboard. Sailing can be rigorous and requires adequate resources. So, when provisioning, you have to take into account the number of crew, dietary restrictions, nutrition needs, storage space, length of passage, shelf stability, etc. Without a doubt, more time and energy is expended provisioning, processing, and preparing food than time is spent actually consuming the food. But that’s a part of the fun too. And, when the time comes to partake of a meal, it’s often one of the most nourishing you’ve ever had because of all the layers of love that have been invested in it.

In fact, as I write this, a warm piece of freshly-baked banana bread rests on my lap. Two wholesome loaves were the result from my morning task to extract inspiration from a heaping pile of browning bananas. The last morsels of a literal truckload of fruit we traded for fishing line a couple weeks back in the Marquesas, it would be sacrilege to let them go to waste (yes, contrary to the superstition, we had bananas onboard, which ironically may also be seen as taboo). So, to honor thy food, banana bread was made. And more so, to savor the flavor, because you never know when you’re going to see a banana again, especially in the Tuamotus.

It’s easy to offset any caloric intake, regardless of the small footprint you have to roam. Every muscle engages just to walk from your cabin to the galley pantry to grab a snack. You burn dinner off while cooking by bracing your body to keep still and weight-lifting pans to keep them from sliding. Even having a conversation requires a bit of acrobatics. Corners and countertops and ledges are all fair game for leverage. Once you get your sea legs, however, you start to plan your movements, waiting in anticipation for the next yaw to take a step down or the next lurch to move forward.

You start to get a sense for the boat, to recognize its subtleties as an extension of your own. Every creak or grown or tap is an indication. The tell tales flutter and the sails luff. A jackline might rap on deck at certain speeds. On a calm, downwind day, you can almost discern each wavelet lap agains the hulls. However, if it’s big seas and high winds, the sounds can be deafening. Taps are muted by bridge deck slaps and groans are muffled by shrouds howling in the breeze.

But the storms always subside. And, before you know it, a pod of open-ocean dolphins drop in to surf the wake and ride the bows. Like hooking a fish, a dolphin drive-by never gets old. Neither does the night sky, nor observing the stars soften into the sunrise during your watch. It’s impossible for something timeless to get old and, out here, I swear the quality of life is so clear you can see through time.

Whether it’s out at sea or on the hook, in that sliver of space where atmosphere meets ocean, is where everything gets put into perspective.

In fact, as I sat at the starboard helm station mulling over how to conclude this very piece, my peripheral vision caught sight of a blacktip dorsal fin cutting the aquamarine surface tension. His silhouette drifted aft, so my gaze followed his lead. The water visibility was so crisp I could almost count his gills like roman numerals as he glided towards the coral head right off our stern. That bombie was just two boat lengths from our beam. We must have drug anchor (remember that dicey anchorage printed in the compendium?). Engines on! I yelled. Notebooks and laundry and lunch plates were tossed aside. Instantly, flawlessly, fluidly, the focus of three people and their respective perspectives coalesced into a single-minded reality. We met there, on deck, engaging with the helm, windless, and dive gear in hand. And here, in a state of pellucid shared awareness, is where existence gets really fun.