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September 17th, 2009 – At Sea, 45 14N, 059 42W
by by Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader
(Sept. 17): First let me set the scene. At midday on Thursday, Ocean Watch was bound westward towards Halifax under a canopy of blue. Only the sea itself could’ve been bluer, and it was. The generous provider of all this vivid blueness was a huge ridge of atmospheric high pressure. On the bulkhead wall in the main saloon, the clock and barometer are stationed next to each other. At precisely ten past two, the hands of the clock and the needle on the barometer (1026 mb.) had leaned to the right in perfect, parallel alignment; two, if you will, for two. The only breeze registered for miles was the apparent wind the boat manufactured as it motored onward.
In a word, then, the day was perfect.
Out on deck, watchmate Dave Logan and I were in shorts, wearing shades to ward off the glare from the porcelain-white stems protruding from one another’s respective pant’s legs; those stark puppies, barricaded “indoors” over an Arctic summer, clearly hadn’t seen the sun in a while. We were glad for the opportunity to set them free.
The weather was so glorious that I took my current book and a cushion and made for the foredeck. I was on the final pages of a Leif Enger novel called So Brave, Young, and Handsome; it’s a tale of the road, a cowboy story, and it even has some sailing in it. It’s wonderful.
So there, on the bow, on this glorious Indian summer afternoon, I came across a piece of writing so clean and pure I had to write it down, despite my growing envy. Here it is:
“By noon I was back at the orchard helping Glendon and Joaquin–we had plenty of work before us… My shoulder was still damaged so I drove the wagon while they cut lifeless trees and bucked them into pieces that Joaquin lobbed onto the flatbed. The stumps we pulled with the aid of the tolerant ox, King Richard, who leaned into the chains without grievance. Any trees with living green we climbed with ladders and relieved of dead limbs. We filled ourselves with sunlight and sawdust and the agreeable tumble of Spanish flowing always from Joaquin. He had a passable store of found English but rarely employed it. He sang in the mornings, narrated what seemed to be personal epics in the afternoon, and by evening was down to complaints and occasional confessions–Glendon got sick of Joaquin sometimes, but to me it was all just melody.”
Pretty good, no?
So Brave, Young and Handsome is the best sort of book there is: Simple, gentle, wise, stupendous. It breaks my heart to know I’ve turned the last page. It’s about a writer at a loss for words, and it’s put me in the mood to write. As Monte Becket, the hero and protagonist, might offer, “I hope you’ll bear my indulgence.”
Forty-eight hours ago, we took leave of St. John’s and were promptly walloped by the ornery remnants of a boisterous storm. I won’t speak for my shipmates, but from the very get-go I was exhausted, cranky and just this side of seasick, a condition I’ve been spared from for quite some time now. That made it worse. The voyage ahead to Halifax, for me at least, had all the appeal and attraction of a forced march at gunpoint.
I wasn’t, you know, happy.
In fact, I felt so lousy – the seas were so lumpy, the boat so uncomfortable, the motion so ridiculous, the forecast so contrary, and the immediate prospects so totally lame – that the easiest thing to do was embrace the agony, to seek martyrdom in the cause of misery. So I did. I’m not particularly proud of it, but those are the facts. I did.
At the risk of making excuses and perhaps even setting myself up as a haler version of the fellow I really am, let me say that the two worst things you can be at sea are 1) tired and 2) ill. I qualified on both counts. Once those conditions have set in, no matter how stout your vessel or chipper your shipmates, they’re difficult to recover from. For a true remedy, one needs a literal and a figurative change in the weather.
Last night, Ocean Watch was blessed with both.
Logan and I came on watch at 0300. The sky overhead was a big upside-down bowl of stars, striped by the wispy Milky Way, flecked and pierced by slashing meteors. A satellite coursed across the heavens. It was cold. We yanked on jackets and stood outside in the crisp night, craning our necks skyward, afraid to blink and miss the next shooting star. We did that for a while, slipped inside to warm up, hopped out again.
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| The slightest sliver of the new moon balanced on the straitedge of the fresh tint of dawn. |
Just before six a.m., back to the east, we saw our first boat in quite some time. But…it wasn’t on radar. We scratched our noggins, craned some more. Then the vessel disappeared in the low, cloudy horizon and what emerged – ta-da! – was the slightest sliver of the new moon, balancing on the straightedge of the fresh tint of dawn. Directly above, bright, brilliant Venus was in ascension, and the lunar fingernail appeared attached to it as if on a long string.
