The Ocean holds something different, for each and everyone of us
by Andy Rogan – Guest aboard Sea Dragon.
If you were to be dropped anywhere on our planet’s surface, chances are high that you would be on the open oceans. The oceans are the dominant geographical feature of our planet. They cover 71% of the earth’s surface, control and mediate our weather, provide us with over half the oxygen we breathe, with food, transportation, raw materials, energy and communication.
Yet visiting this world which dominates our planet in so many ways is an experience few of us get to experience, a world few of us will ever know. Perhaps this explains, in part, why we as a society we feel so disconnected with our oceans. We ruthlessly plunder them of life in unsustainable and often illegal ways, we dump the waste products of our industrial and agricultural activity in to them, fill them with plastic and rely entirely on them to slow the onslaught of climate change. The disconnect between our daily lives and these oceans which are so important to us is massive, and will cost our species dearly.
Many of us have heard all this before. In writing this blog, I wanted to try and capture what it is like being on the open ocean, and if one person reads this and feels compelled to experience the oceans for themselves, the blog will have been a success.
For some people the best part about being on the open ocean is the sailing. Yesterday we put the massive spinnaker sail up, a giant sheet of red and white which dwarfs the boat. The passion and energy which emanated from the hard-core sailors amongst our crew, from harnessing the wind with this giant canvas, was palpable.
For others it is the environment around you. You begin to appreciate the size of the planet when you are out here, in ways you never could before. The vastness of the ocean becomes more real when you sail across it. This often strikes me most when I step on to the deck after a sleep below decks. You come up and look around and in many ways nothing has changed. You are surrounded by ocean and sky. The waves might be bigger, smaller, more or less frequent. The sky might be cloudy or sunny or, if at night, filled with millions of stars-the milky way galaxy a fat blurred line painted down the middle. You are still surrounded by ocean. In every direction. Despite the fact that you are constantly and purposefully moving towards your destination, days and days go by and you are still surrounded by ocean and sky.
Others are here for the wildlife. A pod of dolphins might come by, anywhere between a single individual and a super pod with numbers in the thousands. A blue-footed booby might settle on the rigging for a while. Flying fish scatter as the bow of the boat cuts through the water. A fin cuts the surface, beneath it the shadow of a great shark or swordfish. If you are lucky a turtle, or a whale. Three days into this trip and we have seen California sea lions, humpback whales, pilot whales, rough-toothed dolphins, common dolphins and two unidentified species of dolphin which came upon us during the night when identification was impossible.
For others, it is the night watches. One night you have the midnight to 4am watch, the entire shift marked by darkness and hushed voices. You are still surrounded by ocean. You know this, but in darkness you cannot see it. The next night you have 4am to 8am. The shift starts in total darkness, and ever so slowly light creeps into the sky. The crew start to emerge on deck with bowls of cereal and sleepy eyes. You quietly share stories of your watch. The group before you had a long chat with the officers of a 150,000 ton container ship cruising a similar course, ships passing in the night. The one before that had a whale nearby: they could hear the blow of the whale, but couldn’t see where it was coming from. A couple days ago you had a group of dolphin’s bow riding as you pass through a patch of bioluminescence. You can’t see the dolphins, only the impossible exploding trails of greens and blues they leave behind through the disturbed bioluminescence (one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, alongside the views on top of Mt. Monadnock). You will also make some of the best friends you will ever have on a night shift. Two or four hours with one or two other people. You tell (and make up) stories and jokes, discuss aliens and galaxies and puddle ducks and love and war and everything in between. You make bets over which season/episode a certain event in the TV show F.R.I.E.N.D.S. took place, talk about that first beer waiting for you at your destination.
I think for me what is most unique is appreciating how far removed this is from what one might consider normal everyday life. I am currently writing these notes on my phone. We are currently 700 miles from the nearest landmass, and have over 1,900 miles to our destination. It is 5 a.m., the moon is full and lights up the ocean around us. Behind us, the sun is ever so slowly beginning to make its presence felt, the tiniest amounts of colour becoming discernible. If I took a step back, I could dip my hand in the 181 million square kilometre Pacific Ocean. It is like we are on a tiny spacecraft, the 72-foot vessel Sea Dragon, travelling through this vast ocean expanse, dolphins and flying fish and lots and lots of water for company. To me it seems ridiculous just how far removed this is from everyday life. And yet here we are.
The world out here is much larger, nature is more real, connections deeper. The more you consider it, the more you deplore your inability to describe it (ok., I stole that line from Herman Melville). If you ever have the opportunity to visit this world, take it. It will be an experience you carry with you for the rest of your life. You won’t regret it. And you will understand the planet a whole lot more.
“There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of ’em, it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you’d much better not.” – Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows