The sailor’s holy trinity— the sun, wind and sea. A sailboat can go if you know how to feed her wind. A destination can be a joy to reach for. You’ll need to consider the hidden forces working to challenge your bows aim. The direction of the wind is one force and invisible but tangible fact while the ambitions of your inner curiosities another. With a favorable direction your boat will bless you, delight you, seduce you into believing she may be able to take you anywhere, to places you’ve never been, free as a bird, in near silence only the sound of the hulls wake as the breeze slips across your mast, stays, shrouds and sails.
A longer passage wants of a sailor to be considerate of the alliance you have made between the beast that is you and the love that is this way of travel. The further from shore you sail the more the insignificance of your mortal coil is on view in the mirror you hold with the helm. Mistakes come as they do at random sprinkled across the moments when you inattention or your foolish self is intoxicated by your incessant desire to become fact witness to a new corner of the world.
Departing La Paz with wives aboard four souls slipped with the late afternoon sun to sail the Sea of Cortez. Here is a veritable feast of places to set your hook. You’ll want smooth water, a modest depth and a bottom where the boats anchor can dig in and hold you safe. Discovering a new snug place to rest your boat is one of the great pleasures of sailing. We found two on our way southbound to San Jose del Cabo.
Along our sail south were pods of humpback whales flirting with us, teasing our eyes with their flukes waving to the wind as they plunge beneath to feed. Pelicans on wing, the skillful terns plunging from on high to feed. Dolphin raced ahead of our bow wake. A skipjack and mighty dorado found our hooks, the dorado spit the hook from its mouth and best for us as it was too much a fighter and likely would wound or terrorize us if we’d tried to land the fine animal. The skipjack was smaller and less difficult to bring aboard for our supper. I mean to thank this fish for its gift of life, and while eating every bite we took time to honor the fish, to appreciate how we our all caught up in this supply chain of life. Death on the stern of the boat was not to be ignored.
With wives to the airport my skipper and his able-bodied seaman studied the weather reports to be sure we would set off in manageable conditions for Magdelena Bay 180 nautical miles up the coast. This is a coastal passage on the Pacific. Each ocean has its own character, and this the largest of all the seven seas in the world can put up a fierce display of her might. So we step carefully onto the sea from where we would begin the passage to bring Gratitude out of the hurricane zone. This is a 46’ staysail sloop, she will find a home in Ensenada until November when lines will be slipped from the comfort and return south to seek the warmth of Mexico’s winter sun.
To Be Continued—
