Intro (13 new posts)

After 7 months of cruising, Hasta Luego is safely holed up for the summer, and I'm heading north.  Before I get too far away I wanted to share some scattered writings from the last 7 months.   The perfectionist in me was holding off the post month after month because there were so many unwritten stories I wanted to write to fill in, so many more things I wanted to express.  But in the end, there will always be untold stories, so I may as well put up the few I do have.  I put them in reverse order so you should be able to read them from the top down.  Make sure to pace yourselves, no need to read it all in one sitting.

Limbo

It’s a different kind of light in the middle of the ocean

When you wake up to an unobstructed horizon day after day

Wondering if the world is still out there, 

Wondering if the world you’re going to was the same one you left.

And you know...

                            there’s not a chance

Welcome

I want to pull you into this moment. Above deck it’s just you and me, I’m behind the wheel, and we’re under full sail, welcome aboard. We’ve been sailing for three days now, and haven’t seen land for 24 hours. Half-an-hour ago the sun settled into the cloudless horizon, leaving in its wake layers of light yellow and peach. The colors climaxed and disappeared, making way for the first stars of the night, and as it turns out tonight is going to be a spectacular celestial display. After a full day of blazing sun, the night comes as a breath of fresh air, a rest for the body and the eyes.  A shooting star burns silently to the horizon to welcome you.

15 Knots South

It’s been a few weeks, we set south from San Diego with an old sailboat we bought a year ago for 3200 dollars with 3 other good friends. If you told me then I’d be sailing the same boat south in one year toward the turquoise waters of the equator, it would have been to much for me to handle. The days role by out here like these waves, they just go on their own, I can’t keep track, and there’s no need to keep track. Right now I’m sitting next to the cockpit, starboard side, facing the stern. The froth in “Flo’s” wake is floating steadily to the horizon, our speed is great, not top speed, but maybe 5 knots (almost 6 MPH.) With the wind at our back, we’re on a southbound “Manta-Ray” tack (our blood red spinnaker sail is full on the port and our white mainsail is full on the starboard.)

Behind us is Cedros Island, rising out of the ocean 4000 ft, slightly green with low growing chaparral. We left Cedros this morning at 6:30 AM. I was sleeping in the v-berth bed, when I heard, “hey Mark, the wind is great, and there’s no waves, wanna head south?” I jumped out of bed uncharacteristically awake, “let’s sail!” I shouted. While I took the sail cover off and cleared the deck Jordan paddled the yellow kayak to shore with our charcoal bag to collect the remains of last night’s beach fire for future BBQ’s on our boat, it was mostly ash. Twenty minutes from the time I woke up, our anchor was pulled, our mainsail hoisted, and without turning on our engine we drifted south, no jarring engine noise to pollute the perfect beach with 5 date palms clumped at a spring.  We could still hear the gentle gushing of the waves on the beach and the frogs croaking in the spring as we said hasta luego to the historical anchorage called Las Palmitas (the little palms.)

It’s now 3 PM and the island is 30 miles behind us, thanks to the 15 knot winds. Jordan is at the helm, La Sierra trucker hat, orange tinted blue blocker glasses, and a pastel pink, blue and green striped tank-top hanging around his nose, mouth and chin like a bandit, keeping the sun from his skin that has evolved for the northern woods, not the sun-soaked Mexican ocean. A week ago I wouldn’t have believed that I would be able to write in these 4 foot swells without getting sick, I guess I’m adjusting, and what a relief.

Ten miles to our east lies desolate Baja California, various shades of light-brown and dark-brown bony earth are illuminated by patchy sun. The sky is mostly covered by clouds, and to our east the sun is blasting through in a fan of silver rays, salmon colored horizon indicating the coming of night. After listening to the weather report we decided to shoot past a common anchorage for cruisers (Turtle Bay) tonight and just sail down the coast. We can’t resist a week of 15 knot wind coming from the north, and the south is calling. I don’t know what’s ahead, but I’ve got a good feeling as I take over the helm.

