41º 9′ 16″ N
71º 8′ 17″ W
Pressure 30.12
Temperature 69º
Sea state: Calm, slight swell out of the south
Weather: Clear with clouds building to the NW, expect rain later this evening
The seas are calm this evening. Even the ones in my head.
We take advantage of these moments when we get them and simply enjoy the slow sway of the boat as the sun sinks down a New England summer sky. A few days ago the whales showed up. Pods breaching the surface and spouting clouds of mist. Until a year ago, I’d never seen a whale unless it was on television.
Life is a peculiar thing. Years ago when I was learning to sail my first boat on a lake in Arkansas, I remember hearing guys on the dock talk about how “one day” they were going to head down to the Gulf of Mexico and live the pirate life. I was one of them who had this crazy dream in his head that made sense to absolutely nobody who knew me. But, a lot of time and days at sea have gone by since then. For the past few years, I’ve slept more night on boats than on dry land. From sailing my own boat from Texas to Florida, to a summer in Key West, to driving a paddle wheel boat up the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest to now working offshore in New England. License after license. Upgrade after upgrade. And yet there remained a lingering sense of imposter syndrome. The farm kid from Arkansas was out of his depth. Salty never seemed salty enough.
But then last summer, I was sitting on a fish box on the deck, splicing some dock lines when the whales showed up to say hello. I had to stop and reconsider. This was Moby Dick stuff. It occurred to me that in that moment, my level of “salty” was finally salty enough. I didn’t feel like I needed to prove anything to anyone else or even to myself. I could just enjoy the waves.
I’m not sure that younger version of me who used to get lost in sailing books would be able to get his head around how much different his life would look. Sometimes I still get surprised. Will I stay here forever? Nah. I’ll stay as long as I feel I’m supposed to and for now it serves its purpose. Mariners are wanderers at heart. And when these gypsy and pirate souls feel the winds blowing them somewhere new, they adjust their heading and chase that horizon.
