Belly of the Whale

The New Deal

I should start by saying I don’t have any stories to tell here. I did run over my bike with my sailboat—that was an unusual and spectacular event. I raced in a regatta which was fantastic. My diet is vastly improving: I’m eating primarily raw, live foods, essentially salads, fruits and nuts. However, the best thing was an impromptu trip to the San Juan Islands. We went out for a day sail around the Bay and didn’t come home until four days later. I met an amazing girl on that trip, the kind of person who glows through eyes, who sees everything through its positive and beautiful nature. I haven’t met anyone like her for a long time. These things are in my journal, but not here.
Sorry. (See “An Average Sailing Adventure or a Great Story about a Toothbrush”) This is a more philosophical email.

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Everything is changing it seems. You think you know something one minute, then the world turns upside down, or more truly, simply shows you a new view of what you thought you knew. Now you aren’t so sure anymore.
The last few weeks, if not the past couple of months have been something like this for me. I make a plan. As I approach it the more I learn its flaws and infeasibility. Then I have a choice: to remain stoic and trudge on through in good stubborn manly style, or do I revise, sit down, scrap the plan and start fresh all over again.
A friend once criticized me for always saying one thing, then doing something else entirely in the end. This has always bothered me: Should I be more steadfast and stick to the plan? I feel like I am constantly misleading my friends and family. However I don’t see the logic in sticking to outdated logic for the sake following my former ignorance as to not mislead. I never give my word or swear to a thing. ‘Revise and move forward’ has been my way. But I hate misleading people and if frustrates me to do so.

Now it is back.
Each plan I have made regarding sailing has had to undergo the knife. It started years ago before my mom died. I moved to Palma Spain to sail around the world working on other people’s yachts. That plan got immediate revision. In the Caribbean I ended up going south instead of east, then back to school instead of to the Pacific. On and on.
This time the plan was to sail to Hawaii. At first it changed quickly. A man I respect quite a bit here asked me why Hawaii? I didn’t have a great answer really: I don’t even remember why. Why not the Marquesas, he asked? (S. Pacific islands) I didn’t know. I hadn’t even thought of it. Of course! I wanted to get out of the U.S. Hawaii, as I was slowly learning, was a real challenge in many ways, very poor anchorages, short-term mooring in many places, tough surf. The Marquesas would be great.
So that was the first change; that was maybe a week or so ago. But this change only opened up a whole new set of questions: first, timing, and the second, crew. These weren’t new questions really, but now the spotlight was more firmly upon them.
I don’t have any crew.
I did temporarily, but it didn’t work out. For me the question of whether to go it alone is a fundamental existential question. I’ve always gone alone. It has been the only way for me to get things done. I feel most effective. But I am older now, and this life is really something I want to share. I really want a partner but fear it will sap my ability to think creatively and focus as effectively. (See Bob—It comes back to the suffering artist paradigm from our Prosody class. I tell you, it’s true!) I do have an attachment to suffering. I’m seeking therapy! I want to succeed at whatever it is I do so badly, that I don’t want to sell it out for the comfort of company I love. Please, someone, convince me this isn’t the case. But of all the highly creative and effective people I have studied, they were mostly single and distraught—or outright crazy (Blake). The list is dumbfounding. So I’ve been bending my mind on this point endlessly—well, for years actually. I always have loved the sage-hermit archetype.

Timing is becoming an increasing problem. For the Marquesas, I need to leave as soon as possible. I have to beat the hurricanes of the summer as I head south of California, but I can’t leave here until the last of the winter storm season ends. This window is rapidly approaching and I am still unprepared. I haven’t practiced various tactics I need for heavy weather. In general I just still haven’t done enough sailing.
This was my conundrum.
My options were thus: If I wait I could have crew, but won’t make the south Pacific this year. The season there ends in November, the start of typhoon season. To go now would be to go it alone and less than optimally prepared. A brave endeavor indeed! I am crazy enough, if I felt in my heart that that was my path. But I don’t. It is this doubt that has been troubling me.
SO: I wait. What a shame it would be to miss all the amazing sailing that can be done up here. I want spend my summer in B.C. and Alaska sailing and shaking out the kinks in the boat and myself. I’ll hopefully get my residency in Alaska where I’d like to live if I come back to teach or something. And I can work on getting some crew. We’ll see what happens with that.
Who knows??
Now I have time to figure some of these things out. Summer in the northwest, fall and winter in Baja, then to the Marquesas in March—much earlier than I could go from here this year. Then I’ll have far more time to work westward through the S. Pacific before November when the storms come and have a much better idea what I want to accomplish by doing so. Much more relaxing.
This is the new plan.

Next week the boat should finally be dialed out and ready. I would have sailed back to the San Juans today if we hadn’t had a pretty rough gale. It’s been nice though, sitting by the fire writing. I nice change.
Install an auto-helm and mend a sail—that’s all I care to do before the sailing in earnest begins. Some friends have told me about the Queen Charlotte Islands up in B.C. They are all protected; old native villages are preserved there. Totem poles are still standing or toppled around on the beaches. It is supposedly magical and unlike anywhere else, and totally quiet this time of year. I’m trying to get a friend or two interested in a little skiing / climbing / sail exploration of the northwest for the summer.
New plans are such fun. They always feel like a step forward. My Dad wholeheartedly agrees. He never liked the solo-sailing paradigm. Too bad.

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Since writing this, I have gone on a great little trip and will have a funny little story to go with it. Soon.