The Pacific
by Ally Nobles – Guest aboard Sea Dragon.
Day 1/227
Hearing:
Andrew Bird – Distant Stations
I am living in a dream. Frigates swoop endlessly above. They never flap or flounder. A slight but unwavering breeze is comprisable to carry. The sun is also unforgiving here.
—
Day 2/228
Hearing:
Maria También – Khruangbin
Swift delirium. Drippy watermelon. I’m absolved. Down we go, whilst up to Cabo.
—
Day 3/31
Hearing:
Paul Simon – Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes
Just swam in the Pacific – it was so WARM, and clear.
The water like a softened glass. Our boat the only ripple maker. This setting looks out of a movie.
—
Day 4/32
Hearing:
SZA – Love Galore
Debating whether to watch the sunset or Moon rise.
Gold river ribbon from the setting sun,
A glisten of fantasia’s utopia. The moon a stream
Pale like salted butter. Smoothing that flat calm
We’ve grown accustomed to this journey.
Everywhere else it is Friday.
But here the days pool and ripple, hardly disturbed
Beyond some wildlife.
I’m learning my knots. Taking my photos. My rests.
Charmed at the night. Charmed and seeded. Songs
Echo and blend. My eyes fixate on the horizon
so long that when I look at grounded mass, it ebbs, wavy
like the rocking Pacific. Transfixed on the yonder without a knowing.
I’m just a head floating. A human, just being. A breath in the atmosphere.
A gargle in the deep. I’d lap up this ocean for weeks.
—
Day 5/33
Hearing:
fan blowing,
Eric cooking,
waves slapping along the outside of the hull
Is today Saturday?
Days continue to blend. SD, off Nicaragua briefly. Winds got up to almost 28 knots but now steadily 16 or so. Yankee and main sails up. Glorious sailing. Saw a whale blowing off in the distance. “rosy fingered dawn” an echo. Thoughts expanding beyond where the eyes can reach. Melding as the sky and ocean do on our lesser lit nights. But the moon’s been full for handpuppeting and warmed tea. Everything feels preposterous but is so real.
“Ah, what is man but a bit of slime in the cistern of the void?” – John Updike, Cruise
—
Day 6/34
Hearing:
Ravel – Une Barque Sur L’Océan,
wind,
mast and boom squeaking,
waves
Boobies abound mast,
flying fish,
squid on deck,
dolphins diving at bow.
In his short story “A Matter of Fact,” Kipling writes of taking his fantastical, unrealistic sea voyage and instead writing of it as a lie, as fiction. What does this serve?
In a little under/over 24 hours, SD went from the coast of Nicaragua to Honduras, El Salvador, and finally Guatemala. Reached about 1200 nautical miles. ½ way there, and almost to Mexico’s long territory.
—
Day 7/35
“By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself – or is it youth alone? Who can tell?… And, tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing – except hard knocks – and sometimes a chance to feel your strength – that only – what you all regret?” – Joseph Conrad, Youth
Hearing:
Nick Drake – Fruit Tree,
ocean wake,
boom squeak,
wind turbines spinning,
engine hum,
engine gurgle aft,
Eric’s relentless use of the word “frisky”
My overboard comb, sigh. A casualty.
Swam again today. I find myself somewhere between a book, a sleep, and a swim. Life could be worse. Have I noted the punctuating dolphins and boobies on watches? I feel as though I have.
Spent my morning watch observing Eric stoic at the bow. Hands clasped behind his back. Waiting for a booby to attempt a landing so he could raise his own wings to scare it away. A VERY serious situation.
Gonna make quesadillas for dinner. Motor sailing. I smell. Toe nails chipped and cracked. Finger nails long, dry. Complexion, clear. Booby on the horizon. Clicked pen. Bitten granola. Boobies encircling mast. Eric shoves the wrapper in his pocket – “you cursed airbeast” (shakes fist) – a booby lands on the mast head. Eric grabs the air horn, lets off a few blows. Wakes Jen from her off-watch nap, in the companion way, roused. Futile, the booby won’t leave.
