Moonlit Gale

March 4th, 2007 Sea of Cortez

Can I tell you of paradise without describing hell? Shall I tell you of the destination alone and forget the journey? Is it better to ask if the destination is as worthwhile as the journey? One does not always reach, or for that matter appreciate paradise, through the ease of purchasing a ticket. It seems to me that I have always had a tendency to do things the hard way. I can’t say I believe in luck, good or bad. I can say though that if there is a classification such as good or bad luck then I have dumb luck. I always seem to have to overcome more struggles than everyone I know, but I also seem to come out of it better off and with more to tell. I also believe that most of my struggles are self inflicted, but sometimes they are just circumstance. Shall I give you an example?

The bad luck of Sailors. There are many superstitions sailors abide by in regards of luck. Never carry a black bag on board. It is the color of a body bag. Never look back. It shows hesitation. Never leave port on Friday. That is the day Jesus died. Never have a woman on board, even Mrs. Butterworth. This one is out dated and in recent history proven to be masculine insecurities, but none the less a sailor’s superstition. It can be bad luck to whistle for you will whistle up the wind, and that may be more than you have bargained for. When the ships bell drops, keep a level head trouble is on the water. I am not sure if picking a tree up on your anchor line is bad luck, but I am sure it is not exactly good luck. I am not sure if it is lack of skill, bad luck, or simply the way it is for everyone and I just seem to make more of it, but I can’t believe that everyone hooks a tree with their anchor, hits a whale, or the seams of their boat open allowing a flood of water as she not only buries her rail but her decks up to the portholes in the water. Perhaps this is common, it just seems to be more common for me.

We weighed anchor from the bottom at Cabo San Lucas on Saturday morning, March 3rd. Anchored in 50 feet of water on a sandy bottom it was advised to drop two anchors, which we had done. As we swung with the wind on our chain, we monitored her to make sure the two lines would not entangle. The first anchor consisted of 300 feet of 1 inch line (rope to landlubbers) and 30 feet of high test 3/4 inch chain. The other anchor was laid out with 210 feet of ½ inch chain. That’s a lot of what we call ‘anchor rode’. We pulled the line up first on the capstan from the bow. Usually I am able to pull the line up by hand but for some reason we struggled with it this time.

As we got it close to the surface I was able to see the anchor and what appeared to be a cloud of soot surrounding it. The situation seemed to be wrong and peculiar so I decided to dive in and inspect the situation. I dove from the boat straight down on the line as Dave and Forrest watched from the bow sprit. I wasn’t down far, maybe 25 feet, when I came to the oddest thing in a desert environment with 50 feet of water or more. This was a sandy bottom well used anchorage and out of all the boats there I was the one to snag a tree. Not with one anchor but with both.

My first thought was “how did that get there?” It was a curious thing. How old was this tree? It was a hard wood, probably some sort of teak or mahogany. It was 12 feet long and 12 inches in diameter. The chains were wrapped around the stump. And some of the branches. My second thought was, “Why me? Why is it always me?” I surfaced, “What is it?” They asked, and I told them.

We didn’t want to laugh, but what else can you do. Some of the other boaters took interest in our situation. Now all were paranoid of the situation and in disbelief. It had never happened to them, nor to anyone they knew. In this close community word travels, but why me? After 3 hours in the water tying off lines to the tree and the chain to take slack out of all of them, coming up for breathe every two minutes, suspending myself upside down on the line while I worked with a saw, a hammer claw, and whatever other tools we had. Finally in desperation I began to shake the line and chain furiously, and slowly the tree began to unravel until eventually it became free and sank away into the depths disapearing to the locker. Exhausted wet and cold we weighed what was left of the anchor and sailed off into the sunset heading southeast for the tropics.

That’s about when the bell dropped and Dave began whistling. You see it is odd how a course of events, and emotions, consistently run from one extreme to another extreme in a short time. Dave wakes me at midnight. I woke up easily. There was no wind and we were using the engine. I put on a pot of coffee and my slippers. There was a little chill in the air so I put on a sweater. Sometimes at sea I like to get a little dressed up. No reason, but it is nice to put on a collared shirt and sail along under the full moon feeling like the richest man in the world. So I put on a nice sweater and stepped out to the cockpit. I took over for Dave.

We cut the engine. A full moon cast silver wings over a calm sea and full sails. Gently making four easy knots we pushed on away from land. Dave leaned back on the life lines and I sipped the coffee telling stories of the people I met in the service. I was telling stories of the stuff we pulled in bootcamp and school. Forrest half asleep below listened as we chatted in moderate voices against the peaceful night. Dave decided to head to bed. He asked me if I needed anything, ‘Not tonight,” I thought. It was my birthday. I had woken on the hour of my 24th to a night that seemed to promise easy sailing.