Then: Sleep. Four straight hours of hard, deep slumber. I awoke as if reborn.
Jewels of light danced atop the wave tops. Everything was flat and calm. Halifax was a day away. Two days ago seemed like two lifetimes ago.
A whale broke the surface, then another. It brought back to mind my favorite Inuit word from our travels through the Northwest Passage: kala. It’s the imprint on the water that a whale leaves behind as it sounds. We watched a whale dive, saw the distinctive watermark.
“I’m going to name a boat that someday,” I said to Logan. “Kala.”
He looked at me in absolute horror. “You can’t do that!” he cried. “Think about it!”
And, well, yes, the image of your yacht on a one-way trip to the murky depths, leaving but a bubble and a gurgle as its split-second legacy, was somewhat dispiriting.
“You’ve got a point,” I had to admit.
But I’m going to do it anyway, someday.
And I’ll think back to that very moment in the sun on this Thursday in September; to flat seas and good friends
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| A whale broke the surface, and then another. It brought to mind the Inuit word for the imprint on the water a whale leaves behind – “Kala.” |
and a safe, happy port a day away; to shooting stars and satellites; to a funny orange-peel of moon on the dawn of a new day; to the dolphins and sea birds and whales. I’ll do it just because of the way it sounds, because I like the way it rolls off the tongue. Kala.
Finally, I’ll do it because of what it represents, to yet one more unforgettable moment in the voyage of Ocean Watch…to a day that was all just melody.
- Herb McCormick
The glorious late-summer weather on the voyage from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia sparked the muse for skipper Mark Schrader, too, as evidenced from this latest chapter from his Captain’s Log:
Three or so years ago, when David Rockefeller, David Treadway and I were sitting on a small boat somewhere in Italy – sipping on drinks while very generally constructing the framework and path for this voyage, I was imagining a majority of idyllic days like today.
Believe me; I understand sailors have very selective memories. When it comes time to mentally or verbally recount our sailing voyages we are hopelessly romantic and completely myopic. I admit it: I’m a charter member of good standing in this selective-memory club. We remember the good times, the fair winds, the sunshine and the gently rolling seas. If we were writing the Chamber-of-Commerce version of sailing on the high seas, we would describe today – honestly and boldly- until more objective persons cleared their collective throats or just threw buckets of real sea water on us. Hello, do you remember the Labrador Sea?
By my quick count we left Seattle on a sunny afternoon 109 days ago. I’m looking in the ship’s log now; 103 days ago was the last time we had conditions similar in temperature, sunshine and seas to what we are enjoying at this moment. Two days of idyllic conditions out of 109 – I can easily bend that into something any respectable public relations person would be proud to print. However, it does appear I may have oversold the promise of these conditions to the crew – maybe they won’t actually read this little entry for today.
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| “At dawn, we were met by hundreds of dolphins.” |
Our 0600 -1000 morning watch was the magic one. At dawn we were greeted by hundreds of dolphins. There were small ones, large ones and really big ones all splashing and talking as they played around the boat while taking turns being the leader on the bow. We watched them flying out of the water as they raced toward the boat, truly looking like an elementary school playground at the start of recess – here they come, all happy and full of energy. We laid on the bow and dangled our arms toward the water, inches away from their backs. They would turn, eye our movements, gauge the distance and with a quick splash of their tail give us a bath.
Dozens of whales joined the show. They appeared to be pilot whales and stayed a respectable distance away, maybe a hundred yards or so, appearing interested in us but more interested in hunting for food. They circled around something we couldn’t see and soon it looked as though they had effectively corralled their breakfast. The birds moved in which made it easy for us to spot the feeding activity.
The sea temperature is now 61*, a few degrees warmer than the air temperature. The sun is shining, most of the crew are in shorts, shoes are off, hatches are open and . . . what’s this, our newest crew member, Ed Stern, just rolled out some scratch-made chocolate chip cookies. Wow, I could sell this as a very typical day on the good ship Ocean Watch . . . . wait, drat it – Logan just read this paragraph, I’ll have to tone it down a bit.
I’m happy to report all are enjoying today on the good ship Ocean Watch.
ETA Halifax, 1200 hours, Friday, 9/18.
- Mark Schrader with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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