Later, Eric shows Iona how to use sextant for celestial navigation. Booby finally gone from masthead. Two boobies now encircle the bow. Six knots. Now three chasing each other. Waves 0-1 meters, maybe 1-2 meters, tops. A booby dives, floats away. I could watch them all day. Booby skims aqua molehill, splashes lightly. Dwellings receding. Go further aft. We pass.
Iona proclaims, “I’ve definitely bitten off more than I can chew,” after meticulously fingering with the sextant and working, reworking, and reworking the algorithms. Flying fish taunt the booby. Two stream inches above the water. A booby swoops in, misses. Residual sun.
Later, a booby returns to the masthead and poops on Eric below as he listens to Jen do a dramatic reading of Anne of Green Gables. With the last aura of day behind Eric and the bow, his hands raise to the halyards, shaking them violently, futilely, to get the booby to fly away. I can’t stop laughing.
photo by Jen Pate
—
Day 8/36
Hearing:
Nicolas Jaar – Sunflower,
engine purr
Are we off Mexico yet?
Dreaming still of quesadillas. Booby masthead status currently unknown, too dark.
“It is all nonsense when learned people tell you that the seas have got a bottom to them. On the contrary, the water, which is the noblest of the elements, does, of course, go all through the earth, so that our planet really floats in the ether, like a soap-bubble.” – Isak Dinesen, The Young Man with the Carnation
The sea’s back to its flat, wind feeling steady, maybe too low. We flaked the mainsail at sunset immediately after stuffing our faces. No wildlife around tonight, it seems.
Whales were sighted yesterday. I was asleep. What’s the log? How far are we? It’s been almost a week at sea straight.
Why do I feel safer on a boat at sea than anywhere else? That is deeply true.
My headlamp is dying. 3 triple A’s. I miss Sully the boat booby. I hope he is safe. Good winds and a steady flight to wherever a booby goes. Surely not home, not in a static sense. Surely home is a state of being for a booby. Maybe I wish to be a booby.
Eric is below in the galley cooking. I ask why at 3:30 in the morning? “Breakfast.” Smells like wet salt and diesel. Red lit new batteries. Spotlit night. Missing Ursa Major. Moon’s too bright.
—
Day 9/37
Hearing:
Deerhunter – Disappearing Ink
Booby on a turtle. Relentlessly lazy.
Saved an olive ridley turtle earlier. Then casually swam with dolphins. You could say it’s been an interesting day. Many more turtles basking in the sun.
Sharing a bag of sunflower seeds with Eric. Spitting into a stainless steel. Plink. It’s almost foggy out just above the water. The division of sea and sky deeply blurred. Sometimes, I am convinced I have heard a blowhole. Likely a dolphin. They make daily appearances. Stealthy. As the girls and I prepared to jump off the bow earlier, we saw one not thirty meters away jump out, its full body hovering over the wake. We all saw and squealed like children. I’m not sure if out of terror or excitement at the prospect of an underwater interaction. I cannot decide myself. They’re smart, intuitive, playful. But still wild. In open ocean. I wonder and wonder.
The stars are particularly out tonight. Till the latter moon rise. Later and later each night. Everything bouncing. My sun burnt bum. An unrelenting sun. Skin peeled darkened dried moistened calloused salted freckled formations. Denizen of transition unfazed and changed.
—
Day 10/38
Hearing:
Cake – Love You Madly,
wind,
engine,
turbines
end of watch, moonrise about half.
Biolums (“biolooms”?)
Bioluminescence
Phosphorescence
Plankton
Puddles of them saturating the dolphins, streams glitter versus stars glimmer. A crest foam wake activation.
Small lit pools in a sea of reflected stars, the water so flat, the stars a glossy reflection. Only interrupted by ripples from the hull or some far off hubbub beneath the surface. Dolphins cross streams, the biolums aglow on them meters away, watching them come and go.
photo by Jen Pate
I’m so happy in my bed on this boat with these people.
—
Day 11/39
Hearing:
Broken Social Scene – Major Label Debut
Dolphins back to bow. New species: pantropical spotted (“stenella attenuata”). The spume from its blowhole a cloud of microvapor, warm and briny as it floats up to my face. The force of breath rising first to where my feet perch at the bow.
