Northern Pacific 15 Feb 2012 16:40 17N46 151W42
We had an amazing Sei whale sighting earlier this afternoon. I was in the cockpit staring at the sea frustrated with this interminable wind. When it’s not windy, it’s windier. The days of constant muscle movement every sleeping and waking hour were taking their toll, when “BLOW” I called. There was a moment between getting the crew on deck with my call and the next sighting, when I almost had myself fooled, that I’d just seen some extra spray coming off a darker than usual wave peak, yet seconds before I’d been 100% sure. Then Frank spotted her also, she was underwater about 100 feet off, surfing down the face of the next swell over. As the face of swell came up at a nice steep angle to our vision, you could clearly see her lighter green outline against the deep bluegreen sea background. She was about our size, going a lot faster than we, and headed to cross our path. As the next swell period approached, she surfaced and dove. The swell now is running at about an 8 second period, and it’s roughly 3 meters, or 8-9 feet high. We’re headed NW, the swell is coming from the East/NE. That leviathan in the lane next to us did not bother to signal before passing in front.
My mom gave me a book just before we left the Marquisas, by Tony Hiss “In Motion: The Experience of Travel.” He presents a notion of deep travel, describing the moments when traveling where time takes on a new dimension, (not just when traveling, but it seems to happen more frequently when we’re confronted by newness or moments of wonder).
He talks about the illusion of time (even scientists, aren’t so sure about it), and how our perception of time varies so widely whether the years race by because we haven’t done much, or the minutes fly by, because we’ve been absorbed in a task, and a single 60 second period can seem deep and long, or tedious and painstaking.
There I was, after 3 hours of biscuit making (probably another essay as to why it took 3 hours to whip up a quick batch of cheese biscuits), I was tired and I’d slipped into watching-the-clock mode. 233 miles to go, yet the TTG kept flashing from 1.5 days to 3.8 days depending on if we were surfing down the face of a wave, or climbing up the next one. It had been saying we’d be there in 3 days, on and off, for at least 3 days. It was feeling like groundhog day. And before my watch ended it said 276 miles to go – I’d slept for a long time (at least 3 hours), and it had only gone down 21 miles (7 knot average is really not bad, and 1527 miles behind us is great…but 21 miles shifting from the in-front-of-us to the behind-us column didn’t seem so great when mentally I wanted to BE there).
Then BOOM, one short 8-second moment, and time onboard warped. That moment felt like a glorious long time – one moment of whale silhouette, now permanently etched in my brain. And for a couple hours after that moment, time slowed to almost still – every whitecap (and there are lots) seemed unique, and I anticipated each eagerly not wanting to miss the glimpses of the myriad shades of blue between the white cap and its blue body. This sea, that blue, this wind, these squalls, these flying fish, these tropic and boobie birds, were enough to fill this time. Hawaii? 2 days away? Already?
All it takes is a moment of wonder to chase the drudgery of the day away.
I was talking to Logan about the book the other day, and using the analogy of how it seems in some ways like we’ve been doing this cruising thing for a long time, and yet 17 years working in L.A., prior to these two years, seemed like a short chapter in our lives. His response, “Were not really doing now, we’re being.”
Yep ..well ideally anyway…is it time to go to bed yet?
xoxomo