Hellos and Goodbyes

As I write this, I have just returned from a lovely evening spent with friends. Tonight was the night to meet a group of our cruising friends to watch the sunset from the top of the Olandra Hotel, share some drinks and conversation, meet a few folks we didn’t know yet and say goodbye to Pamela.
Tomorrow morning…early…Pamela and her friend, Joanne, will be leaving Barra De Navidad for the last time. She is off to Zihuatenejo for a bit and then will be going south as far as Peru before she crosses the Pacific on her way to Australia and beyond. It was a melancholy evening.
This is the dilemma that cruisers have. When we meet, we form very close bonds in a short period of time. All of us have experienced the same difficulties with snotty passages, difficult anchoring, scary entrances into unknown ports and situations the average landlubber cannot even perceive. When we get together and reminisce over what the weather was like two days ago or is predicted to be two days hence, we all know what that means in terms of our enjoyment of the journey not to mention our personal survival. For a while, everyone is going the same general direction and we expect to see each other in future anchorages or ports. Some move faster, others slower each according to their own personal timetable. Then…as fate would have it…someone decides that it is their dream to see another part of the world and that means saying goodbye.
These hellos and goodbyes are much more intense than the ones we shared in the land based world. We would get together with a friend for drinks or dinner, spend an evening catching up with what has been happening in each other’s life and end the evening with a hug or kiss on the cheek and drive home to prepare for another day at the office. We knew it would be another six months before we would see each other again but were confident that we would, indeed, see the other person again.
When cruising, saying goodbye, much too often, really means “goodbye”. It means “I wonder if we’ll ever see each other again.” It means “sail safely, stay in touch and please don’t forget me.” Some of us go east. Some go west. Some stay in one area the whole time they are cruising. There are always new and wonderful people to meet and adventures to be had but at the end of it all, there is always that darn goodbye lurking in the background.
This year we will be losing several of the closest “hangin’ out with” friends we have made. Pamela is going south and then west. Angus & Rolande have decided to head for the South Pacific in March. This is Bonnie’s last season and next year she & Jim will be back on a ranch again with their cattle and horses. I’m sure that as the season moves on we’ll find more who have decided to reach out for new horizons. And just when I begin to feel exceptionally melancholy and lonely, a new boat pulls in next to us and we discover more wonderful people who are living the adventure and having the time of their lives doing it.

Night Watch

Night watches used to be the bane of my cruising experience. I l-o-v-e sleeping…especially at night and often well into the morning. Well, truth be told, these days “well into the morning” is usually around 8:30 am. At any rate, since I began cruising there has been no option. Night watches are part of the deal. There are just never enough crewmembers on board who are willing to do the entire 6pm to 6 am shift. Sigh…

At first, during the arduous (and seemingly endless) part of the journey as we descended the Oregon Coast night watches were not only frightening but cold and damp as well. The ocean after dark was pitch black except for the frothy wind chop breaking atop each swell. The swells were coming from both the NW and SW so it felt a lot like being an abandoned sock in a washing machine. There were 3 of us on board so we stood 2 hour watches but by the time you went below, no matter how many layers of clothing you had on, you were cold, cold, cold and the first order of business (even before using the head or crawling into bed) was to set your gloves and socks inside the engine room so they would dry out and warm up before the next shift. I was often heard muttering (or whining) “I don’t know which is worse…daytime when I can see what’s coming or nighttime when I can’t.” There was nothing romantic about this ordeal and, frankly, it was often downright scary.

When we finally rounded Point Conception, the seas calmed down and night watches got much less frolicsome. But…Southern California provides its own set of obstacles. There are more large ships to be dodged, crab pots with black floats (yeah...just try seeing those at night) and, in one section huge oil derricks that were lit up like downtown Hong Kong and wiped out your night vision pretty quickly. My adrenalin level never really went below the “alarm” level until we were well south of San Diego and I realized that it was finally possible to get through an entire shift without seeing another boat. In fact, we have now done entire passages where we have seen nothing but wildlife and an occasional sail way off on the horizon.

When I finally stopped being a big knot of stress, some amazing things began to happen. One night we were passing between Cedros Island and another smaller island to the west of it. When I came up for watch in the wee hours it was so black it felt like being inside a velvet bag and you could only tell there was an island close by because it blotted out the stars. It was a narrow passage and felt very eerie so I had some real heebie jeebies going on. Suddenly I heard a “whoosh” to port of the boat. Then I heard another to starboard. Suddenly there was entire pod of dolphins swimming with us and throwing off green sparks from the bioluminescence. They “escorted” us through the entire pass just as if they could sense that I was nervous. It was an unforgettable night.

Last summer, while we were in the South Pacific, I was assigned the “primo” watches on the boat: 6-9 pm and 6-9 am. It was amazing to watch the sunset and the sunrise every day we were at sea. Every one was different and each was absolutely glorious. It is not possible to explain what it is like to be in the middle of a seemingly endless ocean when the sun makes its first appearance of the day or takes its last bow on the horizon. With nothing but water as far as the eye can see the sun is in full command and it puts on an amazing show. On morning watches I would listen to either Andrea Bocelli or Chris Botti as I experienced the “birth of the sun”. It was a heavenly experience.

The passage we just made from Los Muertos to La Cruz seemed especially long because we had no crew on board and the auto pilot had quit working so Chris & I had to hand steer for 33 hours. Still, on my final night watch, as we passed the Tres Marias Islands, the ocean was filled with bioluminescence. All around us huge green blooms exploded just beneath the surface and the boat’s wake looked like a wedding veil set with millions of tiny, sparkling diamonds. It was like sailing through an underwater fireworks display.

All these experiences have changed my feeling about night watches. I’ve gone from dread to acceptance and now to eagerness. My only regret is the magic cannot be adequately shared with words or captured with a camera. Still, the beauty, solitude and majesty of night on the sea is a gift that I can hold within my heart forever.