Ocean of Insight: A Climate Justice Memoir is a book in development. Here is the next excerpt from Chapter One. (You’ll find the chapter begins on the June 5th posting.) Enjoy the adventure–H
Although we’ve owned boats and sailed for nearly thirty-five years, Dave and I are barely prepared for this encounter. We were inland lake day-sailors until last year. In delightful weather, we’d trailer a simply designed sailboat to a small lake and play for an afternoon. Three times we took weekend or week-long on-water sailing courses. To try larger boats on big water, we rented sloops in Lake Superior, Florida’s Gulf Coast, and a catamaran in the Caribbean. But tides, currents, navigation, and—most relevant to now—anchoring, storm management, and mechanical system repair are still new-to-us demands. The transmission of learning with its many layers of circumstance and meaning takes time to digest. We need hours with the greatest teacher of all, Great Ocean. This night, if we survive, is our finest education.
“All right,” Dave offers. “Using the dinghy, let’s drive the third anchor away from the boat as far into the wind as we can. Maybe that one will find sand and sink in.”
I bolt aft to unearth our last anchor from the bottom of the ship’s storage locker. Lying on my belly, I yank out snorkel gear, a diver-alert float, spare life jackets, wet suits, cleaning supplies, cans of teak varnish, a long-handled mop, quarts of oil, seventy-five feet of garden hose, one-hundred feet of electrical cable, and other matter essential to a life atop the ocean. Pissed by the necessary detritus littered about, I struggle through it to reposition my body, lower myself into the hold. The miniature room is dank and slick, but it is precious garage space for our floating home. The last time I cleared these contents and crawled inside was months ago when Dave and I were newly transitioning from independent jobs and responsibilities on land to a life of constant companionship. Dave infuriated me one day. As an alternative to killing him, I stopped what I was doing, declared the locker space My Office, and retreated inside until rage settled. That anger seems to me now a luxury of the truly unburdened.
Usually, I prefer calm to anger. From years of mediation I am sensitive to my thoughts and feelings and I do my best to stop when brutal emotions erupt. There is a small gap between the stimulus (what I once called the “cause” or “source” of my “problem”) and my response. When I notice it, I shut up my mouth and try to come up with what’s kind and helpful. I don’t always sense the gap; I am an imperfect practitioner. But more and more I see habit emotions as an endless river of knee-jerk responses to inconvenient conditions. Now, I feel fear coursing my system stemming from blameless conditions. Mindful of fear, I kneel into the hold as it hops like the back of a school bus navigating a field of boulders. Aware of fear, I take note of waves slapping fiberglass surrounds with great booms. Breathing through fear, I untangle our final anchor from fifty feet of chain and two-hundred-twenty feet of nylon line. I think this is acting fearlessly because I am not dissolved by the emotion. Funny, I am full of fear in fearlessness.
Almost always Bahamian anchorages are generously populated with boaters from the United States, Europe, South Africa, and elsewhere. Monohulls, catamarans, trawlers, and sport fishing boats cluster into common hidey-holes—those with ample protection against the elements and good bottoms. Crews become friendly neighbors—swapping stories and tricks for a comfortable life in the ocean wilderness. Cruisers swim in gin-clear water, explore the ways of local people, search for a good internet connection, hike ashore, or chip away at endless boat repair and maintenance projects. Each morning year-round, hundreds of vessels hoist tackle and switch anchorages in the Bahamas like a large, slow-motion game of musical chairs.
But Ocean gives each of us in turn sobering frights. This is my first kiss with terror at sea. We are the only ones here now because others have already learned from their mistakes, grown smarter, more cautious. What I optimistically read as a harbor on the charts is nothing more than a notch in a long stretch of spiked cay. Forecasters this morning claimed the blow will shift favorably so this place will grow more comfortable. Until then, I notice I’m frustrated. The storm should have shifted. This is wrong. I had plans.
I wrestle the bundle of anchor rope past my waist and out the hatch opening, pushing it to arm’s length to make space for the rest. The chain is unwieldy in the heaving space. As I put it on deck, I do my best not to chip the ship’s gel coat and create more work for myself in the days ahead, but then hope dearly for the opportunity to make a trivial repair. Standing, I wedge feet into corners and lean hard against the edge of the opening to move with the boat as the storm’s energy flings it in random twists. I grip the anchor blade in one hand, shaft in the other, and deliver the thirty-five pound soon-to-be hero up and out into my husband’s ready grip.