Later:
Birds contain an unimaginable amount of excrement. I’m flabbergasted at how one boob possibly unleash this much on deck, crew, towels, sails, sail covers. Nothing and no one was safe. It additionally appears to stain. Glorious. How can its small mass hold so much? A density of sea dung.
—
Day 12/310
Hearing:
Prince – Lady Cab Drive,
waves,
engine grind,
helm turn
I made my first anklet! Looking like a pastel Mardi Gras double-wrapped left foot. Feels very summer camp. The skin between my right toes is peeling. Ay yi yi. Fell down the companionway yesterday like a dunce after helping siphon diesel to the fuel tank. I haven’t seen land in over a week, right? What day did it stop? Funny, I wasn’t mindful of when we have a distant shore and now I can’t remember a time before the horizon didn’t end.
photo by Jen Pate
Day 13/311
Hearing:
Fans,
engine
I got hit in the butt by a flying squid last night on watch. Eric entombed me in my bed last night as we were tacking; I was too incompetent in my sleep to keep myself from falling out. All I remember is yelling, “I don’t want your help! Just leave me here to die!” Earlier in the night I woke up four hours before my watch was to start, thinking I was late, throwing on my gear. So disoriented. Mainsail ripped a little earlier today. Kaput for now. Less than 450 miles to Cabo.
photo by Jen Pate
—
Day 14/312
Hearing:
George Benson – Breezin’
I’m not sure where yesterday went. Everything kaleidescopes, each wave a new perspective forward. Where there are boobies swooping, there are fish flying. Where there are fish flying, there are dolphins below the surface. The waves hit the bow, splash aft, hitting me. Within minutes the 20-knot wind has dried my skin, leaving only tick scales of salt I brush off and lick my fingers of. Guess that’s how they make sea salt.
photo by Jen Pate
—
Day 15/313
Hearing:
Jen’s attempted whale calls
Engine giving us trouble. Jen’s at the helm trying to beckon whales while peering dramatically through the binoculars. We’re adrift with approximately 150 miles to go. Unfurling and furling the yankee as the wind sporadically blows through.
—
Day 16/314
Hearing:
Eric and Shanley tinker with tools,
water sloshing lazily around the hull
The southern cross sits low in the sky. Going almost 2.5 knots in the pseudo-right direction. Repairs of mainsail underway. Sailing all the way into Cabo now. 130 miles left. The wind dies and we bob like a cork. My tea bag has a quote attached to it that reads, “Life is a flow of love – your participation is requested.”
Later, 100 miles to go. Wind’s back, main fully fixed. Another jumping squid was found in the flakes of the sail. We were all wondering where the fishy smell was coming from… Averaging about 3 ½ knots or so, wind droops but remains. Adelante.
—
Day 17/315
Hearing:
Leon Bridges – Better Man
Saw a pelican fly by.
Land ahead. Mountains looming. Arrival appearing imminent, sailing six knots, all three sails up. Engine failing is frustrating, but I couldn’t be happier with this set up sailing. The skin between my fingers is remarkably wan compared to the tops of my hands. A pod of pilot whales made an appearance, then some dolphins making a return after a few days hiatus. More battles with a booby at the bow. Relentlessly lazy, those birds. Less than 40 miles out as the sun begins to lower. Eric jokes about the days before engines, “You can spend a month at sea crossing an ocean only to get becalmed for a week within sight of land.” A true lesson in instant gratification.
We’ll get there, taking our time, trimming our sails, bidding with the winds. Glorious.
Day 18/316
Hearing:
Sea lions, screams of excitement,
Many boats
We’ve hooked up the dinghy to tow ourselves into the marina after the wind died off only miles from the shore of Cabo. But the coast is teeming with life above and below the surface of the water. We’ve already seen whales, sharks, manta rays, dolphins, sea lions, and a slew of boats towing eager tourists to find them. It’s an exciting, unreal way to end our journey, reentering society this way. But here we are.
We made it! Now, time for tacos.