The sea delivered her birthday best to me. I am not sure when it hit, or how. There was a line in the water. The line is drawn down the eastern shore of the Baja Peninsula at the entrance to the Sea of Cortez. It is an imaginary line of weather. Within ten minutes we went from an easy night to my sails being blown into the water, my helm hard to come over, and waves soaking me with water. At some point between the white water rushing down the deck into the cockpit, the decks rolling into the sea up to the portholes and hypothermia I held onto the rigging with one hand and the helm with the other. Exhaustion on my cold face yelling into a wind and storm that refused to listen I yelled, “Damn you Cortez, you ruthless son of a bitch!”

The sea was named appropriately. She lies at the southern end of a 650 mile stretch of the Gulf of California, feeding her with warm water and desert winds. To the northwest prevailing cold Pacific winds and currents feed her from Alaska. To the south tropical currents and humidity. She is wide and she is deep. She is full of fish. She is full of sunken ships and treasure robbed from indigenous people, by indifferent men. She is as ruthless as the explorer they named her for.

Now sailing with the storm sail, double reefed main, and reefed mizzen, we made our way with the 15 foot waves on our beam. She had been blowing at 30 to 35 knots for five days, the swells had been building and building and as we came around the eastern tip of Baja California we caught the last six hours of the storm. The wind built through the night to 40 to 45 knots. Once again we were caught in a bad situation with only one way to go. This time we knew what to expect. Knowing the inevitable I knew I had to do it again. Struggle sleeplessly and listen to my boat take a beating.

She took it all right. Her seems opened, her portholes leaked. The bilge pumps kicked in, and what wasn’t being spit out was running up the gunnels and being absorbed by our racks, and our clothes. Oily rotten bilge water.

You can’t run, you can’t tell it to stop. Many times I yelled into the wind, “Let me out!” But she will not be commanded. You listen to each wave crash on your decks and against your hull and it sounds like 30 men with sledge hammers knocking against the wood. You are sailing at 6 knots, and your bow crashes against a wave and she brings you to a dead stop like a car hitting a brick wall, and she shudders at the crash her mast shaking like a kid with a swimming noodle over his head shaking it. You feel it all in your gut. Feeling the destruction, feeling the waves rise over the hull shooting straight back along the deck without landing on the boat covering the 35 five feet in midair and soaking you. Then the random spray that just seems to reach up over the side like a white fist reaching to knock you off your helm. It exhausts you. I held onto the boat with one hand and the helm with the other and watched each approaching wave and the 30 behind it.

Why is it when the sea rises, my boat beaten, my body sore and blue from the beating and cold, when Morning Star survives for me and carries us safely through do I cry? A tear is the physical release of the cry, the cry is the verbal release of the emotion. What emotion carries me through the night? What causes me to cry? I know it is not fear or cowardice. I do not cry because I fear death. I have never cried for that. I do not cry in self pitty. I do not cry in hopes that the Lord will have mercy on me, but instead for my vessel and my crew. If the time came could I leave her, or would I bear the loss for the rest of my life? I cry when she sinks below a wave and rises again. I cry at the full moon casting rays over the disturbed sea and the beauty of it as I see whales swimming along the cresting waves illuminated in the moonlight by phosphorescence oblivious to danger. I cry at how beautiful the most destructive force is. I cry when my brother takes the helm for me and the look of concern for me and my boat on his face. I cry when the crew comes together and the sun finally rises bringing light and easing the winds.

When after battling for six hours against the ragging water and my own inner conflicts, when soaking wet and naked I stand in front of the mirror I see in my eyes humility, a lesson hard for me to learn. I cry. I am proud of those tears. They are there to remind me I am human and together we overcame. When it hits and all the forces of nature are battling against you, you begin to question many things. You question your life. You question whether it has been mostly good, or mostly bad? You question your direction and your dreams. Not the purpose but whether or not you did all you could to achieve them, and at what cost. We often have to pay far too much a sacrifice for our dreams. In the exhaustion you question and it begins to break you. That is when you must rise and overcome. This is when I always make the promise to Morning Star that I will not leave her, I will guide her through if she will hold together for me.

Forrest sat with me watching for the sun. At some point, Forrest at the helm, in the evening we hit a whale. The boat shook, and stopped her bow dipping down into a wave then rising over the wave and down into the trough at a dead stop. We looked at each other, and checked for damage in the forward locker then watched the massive black mass rise unaffected and fall into the sea again.

We sat together not saying a word just watching the horizon. “Forrest,” I said. “Thanks for sitting up here with me. It was getting lonely.”

“Happy birthday, kid.” He said. Ten minutes later the sun began to rise over the water. As the day broke and the sun rose the seas began to subside and I went below to rest in a wet rack. Spices and potatoes strewn all over the galley, books and clothes scattered soaking wet.