Hatching Light

A thin ribbon of morning light streaks into the cabin hitting me on my bare chest. I watch it illuminate previously invisible dust particles floating softly in the room.  They transform in front of me into a universe of stars and galaxies orbiting around each other, twinkling…and I’m the lucky giant looking in from outside the universe.  What civilizations are living on planets orbiting these specks of dust, and do they know about each other?  Do they know about me?  As the boat rocks and the water gently laps at the hull, this ribbon of light moves up and down rhythmically, changing which galaxies are in the spotlight, and the slight breeze swirls them into waves and whirlpools in the air. 

Added to this morning’s spectacle are two, ever-rising symphonies of steam from the bowl of oatmeal with honey, and the cup of jasmine green tea next to me on these blue sailboat-themed couch cushions.  I don’t see the steam until, 6 inches from my eyes, it reaches the ribbon of light coming through the main hatch, and at that point it lights up brilliantly, twisting and turning like smoke. As I look closer I can start to see the individual drops of water that make up the whole, bright little bubbles of water floating up, like a reverse water fall. Though there are millions they seem to have choreographed this moment perfectly to create a dance of order in the randomness, each following behind the other as the choreographer directs this wisp over there, and that wisp to flip inside-out and twist under, then through the middle, thicker one. 

I imagine these droplets get the same satisfaction that a dance group gets when they perfectly deliver a never-before-seen routine. How do they know how to stick together? What keeps them unified in their freedom? They remind me of a flock of a thousand birds, little black silhouettes, flowing in and out of each other between an urban skyline, or a school of glittery fish morphing their collective form to create a hole wherever a hungry shark tries to dart. This collective mind, it makes sense for the bird or fish, it serves a function of protection and maybe teamwork when it comes to finding food, but for the drops, for the steam, what is the purpose? What is the evolutionary advantage? These water droplets don’t have the responsibility of reproducing. Their longevity is inherent, they are immortal. Rising into the air, forming clouds, condensing, falling back to the earth where they flow through rivers either to end in my pot of tea or the ocean once again. They have no worries, no responsibilities and yet, they still spend their time creating the most elaborate works of art the eye has beheld. It makes me wonder…What is the choreographer? Is there one bird or drop that moved up the ranks like a first violinist and become the leader? How are decisions made? Especially when there are a thousand tiny decisions per second. It takes us humans ten uncertain minutes sometimes just to decide where we are going to eat tonight or which movie we are going to watch. And then, many times, once the decision is made, we still question it during and after the event is over, letting it form into a regret if we feel we have made the wrong choice. What makes these smaller, so-called less intelligent life forms so unified, and here we are glitching over small things which turns into frustration and regret? Does our complexity have some side-effect that pulls us from a deeper connective force? And do we have the ability to “dance” like the birds or the drops without a choreographer and months of practice?

I ponder all these things still laying on the couch of my sailboat in the early morning.

Cabo is starting to wake up, and I have a date with Blanca, the beautiful Mexican woman in the taco truck, who is going to teach me to make corn tortillas and roasted salsa this morning. Soon, I will paddle our kayak (the yellow submarine) to shore where the tourists are enjoying their one week of freedom, and walk to Jose’s Taco Truck.   

But for now I am grateful for these moment, I am grateful for this one ribbon of light, because without it, the dust galaxies still would have floated, and the steam still would have swirled elaborate masterpieces with one mind, and I would have been sipping tea, oblivious. It makes me wonder what else in life is right in front of my eyes that I don’t see and just needs a certain ribbon of light coming in from the front hatch to open my eyes.

Stomach Within a Stomach

Part I

The knife effortlessly cuts into the foot-long papaya, whose juicy flesh is glowing bright orange. I slice a generous ring and step out to the edge of the boat. I examine the little black seeds, which have to be one of the most intriguing visuals. Somewhere between a brain and a beautiful gem, there seems to be another dimension as I peer through the shimmering clear film into the embryonic sac with mazes of brown bark, and rainbow colored bubbles. I push the seeds from inside the ring and they fall into the light-blue water.  Almost instantaneously a school of inch-long flashy fish frenzy to peck at these nutritious drops. Then beneath them gathers a school of foot-long silver fish to peck at the delicious inch-long fish. So within seconds I have contributed to multiple layers of the food chain, and the food I held in my hands a minute ago has trickled into a stomach within a stomach. I find in myself no feelings of sympathy for the little fish, or feelings of congratulation towards the bigger, but instead I find gratitude that I live in a balanced world where organisms’ main function is to seek out floating energy and to absorb it, to continue its flow through progressively more complex forms, to be returned once again into the ground where the papaya grows, because I enjoy papayas in a way I can’t describe. And how lucky am I that I get to be apart of this flow for a fleeting moment, and to be aware of it!

I take the first bite, and my mouth is filled with juice and soft flesh, with aromas of flowers and smiles wafting into my nose, and flavors of the sun and honey melting into my tongue. As the golden ring transitions from existing outside my body to inside, I feel increasingly more alive. I can feel the exchange of energy, and here I am along side the fish, completing the circle of everything.

This morning for breakfast I hand-flattened corn flour and water to make tortillas. 

The flavors of the papaya and tortilla connect me even deeper to the land that is a quick paddle away from my boat…Mexico.

Part II

The last month has been a series of sailing adventures that have brought me to La Paz, Mexico, at the south end of the Sea of Cortez (which Jack Cousotou called the aquarium of the world.) La Paz is a peaceful town surrounded by cactus and red rock. (As we sailed in a few days ago, I felt like we were sailing into the Grand Canyon if it were filled with water except for the top 1000 feet.) La Paz has a high reputation among sailors, so much so that many put their ocean wanderings on hold to settle down here for years. Needless to say there is an amazing sailing community here, the mode of communication being radios and a net call every morning at 8 o’clock during which announcements are made, like coffee at 10, or jam session at 5, or line dancing at 3, weather is given, and items to be traded are shared. Jordan already bought an iPad, and we have a lead on an outboard motor for our dingy.

We came to La Paz to see some of our good friends from the docks at San Diego, Steve and Janny. They invited us over the first night we got here for dinner and to spend the night on their spacious catamaran. In the few following days we have met cruisers from at least ten boats, and have been invited over for dinner on another boat. The community of sailors is glued together like no community I’ve been apart of because we have all come from and we are going to that great unpredictable beast that covers 71% of our world, and because we have left a conventional life style to drift into new lands, to discover and to learn.

Bag of Limes

The setting sun turns the cloud filled sky into a colorful watercolor, a sandpiper walks the beach probing deep with his bill for food.   A photographer with a big lens is stalking him.  The bird will be silhouetted backed by peach water and dark ripples.  

All around me kids on wheels whirl and smile and fall, a dance on cement, skateboards, BMX bikes, low-riding tricycles, pink bikes with training wheels, each in their respective group, each interacting and pushing the limits.  A mix of gringo and local couples walk through the plaza and out the pier.   Flashing white Christmas lights spiral up palm trees.  All ages, all comfortable.  I notice a lone elderly Mexican man slowly hobbling through the plaza, through the commotion, unable to dodge anything.  In his hands is a bag of limes.  He wears old leather shoes, old brown slacks and an old flannel, tucked in, brown and green plaid.  His back is hunched and he strains to lift his eyes to see.  What does he see?  He sees a world that has changed in front of his eyes.  What does he think of what he sees?  Silently he hobbles on with his bag of limes and looks at the kids zipping on wheels.  He strains back to track the sound of a plane, he looses balance almost falling back, but he stables himself and looks around.

Here stands a flicker of fading light from yesterday, trying to comprehend the growing lights of tomorrow.  No one seems to see him, as he hobbles through with his bag of limes.  No one seems to realize that here walks the wisest man in La Paz, a man who has seen the world many times before the times that came before these times.  What would he tell us if we listed?  It’s all too beautiful…my eyes tear up.